Rating: 
Summary: Very nicely packaged, but...
Review: ... I recently came into possession of this baby as well as an HP iPaq 5550. It's been an interesting comparison.The Clie is exquisitely designed. Everything fits together very nicely. The keyboard is large enough to be useful, and you can hide it when you flip the screen to tablet mode. The one gripe I have about the physical ergonomics is the location of the scroll wheel -- I wish it had been placed on the left, where the power button is presently located. Its placement underneath the keyboard can be somewhat awkward. I thought the screen would be bigger, but it's high resolution and quality compensates for its size. I'm relatively new to PalmOS, so I have no point of comparison other than the iPaq I'm also using, which is based on Windows Mobile 2003. For good or bad, you don't feel like you're using a regular computer on the Clie -- the interaction style is rather different. I'm guessing this is a feature of the PalmOS in general. The web browser NetFront, which I'd read rave reviews of, is somewhat lame. You can't control the font size, and bookmark management is not especially flexible. As far as I can tell the only thing you can do is create a long linear list of bookmarks -- no user-defined folders or anything like that. It's also darn near impossible to control the web browser from the keyboard exclusively -- I found myself switching between keyboard and stylus quite frequently, which was somewhat annoying. The "entertainment" functions such as the still/video camera capabilities are merely toys. By no means are they a replacement for a real digital camera. Still, very handy when you need to take a quick picture of something for a report and all you have is your PDA. I have not yet tried syncing to my PC, so I can't comment on that aspect of it. The wireless networking capability (802.11) works well. I had it up and running with my Linksys wireless router in a matter of minutes with WEP enabled. Connection reliability was very good; I never lost a link to the router when within reasonable range (this has *not* been the case with the iPaq, I might add). All in all, a pretty nice device. Would I have spent my own $700 on it? No way. I could never justify that kind of dough on something so frivolous. But it is a very slick gadget for those who must have the latest and greatest.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice toy.. definitely not worth the $
Review: Bought a UX50 used off eBay. Have had it for about a month. I would pay 400$ max for a used one. Now that Sony has stopped the entire Clie line, you should find them cheap off the internet. PROS:
- Nice keyboard
- Love the fact that you can listen to music at the same time performing other functions like browsing, email etc (probably an OS5 feature not restricted to this model only)
- The wireless works like a charm right out of the box.
- Great resolution. CONS:
- Had to soft boot at least 3-4 times already.
- Most apps require portrait mode which the UX50 does not natively support.
- Battery life - 3hrs max if you use the wireless.
- Need an additional memory stick (128MB - 40$)
- Crappy camera - 0.3MP!!! cmon Sony!
- Native doc support restricted to read only.
- Need the docking station to charge, no direct connection to PDA. Must have software:
- you can enable the landscape mode for most apps using Code Diver. This is a MUST if you want to use the UX50. (shareware + 10$. Remember to use the latest beta and not the handango version)
- Also I strongly recommend buying Documents to Go and Contacts to Go (add another 75$ to the tag) Overall, you can end up spending about 1000$ to make this thing really usable, not worth it. But if you dont mind getting a used one cheap off eBay, this is definitely a nice toy.
Rating:
Summary: sony UX50
Review: even though the display size is small, it is very clear and high in resolution.
it need higher memory.
i found the "missing Synch for OSX" which solved my problem with this PDA to synch with MAC, but i was surprised why sony did not make something like this, and save us the trouble paying and searching for it!!
the Wi/Fi and BT were very usefull and pracktical to have.
audio player application is very primative and usless.
even though i didn't use the camera much, but it gives much better results than any cellphone with camera.
