I recently ordered a new-n-box Clie PEG-UX50. People bagged on its design from the day it debuted. They didn't like the thumboard, or the jog wheel, or the charger. Well, yeah the charging cradle thing does kinda suck. There is not charging circuitry on the unit, so you have to drag around a cradle (it is a flat piece that snaps onto the bottom of the PDA) and a power brick. I do have a car charger coming from the UK, that'll help, but I do already bring chargers and such with me when I travel. Not too bad of a thing.
Personally, I think the UX50 is pretty much the perfect pda. With the optional extended battery the batt life is not worse than a few phones I have had. These extended batts are still available as new old stock on ebay. The thing plays mp3 and other media files. It has a vga camera for contact photos, etc. The thumb-board is great.
Using the free app tejpwriter, you can directly create unix text files on your memory stick. There are a few ftp apps to copy them to your server, oh yeah, it has 802.11b and bluetooth. Caveat: wep or wide open are your choices on wifi. I have a wep "secured" ssid in my home for retro devices. I live in a small town and am not too worried about it.
All in all, I am loving this thing. I do have a Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000 coming, I'll have to see what wins, but I see them as two entirely different types of devices. The Zaurus is truly a pocketable laptop, the UX50 is a badass PDA.
Tags: #typed-on-ux50 #pda #palmos #sony #clie