Just got my SONY Clie TJ35

[KrazieF00]

Picked it up from CompUSA exactly a half hour ago, in the process of charging as we speak. Tkae it from a former T|E owner, The fit and finish of this PDA is superior in all ways compared to the T|E. I'm just hoping that SONY hasn't taken too much of the "zen of palm" out. :D

And yeah, the stylus is the worst thing I have ever seen. Which sucks because I need to carry around a pen Stylus from now on. The stylus is pretty much unusable for me, even for quick taps on the screen, my hands cant grip it.

While the flip cover is much nicer than the T|E's and it also doesn't scratch the finish, it does appear to be less durable. Like glued vinyl together.

and wow, on the scroll wheel, the down actually works like the up button. The T|E's down button is annoying as hell since there's no tactile feedback, and is hard to push down, giving me lot's of double clicks when i hit it. Although I did go to Circuit City today as well and their display model of the T|E had a perfectly functioning down buttom, so their quality control is really lousy.


The T|E also has a bowed out bottom which makes the bottom of the palm thicker than the top. Annoying thing for me first of all since I keep my palm in my pocket and listen to MP3's whenever i sat down with the T|E the d-pad would get clicked by my leg and my music would either stop, change volume, or change tracks, very nnoying, doesnt seem like the TJ35 has that problem.

Best thing about switching from PalmOne, SONY says the face of the TJ35 is aluminum, that it is. PalmOne says the T|E is some sort of metal...hmm yeah its plastic

[riversen]

Good luck... let us know when you return it. Maybe, you will be one of the few that actually likes your TJ. If so, enjoy.

[KrazieF00]

look man, you seem like a really self centered egotistical type of person. From what I gather from reading your posts on these forums, nothing pleases you. Ok,thats fine, be that way, dont bother spreading your negative comments to people who dont want to hear them. We all know the TJ35 has some obvious issues, but some people can live with them and some can live without. I can live with, you sir, cannot. So just leave it as that, no need to come and crap on anyone's day.

No one needs to click on a thread and see a post from you that talks about how bad the stylus is, or how lousy the screen is, or how lousy the speaker is. You know why I'm sick of it, because almost every single thread on this board has had you chime in with the SAME EXACT POST, TO EVERYTHING. Just stop already.

[riversen]

Actually, the TJ35 has a fantastic speaker, wonderful amount of RAM, fantastic processor (200 MHz), great OS (Palm OS 5.2.1), and finally the best jog dial design of any Sony product in my opinion. I like the PDA a lot, but as you already pointed out and you said that everyone has "chimed in" about... there are some shortcomings. Apparently, you love the thing, so good luck and enjoy.

By the way, that is what this forum is all about... posting your thoughts. If you don't like the thoughts ignore them or rebuttal why you disagree... crying about what people are saying and NOT liking their opinions does not stop or warrant the stopping of our opinions. I cannot tell you how many people that I totally disagree with who love their clamshells, but that is what this place and freedom of speech is all about. We are speaking our opinions of the product and full well expect others to disagree.

[methnen]

I think maybe we should calm down. :) I'll give you guys my opinion when I get my TJ-35. I hope I like it as its harder to return things through the mail. :)

Jamie

[riversen]

I agree. I just posted this:

I have a question... is there any way to get the sound utility from a TG50 to the TJ35? The fact that I cannot choose some of my current customizable alarms was very disappointing, but if I can get most of my desired app's back in the TJ35 and find a good stylus/pen combo then I might actually reconsider it again. Any thoughts?

I am still open to the idea of the TJ35 if I can do what I said above... it is much like the criticizing the ones that you love the most. I really enjoy my Clie and want so much from Sony who has the technology to do it much better than PalmOne. I am just a frustrated Clie owner.

[methnen]

I can recommend a pen. I really like my Sensa stylus. It is just a pen and a stylus so no pencil or red pen or anything like that but very comfortable in both pen and stylus mode. And it's short so it fits well in a pocket right next to your palm if you keep it in a pants pocket. Otherwise I would get something a little thinner cause the pen is not skinny.

Jamie

[KrazieF00]

This forum is about posting opinions, and you posted yours and I posted mine, and no I am not in LOVE with this palm. I was merely pointing out that since news about the TJ series came about you have been posting on this forum the same exact things over and over and over.

in fact, I have been with palm since the IIIC. I never wanted to make the switch to sony because of shoddy software packages and the fact that I heard they take out a lot of the "zen of palm". So I stuck with Palm until the T|E was released, I was the first person at my local BB to pick one up. Then things started to irritate me about palmone. (lying about the case material, down button does not work "correctly on MOST T|E's released, flip cover scratching the finish,...the list goes on)

If you really want my opinion, I think the T|E is a vastly superior palm in every way shape and form except for fit and finish, which is a huge deal to me. So i moved over to the Clie, there are a lot of things I wish they would change or fix, such as useless clie viewer, can't use Realone for palm, the dim screen, the most worthless stylus, the proprietary memory format...the list goes on and on.

But on the same token, the Clie just seems to me like it will give me a longer service life which in itself is worth the extra 20 dollars over the T|E.

[hotpaw4]

The TJ not only seems superior to the T|E in fit-and-finish, but also in both CPU performance and ebook reading battery life according to my preliminary tests. Those two items can be very important for some users. The T-connector serial port is also valuable to some small percentage of users.

I'm not sure why someone would prefer Realone to Aeroplayer.

[Unregistered]

I like my TJ, small, fast, light durable, etc. Now, what about the sound utility? How do we get it in there?

