There are plenty of reviews of the new Sony CLIE TH55 already, but PalmZone.net wanted to focus on comparing it to its biggest competition, the palmOne Tungsten T3. We also wanted to write the review after using it for an extended period of time so that we could focus on usability in real life situations. Hopefully we've covered enough detail here to provide insight into this and ultimately help you choose which device is right for you.

	Sony TH55	palmOne T3
Palm OS	5.2.1	5.2.1
Memory	32 MB	64 MB
Processor	Sony Handheld Engine 8-123 MHz plus DSP	Intel xscale 400 MHz
Screen	320x480 high-res 65K Color TFT	320x480 high-res 65K Color TFT
Form Factor	Slate	Slider
Size (hwd)	4.9" x 3" x .53"	4.3" (5") x 3" x .66"
Weight	5.8 oz	5.5 oz
Stylus	Very Thin, Retractable	Thin, Retractable (Spring Loaded)
Navigation	Jog Dial (Up/Down Scroll), Left, Right, Back	5-Way Navigator (Left, Right, Up, Down, Enter)
Connectivity	Wi-Fi, Infrared, USB	Bluetooth, Infrared, USB
Expansion Slot	Sony Memory Stick / Pro	Secure Digital (SD)
Hardware Features	Voice Recorder, Camera (640x480)	Voice Recorder, Vibrating Alarm, Alarm/Charge LED
Accessories	Hotsync Cable, AC Adapter, Clear Cover, Carrying Strap	Cradle, Leather Flip Cover
Battery Life*	14 days or 7 hrs	8 days or 4 hrs
Multimedia	Pictures, Video, Macromedia Flash, Sound Utility (Wave Alarms)	Pictures, Video
Handwriting	Graffiti 2, Decuma (word at a time)	Graffiti 2
Retail Price	$399	$399

The TH55 is about 1/2" taller than a closed T3.  When the T3 is opened, however, they are about the same size. The T3 is also just a touch lighter than the TH55 although you wouldn't really notice. The T3 comes with 64 MB of RAM (52 MB usable) while the TH55 has 32 MB (all of it usable). The screen is virtually the same size, but the TH55 does not support the global ability to use landscape mode, only certain applications that have been specifically written to do that will work. The T3 supports landscape on any application globally.

The Sony Handheld Engine that comes in the TH55 scales from 8-123 MHz depending on the system load. This is the same processor used in the UX50/40. The T3 sports a 400 MHz  processor. This makes the battery life in the TH55 better, but the CLIE Launcher and CLIE Organizer (CO) and other CPU-intensive applications are sluggish. The CO To-Do list can easily take 2-4 seconds to display even with less than 100 tasks. Picsel viewer is also quite slow (as its reading native PC file formats) as is viewing images loaded from a memory card. Audio and video playback, however, are not negatively impacted due the TH55's separate Digital Signal Processor (DSP) chip.

The TH55 is a straight "slate" form factor. Everyone has their opinion on the Tungsten T-series sliders. I really disliked the idea before using one, but then ended up liking it. It keeps the device as small as possible when carrying, but lets you have access to the full screen when desired. The T3 can even be configured to turn on automatically when opened and/or turn off when closed. The TH55's power switch is on the lower left side and to turn it on with one hand you need to contort your pinky or your thumb depending on which hand you are using. The T3's power switch, if you use it as opposed to the slider method, is on the top and also has to be pressed just right to get it to work.

To keep the TH55 as small as possible, Sony had to move its main controls to the back of the device. These controls are almost equally usable for left or right-handed use. There is a jog dial in the center with left and right buttons on either side and a separate back button (black button in the picture to the left). The T3 5-way navigator is large, easy to use, and quite functional. The TH55 controls are not as easy to use as the T3's. You also can't use the controls at all with it is sitting down on a table or desk. Instead, you must be holding the device in your hand or purchase a cradle so that you have access to the back of the device. The T3 doesn't have a back button, but its generally used to go "back" to the application launcher, which can be done on the T3 by pressing and holding the center button. Another thing to note is that the TH55 controls are not suitable for games that rely on an up/down button.

The TH55 has a smoked plastic flip cover. This allows viewing the screen through the cover as long as you are indoors (outdoors the backlight is not strong enough to get through the smoked tint). It opens 125 degrees. It cannot be folded flat against the back because that's where the controls are. The T3 has a leather flip cover that goes all the way back.