in general sony UX50 with its small storng shell is a great Palm machine
Rating: 
Summary: Close to being the notebook replacement
Review: First came the laptops that aim at replacing the desktops. Now Sony is working hard at producing PDAs that strive to replace the notebooks. After spending a week with the UX50, I say their first try is a success, the high price aside. Let me first talk about the cons, so I can focus on the pros more. The screen is quite small. It's 3.5 inches diagonal and packs a 320x480 resolution, (...) , which has a bigger screen. This reminds me of the slim VAIO notebooks: they feature 1280x1024 on a 10.4" screen. Ouch! If you are over age 50, forget this. You'll have a tough time making out the icons. Battery life is also below average, when you have wi-fi or Bluetooth or both on. In fact if you use either one continuously, with backlight set to 3/4, you'll run out of juice in a little over an hour. Kinda scary. I wish Sony would give us a compact battery extender that uses NiMH batteries. Price. Of course everybody thinks this is too expensive. It's expensive, but since it does everything you can imagine, it's cheap compared to notebook. So whether it's a good value comes down to whether you'll use it a lot. Of course, given the battery life problem... You see what I mean. Now the pluses. There are tons of them. First of all, this is a *very* stylish PDA. Pictures don't do it justice. You should go into a store (Staples, Circuit City, etc.) to check it out up close. The exterior design is excellent, with the right amount of curves and edges. It's also surprisingly lightweight. Not for your shirt pocket, of course, but jackets and pants should be ok, unless you wear jeans all the time. What really impresses me is how good the unit feels in my hands, even when I hold it with one hand and use the stylus with the other. Performance is very good, too. You can play an MP3 in the background while doing other tasks and usually you won't notice any delays. Occasionally you do, but that hasn't happened to me often. Apps launch quickly. If you load JPEG files they display quickly, too, unlike on many Pocket PCs. The keyboard is sweet. It has the usual Sony quirks, but it doesn't take long to get used to the keys. The dedicated numeric keys are at the top, where God intended them to be. Shift and Ctrl are sticky, so you need not hold them down to type. All in all the keyboard feels great and well spaced, and I can peck away in no time. The wi-fi function works like a charm. I have Verizon DSL and they have installed lots of hotspots in Manhattan, free for customers. I instantly got wi-fi near a payphone near my office. I surfed for about 15 minutes sitting on the curbside and it never got dropped. Back at home, it works fine with my Microsoft AP. I'm very impressed. Bluetooth, on the other hand, is another matter. (...) The manual is very weak. (...) I can't emphasize enough how great the keyboard is, and working in landscape mode (i.e., horizontal) is fabulous. You can browse the web and edit Office files with so much ease. You get multimedia as well. This is a very well put-together package.
Rating: 
Summary: A very unsatisfactory product
Review: Having owned several pdas (palm IIIc, m130, tungstenE, & tungstenC), I was really wowed by the design of the PEG-UX50. I saw it first at Tokyo's Akihibara Electronics Town, and was impressed with the sleek design. The unit was functioning but mounted, so I didn't get to hold it. I was most taken with layout and functionality of the keyboard, and the swivel screen. Of course I was determined to buy one. I waited two months until I was back in the USA and ordered two units from separate vendors. This is my usual custom when buying pdas, as I want to be sure one item isn't experiencing anomalies. I was so excited the day that they arrived. That excitement quickly dissipated. The battery life is absolutely horrible. I was reading an ebook, and the battery barely lasted for 3 hours. When surfing the web, it lasts for about 90 minutes. The 3-D launcher interface did not appeal to me, so I switched to the classic palm launcher, which made things better. The stylus is too small and too thin to be of any practical use. By the time you get it out and get it extended, you could have tapped what you wanted with your fingernail several times over. Additionally, the ergonomics are very poor. Maybe it's made for someone with wider hands than mine. It's too wide to sit comfortably in my hand in landscape mode, and there is no portrait mode. After reading my ebook for the three hours that the battery held a charge, my hand was cramped. Also, the buttons are not placed in the most convenient of locations. It's too easy to press the email, internet, or back button while you are just trying to hold the unit. And what's with the jog dial on the left? Probably a wonderful feature if you're left-handed like my little brother. Unfortunately, I'm right-handed. The vast majority of the palm applications I downloaded did not take advantage of the UX50's wide screen. Who wants a pda window that only covers part of the screen? Certainly not me. In the end, I returned both units. One to Best Buy, where I was not charged the 15% restocking fee, and the other to MPSuperstore.com, where the restocking fee was waived because the IR port was defective. I tried really hard for two weeks to like the UX50. I left my tungstenC and home and used the UX50 exclusively for that period. The only reason I gave the PEG-UX50 two stars is because the keyboard is excellent. I prefer typing on it than on my tungsten C keyboard. I was prepared to trade in my tungstenC for the PEG-UX50. It's little wonder Sony has withdrawn from the US pda market for a while. Maybe they'll dream up better products while they take this much-needed hiatus.