[Actuarian]

The biggest advantage of the TJ35 over the Tungsten E is that I was able to get a cradle for the TJ. In fact I have often thought that the essence of the "Zen of Palm" is being able to drop the the device into the cradle and press the Hot Sync button whenever you want to. To me, the fact that there is no cradle available for the Tungsten E made it not even worth considering. For the same reason, I will not buy any PocketPC; I could live with the device itself but not with ActiveSync trying to sync when I don't want to and not when I want to (and not allowing two devices to be connected at once). But I was pleasantly surprised by the rest of the features of the TJ35. People complain about the screen but mine is as bright as my old T665C (though not as bright as a Tungsten E of course). The design is elegant, with more in common with the classic Palm V than anything else made since then. Aeroplayer is the best MP3 player available and the sound quality is much better than any Palm device can produce. In fact, the only negative feature about the TJ35 is the stylus. It is as bad as everyone says it it but it is also the same stylus that comes with the more expensive Sony's, the UX-50, NX-80V and NX-73V. Users of those models do not complain about it as much and I can live with it. (I could never live with the UX-50's lack of a landscape mode and of a HotSync button on the cradle even if the price were reasonable.)

[riversen]

Okay, I must eat my words. I ordered another TJ35... got a really great deal from Dell. I am actually excited about it again. I found out that I can use some of the app's that come with the TJ50 on it. I hope so. Does anyone know if you can buy some of the App's that come with the TG50 or is there any way to get a copy of them? I don't know how this work, so please forgive my dumb question here.

[wldc]

riversen give us another review after u have that tj35 for a week :)

btw...i've seen the brightness comparison between the T|E and the TJ series. I do agree that the T|E screen is extremely bright...but i dunno about the rest of you...when i use my clie SJ30, i tend to have brightness down to almost the lowest level...
and only when i'm using the pda outdoors do i move the level to the middle...

so i think for someone whose not big on the brightness or who is doing a switch from a mono pda to a color one...i think u'll find the TJ's brightness just about right :)

as for the stylus...i'm still trying to find out, if theres anyway to fit an old clie stylus into the silo...if not...i think i'll wait till an outside vendor designs something for the TJ series that can fit...

seriously though...i dont have a problem with sony trying to design smaller stylus to save space (although i cant really see why u need to save space since the height of the TJ is almost the same as b4)... but i wish they can give the stylus abit more weight so that u can actually get a good grip on it... hmm...but then it could all be a big sceme to make u lose the stylus and have to buy replacements from them...LOL

[Unregistered]

The pen sucks.
The wheel rocks.

The software bundle sucks.
The CPU rocks.

Grafitti2 REALLY sucks.
Decuma is kinda cool.

The flip-cover is a joke.
The MS Pro support is no joke.

In short, not an improved SJ33, but a new handheld. I think I'm missing my flipcover and Grafitti support a little too much.

Yeah, I think I'd be voting Grafitti2 off the island.

[hotpaw4]

You can replace Graffiti 2 on a TJ35 with Graffiti 1 by copying some system files from a Tungsten T to a Memory Stick. Search on Palminfocenter for the exact details, 'cause if you copy them in the wrong order you will have to hard reset your Clie.

I like the TJ35 flip cover so far.

I haven't tried any MS Pro media so far, just plain Memory Sticks. What's the diff?

[Lucky Bob]

Originally posted by hotpaw4
I haven't tried any MS Pro media so far, just plain Memory Sticks. What's the diff? They have higher memory capacities. Also, I think they may be faster...I dunno...

[nigeljedi]

The Pro sticks read/write faster...or so the claim goes. I have a 256MB Pro stick, and I don't notice much difference.

[Slartibartfast]

Just got my TJ-35 from BestBuy. Of course they gave the hardsell for the extended warranty (at least they didn't have the accessories yet!) - but this may the one time I should buy. At 20% of the price, anybody have good or bad luck with these?

Thanks, John

[flesh99]

I got mine from Circuit City and still have a few days to go back and get the warranty. I fully intend to becuase of their policies. If the device is EOL'd then they replace with whatever model is the current equivalent. I also have kids and after seeing my 19 month old run aroudn with SJ20 I willed to my wife when I got my TJ35, you can bet that the extra 20% is worth it for me. It all depends on your situation. I had my SJ20 for a good while and never needed it, but if you do need it and don't have it you are stuck with spending 100% of the purchase price again.

[SlvrFalcon007]

Wow, just from reading this I wanna go buy it right now

[Unregistered]

TJ35's are horrible. This is the second one that I have gone through. The first one I had, for about a month, and the backlight went out. I went back to exchange it, and the salesman talked me back into getting another one to replace it. Then for the second one, the backlight went out in about 2 weeks. I'm not rough with it, it has to be just a faulty design. Don't get me wrong, the palm is Awesome when it works. But, it's crap when the back light doesn't work. I really don't know what to move to. I remember the old palms, I had my palm IIIxe for about 3 years, and had no trouble. At my job, we still have the first palms that were made....they're still working. I do realize that when things get more complex, there are more things to break, but, I'm sure QC should have noticed that backlight breaking fairly quickly. Anyway, I think I'm going to try a IPAQ, try my luck there.

[Orincarnia]

ok we'll see you back here when you return your ipaq

i myself have played with the tj35, and i love the feel of it, doesn't feel unstable or anything, (didn't get the chance to try it in my pocket since that would have struck some paranoia in the salesmens eyes) but i do like that jog dial, it felt bigger than the one on the ux, or maybe its just my mind playing tricks on me, and this is the second device i have liked with a static grafitti area, (the first was the m515) it actually looks sporty