Sony Announces the TG50,SJ22 in the U.S.
By William | Reporter
Date: 03/11/2003

Sony has officially introduced the CLIÉ TG50 and SJ22 handhelds for the US. The TG50 runs Palm OS 5 and includes an integrated, backlit thumb keyboard and Bluetooth, while the SJ22 is a low cost, $200 model with a high resolution color screen.





The PEG-TG50 runs Palm OS 5.0. It is powered by the 200mhz Intel PXA250 XScale CPU and has 16MB of RAM. It has a 16 bit, 320x320 pixel display. It also has an integrated Bluetooth, an enhanced IR port, voice recorder, memory stick expansion and mp3 audio. It is powered by a rechargeable lithium ion battery.

Its dimensions are 2.8" x 4.96"x .64" inches (71.6 x 126 x 16.2mm) and weights 6.4 ounces (184g). It has a built in flip cover and the casing is made of aluminum.

Features: •Palm OS® 5 (v. 5.0) 1 •High performance processor (200 MHz) •Built-in Bluetooth™ networking capability •High-resolution TFT color display (320 x 320 pixels) •Integrated QWERTY layout keyboard with backlight •Built-in voice recorder and MP3 audio player2 •Integrated hard flip cover •AV remote control function3 •Picture/Movie Viewer (JPEG-DCF, Movie Player Format, MPEG-1 Movie) •Polyphonic audio alert function •View Microsoft® Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files •Memory Stick® expansion slot2

It has the standard QWERTY key layout and makes typing in low- or no-light conditions possible with an integrated backlight. The device can also be upgraded via software download (details available soon) to access the new Memory Stick PRO format cards that will be available later this month in capacities up to 1GB.

The device comes with Sony's suite of Palm OS 5 software including the Clie Launcher, Audio Player, Clie Viewer, Clie Mail, an mpeg movie player, Clie Files and more. There is also a number of bundled third party software including the Macromedia Flash player, Picsel viewer and the NetFront web browser.

The PEG-TG50 retails for $399 USD and will be available later this month. It can be pre-ordered now from SonyStyle.com.

The PEG-SJ22 has a 320x320, 65k color screen, 16MB of RAM and a Lithium-ion battery. it runs Palm OS version 4.1 and uses a 33mhz dragonball VZ. It also has a memory stick expansion slot, jog dial and back button and a standard IrDA port.

It's dimensions are 2.8" x 4.1" x .66" inches (71.8 (W) x 104.0 (H) x 16.8 (D) mm) and weighs 4.9 ounces (138g). The casing and dimensions and wieght are practically identical to the model it is expected to replace, the SJ20.

Features •Palm OS® Software v. 4.11 •High-resolution TFT color display (320 x 320 pixels) •Displays over 65,000 colors •16 MB internal memory (15 MB available) •Memory Stick® media expansion slot2 •Jog Dial™ navigator •Lithium-ion rechargeable battery (internal)

The unit comes with the standard set of Sony Palm OS 4 applications and also includes Kinoma v1.1 for movie playback. The unit does not have built in mp3 capabilities, but can use a separate audio adapter. Sony rates the battery life at 12 days, based on 30 minutes of use per day with the backlight off. The PEG-SJ22 retails for $199 USD.

Sony Clie TG 50 Summary

If you don't want to spend big bucks on a swivel-screen CLIE, this is next best thing--and it's more compact.



The good: Eye-catching design; fast processor; built-in minikeyboard; integrated, hard flip cover; Bluetooth; MP3 support; generous software package.

The bad: Somewhat hefty; limited onboard memory; Memory Stick a must for certain multimedia features.