Customer Reviews
Unreliable with little support from company. 
2003-03-20
I regret having to report negative experiences, but that's what happened.
Although I like the product when it works, I judge that it is too unreliable. I bought 6 of them for all my office staff to use and synch. It is beautifully designed and I was very happy. Then, it would not synch no matter how many resets, etc. The company support was not user-friendly. Fortunately, I'd bought a warranty with mine and the warranty company acknowledged that it was irreparable and gave me a full refund.
Next, one of my employee's Clié had a crash and lost all his data. He says it is still not working.
So then I bought the smaller and less costly Sony Clié SJ30. I was happy with it for the first 2 months, till it also developed an internal problem that was not reparable. The Sony online support service was "offline to better serve you, please try again later."
As a result, I went to office Depot and bought a Palm m515 last night. It seems the closest to these and I hope that the outcome is better.
My first PDA 
2003-03-13
When I got ready to enter the PDA world, I began reading all the reviews I could find. I finally made my choice after literally hundreds of reviews and I settled on the Sony T615C. The screen resolution was the main seller for me. The resolution is simply stunning!
Depending on what you want your PDA for, the T615C may or may not suit your needs. Yes, the color (red) is slightly muted or off. Yes, the battery life isn't great for sustained periods of time. BUT, if you use it like I do, referring to it briefly many, many times a day, I think you will find that the versitlity and sharp resolution make this the perfect information assistant. While I do have a few pictures stored on my PDA, I don't expect it to act like an electronic photo album. I dont' expect it to act like a GameBoy. With the proper expectations, this is a fabulous little device.
I use my PDA to hold my addresses, phone numbers, appointments, lists, and memos. I have about 8 novel-length ebooks installed, for those waits in the doctor's office, bank, etc. And I have installed 5 games for those shorter waits when I don't feel like getting into a good book.
I refer to my PDA off an on all day for phone numbers, to add an appointment, make grocery lists, notes, and comments, and occasionnally to read a book or play a game. With all that installed, I still have over 9mb of the original 16 left.
The screen is very responsive and requires only the lightest touch to go where I want to go. I don't use the jog dial much or the buttons on the bottom. My primary navigation tool is the stylus. Ebooks can be navigated by simply touching the left or right side of the screen to "turn the page" so the stylus isn't even necessary for that function.
Another feature I really love is the Graffiti. Some have complained about it, but with just a little training and effort, you can be writing with 100% accuracy on your PDA. I can write information faster than I could type it!
This little PDA is solid, attractive, highly functional, and loaded with the Palm OS 4.1 which means there is a world of software out there for you to customize your PDA. I have found many, many programs to add to the functionality of my little unit. The hotsynch cradle is easy to use and the included software makes interaction with your PC a breeze.
Overall, I love my little Sony Clie and I wouldn't trade for anything on the market. I played with all of them at the local electronics stores and found this one to be the clearest, sharpest, and most comfortable of all.
Careful with colour PDAs: rather disappointing performance! 
2003-02-22
I know it's already a bit late to give you this advice, but... here it goes. If you are an experienced Palm OS user, be careful when buying this product- and any battery powered product with colour LCD. I used to have the good old PalmV, with 2MB memory and BW display that glowed greenish in the dark; but about 9 months ago I decided to upgrade to this beautiful Sony baby, which had just started shipping.
Well I should have waited. First, the transition was not smooth at all; it was not "a snap" to transfer all info between the two devices, as much of the software proved incompattible. Sony has supplied proprietary software installers but it did not feel straight forward, was rather complicated actually. Then, after all that was over, I stumbled into a very annoying problem that made me regret deeply having bought into upgrading to this SONY product: the battery of this thing is completely worthless. The colour display uses a LOT of energy and the internal battery supports, like, only 2-3 hours of continuous usage. For example, as I travel often to Europe (11-12 hours away from Los Angeles) I was preparing to plan my meetings, to play games in colour etc. But no! Impossible, most of the time when I was on a trip, my PEG T615C was dead since the beginning. The previous PDA I owned- the PalmV (a real dyno!), perhaps due to the efficiency of its 4 bit BW display, lasted for weeks and weeks between recharges. There is no way that I could carry a heavy PDA DC adapter in addition to my enormous IBM business laptop and all the other stuff; it is anyway quite annoying to get searched at every airport these days... And anyway the DC adapter is only for 110V and does not work in Europe! Cheap, oh cheap...
So, there... It is now sitting quietly on my desk, the beautifully designed "it's a Sony" PDA... and I learned how to use my Nokia camera phone as an organizer- at least that one lasts for a long time. I don't know what is the performance of the other Sony Colour PDAs (newer models) but if you plan to buy one, try to get interested into their battery life.
