Comments on: Sony Announces Superslim T415 with Hi-Res Mono Screen (Updated)

Just wondering what color is it's backlight. Hope it's blue like Sony's Universal remote commander:
http://www.sonystyle.com/images/250x250/shots/rmav2100.jpg

But I'd also agree that these devices need 16M minimum, not the 8M they ship with currently.

EB

That's funny, M500 is a loser compared to T415. Yes, no
hi-res, no jog-dial, no enhanced Ir, "bricky", plastic
back... Wake up, man...

By volume:
T415 - 5.6088 cubic inches
m500 - 5.58 cubic inches

Density (which is very relevant to how heavy it feels):
T415 - 0.767 oz/in3
m500 - 0.717 oz/in3

But, of course, the Palm lacks the Hi-Res screen and the jog dial.

Tom

Seriously though... When is Sony going to just buy Palm. They obviously have the vision that Palm lacks, they just don't have the brand. Go for it, Sony!

.4 IS Equal TO

.40, .400, .400, .4000, .40000, .400000, etc.

an unlimited amount of zero's is assumed to the right of the last significant digit. No other number can be implied. Use your calculator.

Do you think the Palm is exactly .40 or .400 or .40000? By your explanation it is!

As if those devices are designed to have such rounded measurements. Think about it. Of course rounding occurs for the sake of not confusing customers with unnecessary preciseness.

Moreover, Clie's install CDs do not work on Asian language version of Windows. Programs seem to be expecting English names for particular folders, such as "Desktop" or "Start Menu". Not cool.

Sony does a LOT of stuff like this. Their target market is apparently stupid enough to keep falling for it. Note also, their bringing out MP3 Players for the older CLIE only AFTER sales of the new MP3-capable CLIE tapered off? And the whole Memory Stick thing, as well. But hey, it's your money to waste.

See: Connector Conspiracy - http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/c/connector_conspiracy.html

Wow, what a stereotyper. I bet you believe every muslim wears a turban and that catholic priests are pedophiles.

Boy, you are an example of too much edu-ma-cation and that it's harmful to society to have people like you running around.

Plus, he's also right about technology...Couldn't find a Caltech, a silicon Valley in NY, could you? If you disagree, explain the original comment (how could a PDA user group in NYC be so dumb in degrading Sony in such a big way?)

Oh and NYC now thanks to 9-11 everyone acts as if they are in the Midwest. A friend almost got run over by a messager and he stopped to pick him off the ground and to see if he was ok. One you see it for what it is (a no bs town you will never want to go back)

'We're expanding on our strategy of focusing on entertainment." Said Sony product manager Ty Takayanagi.'

Could one of you staunch SONY Tro...Fans explain this to me in a way that dosen't equate to 'We're building Hi-tech toys'?

Face it - Palm (http://www.palm.com/products/palmm500/software.html) and Handera (http://www.cesinc.com/quickoffice/handera330/) are bundling office software with their machines, and SONY wants to SELL you a new machine whose major selling point is that it's a remote control? I think they're making their market pretty clear.

And 15 feet is nothing to brag about - The Visor OmniRemote Module does 25ft, and the Springboard does 16. Heck, I used to do 20' to a Panasonic VCR, no sweat, with an III-Upgraded Personal and OmniRemote.

Oh, and it's not Railroad Time for Color yet. Even Sony admits it now, kids. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next month. Maybe three years from now. But not today.

sheesh........

To think the PIC boards would become a NY bashing spot is just dumb.

But so is the above comment. Generalities get you nowhere.

One thing i will say though, when you walk on a sidewalk in NY, you have to realize that sidewalk traffic is NO different than street traffic. If you decide to stop in the middle of the sidewalk and stare up at the buildings, or talk to your friend, you are going to get plowed over. It's a highway. If you need to stop, pull over.

Simple.

Learn that other people around you most likely have a job to get to, or are just getting from point A to B and you are in the way. If i stopped in the middle of a highway in a car, i'd hear some choice words too (regardless of state).

Learn the environment before you judge.

-- now this is an observant person! You don't know how many times my friends and I have said there should be lanes painted on the sidewalks! Yes, please, pull over if you're stopping! (Dammit, people even stop short on subway stairs!)

The message I guess is that they would want to have a handheld that caters to more functions. As an example, the fact that Japanese put Karaoke stereos in the car doesn't mean that the car manufacturers are trying to turn automobiles into a mobile music hall...

