A Look At Sony's Crazy 2000's PDAs!

[@MA-go7ee]

I will forever love the designs of the Sony PDAs. They will always look futuristic to me

[@FR4M3Sharma]

Sony's Hardware in General literally reeks _Aesthetics_

[@tarstarkusz]

Sharp had the best though. These units were generally not available in the US. They reached a level where they were somewhere between a PDA and a laptop, but closer to PDA than laptop. These are the best of the best machines and they were all Japan only.

[@dashtesla]

I always liked sony design functional and very pleasing to look at i do miss the sony vaio line, i never owned own or cared about it at the time but nowadays it just looks so unique.

[@AndyMcCann]

@@dashtesla I had a Sony Vaio PC and monitor. Loved the look of it but the software it came with could've been better.

[@MA-go7ee]

@@tarstarkusz which models specifically let me check them out

[@colombianguy8194]

As a poor teenager in the early 00's, technology like this was unavailable for me, i only dream about having my own laptop or a powerful mobile device like those Sony PDA's. Late 90's early 00's, what a time to be alive!!!

[@YourXellency]

Ok.

[@egozMaster]

yes. agree

[@vshlkmr40]

A nokia 1100 with snake was the pinnacle of technology for me...

[@TuNnL]

I feel you. Back then, I bought the Palm m100, solely because it was the cheapest PDA! Being a broke college kid meant being organized on a budget. The m100 still did the job, though, and I used the sh!t out of that device. 🤣

[@skeetrix5577]

exactly! I had several cheap palm devices I had completely forgot I had ever owned one until I came across this video man they were cool for the time

[@BollingHolt]

I had a Clie back in 2004. I don't remember which model, but it was one that resembled a traditional PDA. It also had a camera, wireless networking, and the proprietary Sony memory. I believe I still have it somewhere. I always liked it.

[@StarlightSocialist]

PEG-TH55 maybe? That's the one I had and I freakin loved it.

[@Sybaek]

@@StarlightSocialist I still have my TH-55 somewhere. Loved that thing so much. I find myself missing the quirky jog wheel on the back on modern phones.

[@meric12131415]

It could have been the mylo

[@san6788]

@@Sybaek yes it was dope and wa before its time

[@san6788]

@@justinsane3909 no my liltle brother, twisted it apart and broke it in half then tossed in the pool. Sad day

[@enkiimuto1041]

This is really interesting from a Brazilian's perspective. In 2001 I was just getting a landline. I only saw ONE palmtop in my life, ever and it looked so damn practical I still use pens on my phone when I can. My first notebook in 2008 had a bluetooth and no one I knew had an idea what it was because simply didn't have bluetooth technology available for the common folk. The idea that those things at the same time had wi-fi connection and some would scan code bars is just so fascinating.

[@lucasRem-ku6eb]

I was in Brazil back then too, we used Barro do Internet in every village, far in The Amazon too, small hut, dish and Solar, and they offered wifi service for the village, 6 houses ?

[@pinkipromise]

in singapore bluetooth was common on 2006 found in many feature phone. that was how porn was shared in school. wifi in devices were more common in 2008

[@EstherTakumi]

He say a common folk, if you all don't know, Brazil tax are extremely high, so for common folk, it hard to obtain something latest at that time. I still remember the price of PS4 when it release in Brazil, the price almost reach 2k usd lol

[@Mordecrox]

In 2004 I was going to buy TEN boxes of floppies when I first saw a Kingston Data traveler 128MB for about the same price of its storage in floppies. I weighed the pros and cons of acquiring it (only had access to two computers with usb ports, period) but decided to buy it for the swag. Shortly after some guy comes back from Japan and in such trips his brother sold him his hand-me-downs for a pittance. One of these was a Sony PDA. He pulls out of it an ONE GIGABYTE sd card, it was like he came back from an advanced alien civilization bearing gifts.

[@hahamanin]

Inam from a small town in eastern india but we used to use infrared on mobiles and pc to transfer stuff back in 2003/2004 .. around the end of 2004 though bluetooth device started to come real cheap in India and that's when it became the most popular feature to transfer mobile stuff for several more years

[@mason.alexander32]

OMG this is a video I wish had been put on KZbin earlier! I obsessed over these crazy things in the early 2000s and always wanted one with a color screen so badly. All those HP, Compaq, Sharp, etc. devices were WILD.

