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Sony PCG-U1
hexdcml writes "Just found this whilst browsing, Sony has now brought out the My Little Vaio range, (probably for rich kids..tsk) All I can say is WOW, this thing is tiny.
Makes me wanna ditch my lurvely little iBook and get this!
The site's in japanese, so you'll need to translate (for those how are non-japansese literate) using Babelfish or something." Dynamism.com has specifications in English.
Seriously, I'd have to agree with the submittor here. I am all for giving your kids the best, but kids in the My First X demographic (under 8? at some point primary colors get embarrassing) don't really have a use for a laptop. Even if they did, a retired laptop (even from ebay) would probably a better choice than this product, which just screams "status symbol."
I didn't get a current system until college, always learning on and using yesteryear's tech. It's a good way to go, b/c you don't take the cutting edge hardware for granted. I think it made me more aware of issues like backwards compatability, which is important.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
The guy is typing with his thumbs! And the icons look pinhead-size. This is all very neat how we can shrink things smaller and smaller, but... ergonomics anyone? How about keeping your eyesight past your 20's?
I think the whole PDA/Tablet PC/Subnotebook thing is in general pretty silly. For general use they are horrible. Better to get something like the Hitachi WIA with an input device like the Twiddler and keep your wrists and eyes healthy.
Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon
all the other junk you need to bring along: power supplies, extra battery, mouse, network cord, phone cord, teething ring...
I feel the same way about laptops in general - there are some out there that solve almost all of this, however. Personally I carry the following:
- white ibook
- thin little ethernet cable
- power brick (into which apple conveniently put cable management)
And that's it. Nothing else. Occasionally I bring a mouse, but not often.I suppose that leads me to a point about this Sony laptop we're supposed to be discussing: no builtin ethernet, no builtin wavelan, no builtin modem. Hmm. That would drive me insane, as I would end up carrying two or three pcmcia cards and their dongles around with me, and that's when things get broken in my backpack. I'd forgive it if it had builtin wavelan. In fact, that would be marvelous. It doesn't, however. And, I might add, I actually had a Sony SR7k (followed by an SR27k) for a year and a half, and I sold it in favor of an iBook for this exact reason. Oh well.
Moral of the story: I'm keeping my iBook. :) You can have it when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
- The market there is (proportionally) more interested in miniaturization for its own sake.
- The initial prices for high-end consumer electronics are higher than in the U.S., so they can afford more of a risk.
- The market is smaller than in the U.S., so it costs less to launch something new.
The latter two are important because the smaller devices generally involve more custom engineering, and thus have a higher initial cost and greater risk to the company.Tiny keyboards only allow one finger at a time typing. You can't get much work done on it
I can touch-type on the Libretto 70 keyboard which has a 14.5mm key pitch. I'd guess I could do it on this 14mm keyboard too. Once on the shuttle bus from an airport to a conference, I was sitting beside someone who thought I'd never be able to type on it. We had a race, which I won (or I'd never be telling this story, obviously).
There was a big advantage in having the computer not take up much space, so my hands weren't as cramped as his. This is also an advantage on planes in economy class.
and it'll cramp your game playing.
The game playing also affects how much work you get done...
What the hell does this mean?
Babelfish is col and all, but I can't wait until AI's are advanced enough to translate thigns properly.
"Me and my girl named bimbo . . . limbo . . . spam" - Captain Beefheart.
The English trademark "my first Vaio" gives a different impression of the device, at least to native English speakers, but native English speakers are not the primary audience for this.
Don't forget that in Japan, English is "cool". They will use English phrases, without necessarily understanding the phrases fully.
I think Kanji is "cool", and I would love to have a T-shirt with a few Kanji characters on it. Same thing with them, only with English. Most Japanese may not even care what "My First Vaio" means.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely