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Sony U750P Handtop
captainJam writes "In September we announced that Sony's U50/U70 line was being dropped. With news today that a North American version of this handtop is coming out, that news becomes half-truth. The U50/U70 may be no more, but the line has been upgraded a touch and simplified by having just one model instead of two. Handtops.com has a brief look at the new Sony U750P."
I've read U50 reviews stating that the U50/70 is expensive. That's relative -- do you really NEED such a device? Nobody really NEEDS to watch movies or do any of the other myriad things one could do with a U50, the point is that you CAN watch movies and listen to music, you CAN check your email, you CAN play games, restart your HTTPD and sendmail daemons all from the comfort of your couch, or train. This is a luxury device, and given the specs and amount of effort that must have gone into making it, I don't think the price is expensive at all. This is the Rolls Royce of iPods, you pay for quality and finesse. The U50 is an extravegance that makes life more fun, and as such, it's worth every penny.
So it can survive being dropped? That's a neat feature.
Only if I can get Linux running on one.
I was just looking at one on a coworker's desk and it sure is a neat little machine.
-- My Weblog.
Wouldn't it be better to buy a laptop for that price? Then you could play DVD movies and do a lot more other things too.
Then again, with this you can bring all your work AND media with you. Plug it in at work, detach it, listen to mp3s on the subway ride home, plug it in at home...
Nah, I'd still rather have a laptop!
Question for owners: what these devices are good at? I mean, at $2000+ it should offer smth that $300 PDA or $450 Smartphone don't. Please - it's not a flamebait, I'm genuinely curious. :)
that's the point: they're tiny, they look cool, and you want one. much like a mont blanc fountain pen or an omega seamaster watch compared to a biro or a cheap digital watch: they don't do anything different - they're just nicer - and some people are prepared to pay for this.
personally i could have bought a hundred cheap watches for the price of my omega, but i keep telling myself that the amortised cost per glance at the time is quite reasonable!
Captain Jam
/.'s favorite advertisers. Now we have another story plugging his crappie little site.
Another one of
News for Nerds? Shills that matter.
captainJam's Recently Accepted Submissions
Sony U750P Handtop
OQO review: pics, in-depth, specs, bench, linux
OQO For Sale
OQO price and release date
HagakiPC - "Postcard" PC
Handtop Roundup
On the Possible Handtop Paradigm Shift
All true and at the same time completely missing the point.
Even the Sony Picturebook, which (closed) is about the same size, is awkward to use one handed. This thing is a tablet computer done right. Status poseurs aside: people who have need a tablet computer would find a normal laptop far too heavy and awkward (clam shell is no good for holding in one hand and driving the other; neither is a keyboard).
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
It seems to me that Captain Jim gets off with these little battery operated toys.
This seems like a perfect applience for Bluetooth, unfortunately they forgot to include it, again.
Wireless keyboard and mouse as well as going online through mobile phone doesn't seem too bad as far as I'm concerned.
And those complaining about "get a laptop instead" clearly have no imagination. These are made to work in situations were you only have your hands to hold it. Eg during your train ride to work (which many US people don't do). It's made for use on the move, in those situations a laptop is just not possible.
Accelerometers, perhaps, to move the read heads safely away.
I'm at a loss to understand the appeal of these. I can see the appeal of a handheld computer system with a large screen and I grasp the desire to have a lot of storage space on such a handheld. What I don't get is why a PC with its general purpose nature is being shoehorned into such an inappropriate form factor. It seems to me a device truly meant to be a haldheld and not cimply a tiny PC would be an overall better design.
I can see very few instances where something running a StrongARM/XScale chip with 64-128MB of RAM isn't going to be powerful enough to handle chores that would end up relegated to a handheld device. Current PocketPC and Palms can play video, compressed audio, and even 3D games. This is on top of all of the mundane uses like note taking, calendar keeping, and contact management they might be used for.
Running typical desktop software on a handheld device doesn't seem very appealing to me either. Running a full version of Word on a handheld while riding on the train sounds a bit ridiculous to me. A Word document viewer on a lightweight device makes a bit of sense but not the full application. I don't see many people with an overwhelming desire to run Outlook XP on their handhelds.
Then there's the price tag of these suckers. The U750 costs more than most high-powered laptops and quite a bit more than even extremely powerful and feature filled PocketPC and Palm handhelds.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I too have noticed people calling basically any small sexy multimedia like PDA an iPod...
