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Sony Exits US Handheld Market
10999 writes "Today Brighthand reports that Sony will no longer develop and sell Clie handheld models to the United States market.
Most certainly that means no more Clies for Europe, too."
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So long Sony, I won't miss the Clie because of what they did to me. I was happy to pay nearly $500 for a Clie NR70V, but when Sony lied to me and told me that one day I would be able to use a 1 gig memory stick with it, they lost me as a customer. I not only quit buying Sony PDAs, I didn't buy a Sony camera, opting for a Minolta with a standard SD card slot. Sony charged premium prices for some very nice models and they were making money on them until the memory stick debacle coupled with their crippled CF slot. I will be happy buying elsewhere from a company that keeps its promises to its customers. So don't let the Memory Stick hit you on the backside when you leave Sony!
This is the second "successful" handheld device I have seen cancelled recently -- I develop for handhelds, and we can't get the ones we've been getting (Thera) anymore. It should be no surprise that some shakedown of the myriad of devices out there would come to pass, but it does surprise me to see a company as large as Sony stop making anything.
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They mentioned several times that they want the PSP to be a multifunction device with PDA abilities, and a whole host of other abilities (MP3, Movies, GPS, etc) other than just being a dedicated game machine.
sony just didn't see the big picture, eventually the only PC people will have is a hand-held one, they could've made a killing if they just added a tv-out to their clie models, along with the ability to plug into regular size keyboards/mice, this way for the casual user, one who only reads emails, and checks news online, does reports in word, they could've provided a low-cost desktop alternative. b
For The Best Jazz/Hip-hop fusion > COlD DUCK
I recently ditched my Palm IIIxe for a Sony Ericsson T616. It isn't technically a "smartphone", but it still has a calendar, to do list, phone book (of course). And it syncs perfectly with iSync over bluetooth.
If you want to see the real future of Sony PDAs, look here.
Sony will continue to support all current customers worldwide for the life of the warranties on their handhelds.
Bear that in mind before you go hunting for a cheap Clie. If my Palm V, which is almost 6 years old, broke down I still could get it repaired by the manufacturer. But, with that wording, it's very much implied that after the warranty period has run out on the Clies sitting on retailers' shelves right now there will be little or no support from Sony for Clie owners. Caveat emptor.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Sony takes this kitchen sink approach to their portables, which is why I think the first wave of iPod competitors will fail. They jammed every conceivable feature into their handhelds, completely forgetting that the appeal of PalmOS was to "keep it simple." Memory stick, camera, bluetooth, wifi, MP3 player, etc. They're expensive too, compared to other PalmOS devices.
The iPod competitor will fail if they release it in the US. It's too big, it'll cost too much, and basically it has too many features and buttons for the US market.
I use a Pocket PC (been using different ones for the past few years) but have always been impressed by Sony's innovations. If nothing else, they've provided solid competition for Microsoft. Now, it's essentially MS and a very dwindling Palm leading the PDA charge. So much for competition.
I purchased Sony's first palm-based handheld, the PEG-S300, not long after it came out. It was a competitor to the Palm V, as mentioned in the article, but cost a fraction. It was small, fast, had a hi-res screen, a jog dial, and came with a nice case that is still the best I've seen for a PDA. But the interface to the sync software was clearly rushed to market absolutely sucked.
Sucks that the competition is gone -- first Handspring, now Sony. At least Palm seems to have gotten their act together on the hardware side of things.
The miniature laptops I saw just rocked, and I can't believe they wouldn't sell in the US.
Miniaturizes Japanese product wouldn't survive our warranty expectations here in the us.
For an example:
Japanese Consumer: Drops mini-laptop onto concrete and it breaks. He cries, but then buys another.
American Consumer: Drops mini-laptop onto concrete and it breaks. He cries, calls the manufacturer a demands a replacement, gets none, called the Better Business people and gripes. He then procedes to tell his friends that product "X" is a piece of junk. He get his credit card company to issue a charge back.
There's a lot of hiking/climbing gear that never makes it to the US from Europe and Japan for the same reason.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
I own three MagicCap based PDAs. Two of them, the PIC-1000 and the PIC-2000A, were manufactured by Sony. Neither of them has been made or supported for many years.
The worrisome thing: after Sony bailed, pretty much everyone else using the MagicCap OS did too. Today, you can't get the OS at all anymore, and you can't even really get a dev environment for it. Hopefully, PalmOS can hang on.
The BlackBerry does not meet my personal needs for a portable computing device.
