Sony CLIÉ PEG-S300E

...browse on Ebay, and the Sony Clie PEG S300 came to my attention. This was Sony’s first attempt at a Palm OS PDA, which came out roughly at the end of 2000/beginning of 2001. It fitted the criteria. Monochrome screen, with 8MB of memory, an expansion slot with a potential of an extra 128Mb of memory, and sleek looks. So I bid for it and my winning bid of £82 for the PDA and a full size fold out keyboard, I think I bagged myself quite a bargain. The ...
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Sony Clie PEG S300
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Even though it maybe considered an old machine (such is the fast moving nature of everything computing), the PEG S300 is surprisingly good for its age. Being a Sony product, the style kings of electronics have added a certain flair to their PDAs to compete with the likes of Palm and Handspring.. So it had to be silver for starters and as with most of Sony’s computing/personal entertainment ... more

I’ve been toying around with idea of a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) for a while but one question always makes me not get one. Why do I need one? Obviously from a gadget point of view, its seems to be godsend but I had to ask myself, would I use it after the 3rd month or even 3rd week or 3rd day of owning one. Like the old saying goes, Boys and their Toys and just like kids, we tend to get bored of them relatively quick. I am just as guilty as most.

The latest generation of PDAs all have capability to play games, music, view short movie clips, take pictures and even be used a TV remote! Now that is gadget heaven! To makes matters worse, PDAs are becoming more like mobile phones and likewise, mobile phones are becoming more PDA. There is no doubt that they are likely to emerge as one product in the future.

But hang on, PDAs are supposed to be used primarily for storing contact addresses and phone numbers, meetings, to do lists, not all this fancy stuff. You’re probably thinking ‘What about a normal diary?’ Well there are some clear advantages of storing information on a PDA than on a paper-based diary. For example, a diary never beeps at you when your meeting is due, a PDA does. If you lose your diary, you lose all the information you’ve written in it, with a PDA you can back up your data to your home computer.

I must be getting old, as I seem to be forgetting things quite easily. Either that or my mobile phone’s radiation has now grilled my brain to the stage where I forget things from yesterday, let alone a week ago. I’ve been busy of late both in my work life and my personal social life. All these bits of information get passed to me but being a sieve, I would clearly forget to meet or phone someone, or do something. Clearly now was a good time to get that PDA I’ve always put myself off for such a long time. I needed an excuse (we always do) and here was mine. Being a gadget geek here on Ciao, I think most people would be surprised I never got one until now.

My Criteria
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I’ve always felt that PDAs were darn expensive toys. Some people choose to call them computers, but essentially I still think they are toys that all these executives take out to show off in meetings or on the train. I knew what I clearly needed one for, the real purposes of keeping my contact details, memos, meetings and to do lists. The PDA I was going to get didn’t need to be the latest with all the current bells and whistles. I wasn’t even bothered if it didn’t have a colour screen and was just monochrome. I specifically wanted a handheld with a stylus (pen) to write onto the screen as opposed to devices with a keyboard. I had used a Psion before and thought they were horrible to use and I didn’t like the cheap databank things from the likes of Sharp and Casio. I did however, wanted to be able to download a wide range of free software from the Internet to use on it and be able to back up my data to my PC. I also wanted some form of expandability to add more memory to it later, if I chose to.

I didn’t want to spend too much money on a PDA, especially if I had the feeling that I might just chuck it to one side after a couple of weeks. My budget was going to be £100 or maybe a little (but not a lot) over it. With that amount of budget, the Microsoft Windows CE (or Pocket PC) powered PDAs were out of the question. So that just left the Palm OS (Operating System) type of PDA’s left and even then I had so many choices. There are 3 companies that make Palm OS PDAs, which are Palm, Handspring and Sony.

The choice of Palm OS PDA’s for under £100 was limited. There was the Palm 105, which was retailing at about £80 and the Handspring Visor Edge at £99. The Palm 105 didn’t appealed because it had no expandability slot to add more memory later, the screen size was too small and the unit was fairly chunky. The Handspring on the other hand was very sleek looking with an aluminium exterior but had sacrificed some usability and functionality for looks. Palm had also releases a new £80 Zire PDA but with only 2MB of memory and no expandability option, it had too little memory for loading on further applications later.

The Visor Edge was my first choice, but then I realised I had the option of buying second-hand. A quick browse on Ebay, and the Sony Clie PEG S300 came to my attention. This was Sony’s first attempt at a Palm OS PDA, which came out roughly at the end of 2000/beginning of 2001. It fitted the criteria. Monochrome screen, with 8MB of memory, an expansion slot with a potential of an extra 128Mb of memory, and sleek looks. So I bid for it and my winning bid of £82 for the PDA and a full size fold out keyboard, I think I bagged myself quite a bargain. The fold out keyboard use to sell for £80 alone!

