By Dan Velasco
Lust, pure and simple. That's the reason that I paid $499 (plus tax) without question for my Sony CLIE PEG-N710C. A color screen. An integrated audio player. Video playback capabilities. And the Palm OS. It was a winning combination that I could not resist.
Let me take a moment to describe the day I bought my CLIE, because I think it explains a lot about how I feel about the device. It was the last Sunday in May, and I was walking through Fry's Electronics in Sunnyvale, CA. I meandered through the PDA section, like I always do, just on the off chance that there might be anything new. Imagine my surprise when I saw someone holding the new color Sony CLIE, which I wasn't expecting to come out until mid-June. I immediately went over and started drooling over it with the guy who was looking at it, whose name turned out to be Frank.
After getting a chance to hold it and finding it was everything I had hoped for, I went to the sales clerk who told me they didn't have any left. My heart dropped. In desperation, I asked if any of their other locations had CLIEs in stock. I found out that the San Jose store across town had ten of them as of that morning. It was just after noon already, so I knew there was probably only a few left.
I knew without question that I was going to go across town, and Frank decided he was going as well. I said goodbye to Frank at the front of the store and literally started speed walking, almost jogging to my car, keeping an eye on where Frank went as well to see if I could beat him out of the parking lot.
To make a long story short, in spite of taking what I thought was a shortcut, we ended up arriving at the San Jose Fry's at exactly the same time. As we started walking towards the store, I turned to him and said, only half-joking, "I hope they have more than one. I'd hate to have to fight you for it." Fortunately, they had three CLIEs left, so I didn't have to kill him, which definitely would have put a damper on the enjoyment of my new device.
The last time I can remember having had a similar level of excitement about a computing device was when I first saw the Palm V, about two and a half years ago. I bought my Palm V the first week it was available, even though I didn't have approval to expense it at the time. Sometimes you've just got to follow your instincts.
What the heck is a CLIE?
CLIE is actually an acronym that stands for "Communication, Link, Information and Entertainment." In fact, Sony boldly calls the device a Personal Entertainment Organizer, further setting it apart from other PDAs on the market. It stands out on store shelves just by virtue of its bright green box, which you can see in Figure A.
