Brighthand Reviews the TJ35

[mdlsimpson]

Brighthand has a review posted today for the new TJ35.
As always, they do a good review of the device but I still wonder about the screen brightness in relation to the t665, TG50, and the current NX series PDA's.

I really don't care if the screen looks like the new Tungsten E or T3 or Zire71 because I have owned the Zire71 and hated the screen outdoors..... the TG50 that I currently own is light years ahead of the Z71 for outdoor viewing (it had a horrible grid pattern that manifested itself in bright direct sunlight)

The Sony's I have owned all were terrific outside (NX70v, TG50)
and great inside as well, so.... if the TJ35 is as good as the TG50, or the NX series, it will be a GREAT screen!

My 2 cents!
:)

[EdFrmBrighthand]

The SJ35's screen is not as bright as either TG50 or a NX80V. However, I think the SJ35's screen is much better than a TG50's as it is free the irritating shadows that afflict the TG50. It also doesn't have the blue tint the NX80V's screen does.

I found the TJ35's screen to be quite readable outdoors and even in direct sunlight.

-Ed

p.s. My full review is at
www.brighthand.com/article/Hands_On_The_Sony_Clie_TJ35?site=Palm

[patrickl]

The screen on my NX70 is a lot worse in bright sunlight than my T625C was. But you say a Zire 71 is even worse?

[mdlsimpson]

Yes I feel the screen is worse outdoors..... the screen is readable but the "grid" effect interferes with the display quality.... the screen was obviously designed to be used indoors primarily while it can be used outside, it is not a pleasure to lok at. At least my NX70 was viewable at the right angle

[riversen]

Would you say that your T615c was comparible to the T665c? If so, then how does the TJ compare to that one. Are they basically the same screen? I have heard that it is a bit dim, but if that is only when compared to the newer TT3 or Zire71, then I am okay with that.

By the way, I will repeat myself from another forum... great review!!!!!!

[riversen]

May I ask one more question? When you have the time and have charged and discharged the TJ35 a few times, can you tell us what your battery life is for the PDA?

[patrickl]

Originally posted by riversen
May I ask one more question? When you have the time and have charged and discharged the TJ35 a few times, can you tell us what your battery life is for the PDA? Discharging and charging the battery doesn't have any influence on batteries. I thought a battery benchmark like BatteryBench2 settled that dispute years ago (by it giving almost exactly the same score for a certain model PDA from tests done by several people).

[riversen]

Originally posted by patrickl
Discharging and charging the battery doesn't have any influence on batteries. I thought a battery benchmark like BatteryBench2 settled that dispute years ago (by it giving almost exactly the same score for a certain model PDA from tests done by several people).

Agreed, but some batteries have not been allowed to fully charge. I say this because some of my friends' Palms are notorious for saying that it is fully charged when it was not or the opposite. I would like to confirm that the battery has experienced a full charge and the software that estimates the battery level is reporting accurate data. My hope is that I could hear from several people what their battery longevity is for the TJ's. Taking the mean would give an estimate of what I could expect.

So with all this said, what is the battery level that everyone is experiencing? I have heard 4 to 6 hours now for the TJ's. If you your experience is 4 hours, is that with a 100% brightness and if you are experiencing 6 hours, is that with 50% brightness, etc.?

Thank you in advance.

[EdFrmBrighthand]

With half brightness I got a max of 5.5 hours.

[riversen]

Originally posted by EdFrmBrighthand
With half brightness I got a max of 5.5 hours.

Thank you!!! That is great news and I really appreciate your time taken to check this out.

Also, I know that I have already asked you, but do you still have your T615? I noticed that you owned one of these once. If you do, can you tell me your impression of the brightness of the TJ's to the T615 (or of what you remember of th T615)?

Again, a great review!

[hotpaw4]

> With half brightness I got a max of 5.5 hours.

Good news. When my T615C was brand new, it barely got 5.5 hours on minimum brightness. Enough for a cross-country flight with the help of a small 9V "emergency" charger T-connector module. Looks like the TJ might be slightly better.

What kind of usage was that 5.5 hours? Idle, typical, games, mp3?

[patrickl]

Trouble with these usage figures indeed is that you never know how it was used. On a typical PDA you might get battery life times between 3 and 6 hours depending on what you do. I'd rather see repeatable benchmarks.

InfoSync always includes the same battery benchmark in their reviews (they run Atomsmash till the unit dies). That way you get a good comparison between models. They haven't tested a Clie TJ35, but the Tungsten E (http://www.infosyncworld.com/reviews/n/4130,2.html) gave a warning at 2:15 and quit at 3:02 (I guess with the lights off at the end)

Unfortunately this is a high processor usage test and they run it only at full backlight. So it's more a worst case test. I'd wish someone would put in a "best case" test in every review. For instance, I tend to read e-books during long airplane flights and I'd want to know how far I'd get. So when batterylife matters most you will turn down the backlight. Why not have a a low backlight + normal usage BatteryBench 2 test? It's so simple you just start it at night and wake up with a testresult (well for a color PDA at least, monochrome PDA's can last for days)

In the past CNET/ZDNet did a BatteryBench 2 test set on "normal usage" (actualy quite a low processor test), but unfortunately again with full backlight. With the Tungsten E they didn't do the BatteryBench test, but they ran a "MP3 loop play test" which gave 3:30.

I like the BatteryBench test since you can run that yourself and compare the result from the review. But then people complain it's a continuous test and that the battery would perform better if you swithc the unit off and on. Then I say, don't give mey that unles you tested it. Fact is that I get worse real times than that of BatteryBench and I'll explan why:

A funny thing is that no review ever mentions that the battery runs down even when you don't use the PDA. A Palm PDA will last about 20 days or so before it's battery is depleted. So that's even when you don't switch it on and after those 20 days all data will be lost so it's dead flat! (Palm had a performance test done of a few of it's models compared to PocketPC's) So in effect in 10 days I would guess the battery loses at least half the battery life. But when the reviewers find a battery life of 5 hours they will simply say that you can get 30 minutes use for 10 days. Ehm ... most likely you will not! 5 hours battery life is probably more like 15 minutes a day for 10 days.

[hotpaw4]

I think the reason they quote stuff like "7 days of typical usage" is that this figure includes both standby time (including battery self-discharge) and run time (of 30 minutes per day) together. The PalmOS units spec'd at 7 days, in fact got more than 3.5+ hours of continuous light-duty usage (backlight not on max). PPC vendors are notorious for not including standby time, which can be less than a week. Every Palm I've had will go a whole week on standby and still have more than half the battery charge left.

My usual light-usage test is to charge the unit to peak voltage, turn bluetooth and Ir off, turn the backlight to the minimum setting (usually usable for ebook reading in a dark airliner), turn off the auto-off timer, and leave a timer (such as uptime5) running, with the handheld at room temperature (around 72F), and check the time at near when the first warning dialog pops up and when the unit shuts itself off.

12.5 and 14 hours were the numbers for my Palm V with the backlight off.

[Chou Chou]

I notice that a question was asked - how does the brightness of the screen of the TJ compared to to the T615. I would really like to know the answer? Does anybody know??

[riversen]

Originally posted by Chou Chou
I notice that a question was asked - how does the brightness of the screen of the TJ compared to to the T615. I would really like to know the answer? Does anybody know??

Anyone??? I really would like to hear other people's impressions before I give the definitive answer from comparing them myself.

Thank you in advance!