I want a screen that's as close to paperback book size as possible, and either no built-in keyboard or a fold-over clamshell design with a good size built-in keyboard. Also, it has to connect to OS X and Linux, and not require purchase of Microsoft software. 802.11b and Bluetooth are also big pluses.
I don't want a PDA phone because I want a PDA screen that would result in a phone that's way too large. I just don't get the whole PDA phone thing, in fact. I want my phone to be smaller and my PDA screen to be bigger--fairly basic incompatibility with PDA phones and BlackBerry devices there.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I've got an SJ-33, and I consider it one of the best peices of hardware I've ever had. It's great. Compliments the eMac perfectly. So I'm going to have to shop around for a new vendor now. The last time I looked at the Palms they were a bit fragile feeling..
I kinda saw this coming in the back of my mind though. Look at the last lineup, they've actually subtracted features (like the MP3 player) from the newer models that I consider to be in the same class as the SJ.
They've seemingly fixed that now with a good looking feature rich TJ37, but the 27's were sorta half-arsed.
And I knew something was terribly wrong with the whole line when I saw the UX50. That thing just defies everything about what makes PalmOS functional.
-- The unsig...
Once again, people seem to be forgetting that Sony doesn't cater to the "one percenters" here on slashdot
That's not the point.... The TH-55 in Japan and Europe is virtually identical to the one in the US, with the exception that Bluetooth is disabled. It's not a matter of being a "one percenter," the annoying thing is that they already did the engineering for a fantastic product, released the product in several markets, and then went out of their way to remove a feature for the American version.
The Japanese/European TH-55 is as close to a perfect "tablet" style handheld as I've seen: great screen, good battery life, 802.11b, Bluetooth, and it's compatible with all of the PalmOS apps I already have. I would have been pretty tempted to get a non-US one if the my current Tungsten|T died, but the US one is crippled since I use Bluetooth.
- AlanH
They're not really dead, they just haven't found their killer app yet. Judging by recent trends and the usage models of bleeding edge users, I'd say the killer app for handhelds is communications. That's what I find myself using my PDA most for lately (well, plus Virtual Pool Mobile, but that's another story). It's got both WiFi and Bluetooth. At home and where available I use WiFi, anywhere else (and I do mean just about anywhere) I use Bluetooth with T-Mobile's excellent GPRS service. All I need now is a higher resolution and larger screen, and maybe having the PDA and phone in one device (though that also has disadvantages).
The rest of the improvements just need to be refinements in usability. For example the Bluetooth link to the phone can be pretty flakey, requiring occasional resets of one or both devices. Additionally, phones seem to drift in and out of GPRS awareness too easily when leaving and entering service areas. Finally, PDAs should be able to automatically switch to the appropriate communications mode without all the manual fiddling, based on user preferences. I'd like mine to use WiFi when in range of known APs, and automatically dial out via BT otherwise. Currently this switching back and forth is a bit tedious.
this is clearly a response to the lcd shortage. the psp is expected to sell 3 million units worldwide by march 2005. all those screens have to come from somewhere. the playstation brand is way more important to sony then the clie. this is a bold move, and shows how much sony wants to succeed in the handheld gaming market.
It's not the number they were selling, it's the profit they were making. Or, more correctly, the lack of it.
NO ONE is making money selling PDAs. Combine this with a SHRINKING market, and why would any sane company want to keep shipping PDAs? At this rate, the entire PDA market will be gone in 3 years... (To be replaced by smartphones and palmtop XP computers.)
I think I can answer some of this. I'm in front of a computer at work for at least 8 hours a day. I've got a wireless laptop at home that I use nearly exclusively over the two desktops that I have, but I still have a PDA. I happen to have a Palm Tungsten T, so most of my comments may be a bit Palm centric, but you'll get the picture.
My pda is basically an incredibly portable computer with long battery life. It's a backlit book that I'm always carrying (I have about 40 volumes on it from free online sources, such as Baen and Project Gutenberg). It's my mp3 player when I'm commuting. In fact, when I'm commuting by train, I listen to mp3s while I read a book. I use it as a watch. I use it to keep all my addresses and my calendar, along with any warnings I need for events. I also use it to transport and edit documents in case the urge to write catches me. I also have several solitaire-like games on it to keep me assumed and looking busy at the same time.
I'm not even sure what I'd do if I had wireless access. Due to a combination of Verizon not seeming to carry any bluetooth phones and that I can't convince myself to get a new pda with 802.11b wireless, I don't have any way to check my mail, etc. when I'm on the road. So I can't even comment on it's ability to act as a communication device.
Be glad life is unfair, otherwise we'd deserve all this.