Sony CLI PEG-SJ33 review

I'm glad I was only old enough to buy sweets and comics in the 1980s, as the gadgets were rubbish.

Back then, mobile phones were the size of bricks and a FiloFax was the only organiser to be seen with. In 2003, the gadget freak-about-town has it made: the Sony CLI PEG-SJ33 is out there.

The Sony is a looker. The jet-black underside and translucent-black lid combine with the matt-metal middle to create a delicious sleekness. At 173g, though, it's heavier than our previous Top 50 budget handheld, the Palm Zire m150.

The Sony has a bright, high-resolution screen. Amazingly, this is on a par with that of our Top 50 luxury handheld - the Palm Tungsten T2.

It's easy to browse files and find your way around its Palm system software, thanks to the rotating selector wheel and 'back' button.

Although the 66MHz processor isn't the fastest, programs run quickly enough and its low power consumption helped the battery last for around ten days.

The software bundle is also useful. It includes image-editing programs for tweaking photographs, as well as Kinoma, a program for watching movie clips. Accompanying sound from the internal speaker is surprisingly good. Don't expect to watch Lord of the Rings on the Sony, though - its 16MB of RAM can hold only 8 minutes of good-quality video.

The Palm Desktop program is particularly handy. It lets you hook the Sony up to your PC to swap contact details. Still, it can't compete with the e-mail, contact and calendar tools offered by Outlook, used by Pocket PC handheld devices. Unlike more expensive handhelds, the Sony doesn't have a desk cradle to sit in when exchanging data with your PC. Instead, you'll need to connect it to a USB cable.

Best of all, the 3.5mm jack and headphones mean you can play MP3s - impressive, considering that many MP3 players cost more than this handheld. It only has 16MB of memory, but you can add more via the Memory Stick slot. There are also optional Bluetooth modules, camera attachments and game controllers.

For the bare essentials, Palm's Zire m150 is the best buy. But for those who want more features and a colour screen, the CLI PEG-SJ33 undercuts its rivals by a full hundred quid.

Author: Nick Ross