CLIE T615 - Excellent Palm Value for your Money with Compromises
Written: May 11 '02 (Updated May 12 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: 16 MB RAM, Hi-Res Color Screen, Thin, Memory Stick Expansion, Jog Dial, Stylish
Cons: Build Quality Suspect, Small Buttons, Lack of Accessories, Slight Color Mismatching
The Bottom Line: Alot of features at an extremely competitive price but a few details worry me. Build quality is rather suspect compared to my experience with Palm built handhelds.
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| yusakugo's Full Review: Sony CLIE® PEG-T615C Handheld |
I didn't intend to buy a new Palm handheld... but I got the T615c in Royal Blue for a ridiculous price of $220! Otherwise, I wouldn't have upgraded from my m505... but in many ways, I'm glad I did with a few caveats.
The Short Take!
Overall, I do recommend the Sony T615c for the high resolution screen, excellent color display, expansion slot via memory stick, and excellent speaker on the unit. The unit also looks very sleek overall but I would warn to buy a case for it. The jog dial is always a nice touch. The unit is also very thin and fairly light. The 16MB of memory is an absolute neccessity for me these days... and well, the price I paid for the unit... how could I say no to buying it. There are many things that go for the T615c.
However, regardless of all that is well and good with the T615c unit, I have some concerns over the build quality of the unit. Accidentally dropping the unit onto my sneaker (where the unit then bounced off and hit a soft tiled floor), there is a severe dent in the corner of the unit even though I had an E&B fitted case for the unit. I've never had that kind of damage with either my Palm Vx or m505 units! The color red and its derivates are quite faded on the T615c screen... although you likely wouldn't notice unless comparing it to the m515, m130, or Sony NR-70/70V units. The small scroll and quick program access buttons are especially annoying. The lack of any accessories except for the scant few many by Sony can be a factor to some people... A keyboard is not yet available for any Sony CLIE Palm PDA (I don't count the NR-70/70V built is QWERTY keyboard either!).
The nearest competitors feature wise to this unit is the Palm m515 and Sony's much higher priced NR-70 and NR-70V units... and I guess you can count the Pocket PC PDA units. I don't feel that the choice is so clear cut for the T615c over the m515 but the T615c edges out the m515 if you can live with its flaws.
As for me, I'm use the T615c usually in my hospital work and physician rounds but I still go back to using my m505 many times for specific problems... like heavy typing since I have a keyboard for the m505. I also found the m505 screen easier on my eyes over long periods of time compared to the T615c... which gave me headaches after 1 hour of reading from it.
Pros:
1) 16 MB of RAM
2) 4 MB of ROM
3) Sleek casing with two colors to choose from (not interchangable colors or replaceable cases... so choose your color wisely)
4) Expandable memory via Sony's Memory Stick format
5) Enhanced IR port (see cons)
6) Bright 65,000 color transreflective screen
7) 320x320 resolution screen (4 times the resolution of most Palm units)
8) Included Remote Control software for many A/V equipment
9) Some nice integration with Windows based computers
10) Some unique accessories like MP3 add on unit and AA battery expansion unit
Cons:
1) Suspect Build Quality
2) Lack of any third party accessories... only cases really
3) Expensive Sony Accessories
4) Included programs on CD exceed the memory capacity of the CLIE T615c!
5) Small scroll and application buttons
6) Faded red colors on screen
7) Suspect screen build quality... I'll get into that later
8) Enhanced IR port can lead to problems beaming with non-T415/T615 units
9) Some units were found to have better infrared beaming distances for certain piece of popular A/V equipment!
10) No included Mac software or support other than Palm's basic HotSync software (which you have to download since it is not on the CD!)... must spend additional money through third party software makers for Mac support.
11) Stylus is too thin and slips easily from storage compartment on unit
12) Pretty much dead end upgrade path for Operating System... the unit will not support the Palm OS 5 system due out later this year.
13) Short Battery Life
How did I pay $220 for a T615?!
This is nearly impossible to do now but 3 months ago this is what I did. I originally purchased the unit from Dell Home and Home Office Accessories Store with 10% off PDAs and a stackable $25 off $250 purchase coupon. There was free shipping on orders over $100 and no sales tax. I also used ebates.com to get an additional 3% rebate. The purchase was made with an American Express Blue card. This got me a purchase price of $330!
