Digital Trends

Sony Clie PEG-UX50

August 4th, 2004 | by Larry Chen

The Handheld

One word: beautiful! The UX50 is a stylish little device that looks nothing like the typical PDA. It resembles a miniature notebook computer with its clamshell design and built-in keyboard. The casing is mostly made out of metallic silver-colored magnesium alloy that is both lightweight and durable. The framework is also reinforced with two silver-colored metal rails extending from each side of the body. The UX50 is solidly built and does not crack or creak when squeezed.

The UX50 compared to a cell phone

Looking down on the device with the screen folded, you'll notice a CMOS camera located on the left side of the top hinge. The camera can be rotated nearly 360 degrees, making it possible to take pictures in any direction, and even turned facing the casing to protect it from scratches and dust. On the right side of the hinge is a capture/record button. Pressing it once turns the camera on and pressing it again will cause it to take a picture or record a video clip based on your configuration. Folding the screen turns the handheld into a tablet that can be held in a way similar to how you would normally hold a digital camera. Even in its folded form, the bottom portion below the keyboard consisting of a mini microphone, the Jog Dial with back button, and three shortcut buttons (NetFront web browser, CLI... Mail, and Date Book) is exposed to ensure easy access to the buttons. The shortcut buttons can be configured to perform various tasks of your choice from the preference menu.

The left side of the UX50 contains a power/hold switch, a power LED, an infrared port, a mini-USB port, and an exaggerated hand strap loop hole. Sliding the power switch downward turns the UX50 on or off, and sliding it upward turns the screen off and locks all the buttons for music playback on the go. The power LED shines orange while the handheld is being charged and turns off when charging is complete. When you're using the UX50, it remains steady green to indicate that the device is on. The mini-USB port is covered with a flimsy plastic cover that does a good job of protecting the port but makes it harder to plug in the USB cable. Since the charger cradle is used exclusively for recharging the battery, the USB port becomes the only way to synchronize data if your computer lacks wireless connectivity. Thankfully, built-in WiFi and Bluetooth work like a charm making the USB port somewhat less important. Next to the USB port is a large hand strap loop hole the main purpose of which is to provide style rather than functionality.

The right side of the PDA is not as tightly packed as the left. From top to bottom are the headphone jack, Memory Stick PRO slot, record and memory indicator LED, and the stylus silo. The retractable stylus, measuring 2.5” when fully retracted and 3.7” when extended, is too small for people with large hands, but sacrificing its size has allowed Sony to include more gems in the precious internal space.

Flipping open the screen reveals a spacious thumb keyboard that glows orange in the dark; a ripped design adds style to the device and at the same time, makes it much easier to type. The 0-9 number keys are also included, and they can be assigned in combination with the control key to quickly launch up to ten different programs. This is simply the best built-in thumb keyboard you can find in any handheld device, period.

The touch screen is small compared to the 4” screen found on NX series PDAs, but since it has the same number of pixels you won't be missing anything. Even though I quickly got used to the smaller screen after coming from the 3.8” Toshiba e755 screen, I still would like to see a larger screen in the future. The thin Sony CLI... default system font is hard to read sometimes, but with the help of an excellent program called Font4UX, I was able to choose a better looking system font. The backlight cannot be cranked as high as the NX, but is bright enough for most situations. It is a pleasure to view images on the UX screen since everything appears to be extremely sharp due to the denser pixels. The backlight is uniformly distributed, and no light spots can be found on the bottom of the screen like the TG50 screen. If you are unsure of the screen quality, you might want to drive by a nearby retail store to check whether if it is suitable for your eyes.

On the right side of the screen are two indicator lights to show the status of WiFi and Bluetooth wireless connectivity. The Bluetooth indicator blinks with a cool blue light when Bluetooth is enabled, and the WiFi indicator turns yellow when wireless LAN is being used.

Turning the UX50 over uncovers the cradle connector ports, the reset hole, and the speaker. The internal speaker is similar to other PDA's it's enough for alarms but is not really suitable for music listening. However, the earphone jack produces wonderful music with louder bass than most Pocket PC's I've used. Closing the clamshell automatically turns the screen off, great for using as a portable MP3 player.