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...)"

Comments

The "guts" of the U-70

[Joseph Vigneau]

Here's what the machine looks like with the case removed. Quite compact.

It's interesting...

[Sheetrock]

But for that price, it should be able to handle some common storage device like CD or even DVD media. Half the reason of wanting something like this is so that you can easily watch movies or listen to music (although I suppose one could do the latter with MP3).

20GB in a handheld does sound pretty good. I always worry about how you get these things repaired, though, especially when they're on the cutting edge like this.

Re:It's interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why people want CD/DVD drives in an ultraportable device is beyond me. I mean, there you have this small, beautiful device. Are you really going to bring your CD collection along? Why don't you just copy 1 or 2 movies onto the harddisk? And if you want to load more on the go, I'm sure a drive which you can leave at the hotel would be a much better choice than making this bulkier and heavier.

Re:It's interesting...

[doctor_no]

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.

Not sure about the idea

[Dominatus]

I like having a PDA and a laptop, I use them for completely separate purposes.

Combining a phone and a PDA sounds good, because both are items I keep in my pocket. My laptop, however, I use when I want most of the experiences of my desktop, away from my desktop. This includes the keyboard.

Small keyboards and small screens are OK for PIM, checking email, and what not, but any more than that and it get's ridiculously tedious. I know there is a market for this kind of thing, but I'm probably not very interested.

Re:Not sure about the idea

[amliebsch]

My dad has been waiting for something like this for a long time. He works in production control at a local manufacturing plant, and while he does a lot of work at his desk, he also has a great need to access spreadsheets and data on-the-go on the shop floor. A tablet PC is too big and too expensive, and a PDA isn't quite enough (he uses one, but the screen is too tiny to display spreadsheet data). This seems just perfect, especially if you could get/build some kind of docking solution.

Re:Not sure about the idea

[Pieroxy]

Nothing prevent any constructor from building a "UC" as a PDA/cellphone, with crappy screen and keyboard. When you're home, you plug your DVI and USB keyboard/mouse in and you're done.

That's just what I'm looking for for so long now. I think it's still a little early, but I'm sure we'll get to it pretty soon.

Imagine: Everything in one box the size of an iPod: Phone, PDA, desktop, laptop, etc...
You just plug it into it's station at home and... bang! Keyboard, screen and all the rest are as big as you want them to be. You can even have additional storage (CD/DVD/HDD,...)

You can even have a "portable station", the size of an actual laptop which will add some of these features as well as some more battery power.

Slightly?

[glamslam]

If that's slightly bigger than a PDA, then I guess PDAs have gotten alot bigger since the last time I checked into them.

This thing looks too big for a carry-it-everywhere device, but too small for anything more than basic functionality... so I guess I'm wondering, "What's the point?"

Re:Slightly?

[NanoGator]

"This thing looks too big for a carry-it-everywhere device, but too small for anything more than basic functionality... so I guess I'm wondering, "What's the point?"

Niche market. Mainly business types that travel a lot. My uncle's probably the perfect customer for this product. He needs a small laptop that he can use on a plane, he needs small and mobile as possible, and he's got the money to spend on making his life as comfortable as possible.

Nothing wrong with it not being everybody's cup of tea. If the price was right, I wouldn't mind having one that I could tote around the office. I've ordered a TabletPc for that, though.

Re:Slightly?

[mblase]

If you look at this picture, you'll see that it's still sized to be easy to carry in one hand. It looses something in usability this way, granted, but it's not too big for anything except your pants pocket.

Re:Slightly?

[Nogami_Saeko]

Looks like about the same size as the Newton, which is far too big for a PDA in my books.

For my money, the Vaio TR-series is vastly more useful in a slightly larger form factor, has built-in optical drive, full keyboard, etc.

N.

Re:Slightly?

[NanoGator]

"If you have this level of porability, you lose easy input methods for the standard applications."

True, but we're talking about 6-figure PowerPoint artists, here.

Re:Slightly?

[jaredcat]

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?

Wi-Fi on-off switch is nice.... good design

[Anonymous Coward]

I like it - evry nice design. I could happily see myself using one of these pretty heavily with some nice syncing with my desktop. I want one...

I would particularly like the Wi-Fi on-off switch. I'm fed up with dodgy software solutions to that.

Obvious Question...

[tilleyrw]

When will someone port NetBSD/Linux/your-OS-of-choice to run on it?

Re:Obvious Question...

[Dominatus]

It's standard x86 hardware, BSD/linux already runs on it.

Re:Obvious Question...

[Cpt_Kirks]

There are Linux drivers for the various Linux PDAs about.

So drivers should be available soon.

Re:Obvious Question...

[Bruce Perens]

I run Linux on my U101. It works fine, except ACPI. I'd assume this is a descendant of the U101.

Bruce

OQO Could be better...

[CommanderData]

If only the OQO would update its specs. It's an antique and it's not even available yet. I'd put at least:
1) 1Ghz Pentium M (instead of Transmeta)
2) 512MB RAM (instead of 256MB FIXED)
3) 40GB Hard Drive (instead of 20GB)
4) 802.11G (instead of B)
5) USB 2 (instead of USB 1.1)
6) Compactflash and SD card slots (None available)

I Guess based on this list the only things I really like about the OQO are the form-factor, built in keyboard, and the transflective TFT for indoor/outdoor use. I really wish it wasn't going to be such a POS due to lousy specs, I'd be first in line to get one...

What's with the ultra ugly color scheme?

[Anonymous Coward]

Light barf on white is not a good color selection...

It just does not seem practical

[DarKnyht]

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.

If it is intended for a laptop, why in the world would you want to restrict yourself to a screen that size and require yourself to have to buy extra hardware for it? The concept of a laptop, at least as I saw it, was to have everything you need built in. So the device doesn't quite fit in there.