Now... prior to May 1st, 2002, the Blue card had a Best Value Guarantee, so I knew of a rather odd unheard of store called Unified Distribution Systems selling the T615c unit for $225! However UDS required you to pay them via Paypal only. I used the Best Value Guarantee to pricematch and susprising got it. I now paid $225 for the unit with an additional $6.40 rebate from ebates.com.
Why doesn't this deal work anymore... UDS's web page no longer exists (and the site was hard to find to begin with since the http address was through www.anadale.com/long list of names/something.html - i.e. I don't remember the long http address). American Express pulled the Best Value Guarantee program from the Blue card and left it on their more expensive Gold and Platinum debit cards.
Read on if you want the down and dirty details!
The T615c has dimensions of 4.65 (H) x 2.83 (W) x 0.50 (D) inches and weighs 4.9 oz. (including stylus). Again, the unit is sold in two colors... silver and royal blue. They are sometimes designated as T615c/S and T615c/B by some webstores but usually just called T615c silver or T615c blue. The unit houses a transreflective high resolution screen... okay, this means that you have a screen that is easy to read on bright sunlight and good lighting conditions without turning on your backlight. I found that the screen is extremely difficult to read to low and dim lighting conditions without the backlight. High resolution meant a 320x320 pixel screen. That allows for pictures and fonts to be displayed much clearer and cleaner than on many other Palm units. The unit also has an internal Lithium-Polymer battery so no need for AA batteries (not like many current Palms require AA batteries these days). The T615c also has a mono speaker on the back and a jog dial on the left side of the unit. The top of the unit houses the Enhanced IR port, the Memory Stick slot, and the hole for the stylus. The unit has a generous 16MB of RAM to store and run programs with and a good 4MB of ROM (for the unit's operating system). The T615c runs the Palm OS 4.1 system. The bottom of the unit has the scroll rocker and the 4 application buttons as well as a two color LED and the large power button. The processor is the standard Motorola DragonBall VZ running at 33MHz... this is the second faster processor running on Palm handhelds. The new speed king is Sony's new CLIE NR-70 and NR-70V models... running a DragonBall VZ at 66MHz.
Screens and Colors
The high resolution screen is really a nice touch... viewing photos on my Palm m505 versus my T615c versus my Toshiba e570 PocketPC units showed quite a bit of difference. Details were better on the T615c than that of either the m505 or the e570. Pictures were sharp and clear and displayed good color. Very little pixelation effects were seen on the T615. The m505 couldn't display the whole picture on the screen and was very pixelated (jaggied). The e570 display of JPG picture format showed excellent detail but slightly less than the T615c but had better, more accurate color display than the T615c. The main problem here is the display of the red color on the T615c. A picture of Optimus Prime (a character from 80s Transformers cartoon series who uses alot of red colors in his character design) showed up as a bright orange color on the T615c while he came up as his glorious red color on the e570 PocketPC. It is a minor issue but can be annoying to some people.
Screen display is quite crisp and clear especially with the hi-res fonts turned on. Brightness can be adjusted by tapping on the lower left corner of the Graffiti area (It's marked) and it is adjusted via a sliding scale. I found that the lowest setting was enough for any lighting conditions I was in. The unit uses a backlight instead of a frontlight like the Palm m515 and Toshiba e570 PocketPC units. The Graffiti area is not lighted at all.
Personally the only other problem I had with the screen was that it gave me headaches after viewing for long periods of time. With the brightness level set in the middle of the slide bar, I had a headache after reading from the T615c in about an hour. With the brightness level set at the lowest possible setting, I got a headache in 2 to 2 1/2 hours of reading. I never had this problem with the m505 (probably because the screen was so dim). I have this problem to a much smaller degree with the Toshiba e570 unit... after 3-4 hours of straight reading. Why am I reading that long from a Palm... I store many of the recent medical texts and medical articles on it instead of carrying all that stuff around... it's easier on my knees and back... trust me.