The TH55 has built-in Wi-Fi (802.11b) wireless networking while the T3 has Bluetooth. Unfortunately, no current Palm Powered device has both in this form-factor, so you must choose between the two or get the Sony UX50 clamshell device below instead. The TH55 has both in Europe, but for some reason Sony withdrew the BT from its US design. Wi-Fi is a longer-range, but more power-hungry standard that is designed for accessing public or personal wireless access points (WAP). Personal WAP's are cheap these days and much higher speed (11 or 54 Mb vs. 723k). However, Bluetooth is more prevalent in mobile phones. So Wi-Fi is better when its available but Bluetooth lets you connect from anywhere through your phone. You can, however, set up a Bluetooth Access Point in your home and/or share your PC's internet connection. Instructions are on our Bluetooth Info page. Wi-Fi information is on our Wi-Fi Info page.

Update (3/14): PdaShop in France has the TH55 available with both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth!

The Wi-Fi works great! Its very easy to set up. In fact, it automatically recognizes existing Wi-Fi networks and connects to them. The range is great and appears to be roughly equivalent to PC cards. The Wi-Fi Hotsync is outstanding compared to Bluetooth. The CLIE Mail and NetFront browser both can be configured to start and stop the connection automatically to save battery life. The network speed overall is certainly infinitely better than Bluetooth, but the PDA of course can't handle things as fast as a PC.

The TH55 also has a camera, which the T3 does not, but it is only 640x480 resolution. That is not suitable for making prints. There is 2x digital zoom, but no optical zoom. It does not have a flash for low-light situations either. It really can only be used for PDA and PC viewing. Until 1.3 MPx or higher cameras are standard in PDA's, they will not be a suitable substitute for a real digital camera.

Both the TH55 and the T3 have usable voice recorders that can use RAM or memory cards and have specialized voice record buttons.

The TH55 comes with a USB cable and AC adapter only while the T3 comes with a cradle. This wouldn't be too bad except the AC adapter is quite large and the USB cable itself doesn't charge the TH55, so you will still want a travel cable. As mentioned above, the TH55 navigation controls can't be used while laying flat, so this is another drawback to not having a cradle.

PIM Comparison

Rather than cover all the basics of each of these organizer suites, you can read about the palmOne Enhanced PIM applications on palmOne's site and the Sony CLIE Organizer on CLIEsource. Instead we'll focus on the overall direction and usability of these suites.

Sony CLIE Organizer

Sony has chosen to focus on allowing hand-written notes and other media, such as pictures and sound recordings in the organizer applications. They also created some great new calendar views. Unfortunately, there are essentially NO common enhancements between the Sony and palmOne organizer suites. Some specific CLIE Organizer enhancements are as follows.

• All-day events and timed appointments can have colors assigned, but they are not tied to categories. Colors are supported in the Day and Week views only.
• A "content window" can be displayed in the virtual Graffiti area where pictures, movies, handwritten notes, and sound files can be attached (linked) to the datebook. This can be done in the Day, Week, and Month views.
• Handwriting can be written anywhere on the screen in the Day, Week, and Month views. One minor drawback to this is that these notes and media items can only be seen in the view they were created. i.e. a note added to the Day view does not show in the Week view. They also do not move accordingly if the associated appointment gets moved.
• Day view allows drag-and-drop to move appointments. It does not support drag-and-drop for changing the duration, however.
• Great new Week view that is similar to 3rd-party week view programs where text is displayed for each day. Detail events and appointments are displayed in the VG area when its collapsed.
• The best Month view we've seen where there is an option to display the actual text of the appointment. Full details are displayed in the VG area just like in the Week View.
• The Address book allows for pictures to be attached as in previous CLIE versions. It also has a tab strip at the top to allow for jumping to a particular letter. It doesn't, however, let you start writing the name to position to a particular entry like the standard Palm app does (this app is included if you prefer it, though).
• The Memo Pad breaks the 4K text limit
• The to-do app is completely new. It allows for nested subtasks within parent tasks. It lets you manually sort them, but doesn't allow for automatic sorting. It also is driven off of both start date and due date and can color code tasks based on these dates (not started, in progress, deferred).
• The Free Notes app not only lets you handwrite notes, but also allows you to add pictures, movies, or sound clips. It only allows for a single screen, however, compared to the T3 which allows for three. It also lets you insert printed text as well.

palmOne Enhanced PIM

Overall, palmOne has moved its organizer suite in the direction of Outlook compatibility and addressing common enhancement requests from Palm users over the years. The biggest new features are as follows.

