When You Really, Really Want to Upgrade a Tiny Notebook

Benz145 writes "The famous Sony VAIO UX UMPC may have been cancelled a few years back by Sony, but the community at Micro PC Talk won't let it die. Modder Anh has carefully removed the relatively slow 1.33Ghz Core Solo CPU and installed a much faster Intel Core 2 Duo U7700 (a process which involves reballing the entire CPU). On top of this, he managed to install an incredibly small 4-port USB hub into the unit which allowed for the further instillation of a Huawei E172 modem for 3G data/voice/SMS, a GPS receiver, and a Pinnacle HD TV receiver. All of this was done without modifying the device's tiny external case. Great high-res pictures of the motherboard with the modded hardware can be seen through the link."

Comments

Hi-res picture you say ?

[volcan0]

Looks like hi-res does not mean the same thing for everyone...

Re:Which OS?

[metalmaster]

That modem and and tv tuner may only have Windows drivers available.

Re:MacBook Air

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm even willing to shell out 5k

That's an excellent start when it comes to wishing for products from Apple.

full size? where?

[TheGratefulNet]

I see no full size photos.

what I do see are crummy, not well focused pictures.

good effort on the mod, but it does seem a bit pointless if that kind of extreme soldering is involved. probably very unreliable, too, and totally unfixable if it ends up being flakey.

the ability to do rework is much harder than people think. things can work for a while and then crap out due to a bad solder joint that was hard to find.

I would not trust this long-term.

Another Tip O' The Hat

[hyades1]

Let's suspend the "Redundant" mod for this particular occasion. This is really, really beautiful work, and if a bunch of Slashdotters offer Anh all kinds of applause for this mod, he deserves every bit of it.

Re:full size? where?

[Chris Tucker]

We apologize that this was not a Serious and Constructive article about the Serious and Constructive uses of Serious and Constructive computers.

We humbly suggest that if you are keenly interested in Serious and Constructive uses for Serious and Constructive computers, that you seek out Serious and Constructive forums.

Those of us that appreciate what is known as a "cool hack", on the other hand, will not miss you one little bit.

"I would not trust this long-term."

As it's not YOUR computer, it's not your worry, is it?

Re:MacBook Air

[Arthur Grumbine]

That is badass! I wish something like this could be done with the MacBook Air. I'm in love with mine - unfortunately, Apple hasn't updated it in forever. If there was a service out there to help folks with MBAs, I'm sure there would be a long line of people.

Heck, I'm even willing to shell out 5k for a powerful MBA, but oh well.

Ye gods! Apple came out with the 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo Mac Book Air on June 8, 2009. "Forever" is 16 months for you? What kind of culture hath Apple wrought?!!? Oh, right...

MacBook Air is dead, long live...

[ChunderDownunder]

Following the success of iPad, Macbook Air will be discontinued. Instead, Apple will release an ARM netbook running OSX for the rest of us. Something OEMs have been discouraged from doing as Windows7 requires x86. Stealing thunder from ChromeOS.

multi-core A4 CPU, touchscreen, keyboard and trackpad, OSX-lite for ARM. iOS apps via the store will be available via a compatibility layer.

All the OSX-ARM hardware drivers are available for Darwin courtesy of iOS. OSX apps can be recompiled via universal binaries.

This is listening to one's customers who like the idea of an iPad but would prefer the fallback option of a 'real computer' with a mouse/keyboard and the OSX experience. Stick in an open bootloader or Xen and you may even have a few slashdotters buy 'em!

Re:MacBook Air

[Beale]

In the latter case, you know what you were getting into when you got an Apple, boyo.

Or, to be honest, when you bought a laptop.

Re:MacBook Air

[petermgreen]

In the latter case, you know what you were getting into when you got an Apple, boyo
s/apple/thin and light laptop/

socketing processors takes up vertical space which in the trend of making laptops thinner is at a huge premium. a few millimetres doesn't sound like much but when the whole laptop is only a couple of centimeters thick it's significant.

Replacing a BGA processor is possible as this article shows but getting the chips can be tricky (though interestingly farnell were promoting intel atom chips on thier front page recently...)