Rating:
Summary: A very unsatisfactory product
Review: Having owned several pdas (palm IIIc, m130, tungstenE, & tungstenC), I was really wowed by the design of the PEG-UX50. I saw it first at Tokyo's Akihibara Electronics Town, and was impressed with the sleek design. The unit was functioning but mounted, so I didn't get to hold it. I was most taken with layout and functionality of the keyboard, and the swivel screen. Of course I was determined to buy one. I waited two months until I was back in the USA and ordered two units from separate vendors. This is my usual custom when buying pdas, as I want to be sure one item isn't experiencing anomalies. I was so excited the day that they arrived. That excitement quickly dissipated. The battery life is absolutely horrible. I was reading an ebook, and the battery barely lasted for 3 hours. When surfing the web, it lasts for about 90 minutes. The 3-D launcher interface did not appeal to me, so I switched to the classic palm launcher, which made things better. The stylus is too small and too thin to be of any practical use. By the time you get it out and get it extended, you could have tapped what you wanted with your fingernail several times over. Additionally, the ergonomics are very poor. Maybe it's made for someone with wider hands than mine. It's too wide to sit comfortably in my hand in landscape mode, and there is no portrait mode. After reading my ebook for the three hours that the battery held a charge, my hand was cramped. Also, the buttons are not placed in the most convenient of locations. It's too easy to press the email, internet, or back button while you are just trying to hold the unit. And what's with the jog dial on the left? Probably a wonderful feature if you're left-handed like my little brother. Unfortunately, I'm right-handed. The vast majority of the palm applications I downloaded did not take advantage of the UX50's wide screen. Who wants a pda window that only covers part of the screen? Certainly not me. In the end, I returned both units. One to Best Buy, where I was not charged the 15% restocking fee, and the other to MPSuperstore.com, where the restocking fee was waived because the IR port was defective. I tried really hard for two weeks to like the UX50. I left my tungstenC and home and used the UX50 exclusively for that period. The only reason I gave the PEG-UX50 two stars is because the keyboard is excellent. I prefer typing on it than on my tungsten C keyboard. I was prepared to trade in my tungstenC for the PEG-UX50. It's little wonder Sony has withdrawn from the US pda market for a while. Maybe they'll dream up better products while they take this much-needed hiatus.
Rating:
Summary: Love mine, but there are some problems
Review: I bought my UX-50 off eBay for about half the going rate of a refurbished new unit. Since I paid so little, I really don't have much to complain about. However, if I had paid $500 for a new-refurbished unit - or $800 for a brand-new unit when the UX-50s were first released - I probably would not have given a 4-star review.
Here are the positives:
- I don't understand why so many people complain about the UX-50 only having a "landscape" screen option. I got used to using the landscape screen in no time. There are third-party programs you can download to convert some applications to portrait mode if you want, but I really didn't feel the need. Granted, the landscape screen means there's a lot of wasted space on the touchscreen, but I didn't have any problems using the screen as-is. I also think the screen size is AWESOME considering the features packed into this little gadget.
