Sony will be bringing its newest Clié PDA to the US, the company announced today.

Launched in Japan earlier this year, the PEG-N700C is the realisation of the entertainment-oriented PDA the Sony had in mind when it announced back in 1999 that it was licensing Palm's OS to build one.

The first Clié provided something of a disappointment. Last year's global LCD shortage ensured Sony couldn't ship the colour version outside Japan, and in any case the machine seemed little more than a very expensive Palm clone.

The PEG-N700C, on the other hand turned out to be a sleek, groovy multimedia handheld, boasting MP3, movie and streamed video playback on a 320x320 resolution, 16-bit colour screen. At the launch, Sony wouldn't say whether the machine would be made available outside of Japan.

Technically, the PEG-N700C won't be - the US model is the PEG-N710C. Beyond the English language software, we can't see what the difference is, though. Interestingly, the US released describes the new Clié as sporting an embedded digital audio player, but we're not sure if this means it functions as a standalone player or the device simply bundles a music playback app as the Japanese version appears to.

The US version will ship in June for "under $500" - which means $499.99, we presume... ®

Related Stories

Sony turns Clié PDA into digital audio, movie player
Sony, Microsoft developing GameBoy-style handhelds