It’s been a sad day with today’s announcement that Sony is “reassessing” the US PDA market and won’t be producing any new Clies this year.   For a company like Sony that normally would produce 6-8 new Clies during that time period, you have to wonder if their statement is marketing speak for “Asta la vista, baby”.   So, given the announcement, this seemed like an appropriate time for a Clie remembrance.

I bought my first Palm device in June of 2000 – a Palm IIIe.   My wife had actually received a Palm IIIe at work a year earlier and I made fun of her for having it.   Something to the effect of, “Why do you need something like that to keep track of your schedule? Who cares if you miss one of your million meetings a week?”   But then I started reading about Palms and everything they could do and I was hooked.   I was very excited to get my Palm, but soon realized its drawbacks.   It was kinda big to hold in your hand, I had to replace the batteries every 3 weeks or so, and it had an awful reverse backlighting that was pretty hard to read comfortably in the dark.

So I started checking out some alternatives.   The Palm V was the big thing on the market at the time, with its sleek distinctive look.   But it was a wide handheld as well and just didn’t feel that great in my hand, plus it was expensive!!   I started looking at the new Clie line, which debuted in October.   I had some Sony electronics already and was well aware of their reputation for great looking devices that also worked well.   However, the first time I saw the Clie in the store, my first thought was that this thing was UGLY!!   As I continued to go into electronic stores and play around with it, I soon learned to appreciate what the Clie offered.   It was very light and an almost perfect size.   The sides of the device were tapered, so it felt like it melted into your hand.   It had this wonderful jog dial that made scrolling so much easier.   It had 8 MB of space at a time when most handhelds had only 2MB, had a memory slot (even coming with an 8MB MS), and came with it’s own case that could be converted into a stand.   But maybe best of all, it had a true Indiglo backlight, which was very pleasant to read in the dark.

I finally took the plunge and bought my S300 in January of 2001.   While researching this device, I found a Clie board on PalmBlvd, which helped me out greatly!!   At the time, we didn’t even know what to do with the MS, since no programs supported it, and the jog dial could only be used for basic scrolling.   But shortly thereafter, we started seeing many Clie utilities that supported the MS and the jog dial – 3 ^rd party innovation that continued to this day and really helped to grow the Clie community.

Clie boards also helped to grow the community.   Many of us from PalmBlvd moved to the Clie Users Group on Yahoo since it was easy to fake someone else’s username on PalmBlvd.   A rift on the Clie Users Group resulted in a split that brought us the nXt Clie Club.   And then along came ClieSource, with real threads and eventually a great vBulletin interface.   It was nice to see the same people who were dealing with the same issues you were.   And with the rate of Sony’s innovation, we needed the community to be able to keep up.

First, they wowed us with the N710, which was the first color, high-res Clie.   At first, I wasn’t all that impressed and told my wife that I didn’t understand why anyone would need a color PDA.   But then my friend bought an N610 (same version as the N710 but without MP3 support) and showed me the pictures he had loaded onto it and I was hooked!!

And then in spring of 2002, Sony announced the NR70V.   This device was truly a work of art!!   I remember saying “Wow” when I heard about this, not actually believing that Sony put ALL of that into such a small package.   I know they were known for innovating, but how could they add this much at the same time.   This device was the first PDA with a 320x480 screen utilizing virtual graffiti, the first PDA with a camera, the first PDA with a built-in keyboard, and the first Palm-based handheld with a clamshell design.   And it also had the music support that Clies had become known for.   It was a truly impressive feat to create this device, and it was a moment that will go down as the high-point for Sony in the PDA market.

At this point, Sony had a device at every price point in the market and with their innovation record, they looked poised to make Palm an afterthought.   Alas, they fumbled the ball from this point forward.   They followed up the NR with solid replacements in the NX series and even made a bigger modification with the landscape UX series.   However, by this time, Palm (now PalmOne) was busy reinventing it’s entire line and coming out with some decent devices of their own, with high-res screens, d-pads, lots of RAM and using non-proprietary expansion, severely closing the technology gap while Sony was content with making tweaks to successful designs and not pushing the innovation envelope.

Sony’s last device appears to be the TH55, which I also own, the 7 ^th Clie model I've owned.   This is a very solid device, with professional looks, built-in Wifi, high-res+ screen, and an innovative organizer software suite contained in a thin body.   Like most of the Clie line, it’s not perfect, but close enough to being there that you just couldn't wait to see what the next model had it store.   Alas, it seems that day will never come.

So, for Clie fans, this is a sad day.   I’m too addicted to PDAs to ever give them up, so when my TH55 doesn’t meet my needs any longer, I’ll have to look at other lines.   I’m really going to miss the jog dial, as it works great for reading ebooks and in several other apps.   I’ll miss the ability to take my MS from my Sony camera and view my pictures on the great PDA screen.   I’ll miss the software that Sony has included with most Clies that doesn’t get enough publicity, software such as DataImport that allows the MS to show up as a drive letter on your computer, allowing for easy moving of files.   And also the new ClieOrganizer, which despite it’s limitations shows a ton of promise and has features not found in any 3 ^rd -party apps (such as handwriting support).   The really sad thing is that Sony was THIS close at so many different points to having the market to themselves, but then they’d shoot themselves in the foot.   Such a shame, after all the hard work put into building the Clie line that these self-afflicted wounds are going to be what ended up doing them in.

So R.I.P., Clie, we’ll miss you!!