Wow, I just read the Brighthand and Gadgeteer reviews of the CLIE UX50 and they were both pretty disappointed in the device. My review is almost complete, I just have to add the pictures, and you will see it comes to a different conclusion….

Check out my blurb today regarding two utilities that every CLIE UX50 owner should get immediately. For $18 you can improve the readability of your device and add full landscape use to tons of applications. I now have DocsToGo 6, MyBible, Agendus Mail, and many others running on the full screen and am not even thinking about the T3 anymore.

I searched everywhere on Friday and did find that Fry’s has them in the store, but they won’t sell them or let anyone see them until the official Palm released date of October 1st. I tried OfficeDepot and OfficeMax with no luck. I may still try to get one at OfficeMax and check it out for a couple weeks, but can’t see it ever knocking off the UX50.

The UX50 has a great keyboard, integrated WiFi, solid metal design, integrated screen protector with the flip and twist design and is so small that I carry it everywhere with me. I also like the Sony displays much better than the Palm displays and Sony has better multimedia support. Although the camera is only 1/3 megapixel, I find I am taking tons of shots of my 3 girls and capturing moments I may not otherwise have captured.

I had heard that CompUSA was changing their TAP (Technology Assurance Program), but just used it a couple weeks ago for a dead display on my NX70. However, I just checked their TAP website and the new process appears to be in place. You now have to fill out an online claim form and wait to see what their decision is and it looks like you can’t go back into the store for an exchange. I may be heading to CompUSA today (day 14 since I bought the UX50) and returning the TAP on this device. I baby my PDAs and am not too worried about dropping them or anything and Sony support has been good to me in the past with a display issue.

I am also trying to hunt down a T3 and will give Frys and some more OfficeMax stores a shot today.

Well I see all over the place that the Tungsten T3 is at OfficeDepot and now at OfficeMax. I ordered and then canceled my orders from OfficeDepot when I read that they no longer give refunds on PDAs and only give you another of the same model. I did find that OfficeMax does allow a 14 day return policy so I will make calls today and see if I can pick one up. I want to compare it to the UX50 and see if I need to return the UX50 and wait for CompUSA to get the T3s in stock. I have two days left in my CompUSA return period so hopefully I can find a T3 today.

I am pretty sure I’ll stick with the UX50 and its WiFi capability, but then again I only use WiFi at home and could add it later with a SD card. The keyboard is a big seller for me however and I don’t know if I could go back to using Fitaly or MessagEase for all my input on the T3. I really need to see it first hand to decide since it is $300 cheaper than the UX50.

Dell is announcing two new Pocket PCs in a short while and one will have integrated WiFi. I will not buy any device that does not have at least integrated Bluetooth since WiFi ranges are limited and I want connectivity anywhere with GPRS. I don’t think either of the Dell models has integrated Bluetooth so I won’t even consider them.

I went to CompUSA as planned last night, but had to drive another 20 miles to the next store since the UX50 is in short supply here in Western Washington. I also received a store credit for $76 due to the tip regarding a new 10% off on ALL PDAs this week at CompUSA.

I charged the UX50 for the full time until the orange indicator light went off. This morning during my commute I connected via Bluetooth to my Nokia 3650 and surfed for 30 minutes straight and my battery indicator still shows 100%. I had the backlight on full for 15 minutes and then went down to about 25% because it was too bright in the dark hours of the morning. I am much happier with this kind of battery life because before I would have been down to something like 60-65% after this amount of time.

I will test it out some more, but it is almost time to order the extended battery pack and get rid of my NX cases and accessories.

I posted a blurb linking to two sites that have more info on the Tungsten T3 that may be coming real soon. I still plan on sticking with the UX50 because of the WiFi and keyboard since the smaller display really doesn’t bother me. The only real downside of the UX50 is the lack of buttons to really play any arcade type games, but the T3 doesn’t look great for that in landscape mode either.

I still have my CLIE UX50, but I am going back to CompUSA tonight to exchange it for another one and get my 10% back ($70) since there is a coupon for this week and I am still within the 2 week return period. My battery life is DISMAL and I hope it is just a defective unit. I use Bluetooth surfing on the way home after work, about 35-45 minutes, and I am down to about 25% or less battery remaining. Others have reported getting over 3 hours via WiFi with the display at max. brightness. I have mine at about 65-75% brightness to try and save battery life and it is obviously not working. I don’t think it is good to keep taking it down to about 10% before I can get to a charger and have never had a PDA perform this poorly. I understand wireless communications take more power, but this is ridiculous.