Sony Clie PEG S300
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Even though it maybe considered an old machine (such is the fast moving nature of everything computing), the PEG S300 is surprisingly good for its age. Being a Sony product, the style kings of electronics have added a certain flair to their PDAs to compete with the likes of Palm and Handspring.. So it had to be silver for starters and as with most of Sony’s computing/personal entertainment products, it had to have the infamous Jog Dial on the left hand-side of the PDA.

The Clie S300 is relatively light, which may be down to the fact that the silver looking PDA is actually plastic and not metal as it may lead you to believe. It feels solid enough though. It’s relatively thin as well, only being surpassed by the Palm V and M series PDAs. At the top of the PDA is the Sony Memory Stick expansion port, which is (surprise surprise) only capable of accepting Sony’s proprietary Memory Stick. These are often more expensive than other solid state memory such as MultiMediaCard (MMC), Secure Digital (SD) or Compact Flash (CF) cards and the maximum Memory Stick you can get is 128mb.

Next to the expansion slot is an Infra-Red port which enables you to beam/receive information to or from other IR enabled devices such as mobile phones, laptops or other PDAs. On the other side of the expansion slot is where the Stylus (Pen) resides which slides out when needed.

The screen itself is monochrome with a black on green look. The Clie S300 has 16 greyscales and has a resolution of 160 x 160 pixels, which may not be quite as impressive as colour display with 320 x 320 resolution, but the display is still very clear. So long as you don’t look at one of the colour PDAs after buying a mono PDA, you won’t be tempted.

Usability
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Like most Palm OS PDAs (irrespective of brand), the software is easy to use. It has the basic functions such as addresses, calculator, date book, expense, memo and to do lists. Sony has added bonus software such as an email program and a picture and movie viewer. Viewing pictures on a monochrome screen is like viewing a black and white photo (except its black and green) which is acceptable, but viewing any movie file on a mono screen is franky, not worth it. If you really must watch movies clips on your PDA, go and get a Pocket PC. Like I said earlier, I didn’t buy one to be fancy, but to be useful.

Without a keyboard, entering in information into the PDA requires you to learn an input method called Graffiti, which at first seems really hard to get to grips with but once familiar, seems second nature. The bottom half of the screen is the Graffiti writing area with one side for writing letters and the other for writing numbers. There are also 4 touch screen buttons, which allow you to go back to the main menu, drop down menus, bring up the calculator and perform a search. To write or access these touch screen buttons, you just need to use the stylus pen provided. The tip of the stylus is rounded so that you don’t scratch the screen. You could use other objects on the screen but generally they are not recommended as they damage the screen.

There are some physical buttons at the bottom of the Clie PEG-S300. These buttons provide quick access to the most used applications such as the Date Book, Address, To Do List and Memo Pad. These buttons can be reprogrammed to access other programs if desired. In between the buttons, there are up and down buttons to navigate up and down the screens of information. Although these buttons are present, I hardly use them, finding it easier relying on using the stylus to navigate around the touch screen menus.

The trump card in Sony’s popular series of Palm PDAs however, is the Jog Dial. It is so useful when reading though long documents (such as ebooks) to be able to use the scrolling mechanism on the jog dial. Just think of the scroller wheel on a mouse and you will have an idea what I’m talking about. It makes life so much easier than having to drag the scroll bars to go up or down. The jog dial even renders the up and down buttons at the bottom of the PDA a bit useless, as the jog dial is better positioned ergonomically for your thumb to reach. As well as scrolling up and down, the Jog Dial can be used as a selecting button.

The big down side is, the jog dial is totally useless for left-handers who would be holding the PDA in their right hands so wont have the benefit of using their thumb to access the jog dial. You can still access it with your index finger but not quite as easily.

Software
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The Palm OS on this PDA is version 3.5.2, which is 2 versions behind the latest version, although the new version has just been released not so long ago. Don’t be put off by this fact though as Palm OS 4 only really benefited colour PDAs and version 5 is an all out attack on the Windows Pocket PC stable.

All Palm OS PDAs carry the same suite of basic programs. The programs (such as the To Do List, Date Book etc) are functional and easy to use. Sony improvised the Address book, allowing photos to be associated with a contact, which is a nice touch. This feature isn’t found on the Palm or Handspring PDAs.

After a while, some of the programs can become a bit limited in their functionality though. One such example, was the Expense program, which was restrictive in what I could categorise my expenses into. It was a tad bit Americanised for my liking (i.e. Gas instead of Petrol).