Battery Life
The battery life is pretty weak even without the backlight. With the backlight at the medium setting, the unit will last about 2 maybe 2 1/2 hours straight playing the Bejeweled game (no I didn't do all that playing myself... one of the kids on the floor was playing it on my T615 during an overnight call). At the lowest backlight setting, the unit lasts about 3 hours and change. No backlight, allowed the unit to run about 5 hours tops.
Recharging the unit is a snap... just slide the unit into the cradle. Another useful accessory sold by Sony is the AA adapter. It is a bit bulky but allows you to use your unit for many more hours as well as recharge the main battery. It attaches via cable to the HotSync port at the bottom of the unit.
Memory Issues
What can I say? 16MB of main RAM is very nice on a Palm... but it isn't a requirement for everyone. For me, it is a big deal. Running many of my medical programs like ePocrates Rx and ID takes up a little over 2MB of Palm RAM real estate. I also have Vindigo 2.0 with NYC and Brooklyn installed... another 2 MB of real estate. Johns Hopkins Antibiotic Guide... another 1.5 MB. The Sony Remote Commander... another 0.5 MB. Sony's own preinstalled software that you can't get rid of... gives you 15.9 MB of memory to start with anyway. Other medical programs that I can't store on the memory stick... another 2 MB. AvantGo with the medical journals... another 4 MB of real estate. Geez... I just used up 12 MB without breaking a sweat! I likely need more than 16MB of main memory!
The 4MB of ROM isn't as big a deal... the Palm OS 4.1 certainly doesn't need all that space and it is very unlikely that future 4.x versions will require 4 MB of ROM. That means you have about 2 MB of ROM space to play with if you purchase third party software to access the free ROM. The stuff stored on ROM will not get erased if the unit runs out of power and you forget to recharge it. Note that you will NOT be able to upgrade to Palm OS 5.x when it is released later this year since OS 5 is incompatible with all Palms released to date including the SONY NR-70 and NR-70V units.
Buttons and Jogging...
The buttons on the T615c plain suck... that's all there really is to say. They are tiny and difficult to press... most especially the scroll rocker. The application buttons are a bit better but not by very much. At least the unit has the nice Jog dial and back button on the side. The jog dial can replace the scroll rocker in most applications and makes it quite easy to navigate the unit with just one hand. You can change the settings of the jog dial via the prefs menu on the T615c as well. The jog dial is one feature that I wished Palm would incorporate into their m series PDAs.
Infrared Enhanced or just marketing jargon?
The people at Sony claim the the T415 and T615 have an enhanced Infrared port... especially with the claim that the T415/615 can be used as universal remotes. While both units can control basic functions of many brands of A/V equipment... the enhanced IR ports have some other problems associated with them as well.
Many times, beaming applications from your T415/615 to another Palm handheld will cause problems. The receiving handheld will not pick up the beam... even with non-T415/615 Sony units. These problems also occur with receiving beams from other Palm PDAs.
A study by the people who made the Omniremote program for Palm PDAs also found that some units outperformed the T415/615 by a vast amount in sending signals to certain A/V equipment. The m500/m505 was found to perform exceding well versus the T415/615... on some equipment, the m500/m505 was able to control it from 50 feet away! The T415/615 max range on the same equipment was 22-24 feet. So for me, the enhanced IR isn't a big deal at all...
Memory Stick and Accessories
There isn't much to do with the memory stick so far... there are only two accessories out which is the low resolution digital camera accessory and the Bluetooth memory stick. Both made by Sony. Otherwise, it is just another memory expansion slot for the unit. Memory Sticks current go up to 128MB in size and cost at best $60 for a 128MB stick... at worst $85 for a 128MB stick.
The memory expansion through the memory stick is not the same as your main RAM... it is much slower to access and you cannot run programs straight off the memory stick. It must be copied to the T615's main RAM and then it is run... thankfully, this is done automatically. Note that you need to have at least the same amount of main RAM free as the size of the program you're running. I would recommend at least 2MB of RAM be kept free at all times. I usually keep 4MB of RAM free on my T615! The memory stick format is strictly a format used almost exclusively by Sony... so if you have alot of Sony stuff, the memory stick format may be a good choice for you. Other companies are releasing products that can read a memory stick although not write to it (with the exception of flash card reader/writer devices).
