Sony Debuts First Japan-Only Clie

[Ed Hardy]

Sony has announced the Clie PEG-VZ90, a multimedia-oriented handheld. This model will not officially be available outside of Japan.

Read more at http://www.brighthand.com/article/So...VZ90?site=Palm

[Paul P]

I wonder how much the new OLED display contributes to the improved battery life.

[kmingc]

looks really impressive. i wish i can understand the japanese so i can use this. on my next trip to Japan on dec, perhaps i will buy this.

[ballistic]

Sony also announced (coincidentally?) that they (along with some partners) will be acquiring MGM for about $2.9 Billion US, thereby doubling Sony's movie library and furthering their plans for content delivery. Sony will leverage content to drive hardware sales and vice versa, as well as leverage their percentage of content marketshare, now 40-50% of movies and music coming out of Hollywood, to try to set industry formats and standards like the Memory Stick, UMD, ATRAC, Blu-Ray DVD, etc.

Idei's goal is to unite consumer-electronics and media businesses through products such as the PSP hand-held game machine and the Airboard portable television, which is designed for watching movies on the Internet.

It's now perfectly clear why Sony killed the Clie in the US, why the VZ90 is designed the way it is, and what Sony has in store for the PSP besides games.

IMO, that's the real "Big Story" here, and it's a harbinger of things to come from Sony. The implications for consumers remain to be seen.

Will the VZ90 only play content transferred to the device through a Sony desktop application or through the Connect download service? With the proprietary Handheld Engine, they could lock out compatibility with other Palm OS multimedia applications like Kinoma, MMPlayer or PocketTunes.

I see Sony's future and I'm not particularly attracted to it. With these two announcements, IMO Sony is not only heading down the path of closed, proprietary systems for strict DRM and content delivery, Sony will be the trailblazer.

[Celf]

What disturbes me most is the fact that Sony leaves it's non-Japan customers in the cold, software wise. My TH55 - which I like very much - has several bugs and although Sony still develops PDA's....it does not support the TH55 anymore...leaving me with an unfinished product.

[rsc1000]

I can't believe that after dozens of palm os devices from Sony76, they leave the international market THEN put out a product with what looks like usable buttons

Sony lost marketshare to palmOne over the last year and a half because palmOne caught up to Sony in terms of features BUT palmOne also continued to do good design and ergonomics - something that Sony always sucked at with the clies and refused to change (thats not the most popular theory of Sonys exit from the international PDA market - but i think the most plausable given they were spending more and more $$$ while losing marketshare). So many millions spent pumping out a new model every month with many new innovations, yet they never listened to complaints about easy-to-fix crapola stylus and lame miniscule buttons (the only reason i never bought a clie). The theory went that the devices were designed for smaller japanese hands. I have no idea how true that is - but why does the 1st japanese only Clie look lke it actually *finally* has usable controls/buttons? And a freakin' real d-pad no less!

[ruarch5]

Wonder if OLED will be the battery saver on the PSP? Anyways I think the most logical way back for sony in to US apart from PSP is with MS. HP rx3000 model shows its possible(except QVGA screen).

[Ferrari3200]

Sweet, a worthy replacement for my aging e805!

[Dexterium]

Now this is a reson to learn Japanese. I wonder if you can flash the rom with a new OS... maybe I could get one imported from a member of Brighthand who lives in Japan.. Hint hint.

[kmingc]

well i do not see myself to have any issue as i can use it with external chinese system...like what i can done on the TH55. even thought it is an english system, i can switch to chinese when needed
but what bother me is the 0.9" thickness..... it would be a laptop....