- The functionality is, without a doubt, amazing. The UX-50 can replace your keychain digital camera, digital voice recorder, PDA, MP3 player AND you can check your e-mail with it! They managed to pack a lot of features into this little PDA.
- Sound on the MP3 player is great. I have a Sony VAIO laptop that has a built-in Memory Stick port so it's really easy for me to put a ton of music onto my 512 MB stick and have music wherever I go. I have a Nomad MP3 player but I rarely use it because the UX-50's MP3 player is so easy to use.
- The camera is great and takes good pictures in enough light. The zoom feature is neat.
- The PDA functionality is exactly what you'd expect - it works well. The UX-50 has enough internal memory for you to load lots of programs into it.
Negatives:
- It took me a lot of tinkering and research to get the 802.11B wireless feature to work. Apparently there was some kind of problem with the wireless connection software in most UX-50s, and if yours has the problem you have to download a special program, called Mobile Manager, to get it to work correctly. Not that Sony tells you this - I had to research it for myself on user bulletin boards. After a LOT of tweaking my wireless works - sometimes. The mobile browser, NetFront, won't load graphics-heavy pages and is quick to give "insufficient memory" and timeout errors. Unfortunately there's no way to upgrade NetFront 3.0, which came with the UX-50, to NetFront 3.1.
- Battery life truly does suck. I solved this by purchasing a third-party manufactured case and car kit off of eBay - the case has a USB port integrated, so now I can plug the USB sync cable into the case's port and charge my Clie. The car kit consists of a USB cable and an adapter that fits my car's cigarette lighter. Now I can charge wherever I go, which helps greatly with the battery life issue. And I don't have to use the stupid "charging sled" to do it. Which brings me to my next point...
- I would really like to know why Sony made a PDA that you can't charge with a USB cable. It seems ridiculous to me. Before I found the USB-port case I had to lug the stupid charger and sled around with me. The charger is bulky and the sled makes the UX-50 too thick to fit in a pocket or small purse. As it is, now I can't plug the UX-50 in and let it charge while I sync it throughout my workday, which is always what I've done with other PDAs. This was a really dumb design idea.
- The only other negative thing is that some parts of the UX-50 feel flimsy - I often feel like I am going to break the screen off rotating it back and forth, and the USB sync port has a small cover that feels like it could rip off at any time.
Overall, though, this is a great productivity tool and very nifty to carry around. It has a considerable "cool factor" and there's great functionality to boot. The negatives are bummers, but this thing is basically a mini laptop computer with a camera built in, so I don't expect everything to be perfect. I'm just bummed Sony's no longer going to be selling PDAs in the U.S. - hopefully they will change their minds before my UX-50 dies or becomes obsolete.
Rating:
Summary: Great toy, customer support is less than desireable.
Review: I buy a new PDA once a year. I find it interesting to play with the latest gadgets. I found this PDA to be great with WI-FI application. I was able to log on the internet via Wi FI almost immediately. Now bluetooth application was more difficult to figure out. I have two desktop and two laptops and I was able to achieve sync via bluetooth only to my new Mac G5. I found sync via bluetooth on window based computer to be almost impossible. Also, although the ads promise ability to connect to sony ericsson phones via bluetooth easily, I found it impossible. I found getting help on my issues to be impossible. Most of the Sony support staff does not seem to know much about this product. Pictures looked nice, but needs more memory overall. Everything else is great!!!
Rating:
Summary: Good functions, buy it for the form factor
Review: I have been using Palm and Symbian devices for over 7 years. After dropping (and breaking) my SonyEricsson P800, I was looking for a more-or-less similar device. Being not satisfied with SE customer service and P800 computing power, I decided to return to a Palm based system. Having used it for about a week I am convinced that I prefer my UX50 over my P800. The main reasons:
- User interface for Palm is more intuitive than Symbian
- Synchronisation (With Outlook 2000) is better: Symbian sync was very bugy, lost middlenames during conversion, conflicted with Yahoo Intellisync and someimes just did not work for unclear reason
- MP3 is of good quality, with in-ear headphones the sound is good and (in contrast with the P800) the MP3 player works with the lid closed. Also, the MP3 player seems not suffer when you use other applications.
