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Sony U-70 Micro PC Reviewed
Anonymous Coward writes "jkendrick has posted a detailed of review of Sony's dream handheld, the U-70. Slightly bigger than a PDA, with a SVGA screen, 20Gb hard drive, and 1GHz Pentium-M processor, this device could replace your PDA, laptop and desktop. The price is high, though. Oh to be rich (or at least richer than I am...)"
Here's what the machine looks like with the case removed. Quite compact.
It's standard x86 hardware, BSD/linux already runs on it.
The U70 will ship on 29 May for around ¥210,000 ($1871). Sony will also offer a lower spec. model, the U50, for ¥179,000 ($1595), which contains just 256MB of memory and a 900MHz ULV Celeron processor. It ships with Windows XP Home Edition.
-- from the Register
the page looked like it would /. so i made a mirror complete with the gallery. the server seems to be holding up thou.
here it is anyway:
THE U70
You are confusing me with someone who cares.
It's a basically a ultra-compact PC, it has four USB 2.0 ports as well as a Firewire port. You can obviously just connect an external CD, HDD, or DVD+/-RW, ipod, whatever, to it.
For multimedia, it should also run any app or codec that is available for WinXP, if they could get the price below $1,000 I'm sold.
But the U50 and U70 aren't available in the US, these guys sell them here, but they charge $1999 for the U50 and $2599 for the U70. Yikes.
I wondered how much, too.
Dynamism has them at $1899.00 for the U50 and $2649.00 for the U70. Which is about what I thought when I read the article.
Maybe, if Sony ever sells them direct in the US, the price may drop about $500.
Damn nice toys.
Japan has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to mobile devices, especially computers. Importers such as Dynamism, Kurns & Patrick, iCube, and Kemplar have stepped into the void for these innovative devices that US consumers crave. While Japan has been producing very small laptops for a few years a lot of interest has been sweeping the internet recently about ultra-portable computers. Slightly bigger than a PDA but much smaller than even the smallest laptop, UPCs have been anxiously awaited by consumers. Devices like the OQO and FlipStart have been vaporware for years and yet they stay in the news and anxiously awaited by many prospective buyers. The manufacturers of both device are claiming they will be released late this year.
It was into this climate of consumer clamor for ultra-portable devices that Sony entered and surprised everyone with their announcement of their U-50 & U-70 UPCs. Slightly larger than a PDA yet packing an entire Windows XP powered laptop smashed inside it's small case, the two Sony UPCs were not only announced without prior information leaking but Sony has actually released the devices in Japan. The first units hit the market in Japan months before the other two UPCs mentioned above are expected to be released. Unfortunately, if you don't happen to live in Japan then you'll have to obtain one of these little PCs from an importer like the ones mentioned above.
I have been using a U-70 for a few weeks now, and I have been totally impressed with the thoughtful design Sony has put into this computer in almost every way. So, can you use one of these UPCs in your everyday mobile lifestyle? Read on to see how it works for me.
Photos and screenshots of the Sony U-70
What you get in the box
The Sony comes in two flavors, the U-50 & U-70. There are three differences between the two models which are otherwise identical. The U-50 comes with a Celeron 900 MHZ processor, 256 MB of RAM, and Windows XP Home Edition. The more powerful U-70 comes with a Pentium M processor running at 1 GHZ, 512 MB of RAM, and Windows XP Pro Edition. Of the three differences noted above the amount of RAM is probably the most significant, as anyone running Windows will certainly attest to. The different processors might exhibit different battery consumption too, but I don't have two devices to compare. So what do you get in the box? The specs:
U-50 / 70
Internal:
20 GB hard disk
CPU (one of the two mentioned above)
256/ 512 MB RAM
Around the sides:
Compact Flash slot
Memory Stick Pro slot
Hold switch
Standby button
Ctrl-Alt-Del switch
1- USB 2.0
DC in
Docking connector:
Hold switch
WiFi on/off switch
Power switch
Headphones jack
Front of the device:
Three mouse buttons (L, M, R)
Three indicator lights
Zoom button
Rotate button
5" LCD screen (landscape orientation default)
Scroll pad with Enter button
Track point stick with Enter button
Tools button
LCD brightness button
NextText button
External:
1800 mAh standard battery
Docking cradle
I/O connector
4 - USB 2.0 ports
1- i.Link port (fire wire)
DC in
Plastic stylus
Mini surf board style
VGA/ Ethernet dongle
Fontopia style headphones with remote control (LCD display)
Sony AC adapter
Fold-up USB keyboard (Japanese and Engl
and now Tom with the weather...
i took a lot of pictures of the unit i reviewed...
There are Linux drivers for the various Linux PDAs about.
So drivers should be available soon.
I looked like a dufus tho
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
He ordered it a month or two ago. To replace his way oversized Dell 8000 series laptop.
They're really too small and fragile to use. It's a nice novelty item, but I'd want something a little more rugged for every day use. The 12" Apple laptops are quite nice, and the Dell X300 is a pretty nice Wintel model.
Once you get down to a certain size, they lose usability.
The idea for a portable device is the ability to quickly turn it on and use it. This appears to be using a version of XP, which to me sounds like a boot sequence to start it. Does not make it very practical for keep track of PDA type stuff.
Modern PCs have a "sleep" function that uses minimal amounts of power while avoiding boot time when you need to use your computer.
There are many valid complaints about this device. Boot time isn't one of them.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
I have one of these things and I love it, but yeah, you're right... Its too big to carry everywhere like my phone (because it wont fit in a pocket), and its no-attached-keyboardness makes it too difficult to do real work on it without using the dock or carrying around the tiny external usb japanese keyboard. It ends up being more like one of those tablet PCs that everyone was talking about a couple of years ago.
Mostly I use it for web surfing in Starbucks, AIM while I'm walking around my house (its lite enough to carry everywhere at 1.2lb-- just too bulky for carrying everywhere outside of the house), and watching ripped DVDs in airplanes, and thats fine.
Maybe I should just get a new tiny USB keyboard with english letters on it? What have handspring/treo/ipaq people come up with?
Another Review of the U70