[@TimWochomurka]

Sharp's CE devices, especially, were some crazy but, well, sharp.

[@mason.alexander32]

@@TimWochomurka My brother had a Mobilon 4500 and it was like the most wonderfully small little computer. Windows CE 2.0 with "mobile" versions of Word and Excel. Heck, we even used it to dial up a few times to our ISP at the time.

[@TimWochomurka]

@@mason.alexander32 I'm trying to remember what their weird sub-notebook model was called. I want to say it was the tri-fold or something, but it completely made me obsess for a while in like grade 8- and made my palm IIIxe seem lame.

[@TimWochomurka]

@@mason.alexander32 the TriPad! They were incredible!

[@mason.alexander32]

@@TimWochomurka It looked so cool but still had minimum functionality because of silly Windows CE.

[@BlownMacTruck]

Just FYI, Bluetooth and wifi weren’t limited to the Cliés. The Palm Tungsten T models were probably the closest competitors (high res screen, Bluetooth, expansion slot) and could do things like check mail and surf the web when tethered over Bluetooth. They also had wireless syncing.

[@JapanPop]

I have owned many Clié devices over the years. PalmOS changed my actual handwriting over 20 years ago. I still write my letters according to their stroke constraints! I am somewhat envious of your Sony UX model as I never had one and still think they are awesome. The eBay prices, however, are nuts. It was only a little more expensive when it was new as it is now.

[@IntriguedLioness]

I was just thinking that when I saw the poem pilot 3 on screen. I had a Jornado before that and I even had a Newton when I was a kid but the palm system of writing, I believe it was called graffiti, was so simple and it has continued to be my own personal farm of shorthand.

[@RealLatinGeek]

The NX80 has just unbelievable styling. Between the pop-out CF slot and the gamepad that's meant to cover half the screen, it looks like a Gameboy equivalent someone would pull out in a Neon Genesis Evangelion movie. "The larger hinge for the screen allowed for a bigger camera module" is THE most 2000s Sony sentence in existence.

[@satysin630]

While iPhones and Androids are cool and work well there is something I miss about the old days of a Palm or Windows Mobile PDA and using my Nokia 6310i with bluetooth and GPRS to check my email on the go. Manually working out your PPP connection settings. Ahh good times! I remember my wife saying I was a geek with my Sony Clie TH55, I told her in a decade everyone would basically use a similar device once they were more integrated and easier to use. I was right :)

[@jasonbrown467]

lol same. i remember many of my friends wanting their ass's kicked for mocking me for having such stuff too. now they cant wait to show me their latest tic tok videos that i could care less about

[@marksapollo]

My mum k de someone who back in the early days of mobile phones refuse to invest in them, as in shares, as they didn’t believe they would ever take off….

[@SenileOtaku]

Except that our cellphones don''t have the capability to synchronize data *_locally_* . You're more and more dependent on internet connectivity (and in many cases the high cost of your data plan). I consider that a severe step *_backwards_* in functionality when compared to PalmOS.

[@Couchflyer-NY]

⁠@@SenileOtakuUmmm, iPhones use bluetooth to transfer data without a network. My first Samsung flip-phone could sync by wire too.

[@Moswitch]

Hi! I was a teenager around the PDA era, and always loved these devices despite being way too poor to ever even see one. It's so cool to see these action! Anyway, thank you for the videos and I hope your trembling hands are nothing serious!

[@TheOriginalCollectorA1303]

Classic Sony, these are really cool devices. For a PDA class device, these really have a lot of extras included! 2000s Sony devices always seem futuristic in a way, premium build quality and great designs!

[@MikeMoulton]

Awesome video, I think these are an often overlooked part of early smartphone history. Before Windows Mobile and Symbian smartphones really took off, these were bleeding edge. Playing with these in stores like Circuit City was like a glimpse into the future. Was always cool to see these all over TechTV back in the day, too (Fresh Gear anyone?)

[@D.S.handle]

Nowadays, Symbian and Windows Mobile devices are often getting forgotten. I sometimes hear that IPhone was the first smartphone even from technology people.

