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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 would I. But we're not the target market. It's aimed at people that need more than a PDA but need something considerably smaller than a laptop.
Try using any laptop one-handed (laptop in one hand, use the other hand to drive) for any extended period of time.
Think people doing stock control; data capture; viewing electronic documents (blueprints at a building site say) and you'll probably get more of an idea what this is about.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
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.
Will the laptop go in your inside pocket when you are going somewhere?
A better comparison might be `wouldn't it be better to buy a Zaurus and a cheap laptop'.
Of course, Sharp are pulling the Zaurus out of north america IIRC.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
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.
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."