• Category support in the Calendar app that allows color-coding. You can also choose to view only a particular category. You will not believe how much functionality this adds in allowing you to quickly see what's going on with your schedule in the week view and month views. While the CLIE Organizer (CO) supports colors, they must be specified on individual events rather than automatically by category and they also don't sync with Outlook (more on this later).
• Recurring/repeat tasks and task alarms
• Both home and work address and phone information as well as birthday support
• The Memo app breaks the 4K text limit

Synchronization

The Intellisync Lite software that comes with the TH55 has a serious flaw in it where it will not sync past appointments, so you can't even see what you did yesterday! Sony is supposedly looking into this according to their knowledge-base. By using Outlook, you also can't use the advanced features of the CLIE Organizer since Sony has diverged so much from Outlook's capabilities. The advanced settings aren't even retained on the TH55, they are lost when you sync.

In contrast, the T3 synchronizes quite well with Outlook. palmOne has written their own Outlook synchronization software as opposed to licensing third-party software as they have in the past. There are still some idiosyncrasies when making changes to recurring tasks on the T3, but overall the sync works well including all the advanced fields.

If you don't sync with Outlook, then none of this matters as both the T3's Palm Desktop and the TH55's CLIE Organizer for PC work well and support all included features on the respective devices.

TH55 Software

• CLIE Mail - This is a good email client that allows for multiple accounts, provides attachment support, and has filtering capability. There is no SSL or HTML support. It won't even strip HTML commands from the email so it leaves them unreadable. The delete from server doesn't seem to work either, which would be nice for removing SPAM. They mail synchronization is terrible -- its the old Palm version that doesn't bring attachments. Versamail that comes with the T3 is far superior, including HTML and SSL support and the synchronization handles attachments and even multiple subfolders. If you are serious about email, you will want to purchase VersaMail from palmOne now that they have released a version for non-T3's. Unfortunately there is no demo version available and we have not yet tried this on the TH55.
• NetFront Browser - This is a great mobile browser with bookmarking, support for images, tables, and limited javascript. It can work with or without a proxy server. It has several modes to control whether it displays the page full-width or compresses it to fit within the width of the CLIE screen. It has various settings for the jog dial, but its still a little cumbersome to be able to scroll and select links with just the navigator controls. It also would be much better if they added support for landscape mode! The T3's WebPro 3.x is at least as good plus allows for better one-handed navigation.
• Picsel Viewer - This is useful for viewing desktop Word and Excel documents and especially PDF and PowerPoint files which DocsToGo does not yet support in native PC formats. It also displays plain text, HTML, and pictures. (Update) Repligo is available for the T3 for viewing all these formats, but it requires translation on the PC, so this makes the Picsel viewer clearly better for email attachments and sharing files with PC users while on the go.
• CLIE Viewer - Allows you to selectively view images, movies, sound clips, and FreeNotes all from a single application. It runs rather slowly on the TH55, though, and doesn't support any categorization of media items whether they are in memory or on a card.
• Image Viewer - Supports pan and zoom on the handheld. It doesn't have any category support. It does show landscape photos in the correct mode, which is nice. You can also use the CLIE Camera utility to rotate photos that aren't arranged properly for this. As noted above, the image viewer is slow when loading large images from the Memory Stick. In our opinion, whether you have the TH55 or the T3, you will want to purchase SplashPhoto. It allows for categorization, marking pictures as private, and is fast due to using cached thumbnails.
• Movie Player - Works well considering its running on a PDA. No noticeable delays in playback, but image quality is somewhat poor. (Update):The Kinoma Player for the T3 is similar, but not quite as good. The Sony version also plays native mpeg movies whereas Kinoma must use a special palm format.
• CLIE Files - This is based on the excellent McFile application, supports the full screen, and is an overall great application. It doesn't let you edit the file properties like the real McFile, so power users may want to purchase the full version or use one of the available freeware apps. See the Launchers & Memory Card Utilities in our Essential Software list.
• CLIE Launcher - This is a nice application with up to 12 favorites and good jog dial support. The Launcher that is included in the CO suite is pretty poor since you can't easily switch or edit categories. The T3's default launcher works great with its 5-way navigator.
• DocumentsToGo - The Sony TH55 now includes this great application for viewing and editing Word and Excel files and viewing PowerPoint files. The palmOne models have included this for a while, but now Sony is finally on board. You will need to register your device to receive the activation code. One thing to note is that this may only be available for US customers.

The Palm Expense application is not included. This may be due to PalmSource not updating it for 320x480 mode (even for the T3). It isn't a perfect app, but it works fine for most people's needs and the synchronization with Palm Desktop v4+ is nice. This is a plus for the T3.