[@jamesdlin7]

6:25 I worked for Sony in the early 2000s and was involved with their CLIE handhelds. Sony referred to *all* of its CLIE handhelds as "Personal Entertainment Organizers" from the beginning with the PEG-S300. The "PEG" part of the model number actually was meant to stand for "Personal Entertainment orGanizer" according to Sony's weird internal logic (or because something got lost in translation).

[@angieandretti]

Oh cool! I own a UX50! It's in storage but I'm gonna go look for it now. To this day I think it's one of the most BEAUTIFUL pieces of tech ever created. That metal case, the LED's, the shape, the curves between the rows of keys - and I actually got quite good at fast thumb-typing on that keyboard too btw. From the moment I first saw it on display at Best Buy, I was absolutely in love! I used to use it for everything - Email, daily alarm clock, GPS, MP3 player (with 1GB memory stick installed), I even purchased a Doom-like 3D game for it! It's been packed away for about ten years now but thanks for reminding me about it!

[@volvo09]

Another great video! I thought feature rich PDA's were incredible at that time... I had no use for one, but I wanted one. It was a fast era though, with blackberry growing in popularity right when PDA's got cool features like cameras, video playback, web browser, and decent color screens.

[@jasonbrown467]

i invented reasons to have them back in the day, but mostly used to them to play games. they were expensive too, i think i remember some of these higher end sony pda's being around $800 to $1200

[@beardsntools]

I mean I never "needed" a pda, it wasn't like food or water, just like smartphone now isn't. It was just a nice to have and once I got one I didn't want to not go back to surfing web, downloading apps and games on little nokia 3350i screen.. I got the hp ipaq in 2005.. windows mobile was so much better, not just to play games, which on their own was awesome, I would also find ways to get online either via wifi and later with a data plan (teether a dumb nokia phone with the ipaq).. and before ipaq hx4700 when my first budget ipaq rz1710 which didn't have bt and wifi.. I would use the bulky usb cable(it was terrible and not comfortable) to get internet from the pc, when my brother was using the pc. I also liked modding WinMo.. it was as flexible as android.. if not more.

[@DanielleWhite]

I had forgotten about the Clié line. IIRC I made the move from a Palm IIIx to an iPAQ H3800 around that time. Later I had one of the last new PDAs, a Nokia N800 which when paired with a folding Bluetooth keyboard and using free WiFi or tethered to my phone was my Linux sysadmin mobile on-call setup. The N800, a device from 2007,had the same issue about charging, only doing so from an adapter with a barrel plug and not via the mini-USB port.

[@darwiniandude]

Great video as always, thanks Colin. Love my UX50, on it's 3rd battery now. The keyboard with it's raised bump rows is quite usable. Never got mine new, but wanted it when new. I think I got it around 2006. Super cool tech. I believe Sony made their own SOC for these. My favourite thing to do on there circa 2006 was to load on flash videos, since it had a flash player. All the fun flash animations from the early 2000's in your pocket, and they took up little space unlike videos at the time. Badger Badger Badger Mushroom Mushroom.

[@horacegentleman3296]

I had a ipaq h3650 for so long. Used it for so many things including emulation, video playback, music play back, note taking, file transfers it was very useful.

[@Markimark151]

I remember these Sony PDAs being sold at Verizon and Sprint stores, even though I didn’t buy their PDA, it was cool to see the features and demo the device!

[@BarryCarter]

Great Review. I have one of the PEG-NX70V's I got in 2002. I fell in love with the aesthetic. I came from a ipaq background, and in comparison, the clie was not as friendly. I hated it, and gave up using it. late 2002 I switched to the Jornada 928WDA. Now that was a phone! People said I looked stupid making calls on that PDA phone back then. Looks at us all now!

[@TheTruthKiwi]

Very cool devices that I would still love to have today. I don't remember exactly where or when but I remember being awestruck as a kid when I first saw someone pull out their PDA, I'm pretty sure was a Sony, which seemed so futuristic and then a few years later seeing someone with what seemed like a huge smartphone. Looking back I'm pretty sure that's what started my love of gadgets and tech. :)

[@michaelcharach]

Such memories.. My fondest one was Comdex 98 where I saw the Sony booth featuring a theatre with the short film a whole world on a stick of gum.

[@speedyink]

I remember these when shopping for my first and only PDA. Was always impressed by the screen quality, blew the competition away. I ended up with a much cheaper Casio BE-300, which, while not high end, had amazing potential with screwing around with the software. Had SO much fun putting a custom OS on it which opened up so much possibility for it.

