Go with an Authentic Palm

Author's Rating:

Pros: SEEMS like alot of features for the price

Cons: Bad overall design, eats AAA batteries, poor screen

The Bottom Line: 
Avoid Sony Clie! Buy a Palm with a little less memory and lower resolution screen and you'll appreciate the thought Palm puts into their machines.

Author's Review
I went to Best Buy planning to buy a Palm V series but the low price and long list of features for the Sony Clie SL-10 lured me into a compulsive purchase.

After just a day or two of use, I found out why Palm was still the hardware *and* software king when it comes to PDAs. The bottom line is that the SL-10 is poorly designed.

The Screen
The high resolution screen sounds nice, but isn't very useful. Most applications can't even use the extra resolution. High resolution applications run slowly and the whole screen refreshes very slowly making the PDA feel slow. Greyscale photographs do look very nice, but I never did end up using my Palm to show off my digital pictures.

The screen also scratches easily and is so dark its hard to read at night.

Handwriting Recognition
I had a bottom-of-the line Palm m100 before the Clie SL-10. I used it for about 6-7 months with no visible scratches on the screen and excellent handwriting recognition. Handwriting recognition on the SL-10 suffers for a few different reasons. After only a few weeks of use, the SL-10 showed serious scratching in the Graffiti handwriting area which was so bad I could feel the bumps while I attempted to write. Its so bad now I have trouble entering letters through Graffiti. The screen area also shows alot of scratches. The Graffiti area seems awkward because of the shape of the SL-10.

Memory and Expansion
While 8MB is nice, I was looking forward to using the Memory Stick expansion slot and bought a 32MB Memory Stick. Little did I know you are very limited to what the Memory Stick can hold. Certain applications don't run off the MS. --Everything-- runs extremely slowly off the MS. And applications that support data on the MS are weird to work with. Also, since the flip top cover puts pressure on the Memory Stick slot, you'll find it pops out pretty often when the SL-10 is in your pocket.

Other Design Issues
The flip cover is floppy and comes off easily. The latch is very thin plastic -- I'm suprised it hasn't broken yet.

The SL-10 cannot sit flat without the flip cover attached.

The metallic paint is initially pretty but scratches easily and flakes off after moderate use. Just so you know, there's black plastic underneath that shiny coat of paint ;-)

There is no cover over the "expansion" plug on the bottom. Mine is full of lint and dust. I don't see how this could be good...

The battery door is flimsy and often comes open. This is a serious problem because the batteries are free to fall out once the door is open (and the SL-10 loses everything stored in memory after only 1 minute without batteries).

Things You'll Miss
The lack of a cradle or cable with Hotsync button on it might seem minor, but it is a pain to have to pull out your stylus, turn on the Palm, navigate to and open the Hotsync application, and press start each time you want to Hotsync.

Accessories! They're hard to come by and seem more expensive than those for Palm or Handspring. I have been looking for Screen Protectors made for this model since day one and they have only recently begun selling them on sony.com. Its too late now!

OH YEAH... this thing eats batteries like crazy! At least two AAAs a week with minimal use.

When shopping for a Palm, go for the real thing. You get what you pay for. The Sony Clie line looks great on paper (feature wise) but isn't well thought out for any real use.