- The UX50 is very well equipped for video playback. The conversion softare allows you to convert AVI and MPEG files to a playable file. The quality and above all the landscape orientation of the screen make this the first PDA to really watch a video on. It is also very convenient that you can watch the screen without holding it in you hand!
- Integration with SMS (mostly for Europeans) is excellent. The keyboard allows you to send SMS as if they are emails. My biggest complaint is that the Bluetooth-GPRS connection seems to destabilise the system sometimes requiring you to *hard* reset the UX50 (losing all you data untill you synch again). And the battery life is not good: about a day of intesive usage. Overall I believe that the UX50 is rather expesive for the functionality it provides. The form factor is undeniably very attractive and should be one of your main arguments for buying it.
Rating:
Summary: Many Bells & Whistles in a small pkg, but needs improvments.
Review: I have had an older Sony Clie for a few years. I was thoroughly impressed with that one. It served me well. I then had to replace it, and was solidly leaning toward another Sony product. The features of the UX50 series impressed me very much. But it does have some shortcommings. Pros:
• Small size. Without a doubt, this is a great unit that fits nicely in my shirt pocket.
• Beautiful screen. It is clear and bright. It is a bit smaller than the older unit, but it is perfectly legible.
• Lots of internal memory. This means I can record a bunch of voice memo's or quick low-res pics from the built in camera w/o using a memory stick.
• Toolbar. There is a little toolbar along the side next to the silk to pull up commonly used features quickly. (like clock, speaker and memory stick media info)
• Built in Keyboard. I love it. It even has a backlight. Not too difficult to use, unlike smaller kbds on other units. The keys are slightly raised.
• Landscape working environment. The "silk" is along the side, and when not being used, the silk can be hidden giving an expanded screen to show text or other items in the silk area. This widescreen mode is a much more efficient use of screen real-estate.
• New handwriting recognition. Decuma is very natural, and has a very good recognition rate. But... see below...
• Rotate/Swivel screen. Use the unit as a micro-laptop, or as a micro-tablet.
• Bluetooth and WiFi. Very easy to setup and use. Cons:
• This unit only works in landscape mode. I prefer holding the unit in my hand in portrait mode. There doesn't appear to be any setting in software to change this.
• The design favors wireless hotsync, since USB cable is very awkward to plug into side of unit. The cradle should provide the USB connection, and when inserted in the cradle, the USB connection is passed through the cradle (one less wire to insert)
• The battery life is terrible on the UX50 (even compared to the three year old unit I replaced). Perhaps the keyboard light uses up much more energy.
• The memory stick and stylus can come out too easily. I have nearly lost my stylus twice. The end of the memory stick protrudes just a bit too far, and can be easily unlocked.
• New Graffiti is difficult to get used to after a few years of proficiency with the old Graffiti. Some of the strokes are not as easy to use. Perhaps I'll get used to it, but my entry rate is significantly slower.
• Decuma takes up a large amount of screen space when used. There doesn't appear to be any way to shrink it. Also when in wide screen mode, decuma still only uses 2/3 of the screen (the rest of the screen is unusable)
• Decuma should be used in Portrait mode (replacing the Silk). This would free up more screen space, and would still be natural.
• The speaker mute feature should have a timeout, so I can mute for only 1/2 hour or so while in a meeting, but then get my audible alarms afterward.
• Cannot "type" special symbols from the keyboard. I use the bullet symbols all the time, but must enter them using graffiti. I like the unit. Everybody I show it to is very impressed. The hardware is well designed. If they come out with software that fixes some of my above issues, then I would wholeheartedly recommend this above any thing else presently available.
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