Really nice case

This is a really good case, fits my Sony camera perfectly, very protective yet small enough and light enough to be easily carried or attached to your belt. Nice quality product.

If you were a Psion 5 user... think about it. Seriously.

It took me months to decide on the handheld I wanted. I'd played with PocketPCs and knew that I wasn't happy with the wifi performance or a number of other things about the OS, so I was fairly sure that it was either Linux (Sharp Zaurus) or a Palm device. Looking around, I found that the battery life on the Clie TH55 was by far the best available. On top of that, it included everything I wanted: wifi, camera, and a decent software base for improvement.

So I bought one from Amazon UK (marketplace seller) and tested it out for a few months.

What do I think now? Well, it's been endlessly useful. Software exists to support just about anything I could want to do. Sshing into a server? No problem. FTP? Easy enough. The email client is more than sufficient, and the web browser is surprisingly effective for a system that really shouldn't be able to do half of what it does. I've found that the Japanese habit of carrying such a device around on a lanyard has a lot more sense behind it than I ever imagined, especially for those of us who really do commute, travel, or get bored in meetings!

That said, I'll be looking at the UX-50 for the convenient keyboard, just as soon as I find one available at a second-hand price. If the TH55 suffers from anything, it's low compatibility with the various Palm expansion options such as keyboards and so forth - but it's such a complete platform in and of itself that you won't be needing most of those gadgets anyway.

Best accessory to have around for heavy NZ90 users!

The PEGA-BP500 is a must for heavy users as the NZ90 retail package only contains one unit of it, and this sure is not enough for heavy office and business users.

Slim and compact enough to fit into any pockets, the BP500 poses a necessity among all the range of accessories for the NZ90.

Pros:
1. Doesn't have any memory effect.
2. Smart Info Lithium will show the duration of battery charge
and hours it will be before it depletes. This is very
helpful for guiding owners for usage budgeting and charging
intervals.
3. Small enough to fit into any case/pocket.
4. No hassle to buy a bigger battery extender like most other
Clie models. Just take out the worn out one and replace it
with a freshly charged battery. A complete wireless on the
move device!
5. Comes with manufacturer warranty and recycleable.

Cons:
1. Nearly non, therefore I'd comment that this battery is a bit
pricey on the tag. But worth it the purchase.

Watch your power

I like the Clie, but there is one big difference between it and my old Palm III. I carried the Palm III in my back pocket for years and never ran the battery down. On the Clie, the flexible nylon cloth cover pushs into the power button and turns it on. I have lost data to this shortcoming, and I am looking for a nice hard case now.

Good, but with a few reservations

I've got this to go with my T625C and 128Mb memory stick. It's pretty good: the sound quality is really excellent, the transfer process from your PC is reasonable, and it'll keep going for far, far longer than the advertised 4 hours on a fully charged battery if you keep the backlight on your display switched off.

There are a few issues worth bearing in mind, however:

- It'll only play MP3s with a bitrate of 128kbps or less. This isn't a disaster as 128 is the most common bitrate, but it can be an annoyance if you have to re-encode lots of existing MP3s with higher bitrates.

- It is only compatible with ID3v1 tags, which is ridiculous in 2002. Worse, most tracks with ID3v2 tags (such as mp3s encoded by MusicMatch, among others) won't play at all. The bundled mp3 encoder will encode tracks with ID3v1 tags, but only at 96kbps, which is sub-CD quality. You can get round this quite easily with a nifty shareware program called"Mp3/Tag Studio 3.0" that'll remove all the ID3v2 tags from your mp3s and then delete the offending 'blank data' so the mp3 player will play them, but again it's an inconvenience.

- Unlike most PDA mp3 players you can't have it working in the background, so you can't listen to mp3s while you browse avantgo, for example.

In short, if you've got a T series Clie this is extremely good value for eighty quid - a bit of tweaking and you'll get first rate music for less than the price of even the cheapest stand-alone player. If you're looking to get a pda from scratch, however, there are better pda+mp3 solutions available, without these (admittedly fairly minor) shortcomings, for the price of this and a Clie combined.