Also noticeably missing from the TH55 software suite is the Movie Recorder that is available on other CLIE models with cameras. There are rumors that Sony is working on an updated one, but Sony has been historically bad about releasing updating and new software for its previous models.

Some Additional TH55 Quirks

• TH55 has 4 application buttons, but one is wasted on a CLIE Organizer specific pop-up menu and can't be reassigned. You can use third-party software to re-assign it, but then there is no way to launch this special menu.
• Virtual Graffiti screen buttons can't be changed like on the T3 without 3rd-party software (that is not even available yet for the TH55 although it is in development).
• No built-in landscape mode, although a few applications like Picsel Viewer, Image Viewer, and the Flash Player support it.
• Can't write anywhere on the screen. While there isn't an issue of having to open a slider to get to the VG area, its still a very useful feature. (Update) Graffiti Anywhere is an application that handles this, but you will have to assign a key sequence to activate it rather then tapping on the status bar. NewPen is another application like this, but it doesn't have full support for Graffiti 2 (yet?).
• In the CLIE Organizer (CO) for PC, the preview of the TH55 screen is only 320x320 which makes no sense. The time displays in military format and I see no way to change it.
• Daily lock-ups requiring soft or hard resets. This is mostly related to system alarms going off, but can also happen at other times. This looks to be a serious bug in the CLIE organizer. You also get 2 alarms at the same time, one from CO and one from the regular Palm Datebook application, which is very annoying.

Comparison Ratings

* (Update) The TH55 originally received only a 4 in synchronization, but Sony has posted an update that fixes the issue with past appointments not synchronizing with Outlook. However, we still rate the T3 higher in this category because colors and categories are retained whereas the TH55 loses these with synchronizing with Outlook. If you sync with the CLIE Desktop rather than Outlook, your individual score would be higher.  Also note that the T3 Palm Desktop is easier to use and also includes Expense synchronization, though.

** Overall rating is roughly the average of the individual scores. This means it weighs each factor equally, which is not necessarily correct for your individual preferences. (Update) Note that by increasing the TH55 synchronization score above, this brings its overall score to 6.5 rather than 6.3.

Conclusion

Deciding what PDA is right for you individually depends solely on how you weigh your desired features. For example, size, weight, battery life; Wi-Fi vs. Bluetooth; Outlook vs. Palm/CLIE desktop usage; availability of accessories; etc. You have to decide which features are the most important to you.

It is clear that the T3 is superior from a pure standpoint of processor speed and memory. The form-factor (slider vs. tablet) is largely a personal preference, but regardless of your preference, the T3's controls are easier to use. The T3's Bluetooth vs. the TH55's Wi-Fi is probably the biggest swing factor if wireless connectivity is of any concern to you. (Update) Compatibility with Outlook is another big consideration where the T3 has the clear advantage in that colors and categories in the Calendar are retained and the Tasks can repeat and have alarms set for them.

Although this may sound a bit oversimplified, in my opinion previous palmOne users will want to upgrade to a T3 while Sony users will prefer the TH55. Since the TH55 is not slower than previous Sony models and the prior models did not have advanced PIM applications, prior Sony users won't see any downsides to the new device (besides the lock-up problems which hopefully will be fixed at some point). Current T3 users will not see the TH55 as an upgrade, however.

For me, I have Wi-Fi at home and at the office and don't yet have a Bluetooth phone. I also know that I'm going to purchase a new Palm Cobalt (OS 6) device when they come out. That being said, the TH55 works best for me for the time being. I will likely have to purchase a different email package and find some way around these Outlook sync options to be ultimately happy, however.

Other Similar Handheld Models

• The Sony CLIE UX50 has both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as well as a keyboard. It has a smaller screen, though, that only supports landscape mode. Its also at least 1/2" wider and has poor battery life.
• The palmOne Tungsten C has similar hardware specs to the T3 and also has built-in Wi-Fi. It does not, however, have the 320x480 screen. The T|C is thicker and doesn't have the same professional look as the TH55, though.
• (Update) The Sony TG50 has Bluetooth, slate form-factor, and uses a thumb keyboard. It does not have the 320x480 screen, though.

Check current discounted prices for the Sony CLIE TH55 on Amazon.com or buy the TH55 Direct from Sony. You can also Check prices on the Tungsten T3 at Amazon.com or Tungsten T3 at palmOne

Please feel free to rate this review, share your comments about these devices below, and vote for the TH55 or T3 in the poll (top right of this page). There is a also a TH55 Forum available.