Digital Trends

Sony Clie PEG-UX50

August 4th, 2004 | by Larry Chen

Software Applications

One of the most incredible aspects of the UX50 is the landscape oriented screen. Landscape orientation gives more viewing space to web pages, documents, spreadsheets, photos, and videos compares to the portrait mode. Most applications I have tested either work with HiRes+ landscape natively or works by enabling landscape support in a useful utility called CodeDiver. (Download link: http://www.jade.dti.ne.jp/~imazeki/palm/cDiv/index-e.html Use the latest beta version. For instructions, refer to the FAQ page). Landscape support surely is nice, but being able to switch between landscape mode and portrait mode will make the tablet mode much more useful. Unfortunately, the UX50 has yet to include this feature. Rumors are saying that Sony is planning to release a software update that enables screen rotation, but nothing official yet.

The UX50 in tablet mode

To fully utilize the landscape advantage and the strong processor, Sony has created a cool 3D launcher that feels somewhat like the casino jackpot with rotating “atom structure” highlighting the selected items. You are able to switch to the classic launcher or install one of your favorite launcher programs.

In addition to the 3D launcher, Sony bundled a lot of high quality software with the UX50:

• Clie Files - organizes data files
• Clie Album - organizes stills and movie images along with voice and written memos
• Clie Viewer - views still images, movies, and memos
• Clie Memo - takes written notes
• Clie Mail - sends/receives email messages
• Clie Camera - controls the built-in camera
• PhotoStand - displays slide shows
• Photo Editor - edits photos
• Sound Utility - stores sound files in .wav or midi format for use with PIM or Alarm Clock
• Audio Player - plays MP3 or ATRAC3 files
• Movie Recorder - records movie clips with the built-in camera
• Movie Player - plays MPEG4 movies
• Voice Recorder - records voice memos
• World Alarm Clock - keeps track of the time with different time zones
• Data Import - mounts the PDA to the PC as a storage drive
• Flash Player - plays .swf Flash movies
• NetFront 3.0 - browses the Internet via WiFi or Bluetooth
• PowerOne Personal - a full functional calculator application
• Decuma - recognizes handwritten characters
• Picsel Viewer - views native word documents and PDF files with font smoothing support and an innovative navigation menu.

On the PC side, Sony includes the Intellisync software for synchronizing with Microsoft Outlook. It failed to synchronize with Outlook 2003 so I had to use Chapura's PocketMirror, which works flawlessly.

Other PC software including PictureGear Studio that organizes pictures into albums, SonicStage that turns the PC into a jukebox and encodes ATRAC3 for play back on the Clie, and Image Converter. Image Converter is by far the most useful PC software I've seen. It helps converting and resizes different types of movie files into MPEG4 format for viewing on the Clie. You can choose from four different presets depending the storage space you have:

• High Plus Quality: 320 x 240 @ 30 fps 6.7 MB/min
• High Quality: 320 x 240 @ 15 fps 3.8 MB/min
• Standard Quality: 320 x 240 @ 15 fps 2.1 MB/min
• Long Mode: 160 x 112 @ 15 fps 1 MB/min

I was able to squeeze a full length .AVI format movie into a perfectly viewable 200MB MPEG4 file that can be stored in a 256MB Memory Stick PRO card.