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.

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: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.

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

Reverse Freudianism

[gbulmash]

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

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

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.