Sony Clie Peg-TJ25

Sony's new budget Palm-based PDA ditches the standard clamshell approach in favour of a design that closely resembles Palm's. There's a high-quality 320 x 320 colour screen with a dedicated Graffiti area for data entry.

Instead of the standard Palm OS 5.2 homepage interface, Sony has furnished the Peg-TJ25 with its own Clie launcher application. It's a lot tidier than Palm's interface, which hasn't really changed since the first Palm was launched.

It still organises applications into categories but lets you create shortcuts to your favourite programs, so you don't have to scroll through the options. You don't even need the stylus, as Sony provides a scroll wheel for one-handed operation.

As with its other PDAs, Sony provides a decent bundle of software including a file viewing package, a memo application and backup program. The box also contains Quicktime Player and Acrobat Reader.

As this is Sony's budget model there's not a lot in the way of memory. Only 16MB of Ram is provided onboard and only 11MB is free for user data. This is likely to get filled pretty quickly, especially if the TJ25 is being used to store videos and images. However, there is a Memory Stick Pro slot, so upping storage space shouldn't be a problem.

The 200MHz Motorola processor isn't the fastest around, but it does the job on this budget PDA. We had no trouble with it and the TJ25 felt very responsive.

Connection to the PC is via the expansion slot and USB converter, which also provides an input for mains power.

It's an accomplished PDA but falls just behind Palm's Tungsten E, which is slightly cheaper and has a more generous helping of memory.

Contact: Sony 08705 424 424
www.sony.co.uk

Specifications:

• Palm OS 5.2
• Motorola 200MHz processor
• 16MB of Ram (11MB free)
• 16MB of Rom
• Memory Stick Pro Slot
• 320 x 320 colour screen (65K)
• 75.3 x 110.1 x 11.9 (h x w x d mm)
• 140g
• Clie Launcher, Viewer, World Alarm Clock, Memo, Memory Stick Backup, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Apple Quicktime