The nearly must-have

So how do you fault a HotSync cable - it does the job right ?

Well I would push for a little more functionality - for instance, why is there not a travel adaptor that will allow the Clie to trickle charge via the same USB slot that you are HotSync-ing to ?

It is worth knowing that the adaptor that comes with the HotSync cable and allows it to plug into the Clie contains a second socket for a power supply. This socket is the same as that on the back of the original cradle, meaning that once you have the HotSync cable kit, you do not necessarily need to buy a second power supply for travelling (although one for the office may still be advisable).

A good all-rounder

I bought the SL10 as a replacement for my Casio E15 which ate batteries. The price was right and I was very impressed by the build quality. I had previously owned a Palm Pilot Pro so I could use practically everything straight away - nothing had changed much ;-)

I really liked the replaceable batteries - it's so easy to get AAA's on the road and there's no hunting around for a power point. Battery life was very good too, especially as I use it a *lot* for mobile comms, via the infrared link.

As something of a road warrior I was very pleased that it's compatible with both my Nokia 6310i and an old Dell Latitude, again via the IR port. I later changed the Dell for a Toshiba 1110 running XP Home, and everything still worked as intended.

I use the built-in mail software to send and receive mail with my ISP's POP3 and SMTP servers: I registered a copy of Mantramail to do this.

Sony also included some interesting software, including PGpocket which allows you to display and organise pictures. The extra speed of the SL10 along with the high-res screen makes this a very powerful package and there's also a hook into the Clie Paint application. Documents-To-Go is also included and is *very* useful.

I should also mention the Memory Stick facility - this is a great feature even though it's proprietory to Sony. I got a cheap deal on a 32Mb and can store lots of pictures on it as well as several complete backups.

On the down side, the accessories seem to be very expensive, although typically in line with other SOny products. The SL10 is supplied with a semi-rigid flip front cover (a bit like a spiral-bound notepad cover) which does a fairly good job of protecting the screen while it's on your desk, but wouldn't be much use in a bag or case. There is no cradle, but Sony include a USB cable, which is fine for me, but maybe not for others. One thing that's missing from Sony's accessory list is an 802.11 card - this would turn the SL10 into my ideal accessory.

All in all, it's a good all-rounder, and is cheap enough to take on the road without getting too upset if it's lost or dropped.

Quality

If you own a Sony Clie PDA then this is an essential item. Go On What Are You Waiting For?

Good - Not Excellent

As an owner of both an Ipaq H2210 and a UX50, I personally think that the H2210 is superior (Although I understand most of you will disagree with me)
Note that the H2210 is also exactly half the price of the UX50.

The UX50 has a great design, and in general has good performance. It also has a great display, where 'white' really is 'white' and the resolution is high.
There are however many flaws which make me dislike it as a PDA.

Firstly, It has a very slow processor, and to be honest - games really aren't that good on it. I compared 'Warfare Incorporated' on the UX50 and the H2210. It was about ten times smoother on the H2210.

Trying to get its built in Bluetooth to talk to Bluetooth-enabled phones is like trying to draw blood from a stone and, as someone else mentioned, the integrated wireless lan is already outdated.
I feel a strong sense of limitation when using the UX50. It only accepts Sony Memory sticks, which are too expensive for my liking. For the same price as a 128MB Memory Stick, I can buy a 256MB Compact Flash card AND a 128Mb MMC card (for my H2210) I'd much prefer it if it accepted Compact Flash cards, like other Sony Cliés.

The camera is very poor; the camera on my SharpGX20 Mobile phone is superior. There's no point in integrating a camera, if it's useless. The add-on cameras for my H2210 are also superior, in both resolution and quality. Even as a 'toy camera,' it's simply not good enough.

I'm not saying it's a terrible device, I'm just warning people that if you're looking for a Multimedia PDA - DON'T go for the Sony UX50. The UX50 is more of an organiser. If you want to use your PDA for entertainment purposes, look elsewhere.