Nice display but thats it!! Look Elsewhere 2003-01-26
Got the 615C last June, '02. So far the latch for the cover has broken and won't stay attached. The stylus keeps slipping out - I've lost 2 already. The battery won't stay charged and the PDA orange light flickers when in the cradle. For the price, I should have looked at the Palm brand more closely. Had a IIIxe and was happy except for the display. The display on the Sony is the best out there, hence my purchase. But never again. For the price, the reliability is very poor after 6 months. By the way I have an aluminum case for the unit (after the factory cover broke), it's never been dropped or abused. Probably would have lasted a few hours with some abuse. No more Sony - it's Baloney.
It's good, but the display is too small 
2003-01-17
I have no complains about this CLIE. I let go of my IPaq because it was too heavy and large to carry it with me all the time. So I decided to get the T615. The Palm OS works with less memory requirements than Windows CE, so you get much more storage capacity with a 16kb Clie than with a 32kb IPaq. However, I do find the display too small for my needs. I can barely tip the letters I want in the virtual keyboard with the stylus. Also, if you use quickbooks (excel look-alike), the display is just not enough.
In addition, this unit is not MP3 equiped. The built in speaker is deficient.
Going...Going...Gone! 2004-08-12
I bought my Sony Clié PEG-T615C/U of eBay for $160.00 CAD in December of 2003. It was the best purchase of my life. I used it for taking notes in class and the battery life was good enough for me to use at school and charge every night. I would play games on public transport to school and home and would act as my alarm clock each night. Ultimately, the best thing ever. In mid-June of 2004, all of a sudden, my Clié refused to charge. The green cradle light failed to light, as did the orange unit light. It wouldn't HotSync either. I put it on the shelf and couldn't use it anymore. In August of 2004, I took it to Sony Repair Service. They said that it would cost $175 CAD to repair, but before they could repair it, they would have to look at it which costs $50 CAD. Astonished at the response of Sony Canada, I left. Why has Sony been going downhill? They used to be so much better than they are now. They even discontinued the Clié because it was breaking so much under warranty, that they were losing money. Sony is about money now instead of quality. After my encounter with the Repair Center, I figured that I had nothing to lose, and opened the Clié up. Nothing that I could find. I recommend never to buy this product, unless you know the people that you buy it from very well.
Sorry I bought it. 2004-02-09
My first experience with a PDA was with one of the old monochrome Palms. The advantage to that device was that you could use the thing every day and the batteries would last for maybe 6 to 8 weeks.
With the T615 the battery situation is much different. With luck I can get maybe four hours of use out of one charge. I have a cradle at work, but I had to buy an additional cradle for home, which was around $50. I needed that just so I could use the thing on the weekend, otherwise the battery would die. In other words, with the T615 you are almost tethered to the cradle, because the rechargeable battery life is so short.
The other thing is that the battery discharges even when you don't use it. For example, if the battery is about half-charge and you don't use it for a week, the next time you turn it on, the battery will be completely dead. I mean dead to the point that all the information you had on the device is gone. With the older monochrome Palm, I suppose that could happen were you to leave dead batteries in it for months. But I never saw it happen. But with the Clie, I would say that it happens every few months.
But here's where the memory card is useful. I back up everything on the memory card all the time so that when the thing dies I can simply restore from the card.
One the one hand, you don't want to use the thing too much because you run the battery down so fast. But if you don't use it the battery runs down anyway. So you get the worst of both worlds. "Why not just keep it in the charger," you ask? Well, I do, but the care and feeding of my PDA does not form a very large part of my consciousness, and I forget to do that sometimes. Again, with the older Palm, battery life almost didn't matter because the battery life was so good.
I find that the Clie is so unreliable that I mostly use the PC software that comes with it. Any more I just use the Clie as a kind of expensive backup storage device in case something were to happen to the PC -- kind like a jump drive with a screen.
The good thing about the Clie is that it has a very lovely and clear screen -- a beautiful screen that, because of the short battery life, you won't see very often.
So learn from my experience, and understand that if your PDA doesn't have good battery life, the other features don't mean very much.
FAILED AFTER ONE YEAR, so did my brothers! 2003-12-21
Hi guys,
Me and my brother were both so excited buying this when it came out. It failed for both of us after one year!. Anyhow I will never buy Sony again. However, my brother did and im pretty sure his latest Sony will fail again. Sony has such awesome designs but poor quality in this line of product!
Miss WLC 2003-04-25
Good Toy! Does everything and some more! It's cute, too - I like that. My co-workers get jealous when I pull it out in meetings to take notes and check my schedule. My friends get jealous when I pull it out to play games and read the newspaper. Hahahahaha! It holds tons of information and I wish I had one years ago!
did I have a lemon? 2003-04-24
I have been a long time palm user....wanted the color, so went with Sony. Short battery life, power button in a bad place, turned on "by itself", and died frequently, poor instructions, and then the backlite died. Would certainly not buy again.
