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

Most personal digital assistants were fairly utilitarian. Sony had other ideas.

Sources:
"IBM licenses Palm Pilot," InfoWorld, September 22, 1997.
"Palm handhelds get expansion slot," InfoWorld, April 9, 2001.
"Palm Leads the Pack," Computerworld, November 22, 1999.
"Palm's Mace Is Officially 'Paranoid' About PocketPC," Computerworld, April 17, 2000.
"Sony Clie PEG-NX80V," Maximum PC, October 2003.
"Sony's Crossover PDA," PC Magazine, October 1, 2003.
"Palm Slashes Pricing to Match the Competition," Computerworld, February 10, 2003.
"Palm Fights Back," PC Magazine, October 28, 2003.

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[MA-goee]

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

[colombianguy]

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!!!

[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.

[mason.alexander]

OMG this is a video I wish had been put on YouTube 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.

[enkiimuto]

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.

[felis-pardalis]

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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!

[TheOriginalCollectorA]

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!

[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.

[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

[jamesdlin]

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).

[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. :)

[AngelMorales]

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.

[Markimark]

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!

[bobbleczar]

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

[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!