[@TheSektorz]

2:32 I LOVE tiny PC-looking things like this. Most recently I even bought an older iPad mini with a keyboard case and turned it into a micro-PC for DOS emulation. Not exactly super useful, but awesome nonetheless.

[@AjinkyaMahajan]

@The Sektorz how were you able to run dos on IOS device ???

[@linuxstreamer8910]

@@AjinkyaMahajan i a pc with installed itunes & Cydia Impactor installed

[@AjinkyaMahajan]

@@linuxstreamer8910 Thanks

[@TheSektorz]

@@AjinkyaMahajan No Cydia in my case, I bought the iDOS app before Apple took it down, so I'm still able to download it from the purchase history page. Best part - you can find DOS emulators for NES / Sega Genesis and play those libraries on the iPad too - again, without any jailbreaking. Good stuff! I even manged to run Windows 95 via iDOS on my iPad for no reason at all, lol. It's just fun seeing how far you can push it without jailbreaking.

[@toidIllorTAmI]

It's so hilarious to me that as a child I thought these were incredibly high tech. Which they were for the time but now a days, we all have tiny personal computers in our hands.

[@somersetretrogames]

I love early 2000s pda’s. Had a real soft spot for the Sony Ericsson P series phones. Loved scouring home brew forums and repositories for software and tweaks to get just that little bit extra functionality.

[@HeffboomKonijn]

I just recently acquired the top of the line PEG-NZ90 as I always wanted one as teenager. Sadly new batteries are super rare and the camera is dead due to a failed image sensor still tho, one of my fave items in my collection ❤

[@jasonbrown467]

i always wanted the nz90, occasional i look on ebay for one, but havent pulled the trigger. you can wire in your own battery btw. hate to see you not use it for only having a bad battery.

[@HeffboomKonijn]

@@jasonbrown467 If you see one on Ebay I tottaly recommend it. the battery it did come with only lasts 3min but allows it to power on and check out Sonys version of Palm OS 5. its really cool with a lot of ports.

[@ethansteeples6513]

I’ve had my nz90 for a few years and have yet to find a battery

[@KAlpha09]

Sony was basically apple before apple. They often came with proprietary memory card, head phone and charger connectors. However, they would often leave options to connect 3rd party devices. My favorite device from Sony was the K750i phone. It was a very mod friendly phone allowing me to install Camera mods with manual focus, flash the rom with Walkman series OS, etc.

[@bobbleczar]

I had a similar model to the NX-80. Taking photos and listening to music on the go in 2003 was awesome.

[@TomVanDeusen]

A friend of mine bought the PDA-sized Clie our senior year of high school, while it was kind of a technological dead-end it was crazy futuristic at the time.

[@GGori_99]

My Gosh this is very nostalgic!! I hope you would do so many other revisited especially from Nokia or Sony Ericsson line up.. the walkman series were great and so were Nokia's N series

[@thegarmac]

This takes me back in time! Love it! I'd love to see you make a video about the Psion's line of PDA's. Cheers!

[@mercster]

I loved my several Palm Pilots, and I had two Sony Clie "high end" ones. I used them a lot on the job... taking quick notes, to-do lists, contact lists. They're the reason I have smartphones these days (don't even use it that much, but I do love me some tiny pocketable computer action.)

[@andrewsorenson6750]

Love your videos, wish you had more time to create and post, I've already binged your whole channel!

[@NightMotorcyclist]

I had the Sony NZ-90 which took some really great photos at the time and was very useful with WiFi and the the built in keyboard for web browsing and sending messages/ emails. I bought it in my last year of high school as I wanted something portable that could access the internet. I wanted smartphones before they were the smartphones we know today with internet capabilities.

[@itsROMPERS...]

Graffiti was an astonishing breakthrough. It was fast, easy to learn, and very accurate. It changed everything.

[@MeriaDuck]

2:16 that layout... in 2023 its hard to imagine having a 3.5mm jack on the top and a camera in the bottom corner of a handheld device

[@AngelMorales2714]

Oh the Clie devices. I used to have one at college for daily use, also a Tungsten E. They are in a box somewhere. Great devices and great memories.

