Review of Sony Clie TG-50

Anonymous Howard writes "Designtechnica has a review of the Sony Clie TG-50 (pictures of it are on their summary page.) Not only does this PDA look cool, but you can go into your local electronics store and hassle people by turning on and off the home electronics there. My favorite quote from the review: "A visit to a local consumer electronics store that shall remain nameless proved that the Clie TG50 is quite capable of controlling most electronics on the market, with some exceptions. I wandered the store turning devices on and off, frustrating a few customers who were shopping.""

Comments

what more do we want a PDA to do??

[in_ur_face]

Not only does this PDA look cool, but you can go into your local electronics store and hassle people by turning on and off the home electronics there. My favorite quote from the review: "A visit to a local consumer electronics store that shall remain nameless proved that the Clie TG50 is quite capable of controlling most electronics on the market, with some exceptions. I wandered the store turning devices on and off, frustrating a few customers who were shopping."

great so why do I need another remote??? sure it is cool, dont get me wrong; but where do we draw the line of functionality vs. need?

Voice recorder, remote control

[Queelix]

Why is this guy gushing about a built in voice recorder and IR remote control features like this? Wasn't the IPAQ 39xx series doing this like a year ago?

Bah!

Re:Voice recorder, remote control

[Simulant]

Christ, I had a watch that could do this (IR remote) 5 years ago. what's the big deal? Any Palm OS loaded with ProntoLite can do the same thing

That's a review?

[Doktor Memory]

While this actually looks like an interesting product, this "review" appears to have been mostly cribbed from Sony's product info pages and press releases, and provides pretty much zero useful information other than the screenshots and the base product specs.

A few questions, off the top of my head, that I'd love to see answered:

• What is the effective range of the remote-control functions?
• How does using the remote control affect the battery life of the unit?
• Is the remote limited to the control codes bundled by Sony, or can it learn?
• Presumably there is a PalmOS application being used to manage the remote functions. Is it...any good? Can you program macros? Does it even have a name?
• How does the battery life, weight and size of this unit compare to PDAs in a similar price range?
• Can this product use the 256mb memory sticks? (The reviewer even asks this question, but apparently couldn't be bothered to call Sony and ask.
• Does the foreshortened screen (compared to Sony's other clamshell Clies) make graffiti input difficult?

...nevermind that it verges on journalistic fraud to enthuse about how this thing can use 128MB Memory Stick cards without mentioning how insanely far behind CompactFlash and SD in both price and capacity this is.

This isn't a review, this is a puff piece.

Uhm

[parkanoid]

"Not only does this PDA look cool, but you can go into your local electronics store and hassle people by turning on and off the home electronics there." I could do that with my newton.

How about.....

[caffeinex36]

Something that has a feasible battery life, not huge, and has integrated wireless? The Zaurus was almost there...except it lacked just about all three!@!

Show me a blackberry 957 size device that runs OZ and has wireless and a great batterylife, and im sold.

Some expansion would be nice too!

This IR remote crap etc. etc. is garbage. Focus on the REAL problems with PDA's today.

Rob

I won't buy this beauty nor the promoter

[mobileskimo]

Controlling consumer electronics was old hat 6 or 7 years ago. Palms have had a remote control application for several years. If you ever had a real programmable learning remote device (a la Radio Shack or Sharper Image) with an infrared reader, you could just about control everything and anything that was within the spectrum range. Why is this news today? Cause someone wants to promote it or a site?

I vote to close this thread.

Good Old HP48G can do the same.

[Anonymous Coward]

HP's best toy -- HP48G (RPN calculator) has an IR port, and with a help from little SysRPL program (found on www.hpcalc.org), I've taught it to talk to all IR-enabled devices at home, like TVs, VCRs, etc.

Re:Phone vs PDA

[Alan Partridge]

if you still REALLY believe that your contracted 'phone only cost you £50 perhaps you should see a specialist who can explain to you what the term "subscription" means. A Nokia 7650 currently costs around £315, so guess where the other £265 comes from? What do you pay for your subscription, £15 a month? £180 per year? 2 year contract, is it?

Did you fail GCSE maths by any chance?

Re:I still can't bring myself to buy a PDA.

[Winterblink]

No, you're not.

I've owned a Palm myself, and beyond simple address book type stuff and some web page reading with AvantGo I found it utterly useless. It almost pains me to say it, but if I were to pay the kind of money PDAs are going for nowadays I'd probably go for an iPaq or similar. At least then I've got a handheld address book type thing that has at least some decent PC-like capabilities. Personally I'm not too picky on what OS it runs as long as it's easy to use and has applications I can work with. For myself, a PocketPC type device is good.

The reason I ended up dumping a Palm entirely? Simple. It's way more convenient and fast to pick up a pencil and write down an appointment/number in an organizer than to power up a Palm and tap in the info. But that's just me. :)

Simple answer

[metamatic]

Because Xerox won their patent infringement lawsuit against Palm for stealing the idea of Graffiti from Xerox research.

Next question?