Perhaps iPod (I = Me, Pod = thing that contains something) is a better word for handheld/palm/ipaq/pda. Where a brand presses its name to an object, like Hoover, then the world has a new word in effect.
A Vaccum Cleaner wasn't a name for the device, it was a description of it.
Anyway, nothing non-biological should be as sexy as that...
My axim is fine for me though!
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
The thread links to another news item on another 'discussion' site, which in turn links to another news item, which links to another... GREAT! This is the last time I try to RTFA.
A challenge for slashdot posters would be to see how many many spam links like this can get on a front page news story. There should also be a spam-chain scoring mechanism to score how many successive spam links a thread can have, with an extra bonus for pop-ups for IE users.
Does it work underwater?
No? I guess I'll have to wait for the U571 model then.
(I'm so sorry for that)
No, it can't. That's why, having been dropped, they don't sell them anymore.
I've got a U101 and it's a great carry-everywhere notebook. I can do all the emailing, websurfing and occasional sshing that I need.
But why on earth would anyone want one without a keyboard? I've tried surfing the web with tablet and there's nothing worse than trying to type a URL with a stylus.
This thing is just a really expensive media player - I can't see any other use for it.
"It's aimed at people that need more than a PDA but need something considerably smaller than a laptop."
Is that aimed at the same market as "executive who would use a PC, but don't use one because they don't type and would use one if there was handwriting recognition"*
* You must be older than 18 to get the reference...
This review (and the link in it to an older model) doesn't mention how the handwriting recognition is. So many handheld reviews don't mention how the handwriting recognition is. They all talk about how easily you can hook a keyboard to it. I don't understand this.
If it's got a keyboard, i.e. you have to set it on a desk or table or something to use it, it's really not mobile, is it?
I want a handheld device I can hold in my left hand, write with the stylus with my right hand, use my natural handwriting (no graffiti), and have the device know what I'm writing. And I want to be able to write naturally, not have one little box I need to write in for capitals, one for lower case, and I write each letter in the same place on the screen.
I want to compose email on the train and I don't want to use some little thumb keyboard, I want to write with the stylus like I would with a pen.
Do so few people actually care about good, natural handwriting input?
One of the many things I hate. thingsihate.org
Another example of taking all the shortcomings of a handheld device and mixing them with the shortcomings of a laptop.
In the real world I can't use this thing (or anything similar) in the field until I can make it through an 8 hour day of moderate to heavy use (outside away from power) without the battery going dead on me. And guess what, add the "wonders" of wireless network connectivity and GPS (2 important things for us people that have a userbase that works outside) -- and the 2 hour battery life will be at at about 60 to 75 Minutes. (I know to some of you that would constitute a full work day....but it is still not good enough for me)
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I will soon be buying a handtop. I haven't decided on the OQO or the Sony yet.
Things I'll do with it:
- At home/work it can dock and be my primary pc. (obviously not my gaming machine though).
- Also at home, undocked, it's a home entertainment controller/IM client/casual browser and note-taker.
- In the car it's a GPS navigation system (bluetooth would definitely be nice here). Handtops are the same form factor as those crazy-expensive in-dash navigation systems.
- Everywhere else it's a portable media player. I can sync it with my HTPC and watch all my tv during those gaps of, normally wasted, time during the day.
I can't wait!
2 CompactFlash slots for Music and Storage (microdrives must be supported)
1 Zaurus SL-C3000 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/15/linux_4gb _hdd_pda/) for form factor, bright touchscreen display, keyboard, NetBSD/FreeBsd/OsX (or linux)
add Ethernet, and 802.11b/g, USB 2.0
Full day battery(8 hrs) battery life with user replacable, standard AA NiMH batteries
Support, source code, and a vendor supported dev. community
Stir Vigoriously, pour into a sub $600 package
Sell hundreds of thousands of units!!!
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
...I can't afford one, so I'll just pass my idea on.
_ _______
1. Install streamlined Linux distro.
2. Install PearPC.
3. Install Mac OS X in PearPC.
4. Sell/use as a New Newton with Inkwell.
5. ????
6. Profit.
________________________________________
Gratis is now giving away iPod Photo's. Got my
4Gen iPod two weeks ago, now getting a photo.
http://www.freephotoiPods.com/?r=11380836
Down with slashdot, pay-site of incompetent editors and advertising disguised as articles! What do they pay you for this shit, Taco? Or do you just get to fuck them up the ass for an hour? You suck and the other editors swallow!
I live in Vancouver, BC. But i guess that doesn't matter, since you sound quite proud of your arrogance.