[@Chris-techgamesfood]

I’ve always loved Sony products, even I couldn’t afford them as a child or even any PDA 😂 Great video by the way!

[@swisswildpicsswp3095]

Dude, your videos are GREAT! Not too short, not too long, and very interesting!

[@MidwayMaiTais]

I miss being asked how it's going at the beginning of every video. I was torn between on of these or the Zire 72 in 2004. I ultimately went with the Zire 72 and used it a ton. I bought it as a HS graduation gift to myself.

[@marvinracer88]

Zire 72 fella too!

[@jakesyoutubezone9808]

This exact device was the stuff of dreams when I was a gadget obsessed 12 year old. The entire Palm software ecosystem was really vibrant. Games, media, and web browsing were all possible. For the PDA faithful back then I’d like to think it was our collective yearning that manifested the smartphone into existence.

[@MarkRosengarten]

The Clie TH-55 remains my favorite mobile device ever. Its design and capabilities were amazing for the time. Wish I had it back.

[@asherstribe5695]

The clié brings back so many memories as a kid. I love messing around with that thing. It don’t do much from a kids perspective, but I felt so cool taking it to school.

[@lucasRem-ku6eb]

One missing link, the Sony Walkman Phones, that did combined the Palm PDA with GSM, using the new JAVA OS

[@zeldads]

Had these as a teenager in favour of games consoles. Still have a collection of them and they still stack up. Started with the SJ-30, had the NX73V and then the UX-50. Adore them all, they were built to last and still look incredible!

[@WxWaterFire]

I had several versions of the Palm. I sorta miss them. What I liked most was you could get a legit metal clam shell, which protected the unit. I never used the Sony's, for the price reasons you mention

[@Aldo.flores]

What a flashback seeing this, at the beginning of the 2000s i receive my Dads old HP jornada 540, then back on 2003 I had a Clie Peg Ux 50 for birthday that acompañes me everyday on middle school, and use alternating with a Peg Nz 90 another great device. Couple years later on high school I used many Palm Treo devices because I really enjoyed PalmOs, I had the 600, 650, 680 and finally the Pro this one with windows mobile and the experience wasn’t the same thing. Maybe this devices aren’t so great for today standards but on that time 20 years a go they were capable to do of most of the task you can do now with any smartphone, when the most advanced and expensive phones of that time could barely reproduce an MP3 or small video file with a very bad quality, because they had a very limited memory space.

[@ComboBreakerHD]

The Clie is still the way devices should be designed. It had absolutely everything. I had a few of the clamshell ones(continuing my rampant obsession with electronic organizers in the 90s). I also had a SE P910 and a P990. Scroll wheel, stylus, touch screen, modular keyboard, expandable storage, everything.

[@izzynobre]

I lusted over that PEG UX50 for ages!

[@Warezzfan]

At lot of these features from these old items can actually make todays handheld items much better...

[@IgnatSolovey]

I had Clié SJ20 and then SJ22 in 2003..2005. Fond memories. Early 00s were days of Clié and NetMD... but while Cliés are long gone, MDs are alive and kicking. Still do even under Win10x64 22H2 with original SimpleBurner software

[@Trance88]

It's amazing to know the premium portable computing technology we had 20 years ago wasn't really THAT far off from what we find in everyone's pocket today. Both of those Sony PDA's are so cool looking!

[@HolographicSweater]

Over the years Sony has produced some of the most innovative products of all time, the PS2, Toby Macguire Spiderman, the Honda Accord Coupe 6MT. A true American legend

[@JoeSteele]

Great video! Brings back memories. I still have the PEG-50 my wife got back in 2003 to replace her HP100LX. She was pretty happy with it for a couple of years. I always preferred the HP handhelds myself, until I picked up a Treo (300?) and never looked back.

[@paraletichoneybadger]

Maybe I'm showing my age, but I wish companies still made products like this.

[@NathanChisholm041]

We all do.

[@TamNgo84]

Great walk down memory lane. I had a UX-50 back in the early 2000s and one of the first things I bought when I entered the job market. It was quickly overshadowed by Android and the advent of iOS smartphones but it still was such a forward thinking device and it's sad how far Sony has fallen in that department. Thanks for the video!