Well you get the idea.

But then I hope if we did bump into each other mikecane, I honestly hope that you would be the one that shows me NYC was really a changed place....

Believe it or not, even the reception counter New York New York hotel in Vegas has that kind of New York attitude.

BTW, educate your PUG so that they know what Sony has done for the Palm OS, and thanks for the tip about the main library.....

See you around...

If SD/MMS/CF are fast, the models using them can't read and write using the max speed anyway. As for price, what's the difference you are too proud about? What's the price of the units that use those 'cheap' memory card you are talking about anyway? Can it beat the $300 hi-res, vibrating, and slim T415?

The purple/blue memory sticks have absolutely no content controls in them. It's true that the MagicGate MS do have content controls, but it's this version WITH the content controls that are more expensive BY FAR.

And has been mentioned several times, Sony is licensing the production of MS to several different manufacturers, so the proprietary tag barely fits anymore, if at all.

I'll be a believer if you could, since mini-disc is so popular virtually all manufacturers have a Mini-disc player.

And wait! they have DVD recorder now! But let's stick to the MD first...one step at a time.

As long as Sony can release all the detail about MS and make it an open standard, it is not pripietary any more (even though Sony still owns many patents I think).

But (and this is a big BUT!) consumers are still buying MG Memory Sticks over plains ones!

Why?

Because on the face of it, using MG sticks seems to offer better value for money - they can store more music tracks per MB because they support ATRAC3. Like Ogg Vorbis, ATRAC3 offer much better compression than MP3, that's the 'carrot'. When then did they not simply use Ogg Vorbis? Because ATRAC3 allows for copy protection, and therein lies the 'stick'.

ATRAC3 is format for high quality, highly compressed audio. Sony's ATRAC3 management software also has an annoying habit of preventing you from having access to your data if you try and upload it more than 3 times (you can 'move' songs around, but if you decided you simply want to delete them and upload new ones, your in for a bit let down with Sony's protected Memory Sticks.

If you ever move ATRAC3 song's between PC's, if you upgrade your PC or it's Hard Drive, or you like to move files between a Laptop and a Desktop, or between a home PC and a work PC then again, the technology will do it's best to thwart you.

If I encode a song using ATRAC3, I can't sent it to my friends, or upload it to my folk's iMac - even when I have downloaded legitimate copies from the internet. I can't even transfer it between my Rio, G4 PowerBook and and Windows 98 PC (let alone use them on my Linux file server, and only on my PowerBook by using Virtual PC).

With regard to one posters query about MiniDisc's: MiniDiscs use 'standard MD' format, and almost all currently for sale also support the ATRAC3 format too (this goes for all MiniDisc vendors). MiniDisc's were not a bad format and they delivered something that users wanted, but they have also proved to be a foot in the door through which Sony has managed to saturate the market with more controllable ATRAC3 players.

Oh and did I mention that many of the new Sony music sticks will _only_ play ATRAC3's (and not MP3's)?

Caveat Emptor indeed!

Sony MP3 players do seem really appealing, but in the long run Sony value content delivery and content control (including all media - music, movies and software) more than they value hardware sales and it's in consumers best interests to bear that in mind.

Just to settle the argument, memory sticks are absolutely proprietary, there can be no argument about that. Memory Stick licensees such as Acer, Compaq, Mitsubishi and Samsung have all had to pay hefty fee's to use MS technology, and (crucially) the format is anything but open (where as MMC and SD are both open, non proprietary formats). This is factual and not a matter of opinion.

The following well known sites contains articles which also discuss this:
PCWorld: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,15450,00.asp
ZDNet: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/reviews/rstories/0,3040,e7110591,00.html
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/07/14/sony.pda.idg/
( Do searches for 'proprietary'. )

So what alternatives are there?
Well, the IMB Micro Drive still provides much better value for money at 300 UKP for 1 Gig, with no copy protection, and it has a much more open interface architecture (and the data transfer rate is quicker at 4MB/Sec). It's most commonly found in Flash/Compact Flash format, but the drive itself is tiny (much smaller than a Compact Flash housing) and has already been embedded in a number of devices.