Another weakness is the lack of accessories on the T615 versus other non-Sony Palm PDA units. On top of that, what few accessories that were released for other Sony units weren't compatible outside of a series. T series unit accessories are only compatible with NR series unit accessories. S series units are compatible with only other S units. N series unit accessories are compatible with only other N units. What a nightmare it is to upgrade. At least Palm has their standard universal connector on all their current units.
The only accessories available from third parties for the T615 are HotSync cables, power cables, and cases. Otherwise, only Sony make any accessories for the T615. This includes an MP3 attachment (that I feel is rather useless) and the external AA battery pack attachment (extremely useful but very expensive accessory).
Sound
Having the external speaker on the T615 is an extremely nice feature. You can hear the alarm when it goes off... and sounds are much clearer and more pleasing to hear! It is slightly tinny when listening to it but it is a great touch to the unit regardless.
Software
Built into the unit are the standard Date Book, Address Book (modified to show pictures of contacts if you have them!), To do list, and the MemoPad (instead of the NotePad application on the current Palm m series PDAs). Sony also includes Remote Commander, gMovie (Movie viewer... rather weak), PhotoStand (picture album viewer), CLIE paint, Picture Gear (picture viewer), and a few other items. The clock application is completely different than on other Palm units... it is a world clock with multiple time and alarm settings. It is more visually appealing as well.
Sony includes a CD chock full of other software including Vindigo 1.0 when I bought the T615 (should be a trial version of 2.0 now)(Vindigo is a city guide for the cities that you download into it), AvantGo (annotated web page viewer for pages stored into your handheld), Documents to Go Standard Edition for Word and Excel file viewing and editing, powerONE calculator, Bejeweled video game, Race Fever video game, Zap!2016 video game, and several other trial versions of Palm software.
Note that if you try to install all of the programs on the CD to your Palm, you will exceed the 16MB of RAM on your Palm... you likely don't need most of the software on the CD anyway.
You can read my Palm m515 review or my Palm m130 review for further descriptions of many of the included third party software for the T615.
The CD also includes many programs to install on your PC to use with the T615... like PictureLite to convert pictures for viewing on the PictureGear Palm program. SoundConverter to add some sounds and even tunes to your T615.
Build Quality Issues
The only issue I had so far was how easy it was to damage the case on bumps and drops that my m505 and Palm Vx took with no incident. I already have a large dent on the right lower corner of my T615 with case deformation that almost didn't allow me to place the unit in the cradle! However, many of my friends who own T615s and other Sony units had problems with the fragility of the screen... well, actually the part called the digitizer. This is a piece of plastic that lies over your actual screen and reads the stylus strokes... the plastic tended to crack very easily under light pressure. I haven't experienced this yet but it seems that quite a number of people have. Once the digitizer is cracked, it makes the unit nearly impossible to use since the unit can't detect any of your stylus strokes. I've rarely heard of this on Palm built units. It is not a common occurance but one you should be aware of in the Sony units.
Another issue is the ultra thin stylus... it doesn't feel comfortable in the hands... at least my hands. Second, the slot in the T615 is very loose fitting... the stylus will often just slide out of the unit if you turn it upside down. A good jerk with launch the stylus out of its silo towards the unsuspecting person in front of you with good enough speed too! Sheesh... a package of 3 new T615 styli will cost you $15 too! At least the stylus has a solid construction if nothing else.
Conclusions
If you got this far, wow... you were hungary for info on this Sony CLIE PDA. Otherwise, there isn't anything more to add here over my short take section.
You can check my profile page for reviews on other various Palm PDA and PocketPC PDA units!
My current in use PDAs include
Palm m505
Sony T615
Toshiba e570 PocketPC 2002 PDA
AudioVox Maestro PocketPC 2002 PDA
Sharp Zaurus PDA (only playing with this one so far)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 220
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Epinions.com ID:
yusakugo
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Member: Rich Go
Location: Somewhere in the NorthEast
Reviews written: 399
Trusted by: 495 members
About Me:
Losing Sleep and Lacking Time... sigh...
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