Friday
Jan252002
Skip Bremer's Review of the new Sony Clie t615
Friday, January 25, 2002 at 10:28PM
I have tried upgrading my trusty Palm V to a Palm m505 and a Clie 610C over the last couple of months, but I was disappointed with both of these units. The Palm screen was crap and the Clie was like a brick (but very nice other than that). But, I finally have found the unit for me.
The Sony PEG-T615C. It arrived from PC Connection overnight on the 23rd. Let me cut to the chase by saying that this is, IMHO, the best "Palm" ever made bar none. It is awesome. The workmanship, case, bolted in jog dial, silver back and front, locked in nice hard leather flap... it's even got an eye bolt sticking out for hanging it around your neck or where ever, made again its made out of polished metal. This unit fits in your hand like to was made with your hand.
The screen is absolutely fantastic. I have been running it for the last two days and found that I had to move the brightness down to minimum, as low as the slider would go, and that works perfect for daylight, partial daylight, and at night. Actually it's nearly too bright at night. Someone needs to make a hack that lowers the range of the brightness slider. ***Are any programmers listening?*** I'm not kidding. At full brightness I could be a burglar without a flashlight; this unit would suffice instead.
The fonts are so readable. I found, because my eyes aren't what they used to be, that the ThinFont fix is for me (thanks to that author), and I like to run my programs with the bold font, and it is tremendously and pleasurably readable. The very white background is a dream that I was beginning to think I'd never see in a PDA (I've been PDAing since the HP95LX). I'm actually not sure that screens will ever be any better than the one on this unit. They certainly don't need to be.
The battery, everyone's concern, has turned out not to be a problem for me at all either. Yesterday, I purposely made sure I did not charge it at all. I used it all day on and off, between doing some desk work and such, to install and configure all of my programs and data. I like to start out "fresh" with a new Palm, so I move my Palm folder and start over (a habit Windows has taught me no doubt). So basically I fiddled with it heavily all day. It went on the charger only for the many hotsyncs I ran. I might have left it there for a few minutes now and then while I was busy, but largely it did not have a chance to grab a charge to speak of all day long (I started with a full charge from the night before). I didn't think it was ever going to get off 100% for a while at first, but by last night it had finally gotten down to 60%. So at 11:00pm I jumped into bed and, after some of Leno, I played some Klondike solitaire, three games I think, and reviewed today's schedule and just marveled at what I had. When I finally laid it down it was at 50%/3.73V and that's where it was this morning when I got up. At work this morning, I have shown it around to some of my friends and worked with my schedule (DateBk4) and added a debit for a gas fill up this morning to SplashMoney and now it is laying on my desk at 49%/3.73V. I plan to use it today without setting it in the cradle so it can tell me when it is low because I'm curious where and when that will be. Anyway, for the way I work, usually popping it in the cradle at work when I'm working on my desktop, I am just not going to have a problem with this battery I don't think. I don't remember the m505's battery lasting like this one seems to. I am going to buy a third party pair of cable (USB and Charger) so I don't have to carry the cradle home over the weekend or on trips. I did the same thing with my Palm V.
The alarms are clear, and I like the new sounds for a change--lots of them, and they are loud. In fact it is embarrassing to check them and change them here as others no doubt think I must be at my desk playing a game or something.
I have ONLY one little complaint. The buttons are just fine, but the rocker button for page up and down is a little hard to use. It's kind of stiff and small and will take some getting used to. But then again I am getting used to, and loving, the jog dial and back button, and I find I don't have to use the rocker very much. I like the way Sony made this machine so that if you lay it down on the desk face first (with the leather cover still flipped to the back) none of the buttons get depressed; it just lays their flat and solid.
As you can tell, I really do like this machine and in fact there is no way you could get me to trade it for any other machine on the market.
The Sony PEG-T615C. It arrived from PC Connection overnight on the 23rd. Let me cut to the chase by saying that this is, IMHO, the best "Palm" ever made bar none. It is awesome. The workmanship, case, bolted in jog dial, silver back and front, locked in nice hard leather flap... it's even got an eye bolt sticking out for hanging it around your neck or where ever, made again its made out of polished metal. This unit fits in your hand like to was made with your hand.
The screen is absolutely fantastic. I have been running it for the last two days and found that I had to move the brightness down to minimum, as low as the slider would go, and that works perfect for daylight, partial daylight, and at night. Actually it's nearly too bright at night. Someone needs to make a hack that lowers the range of the brightness slider. ***Are any programmers listening?*** I'm not kidding. At full brightness I could be a burglar without a flashlight; this unit would suffice instead.
The fonts are so readable. I found, because my eyes aren't what they used to be, that the ThinFont fix is for me (thanks to that author), and I like to run my programs with the bold font, and it is tremendously and pleasurably readable. The very white background is a dream that I was beginning to think I'd never see in a PDA (I've been PDAing since the HP95LX). I'm actually not sure that screens will ever be any better than the one on this unit. They certainly don't need to be.
The battery, everyone's concern, has turned out not to be a problem for me at all either. Yesterday, I purposely made sure I did not charge it at all. I used it all day on and off, between doing some desk work and such, to install and configure all of my programs and data. I like to start out "fresh" with a new Palm, so I move my Palm folder and start over (a habit Windows has taught me no doubt). So basically I fiddled with it heavily all day. It went on the charger only for the many hotsyncs I ran. I might have left it there for a few minutes now and then while I was busy, but largely it did not have a chance to grab a charge to speak of all day long (I started with a full charge from the night before). I didn't think it was ever going to get off 100% for a while at first, but by last night it had finally gotten down to 60%. So at 11:00pm I jumped into bed and, after some of Leno, I played some Klondike solitaire, three games I think, and reviewed today's schedule and just marveled at what I had. When I finally laid it down it was at 50%/3.73V and that's where it was this morning when I got up. At work this morning, I have shown it around to some of my friends and worked with my schedule (DateBk4) and added a debit for a gas fill up this morning to SplashMoney and now it is laying on my desk at 49%/3.73V. I plan to use it today without setting it in the cradle so it can tell me when it is low because I'm curious where and when that will be. Anyway, for the way I work, usually popping it in the cradle at work when I'm working on my desktop, I am just not going to have a problem with this battery I don't think. I don't remember the m505's battery lasting like this one seems to. I am going to buy a third party pair of cable (USB and Charger) so I don't have to carry the cradle home over the weekend or on trips. I did the same thing with my Palm V.
The alarms are clear, and I like the new sounds for a change--lots of them, and they are loud. In fact it is embarrassing to check them and change them here as others no doubt think I must be at my desk playing a game or something.
I have ONLY one little complaint. The buttons are just fine, but the rocker button for page up and down is a little hard to use. It's kind of stiff and small and will take some getting used to. But then again I am getting used to, and loving, the jog dial and back button, and I find I don't have to use the rocker very much. I like the way Sony made this machine so that if you lay it down on the desk face first (with the leather cover still flipped to the back) none of the buttons get depressed; it just lays their flat and solid.
As you can tell, I really do like this machine and in fact there is no way you could get me to trade it for any other machine on the market.