Thankfully, the Sony Clie PEG S300 (along with most Palm OS PDAs) has oodles of room for expandability. With 8mb of internal memory, you have plenty of space for extra programs to be added. These can be easily downloaded from the Internet from such sites as www.download.com or www.palmgear.com. Some are freebies but the majority are Shareware, which means you can try a limited functionality program and if you like it, pay a small fee to buy a fully functional copy.

There is such a variety of software to download and installed to your PDA, from enhanced diaries, accounting software, scientific calculators and even games. For Word and Excel users who want something on the go, you can download various programs such as Documents to Go which allows you to work on simple Word and Excel files on the move.

The programs can be installed using the provided Hot Synching cradle, which is plugged into your computer, along with the Palm Desktop software which is used to backup data and install programs to the PDA. Pop the PDA onto the docking cradle, and just press the Hot Sync button on the cradle and the PDA and PC will perform the necessary tasks such as backing up.

The Date Book, To Do list, and Address Book can also be synchronised with Outlook which would means that I can have all my appointments, meetings, and contacts on my PC and then take it away with me on the PDA when I’m on the move. Fantastic!

The Techy Specs
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I won’t bore you with the full specs, just the important ones. There is a Lithium Ion battery built into the PDA which means you wont have to buy batteries ever, as you can recharge it as much as you want. On a full charge the battery will last up to 15 days with an average use of 30 minutes a day. The CPU is a Motorola DragonBall EZ processor running at 20MHz which isn’t the fastest thing but certainly beats the 16MHz found in some other PDAs around the same price range. It may not sound impressive when compared to Pocket PC PDAs but it doesn’t need to have a fast CPU and manages to perform tasks at a reasonable speed. Total weight is 121g which is quite light.

The only other thing worth mentioning is the 8mb of Memory Stick that comes supplied. Don’t be deceived into thinking that it means that you have 16mb (8mb Internal + 8mb MS) of memory to install programs though, as the memory stick can only be used to store data and doesn’t allow program to run from it. There are utilities that will allow you to, but generally running anything from the memory stick is slow.

Buying
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As I mentioned earlier, I have bought the Sony Clie PEG S300 second-hand from Ebay. I wouldn’t pay anything more than £80 (second-hand) for it though, as it is an older model now. It use to retail for £299 at one point which just goes to show that if you wait around for a bit and let things like time and competition take its toll, then anything becomes cheaper. At £80 I felt that it was a purchase well made. Maybe it wasn’t as stylish as the Visor Edge, but I feel I got more for my money.

At the beginning of this op, I already mentioned some of the choices I would have gone for if I had not bought this. After using the Clie however, it certainly does come across as more functional and better designed than PDAs made by Palm and Handspring. If I were to get a brand new PDA, I would go straight for the Sony Clie SJ30, which is the mid range colour PDA at about £199. I would however pass on the Clie SL10, which is more or less the natural successor to the S300, but it gets a thumb downs from me due to its lack of an internal rechargeable battery and would cost an fortune in normal or rechargeable batteries.

Conclusion
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PDAs are plentiful these days, with a dozen of manufacturers releasing new ones every year. Like I said at the beginning of the op, you should only buy one if you seriously need one and it helps you organise things and not for the purpose of having a gadget. Like me, what you choose in the end is dependent on what your requirements are.

If you want your PDA to be able to play movies and MP3s and be Microsoft, then Palm OS PDA’s may not be the best choice. Pocket PC still have the stronghold on that side of things (with the exception of some of the newest Palm OS PDAs)

If on the other hand, you can live with the fact that its not Microsoft Windows based (which may be a good thing), and want a PDA to do the thing they’re supposed to be used for, then the Palm OS PDAs are your answer. They consume less power, are less bulky and you can download loads of software unlike the Pocket PC that still seems to trail in comparison.

After I’ve purchased and used my Sony Clie for about a month now, I can highly recommend it to potential PDA buyers. Even though my model is no longer the most up to date one, the range of features and functionality are mirrored in their latest range and I would gladly part with my money to buy another Sony PDA.

And yes I am still using it. The 3 weeks test passed. Just have to see if I’m still using it in 3 months time!

UPDATE 13/12/02
I've started to go into developing utilities and applications for Palm OS and have since bought the latest range Sony SJ30 'colour' PDA for development purposes. I think it is excellent value for money considering the features and if you dont need the top of the range CLIE (with MP3 and Keyboard built in), this is certainly the one to go for if you are buying new. Will write an op on it in time.

Any questions or comments welcomed!

Regards, Ray Liu © 2002
 

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