[@DarkDragonEWA]

I've had good luck swapping old Sony stuff over to microSD with memory stick adapters. Although it's kind of hit or miss what devices can natively format the adapted cards, but if you can get them formatted another way they still work.

[@iraqigeek8363]

Another video that takes me down memory lane. Had a NX73v in 03/04 and had so much fun with it. While it lacked wifi, it had BT which made it also useful as a music player with a large enough memory stick card, and also enabled it to check emails and send instant messages using YM when thethered over BT to a phone using GPRS/EDGE. Back then, this was so rad! It wasn't just the screen and industrial design that made Clié devices premium. They also had the specs to match relative to other PalmOS devices or even PocketPCs, with a 200MHz XScale and 16MBs of RAM. Other Palm devices at the time run TI OMAPs that run barely above 100MHz

[@anndimo3]

Sonys NX73V decisions were strange. The europeans had the silver NX73V incl. Bluetooth and a VERY annoying blue LED showing it, the other markets had the black one without bluetooth. But those markets usually had the NX80V

[@keaton718]

I had a Sony PDA phone in early 2000s and it was great. Had a touch screen and a little flip thing that covered the bottom half the screen with rubber buttons that pressed the virtual buttons on the screen, had a stylus, it felt so futuristic.

[@JanusCycle]

Nice to see a UX50. These always looked a bit oddly shaped in photos. Seeing one in HD video they look really nice, thanks! Early 2000's USB was rarely used for charging, until USB 2.0 became widespread. It was an odd period for charging devices.

[@SheldonChoo]

A great look back. Still have my Clie-SJ33 in a box in the garage. I may dig it out to show my kids...

[@seth8629]

I remember looking at these at J&R in New York. So close but so far away under the glass...

[@Jamato-sUn]

Omg! The OS and the device itself look absolutely adorable!

[@dutchbachelor]

I remember wanting one of those two sooo bad back in the time, but just couldn't afford them. Had a Newton 2100 at the time, which I sold to get the money for a Tungsten T. A move I sorely regretted. Mock the Newton all you want, but the Handwriting recognition of the later models really was not that bad and productivity was amazing for the smart assist features and natural interface. The only thing that came close was the Psion, which were also very pricey and which I only got much later out of curiosity.

[@songsan807]

I remembered getting a Palm Pilot from my wife on one of my birthday around 2000. Was excited to get the Clie NX 80 from my friend at half price for $300. It was neat and still had it. The thing with Palms were that it was mainly black and white so 4 AA batteries would last it over 3 months while the Clie is color so it needs to charge every 2 to 3 days similar to today's mobile devices. Life seems so much simplier back then :).

[@ml9867]

I got the model that preceded the UX80 that has a 1mp camera & a few less features. I was so bummed when I saw the UX80 come out shortly after I got mine. I'm psyched to learn that batteries still exist for these! I thought the coolest feature was the universal TV remote & wish cell phones had that now.

[@deltakid0]

10:34 I only met Bluetooth until 2005 with a Motorola E398, 5 years late wow... I remember back in 2006 everybody was overwhelmed by transfering files wirelessly, I think Bluetooth's popularity only rised when affordability came in

[@jerkytoo8184]

While I didn't see the Sony PDAs in my circle of friends, the Palm Pilot was fairly popular. When the prices dropped I was briefly tempted to get one, but never did. I remember being impressed when you could exchange contact information via infrared. It seemed so futuristic.

[@joetheman74]

In 2005 I had Palms higher end TX model. It was the last gasp of the PDA from what I remember. It didn't have a camera but it had a nice 320x480 color display, Wifi, Bluetooth, IrDA, a 300 mhz processor with 32 megs of ram. 128 megs of flash storage and an SD card slot that could take up to 512 meg SD cards. Those numbers sound low today but they were excellent at the time for a PDA. I also had the optional Tom Tom GPS accessory with an in car dock that allowed me to mount the Palm to my dash and use it as a voice guided NAV (complete with celebrity voices.) There were tons of accessories available like a camera too but I preferred to use the camera in my phone and transfer data between my phone and PDA using bluetooth. The PDA could even use it's dialer program along with it's built in contacts application to dial contacts on my phone using the bluetooth connection. I could keep all my appointments in the calendar application and use the Tom Tom to guide me to the address of the appointment and shortly before arriving use the PDA to dial the stored number of the customer on my Samsung A900 phone to let them know I was almost there. In 2005 it all felt very high tech and futuristic.

