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Sony VAIO U50 Reviewed In Depth
LabRat007 writes "PDA Buyer's Guide reviews the Sony VAIO U50/U70, the hybrid PC/PDA that has beaten both the FlipStart and OQO to market. The short version?
They like it, but it's too expensive. Editor in Chief Lisa Gade provides the typically in-depth review, with pictures and words and
everything." The design looks great, but the price -- yow!
This seems like almost the perfect form-factor for a Tablet PC, since it's small enough to actually hold in only one hand, and big and powerful enough to write legible text, and do decent recognnition of it.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The U50 and U70 are $2199 and $2699 respectively. The OQO will be "just under $2000". The Flipstart price hasn't been announced yet, but I'd be surprised if it will be much cheaper. These things will remain rich men's toys for the forseeable future.
In short, I ended up going for the Palm for a few reasons. First off was price - Sony does not price their gear competitively. Their market appears to be the executives with fat expense accounts who see shiny new toys and go for them. I have a number of geek friends and none of them are big purchasers at Sony, with the sole exception being Sony's monitors.
Secondly, when it came to software - because Sony regularly releases high-end models with customised software, they don't seem to support them for too long.
So if I was somebody looking at the palmtop/tablet options out there, I would probably give this a miss. The spec's are nice, but it looks like something for someone who needs such functionality *today*, rather than waiting for equivalent devices to come to market in the next 6-12 months with a lower pricetag.
But like most Sony products, damn... it looks sweet! ;-)
Man watching 6 MSCE's around a sun box, looks alot like the opening scene's of 2001:space odyssey...
...is it you want it to do something beyond what Sony envisioned for it at this moment in 2004.
Examples:
I can guarantee you that if you want to run Longhorn when it comes out, it won't do it. The drivers won't work and Sony will not update drivers for older products.
If it breaks after the warranty period, forget it. The replacement parts will cost more than the thing is worth.
It will have minor incompatibilities with standard software suites, sony tech support will deny it and then mysteriously 6 months later a patch will appear that will be unannounced, you'll have to hunt for it on the Sony site.
In short, when you buy a piece of Sony computer gear, buy it for what it does out of the box, forget about putting BSD or Linux on it (or even another version of windows), and if it breaks, throw it away.
Its just a mindset at sony, and it explains why people generally buy Sony computer gear exactly once.
I could be wrong, but I think he means 20 Gig hard drive.
I play Nethack on my Sharp Zaurus SL5500.
Screenshots and other info here.
Sharp do indeed make a good subnotebook, as do other vendors. I won't run Windows any more, and I'm *not sure* I could manage to successfully put Linux on one of these systems and have all the ports work properly and the graphics catered for correctly.
I wonder if this is a concession from Sony that their marginalised memory stick format is on its last legs.
My (2nd) biggest problem with this style device, (other than price), is the boot time. It takes the same time as a normal PC to boot up?
Not very convenient for an "on-the-go" device like this (and yes, I think laptops boot too slowly too).
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
I really hate arguments that refer to "most people." Did you conduct a scientific survey? Take a poll? Hell, ask your friends? What gives you the authority to talk about the opinion of most people on any particular topic? Reviewers consider price/performance and comparable items on the market. The best they can do is give their opinion and justify their view with facts.
But what I hate to see is just blantant negativity towards certain products because it isn't the best value. Mac users are probably the most vilified on this account.
Markets work on optomism. Negativity poisons markets, and on large scales cause recessions and depressions. There is no good reason for this because it is solely a social phenomenon. For the most part, I believe things are good and getting better on every front.
My self-esteem has nothing to do with it. I hate seeing people participate in this bullying. Because, it does (however indirectly) affect my quality of life and produces nothing but dissatisfaction all around.
Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true! -Homer Simpson
Ctrl-Alt-Del, itself, is an example of physical security. Tell me you've never hit the wronf key...
In IT, "security" means "protection from malicious attackers", while "safety" means "protection from accidental errors".
So, choosing a difficult-to-type key combination for this function may be an example of safety (safe UI design), but it is not an example of security.
The use of Control-Alt-Delete as a secure attention key, however, is an example of security because it makes it hard for attackers to present a fake login. However, making the key hard to type is not necessary for its security purpose; they could have picked F10 as the secure attention key.