I plan on buying the extended battery pack ($90 after 25% coupon from registering on SonyStyle), reported as adding almost 3 times the battery life, but want to make sure I have a working internal battery first.

The smaller display doesn’t really bother me and I find it acceptable so I am keeping the UX over the NX80. Since the device is so small and has such great integrated wireless capability, I have actually found myself carrying it everywhere. I never did this with my NX series. There is also a lot more info coming out about the Tungsten T3, but I would have to use Grafitti to input on this device and Palm just doesn’t have the great multimedia support that Sony does.

You know in the 10 days I have had the UX50 I have only written one word using Grafitti. With this great keyboard I see no reason to use the odd style of on screen input and I rarely use it in tablet mode anyway.

I’ve been playing quite a bit with the UX50 to see if it is the device for me. I have to admit I love the integrated WiFi and BT along with the rock solid design. My only concern has been the small screen size, but after almost a week it really doesn’t bother me anymore unless I have NetFront zoomed all the way out. Lubak’s Fonts4UX make it much more readable and is an essential utility if you have this device.

There have been quite a few new Pocket PC rumors floating around lately and if Toshiba really does come out with a large 640×480 display device then I think it will be a winner. The Treo 600 is now out in Europe and will be coming soon to the U.S. This holiday season looks to be a winner for PDAs.

I am going to my first trade show in January, the CES 2004 International Show in Vegas and can’t wait to geek out for several days. I want to see a Tapwave Zodiac in person.

After reading my last blog entry, you won’t believe it when I tell you I am writing and posting this entry from my new UX50 using my home WiFi network. I just got the NX80 on Monday and after reading so many other people say how great the device was I decided to return the 80 and get the 50. I now have 2 weeks to try it out and see if I want to back to the NX80. What insanity drove me to this?

I loved the NX80, but I wanted to use Bluetooth and the Memory Stick cards are delayed on expansys for at least 30 days. I must have seen a bad or preproduction model at the meeting because the display really is quite bright and readable.

Bluetooth exploring to my phone was cake and WiFi only required a couple taps to get going. I am going to work on a review for PDAGeek soon.

Check out my short write-up of last night’s Gadgestfest 2003 to see what I thought about the Treo 600 and the CLIE UX-50. It was nice to play with both and I can now forget about pursuing the UX-50, especially at the ridiculous price of $700.

I have my CLIE NX80 loaded with all my software now (about 60 programs) and have it backed up and running smooth. I am going to try connecting it to my Nokia 3650 via IR and if I like it then I may get the Bluetooth MemoryStick because I will be keeping this device for quite some time and it may even beat the 9 month period of the NX70. The display is awesome and I love the keyboard as well as the camera and everything else. It is nice to have a separate camera button and a separate voice recorder mechanism rather than having to make the choice as I did on the NX70.

I was loading a program, Pocket C64, on my SD card this morning after filling it up with most of about 30 Pocket PC applications when it crashed and I now only have 32MB available and can’t see anything on the card. I have never really trusted SanDisk cards and may have to buy a 256MB card to replace it. I want to try scanning it to see if anything is recoverable, but I can easily reload everything to a new card.

I opened up my CLIE case this weekend and found my display was messed up with black and white streaks. I did a hard reset and it didn’t fix the problem. It appears to be some type of loose connection in the display. I then went to CompUSA to see about using my TAP and they said go ahead and find something else for $599.99. I was disappointed because I have had the NX70 since January (the second longest I have ever had a single PDA) and have 3 cases and other accessories for it. I had hoped to save my TAP for a Palm OS6 device next year, but fate forced my hand. I would have like to see the UX50, but this CompUSA did not have them yet. I then selected the NX80 because it is essentially the same as the NX70 with some upgrades.

After getting home I found my Sena case fit well, my Bellagio fit (but the button access was a bit limited), and my Proporta aluminum did not fit. I also started playing with the NX80 and found the display is much brighter, the camera is 1.3 megapixel and has a cool light to help in low light situations, the hardware buttons on the display are great, the keyboard is better, the expandable CF is handy, and some great apps are preloaded in ROM (NetFront, Picsel Viewer, Decuma). I also found out that JackFlash lets me now access an additional 15MB of ROM space. Wow, the NX80 really is an improvement over the NX70 and I am happy again.

I can’t wait to check out Fry’s this afternoon and then head over to the GadgetFest 2003 event. I received an email saying that about 125 RSVPs have been returned and only those who responded will be allowed in first and then just before showtime anyone else will be let in if there is still space available.