Sony CLIE PEG-SJ20 Handheld

When the digitizer on my Visor Deluxe went AWOL right after the 1-year warranty expired, it was time to hunt for another PDA. I planned to stick with a black and white (B&W) PDA because I was not using my PDA for multimedia purposes. Moreover, B&W PDAs usually have a longer battery life per charge.

I was aiming at first for the Palm m-series, but then I noticed that Sony had 2 new B&W PDAs out (SL-10 and SJ-20). I had wanted to pick up the SL-10 because it uses AAA batteries (so I can take it for travelling and not have to worry about recharging). But after comparing with the SJ-20 I decided to go for the latter. I bet alot of people struggle with whether to get the SL-10 or SJ-20. More on that later.

(For detailed specifications, you can refer to Sony's own website)

Screen
B&W, high resolution. The most striking feature the SJ-20 has is its white backlight. It greatly increases contrast on the PDA and makes the screen *extremely* easy to read in both daylight and indoors. Without the backlight, the screen is very readable in sunlight, but it will be more difficult to read indoors. No fear - I use the unit regularly during the day (notes, calendar, reading, news on Avantgo) and one charge can still last for at least a week. You definitely can't do that on a color PDA!
Nevertheless, the low-price tag this PDA comes at the expense of having a screen with a slower refresh rate (a "ghosting effect"). This was very visible when I trasferred from my Visor, since low-res PDAs usually have excellent contrast and refresh rates. However, I have gotten used to the difference in refresh speed and now it's like a second nature. I believe this is not a problem for users once you're accustomed to it.

Memory
The SJ-20 has twice the memory of SL-10 (16Mb vs 8Mb). For normal users, 8Mb is plenty. But I'm a PDA junkie and now that I have the expansion slot (I use a 64Mb Memory stick), I have many softwares, ebooks, and 2 backups on the stick. Even if you don't plan on using the expansion, 16Mb is very helpful compared to 8 since newer Palm softwares take up much more space. Wordsmith alone can take up 556K, and Avantgo can take up even more (I only have 2 channels and it's taking up 700+K!)

Battery and charger/Hotsync cable
At first I felt uncomfortable on relying on rechargable batteries especially when I travel. However, this PDA is very energy efficient. It lasts for at least a week even with backlight on all the time. Imagine how long it would last without the backlight. Moreover, this unit does *NOT* ship with a cradle. Rather, they give you a USB Hotsync Cable which also serves as the recharging cord (connected to an external power supply). For frequent travellers or those who have limited desk space (that's me!), the cable is a very welcomed alternative. You can hide it behind your computer or desk when you don't need it. One design flaw exists, and that's the lack of a Hotsync button on the cable, which means you'll have to manually go to the Hotsync software on your PDA to initiate a Hotsync. I don't find that troublesome, since I only Hotsync at the beginning of each day. Coming back to the battery, it recharges very fast. Plugging it in for 20 minutes will ensure at least another few days of usage.

Form factor
This PDA is SMALL.. if you look at CNET's review, it's as small as a deck of cards, with less thickness. The flip cover is attached to the back of the PDA and provides ample protection, since the cover has a sheet of metal inside. The cover will flip-flop around since there is no place to secure it when closed. That's no problem if you put your PDA in a pocket or bag since it forces the cover to stay closed anyways. And since it's so compact, you will find yourself more willing to take it along when you go out, which is what you want to do with a PDA! The size may not matter if you're wearing heavy coats in the winter, since you got the pockets. But smaller does come in handy during the summer when you only got a shirt and shorts on when you leave home. It fits nicely in a shirt pocket with no weighing down of the pocket. The stylus is a tad too slim unless your hands are small. I'm using the Sanford Ph.D Multi stylus so I rarely use the stock stylus. I think you should expect it to be small considering they are trying to make the SJ-20 compact.

Included softwares
SJ-20 comes with the usual Palm OS softwares, as well as trial versions of Documents to Go and a couple of other games (e.g. Bejeweled). Considering the SJ-20 is still B&W, with its relatively slow refresh rate compared to others, I would not use it for viewing videos, even though the hi-res screen shows B&W photos nicely. This PDA has no MP3 support either, which doesn't matter to me. Therefore, don't trust Sony when they named the SJ-20 a "Personal Entertainment Organizer": no audio, poor video, and mediocre photo support. I do not recommend this PDA for faster, graphics-rich games like Zap!2000. The slow refresh rate will make it very hard to play. Games aside, this is an excellent PDA for use with word processors and spreadsheet programs because of the high resolution. If your eyes aren't too good, however, you may have difficulty looking at the smaller, high-res fonts in programs like Sheet-to-go.

I was hoping for a better drawing program (virtual ink) in the CD-ROM other than the default OS Clie Paint. I found that the small freeware PenPenCol works quite well with the Clie, and provides lots of options to save the drawing into a bitmap in case you want it on the computer.

The SJ-20 is arguably the best black and white PDA available. CNet has rated SJ-20 with a value of 10/10 because of the superb hardware given its relatively small price tag. Surely, 16Mb of memory, the white backlight, and the expansion slot is worth spending $200 if you want a PDA for use as an organizer with plenty of space for 3rd party softwares.