[@SpartanIV]

I had a handspring Visor, Sony Clie, and eventually a Toshiba PocketPC and while the PocketPC was the most versatile by far, the Clie definitely was the easiest and nicest to use.

[@valley_robot]

Sony's PDAs were just beautiful design,I had one and it was a very eye catching design

[@mileskosik472]

My dad had the little laptop looking one, and upgraded to something else, so I played around with it when I was young, I absolutely loved it. Super neat, and still have it today.

[@sentinelspace]

Thanks for the nostalgia. I bought my UX-50 when it first hit the shelves. I loved it like my baby. And guess what, I still have it in a fully working condition!

[@bcarr1122]

If I'm not mistaken, the UX50 was the last such device Sony released.

[@maeganmonster]

I've got the SJ-20! So neat to see something I own featured. There's a program for Clies that turns any Memory Stick into an AIBO Memory Stick.

[@rwilifeandtravel]

I've still got my Sony UX50 although it hasn't been powered on for a long long time. I found it fun to use back in the day and took it on my travels. I ripped dvds and cds to it to keep myself entertained. It was an impressive device for it's time.

[@Unan1mouz]

I really loved PDAs back in the day when I was a kid/teen. It was the closest to ever owning a "computing" device for me at the time!

[@benfk2]

I still have my PEG-NZ90 which I think was marginally earlier than your UX50. The 2mp camera had autofocus and a xenon flash and took really amazing photos at the time. Battery life was awful and I had an external battery pack that took 4x AAs. It's a bit battered now but still alive and kicking albeit with even worse battery life. The swappable battery looks to be unobtainium now. The power and hold switch is a little temperamental on my NZ90 so it might be a similar case with your NX80. The slots at the bottom could also take CF cards and there were community patched versions of the camera and audio player apps that could utilize them! Anyway, thanks for the vid, I miss these days!

[@anndimo3]

the real downside of the NZ90 is that you cannot start it without a battery. All other clie work fine. It might be possible to swap out the cell inside the battery unit while keeping the PCB.

[@NullStaticVoid]

back in the late 2000's I was doing contract IT support at various bay area companies. I was really surprised to be working at a chip developer and find an executive that was using a 10 year old Palm. I had to explain to them that their new computer had no serial port, and could not connect to the Palm dock. This spiraled into a huge issue and it took us a week to get his stuff migrated off the Palm, and a Blackberry ordered set up, and data migrated.

[@bilditup1]

I still have mine, a T615C, which I used it for games and as an ereader until the early 2010s (so until I finally bought a smartphone). I really miss the jog dial and loved the built-in IR remote feature, was great for clowning around

[@darwiniandude]

Let's take a moment to appreciate the PEG-UX50 - it had wi-fi, bluetooth, 480x320 touch display, flash player, camera that could shoot video, and a memory stick slot, backlit physical keyboard. In 2003. The 2007 iPhone couldn't shoot video, and the display was the same resolution as the PEG-UX50. Obviously the UI on the iPhone was so far advanced that it alone (combined with iTunes sync, remember 1st gen iPhone came with a docking cradle like a palm device) was enough to make it a game changer. But the little 2003 Sony unit was amazingly advanced for it's time.

[@Rac3r4Life]

I never owned a Palm Pilot or one of the Sony versions with Palm OS, but I did have a Pocket PC running Windows. Mine was from Dell. It was a nice little pocket computer. I know some of them had 2G cellular connectivity, but mine did not. It was just USB, IR, Bluetooth, and WiFi A/B. At the time I was in highschool, and I was one of the very few students that carried one. It was very helpful for managing my assignments and schedule. Edit: Dell Axim V50. That's what it was. A brilliant little device.

[@stevens1041]

Incredible. I remember Sony coming out with a lot of amazing products in the early 2000s. I used to spend time in the Sony store as a young teenager and be impressed with all the novel engineering.

[@KAMProductions]

P.D.A in the year 2000 - Personal Digital Assistant P.D.A today - Public Display of Affection

[@600322]

I am amazed that this guy only restores things that he never wants to use.What a museum!