So do I dislike Sony products?
No! I've got a very nice Sony Widescreen TV, a Sony Stereo, Sony Wireless head phones, even a Sony alarm clock! If it weren't for the even thinner and better equipped PowerBook G4, I'd probably have a Sony laptop too. I do try to keep a broader perspective on what companies like Sony are up to however.

Sony are not the only boogiemen in this arena: AOL Time Warner, AT&T, IBM, Lucent, Microsoft, Matsu****a, RealNetworks, Toshiba and Liquid Audio all have a steak in this, it's just that none have as much clout in the consumer electronics arena as Sony, and Sony are one of the big pushers of this movement (unlike say, IBM, Microsoft, Lucent, and to a lesser extent AT&T, who are more just along for the ride (or at least have just jumped on the bandwagon), it's AOL TW, BMG and Sony who actually have something to lose if they can't pull of content control).

Lastly, if consumers don't pay attention (which most have been, as evidence open formatted players are by far more popular as even novice users are somewhat aware of the dangers of proprietary formats) then through bad design of bad ideas, and a bit of corporate greed thrown in, then we'll end up with technology very much more restrictive than we have now. I don't think that will happen, there are too many well informed consumers, and we are getting better informed as time goes on, but I don't think playing into their hands helps the situation and it certainly doesn't help bury the specter of content control.

The thickness is 0.39 mm. Thus, thinner than any of the other models.

BTW, it is 25.4 mm per inch, not 254 mm per inch. We know that it was a typo... right? :)

Ranking By Surface Area:
1. Sony T415 (13.68 sq. in.)
2. Palm m505, Palm m500, & Palm Vx (13.95 sq. in.)
3. Visor Edge (14.75 sq. in.)

Reagrds. :)

Sorry I had to be away from my computer all day so I couldn't make the change until now.

---
News Editor

BTW, I will be curious to hear if the Remote Commander on the new Sony works on Panasonic devices, since I could never get Omniremote to do so.

...In accordance with the prophecy...

Quik_Fix
quikfix@hotmail.com

Sony should give Palm an offer while Palm is thinking if it would sell its software side, hardware side, etc. Let Sony use Palm for support.

Too bad.

ONE of the new Handspring models has 16mb--ONE. And it's an ugly-ass, cheap-casing, repackaged brick with OS 3.5.

What the treo lacks is a good screen (without waiting for the $600 270 model), Memory stick or SD slot & MP3 capability.
They dont even have a worthless handspring slot.
I'll take the T415 for now, but would like one device to do it all and not cost over $400

M@X

Spec-wise: T415 is 4.75 by 2.88 by .39 and S320 is 4.6 x 2.9 x 0.6. And that is in how many months? You tell me. The thickness has gone way down.

OK, now tell palm to get its size smaller by the same proportion. What? not possible? Not even thinner case?

O.S. 4.1 with added MP3 capability (add on):Totally Sony and no part from Palm. Not in S320. Where is M500's MP3 add-on anyway?

Hi-Res....where is Palm's Hi- Res model? Anyone having a higher resolution, at all?

And the comment about no one has measured it so it is not credible is just as funny as no one has seen moon rocks so they are not credible....

If you really do not have the brains to analyse what the Japanese have done in the consumer electronics, please don't shoot your month off like you know everything about consumer electronics and how it doesn't relate to the Japanese influence. One more concrete example: the first subnotebook apple has was developed by the Apple designers in Japan.

Second, the bashing against Sony last year was primarily the "Bandwagon Mentality" that seems to permeate the Palm OS crowd. You folks should realize this stuff moves in cycles--Palm will learn from Sony, and from its mistakes, and will make a killer PDA of its own. Sony learned from its mistake with the 300 and is making better & better stuff. Heck, the only PDA manufacturer that hasn't learned squat from mistakes is...Handspring. BTW, there were people talking of Handspring taking over Palm not too long ago. My, how times change.

Soon, the Japanese execs at Sony will be saying, "Sayonara, Springboard..."

Unfortunately, Sony may know how to beat Palm, but they're going to give the game to Microsoft in the long run. Sony doesn't know how to compete with PocketPC.

Assuming that Sony hasen't pulled the plug and orphaned you all by then.

Dimensions and Weight:
Size 4 3/4" (H) x 2 7/8" (W) x 13/32" (D) inches
Weight 4.3 oz. (including stylus)

13/32 = 0.40625, which can be rounded to 0.41

How's that humble pie taste boys? Good huh?

