First Look at Sony's Tiny Vaio UX180p

An anonymous reader writes "MobileTechReview has posted a first look at the Sony Vaio UX180P Micro PC and comparison of it with UMPC and OQO. "When I first heard about the Sony UX series, I nearly dismissed it because I just couldn't imagine that 1024 x 600 on a 4.5" screen could ever be readable. Yes, the price is certainly another issue-- consumers don't flock to spend twice as much on a "notebook" that's less than half the size of a standard ultralight. At least not in the SUV-lovin' US. Well, happily I was wrong. That tiny XBRITE display is easily readable, despite the number of pixels squeezed into close company""

Comments

Screen Resolution

[PatTheGreat]

His number one and biggest complaint is screen resolution. How hard could it possibly be to turn it down a bit?

Sony still rulez

[MdntToker]

What's up with all the Sony bashing lately?

This just goes to show that the Consumer Electronics division still puts out great products!

Re:Sony still rulez

[Anonymous Coward]

Look up the legal term "goodwill." You lose a lot of it when you vandalize my computer with a rootkit.

I own an early ancestor of this subnotebook, the original Crusoe PictureBook (I believe the model number is PCG-1VN). I love it. When it eventually dies, it's going to be very hard to resist the temptation to replace it with this new model from Sony.

But you can bet your ass I will.

I think he has it backwards ...

[ScrewMaster]

That tiny XBRITE display is easily readable, despite the number of pixels squeezed into close company

He means "because of" the number of pixels. Presumably Sony is doing some anti-aliasing on the fonts to improve readability.

Old news - it's called a Psion

[water-and-sewer]

First look? I saw one of these ages ago, back when they were called the Psion 5 (see http://therandymon.com/content/view/86/79/). Awright, the Psion didn't network at all, but it had a better keyboard and the two double-A batteries that kept it running lasted over 3 months.

This is neat, but if I bought something like this it would be to write on, and that means the keyboard isn't good enough, the battery doesn't last long enough, and it's too heavy. We're still reinventing the wheel, poorly.

Zaurus still better

[Neo-Rio-101]

I played with this device, but grew to dislike it. The thing is too big, runs too hot, eat batteries for breakfast, and the keyboard is barely usable. Nice that it runs WinXP and has two cameras.... but so what? Sorry, but the Zaurus still fits in your pocket, has a usable keyboard, and lasts 7 hours at a time.

Re:I've played with it

[supremebob]

I agree that this product is a great idea, but I can't imagine more than just a few wealthy gadget freaks ponying up $1,700 for this thing. I guess that the rest of us will need to wait for Dell/Lenovo,HP,etc. to make a sub $1,000 version with a bit more storage than 30 GB.

Re:That's debatable

[korny]

This is pretty normal for any brand-new laptop though. It looks as if all the hard stuff works - once the basic system, display and mouse are working, the rest are just devices.

In fact, it's quite probable that some of these devices will already work with the right driver revisions - linux support is actually quite good for most Intel wifi devices:
http://ipw3945.sourceforge.net/
and many fingerprint scanners:
http://www.upek.com/support/dl_linux_bsp.asp

I have both of these working fine in Ubuntu 6.06 on a ThinkPad X60 - I'm not sure if the fingerprint scanner is the same, but it's meant to be the same as what's on the Sony sz-140 series.

- Korny

at least it's not made by BMG! :)

[Xtifr]

I'm not sure why everyone leaps to blame Sony for the actions of the Sony-BMG group. There were two partners in that group; one a moderately well-respected electronics giant, and the other a notoriously evil recording company. Just because you'd only heard of one of them doesn't mean that that one deserves all the blame. How come I never see this sort of comment when a BMG-related story is posted? ;)

Re:I've played with it

[Achromatic1978]

Because that slight inconvenience will stop people doing it / convenience will keep people on Cingular, ergo they'll be willing to pay a commission to Sony.

Re:Target Market

[thedletterman]

Well, I've been mulling over replacing my work laptop with one of these. It would easily slip into a briefcase, and there is an available docking station that comes with it. You don't need to use the 4" screen or the foldout keyboard. You can slip it out and stick it into the cradle, and it's business as usual on a 20" LCD screen, ethernet and a fullsize keyboard and mouse.

When I'm done for the day, there's nothing to synch, and there's no disruption in workflow. I just pop it out and head out the door. I don't need 10 hours of battery life, in fact, only enough to use it on the train while I go from my office back home. I'll never forget a file, miss an email, etc.

The 1 lb portability, and dockstation is what makes this a very atttractive solution to me. Now I don't have to carry a laptop bag anymore, and this thing will whip out while on the go much easier than a fullsize laptop ever will. If I had a car, this would also make one of those $39 GPS receivers totally worthwhile.

Re:Too bad its made by sony

[huguley]

The sad thing is before the rootkit I was a big fan of sony. One of thier cameras was the front runner in my search and a PS 3 was a thought. Now I bash sony every chance I get to anyone who will listen. It was thier choice to buy BMG and if they did not reign them in then they have to live with the consequences. Maybe if they had left the name as BMG rather than changing it to sony-BMG then not so many would have noticed it. They didn't they wanted to be associated with them and associated they are...