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Connectivity
The SJ33's connectivity is about on par for a Sony handheld. At the base of the device is the serial/USB port, which is the standard Sony design, first used on the T-series. Because the casing is a different thickness, however, it is not compatible with cradles from other models, and possibly with serial-port accessories (depending on the accessory).
 | The SJ33 has all of the standard Sony features, including mp3 support
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The device foregoes a cradle, and ships with just the standard Sony HotSync/charging cable. The cable itself is a two-part cable, which neatly avoids the wall-brick problem that plagues so many handhelds. The connection to the device, however, lacks a HotSync button, as does the device. That makes one-touch-HotSync impossible, unless the user dedicates the Calculator button to the HotSync application. Still, it is at least a two-touch process. Aside from that problem, the Sony cable is one of the better designed cables we've seen.
On the top of the device are, as expected, an Infrared port, Sony Memory Stick slot, headphone jack, and of course stylus silo. All are standard fair on Sony devices these days, and function as expected. Having the audio jack on the top of the device also makes it easier to fit the SJ33 into a holster-type case. The included stereo ear-bud headphones sound superb, and have a small, slightly difficult to use volume wheel in the cord.
The SJ33 has no wireless capability.
Specifications
The SJ33 is a Palm OS 4.1 device, running a Motorola Dragonball 68k CPU at 66 MHz. It sports 16 MB of RAM, which is fast becoming standard for mid- to high-end Palm OS handhelds. As is typical of a Sony device, it includes a dedicated audio chip for playing mp3 audio as well as Sony's proprietary ATRAC3 DRM format.
The audio quality of the built-in speaker is good enough for most games, but not well suited to music playback. The included headphones, however, sound excellent.
The battery is an internal Lithium-Ion Polymer battery, also standard fair these days. We ran our standard battery torture test on the device, leaving Red Mercury's AtomSmash running in demo mode with auto-off disabled and the sound off. The first low-battery warning occurred after 4 hours, 18 minutes, and the device shut itself off after 4 hours, 35 minutes, a respectable lifetime for a device of this type. Recharging took nearly 3 hours, 30 minutes, however, which is longer than we would have expected.
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