Of course I'm sure everyone who flamed me will reply with something stupid like "it's just .02, if you don't like this site, don't come" to avoid the painful reality that THEY ARE THE MORONS for putting blind faith in those who wrote this story and have been feeding you bogus information for months.

It's crap like that from people who hid behind the "Anonymous" tag that should make PIC do away with anonymous posts. It contributes nothing to the board, but only to the ego of poor child who is too scared to even post a simple handle to refer to.

Grow up or quit clogging up the bandwidth.

A Palm in hand is worth two in your pocket.

-- and what's even worse, these morons are even too stupid to hide behind a FAKE name! They're such pigs they can't take the time to even register; they just stop by to take a dump and then leave.

monochrome
adj : having or appearing to have only one color [syn: monochromatic,
monochromic, monochromous]
n 1: a painting done in a range of tones of a single color
2: a black-and-white photograph or slide [syn: black and white]

I guess it's still black (or shades of gray for that matter) on a green/brown background. =(

You musta skimmed over that.

No wonder this place is just a flamefest all the time, everyone here thinks they know everything and is so quick to jump down someone's throat (even the guys who run this joint) if they question their "facts".

Anyone else notice that news.com is also now saying the t415 is .39" thick???

I guess they are morons too.

It is possible that the new clie is in fact 0.39" *thin* and 0.41" thick. I've seen laptop specs that list their machines as 1" thin. However, closer inspection reveals that it is 1" thick only at it's thinnest point.

Just a thought...

I really don't see how a few hundredths of an inch are really going to make a big difference anyway.

Wow. I thought ignorant comments from Windows users like this one were a thing of the past. Anyone who has been following anything about computers for at least the last five years or so should know that blanket statements knocking Apple are somewhat passe nowadays.

Even to most Windows users, your uniformed comment makes you sound extraordinarily stupid.

Sony's lack of support for the Mac with the Clie is a big problem. There may be less Apple users out there than Windows users, but I'd be willing to bet that a large chunk of the Palm market consists of Mac users, since (1) Mac users in general adopt new technologies way faster than PC users; (2) the Palm OS is their only option.

To date, Handspring is the only PDA company that doesn't treat Mac users like second-class citizens, offering Mac software on the CD (how hard is that?) as well as technical support.

Sure, for $30 extra you can get software to hot sync your Clie to your Mac with no support if you have trouble, but why pay that $30 when Handspring gives the software to you for free, and supports it?

The confusing part for me is that Sony is the company most responsible for getting Apple's Firewire adopted as the standard mutimedia I/O. I thought their relationship with Apple was somewhat sound.

Maybe they're just pissed because the G4 TiBook kicks the ever-living crap out of every model of Vaio out there. And Steve Jobs loves reminding people about it.

You consider PalmOS "new" technology???

I did like your cogent analysis, however this statement is incorrect. My Palm m505 came with lots of great software and it was on the install disks and everything. Support for USB on the new Universal Connector models means using a Mac is fine.

-Kevin Crossman

But my pocket pc can still do a lot of functions that my palm can't, and my palm can do many things simpler than my pocket pc. That's why I own both--I can use either device for its best functions.

And here I was naive enough to think people were smart enough to get off the Palm vs. PPC kick--they're different devices designed to achieve different objectives for different users. Get over it.

best is a subjective word, and so there isnt a best. opinions and facts are different, so i may prefer one unit and to me it is the best but you may like something else and for you that one is the best

i love new products whether or not they're of any intrest to me because it means that there are more choices for everyone else. there is yet another best. it might not be my best, but it is a best

basically, lets not argue about which is best, but rather we should celebrate the fact that there are more happy people out there and more choices for us

-Pepper

I love my Palm . . . do you?

Hmmm... I wonder if this unit will work with Sony's own PVCR (or whatever their TiVo/Replay-like thing is)?

I use the 505 (modem and keyboard) and would sell it and switch to this little puppy if was color and availalbe in Canada...however, Sony's market share will not grow until it taps these other markets...someday - or smuggle it across the border - yeah right.

Expect to see a new Handera... oh - NEVER.

Meanwhile, Handspring is milking an old design (Wow - they added an extra 8 MB of RAM! Amazing!) for everything it's worth as they hold on until the Treo is ready. Handera, on the other hand has nothing to fall back on. Sad to see this PDA pioneer go down the tubes so quickly.