Sony has a long history of glorious successes and resounding failures. Its first product, a rice cooker, notoriously overcooked the rice. While its Walkman portable music player simply revolutionized an industry.

So when Sony announced last year that it was licensing Palm's operating system and planning to develop its own line of handheld computers, the inevitable guessing game began among industry watchers and PDA enthusiasts. And the question on everyone's lips was "Would Sony's new device become the next Walkman, or the next BetaMax?"

Some foresaw a slick new Sony multimedia PDA. In addition to the typical Palm organizer features, they predicted high-quality audio and video playback. And of course, it would have a hot new name that would push it to the forefront in consumers' minds. Others were not so optimistic, saying that without more memory and a substantially faster processor any multimedia product based on the Palm OS would simply not be up to the task. Still others questioned the need for another Palm OS-based handheld organizer with yet another expansion standard, Sony's Memory Stick technology.

A leap, or testing the water?

At a recent press conference in Tokyo, Sony provided several more clues and unveiled working models of its new handheld devices for the first time. And for high-tech psychics, this provided plenty of information for them to validate, or adjust, their predictions.

Yes, Sony's new device will play video, thanks to a third-party software product called gMedia. However, those attending the press conference said that the video appeared "jerky and slow", which is exactly what nay-sayers had been predicting. And audio appears to be a thing of the future. The new Sony devices will not be capable of playing compressed audio file, such as the highly popular MP3 format.

So consider it a baby-step in the right direction, but certainly not a leap.

No, the devices won't carry a cool moniker, at least not at first. Dubbed "Personal Entertainment Organizers", Sony plans a color model called the PEG-S500C and a monochrome model called the PEG-S300. No Visor, no Jornada, No Cassiopeia, no Revo. That's right, it's a PEG-S500C.

And then there's the kicker - the price. Sony expects to sell upwards of 100,000 of the new devices this year, beginning September 9, at prices rumored to exceed $500. Most industry analysts believe this price point is too high and will not gain acceptance in the U.S. market.

But there were some positives in the Sony announcement.

For one, the new device is small, and it lasts a long time on a charge. Sony claims it is the slimmest and lightest Palm PDA on the market, measuring 2.9" x 4.5" x .6" and weighing less than 4.5 ounces. By comparison, the Palm V is 3.1" x 4.5" x .4" and weighs 4 ounces.

And under normal conditions, Sony says it can run for 15 days between charges on its embedded lithium-ion battery. That is likely based on 30 minutes of use per day, or 7-9 hours of continuous use.

The color screen will be transflective, much like the Sony-made LCD used in the new Compaq iPAQ Pocket PC. While it should be highly viewable both indoors and outdoors, it may be slightly grainy since it will only be capable of displaying 256 colors.

And Sony added a jog dial, similar to the one on Hewlett Packard's Jornada Pocket PC, which allows users to scroll and open applications without using their stylus.

But it's the Memory Stick technology that Sony is banking on to be its shining star. The Sony Palm device will come with 4 megabytes of embedded flash memory and an 8 megabyte Memory Stick. Sony claims that with a 64 megabyte Memory Stick you can hold two to three hours of video or 2,000 still images.

And Sony unveiled several Memory Sticks that it plans to have ready in 2001, including a Global Positioning System (GPS) stick, a digital camera stick, and a Bluetooth wireless stick.

"We hope Sony's entry will reinforce the strength and showcase the creative applications enabled by the Palm OS platform," said Alan Kessler, Palm's Chief Operating Officer.

We'll just have to wait and see what impact Sony's new devices will have on the PDA market.

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