[@fn0va]

sony's 2000s-early 2010s aesthetic is probably my favorite out of all consumer tech. so futuristic

[@Stormcloakvictory]

I remember being a just a small lad, late 90s early 00s Collecting cellphone and tech folders and magazines. Dreaming of PDA's or mini pocket laptops which you could play your favourite games on and use as multi media and cell phone.

[@peterthomson6161]

I bought my first windows phone when PDA's were still popular. With the smartphone I immediately recognized the end of PDA'S.

[@choro76]

I still have a Palm m130 and it still works! It's missing the stylus pen and has a broken corner of the case, but I still have the original SD card with games and a few other apps. Love that thing to bits!

[@koraypekericli]

I used to have Sony Clie PEG-N760C and then I briefly owned UX50. N760C was a wonderful device. I bought it after several years of Palm M125. UX50 was not that useful. The transreflexive LCDs on these Clie devices were a marvel to look at. These LCDs didn't require a backlight under sunlight. They were very good.

[@10p6]

I could never get into Palm. In 2002 though, I loved my T-Mobile HTC Pocket PC phone. That was awesome.

[@lactobacillusprime]

I used a Sony Clie PEG-SJ33 for a couple of years during my MD training years. Quite liked it. In fact I still have it sitting on a shelf on the charging stand. I noticed I still know how to write the PALM shorthand. The battery has since severely degraded. Still looks like a nice device. The little pen was good in it. Played a ton of Bejeweled on it on public transport.

[@abdelali9279]

Early 2000's Sony design would always be my favorite that's why I love the metal casing MD players too

[@CommodoreFan64]

I found a used Palm M100 in early 05, along with a keyboard attachment complete in the box at my local Goodwill, and I loved it for taking notes in work meetings before I could afford a proper laptop, and smartphone, but yeah having sync it before the batteries went dead was always a pain, so I would really loved a Sony PDA for sure. These days I think something like a decent Android Tablet, and a bluetooth keyboard is the new PDA being able to do so much of what a laptop can do only with a smaller screen.

[@MrDormant]

I remember in seventh grade I was going to college in the summer and I was so intrigued by this kid that was there with me and he had one of the early Sony PDAs. I remember having a cassette player cd player, and early days mp3 player in my backpack.

[@Sb129]

The good old Sony Clie. Sony really did an excellent job with their Palm OS license. Sony was constantly pushing the boundaries of what Palm OS could do. Sony's Palm OS 4 products were particularly impressive to me. Sony added HiRes support before Palm did and they did it on OS4. Sony also had B/W HiRes screens! Unseen anywhere else (Handera might have something to say about that but Sony did a much more standard 320x320 as opposed to Handera's qVGA 320x240) Sony also made color HiRes screens including landscape all the way back on OS4. The NR70 is a good example of what they could do. Sony also made a Clie with an OLED screen, the VZ90. Sony also did software right. They had a backup solution build right into their system, no third party needed. Sony had an SWF Flash Player, the Picsel ProViewer was an excellent way to open documents with no need to convert anything. The Netfront web browser is still one of the best for any Palm OS5 handheld. And Clies had special chips to decode the ATRAC audio format (as seen from MiniDisc)

[@Gamehighlight2023]

GREAT Video - Thanks..I remember going crazy to get the latest PDA, especially the SONY ones..I ended up having 3 or 4 different models then the iPhone came out !

[@glsracer]

I actually never had a Palm device but I did have a Cassiopeia and an HP color Windows CE PDA with clamshell form factor. I also had the first HTC Pocket PC Phone edition around 2002. Had the battery backpack on that and it was surprisingly good compared to what everyone else was using, though people thought it was insane that I had something that large in my pocket at all times. I bet they never would have imagined modern smartphone which are even larger except in thickness. Over the years between then and 2011, I went between Windows and Symbian smart phones until I finally went with Android. It was a great time to be alive, and I remember actually being excited about new phones. Now the progress is incremental and I find that I can go 3 years with a flagship smartphone before needed to move on for some reason or another (usually performance or security). Nothing really facinates me now, modern phones are very much like any appliance.

[@itsROMPERS...]

I went from Apple Newton message pads to palm pilots to Sony Clies and on to palm Treo and Centro. They were all amazing for the time, and it's only relatively recently that the actual productivity and usability of smartphone software matched Palm. Yeah it was low res, but it worked so much better, and was so much more intuitive even than iOS.