Outside of Novelty, I just do not see a practical need for this. Reminds me sort of the HP Jornada Windows CE devices that were built like mini-laptops.

Re:It just does not seem practical

[Elwood P Dowd]

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.

The Sales Person's Dream

[Wicked187]

I can tell you right now, sales people will love this, because it is light... the down-side is that IT support for this is going to be horrible. Sales people are going to ask all kinds of silly, hypothetical questions about this and demand answers. The problem is, they are not going to be any more productive with this, because they just do not like to be productive, it's their nature.

The price: it's no PDA

[mblase]

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

slashdot'd???

[infonick]

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

anyone else think that its funny...

[chrisopherpace]

This unit has a built-in three finger salute, to quote:


Around the sides:
Compact Flash slot
Memory Stick Pro slot
Hold switch
Standby button
Ctrl-Alt-Del switch

Reverse Freudianism

[gbulmash]

Only in gadgetry will men proudly step forward and proclaim "Mine's Smaller!"

It's cool, but here is what I'd like to see....

[StressGuy]

Would it kill battery consumption to have it output to virtual display goggles? What would really make this attractive to me is if I could take it on an airplane, plug in a trackball and virtual display goggles and work on things like AutoCAD drawings or Word documents on a full sized virtual screen without taking up the entire tray table or trying to get the screen/lid to unfold and not bump into the seat ahead of me.

How hard would it be to make something like that?

Re:It's cool, but here is what I'd like to see....

[way2trivial]

Like glasstrons? I've used my glasstrons on my toshiba laptop with a'v out to get 4 hours out of my laptop..

I looked like a dufus tho

Re:Ummm...

[Cpt_Kirks]

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.

Just in case...

[Antihero77]

The entire article text:

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

here are a lot of pictures...

[ptorrone]

i took a lot of pictures of the unit i reviewed...

portability in multiple sizes

[mblase]

I don't really like multi-gadgets, even ones as cool as this, for the simple reason that they always get the size wrong somehow. There are three types of "portability" that I usually come across in business:

1) hand-sized -- the mobile phone, which fits easily into any pocket and is comfortable to grip with the whole hand, but is unsuitable for reading more than about twenty characters per line.

2) palm-sized -- a small notepad or PDA, which can be easily gripped between the thumb and finger for reading or writing but still fits into a large, flat pocket in my coat or pants. GameBoys fit into this category as well.

3) tablet-sized -- a large pad of paper or a laptop PC screen, possibly a Tablet PC, but not a laptop computer (too thick and heavy).

A phone is simply too small for displaying large quantities of text, no matter how high the resolution. Contrariwise, a palm-sized PDA is too wide to be useful as a phone. And the idealized Tablet PC, complete with handwriting recognition and an all-day battery in a 1-lb. package, is still being pursued by many companies because it takes a screen that size to display more than a small amount of text or spreadsheet data.

But no matter how much you fold and hinge a device, it's nearly impossible to turn a gadget designed for one of these form factors into another form factor. And any device that tries to sit halfway between two of these form factors -- like the Treo smartphones or this Sony U70 -- generally fails to attract widespread interest. Most people find it easier to carry two devices that are correctly sized to two different form factors than to try to use one that uses neither.

Re:Sony....

[doctor_no]

If you're worried about quality why would you bother with the OQO? Cheap Sony-basing aside, Sony is a company that at least has shipped a product.

OQO has made years of promises, has no reputation for quality (good or bad), and has specs that are already outdated before its released. We can make a fair comparison of between the Sony U50/U70 and the OQO if and when the OQO hits the market.

Re:Ummm...

[ballwall]

This page from Sony Japan lists the U70 at 210,000 yen, or $1892.55 in USD.

Basically they're charging $750 to reinstall the OS. I need to get into the import business.

A friend of mine has one of these...

[vasqzr]

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.

richer than you are?

[straponego]

How can you be richer than yourself? That doesn't make sense.

I have a U50

[Diclophis]

It fucking rocks. The footprint of the device + cradle + unfolded keyboard is still smaller than a laptop. It also serves as a nice light VNC frontend to my HTPC (built in wireless internet). I even made a movie on it with a shitty 50 dollar USB webcam, with the included microsoft movie maker software (a little tricky since I dont read japanese... I am trying to find a spot to put this... I could probably upload a torrent somewhere since I am running bt on the device). I could write all day about the variuos things to do all this... case in point, get your own when they are affordable enough for you.

Fan

[LS]

The thing has a fricken fan! A fan I tell ya! I wonder if it can be overclocked! Water cooling anyone? How about a clear acrylic case for the thing!?

LS

RTFA

[technoviper]

the way he got it the system was far from perfect to use...

he had to install Windows XP Tablet PC Edition to get it to work the way he wanted.

XP Tablet PC edition is only available to OEM's or MSDN subscribers (which is $2500 a year) so i think the average user may find the system a little frustrating

Exactally what consultants need

[invisik]

Hey,

This thing is great. I need to get one to replace my IBM Thinkpad X31. It's big enough (size and power) to do some actual work if you need to and if you don't have a PC at a client site (a little VNC or remotedesktop, etc or some e-mail checking etc) but small enough to carry. Would definately lose the PDA and X31 and just carry the U70 and cell phone. No bluetooth phone dialing, which I'll miss, but I think it would be worth it.

I don't like it has a dongle for ethernet, as everywhere doesn't have wireless, but I suppose stick it in the glove box and get it when you need it.

Batt life sounds great, too. I wonder how big the power cord is. Needs some cell phone internet integration so you can be "always on"....

It's on the list. Just too bad we didn't see them when we visited Japan earlier this year.... :(

Keep the good stuff coming, Sony!!!

-m