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Posted by: Justin Jaffe
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Weighing 1.2 pounds, the little rapscallion has a 1,024x600 native resolution and is equipped with components that will make a Treo user quiver. You get a low-voltage Intel Core Solo U1400 processor, 512MB of RAM, and a 30GB hard drive, as well as a full version of Windows XP Professional. Networking connections include 802.11a/b/g wireless, Bluetooth, and Cingular EDGE WWAN. Remarkably, for such a small device, the UX180P makes room for two cameras--a 1.3 megapixel one that faces out from the back and a 0.3 megapixel one that faces out from the front for Webcamming--as well as a biometric fingerprint scanner, headphone and mic jacks, a USB port, and a Memory Stick slot. It's an impressive lineup of specs that you could expect to find on any number of late-model laptops. And then there's the price...$1,799.
Ahem.
Leaving price aside for the moment, the fact that it has a built-in keyboard is critical, and it gives the VAIO UX180P a better shot at success than other early UMPC designs, including Sony's own VAIO U50. We found the keys to be spaced apart a bit far, but we didn't spend enough time with the VAIO UX180P to get a chance to get used to them. The device has a touch screen, which you can manipulate with your finger or the included stylus, as well as a stick pointer.
We watched some movie clips on the VAIO UX180P, which looked great on its 3.5-inch display, and we surfed around the Web a bit using the stylus to navigate. Sony told us that these systems are getting about 3.5 hours of battery life, less if you're watching a movie or surfing wirelessly, and they'll run up to 4.5 hours if you're being extremely gentle.
Enough about us, though, and our impressions. What do you think? Does the price make the Sony VAIO UX180P DOA.? Or is it the future of the UMPC?
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44 messages
Not quite sure what to think...
by MerleApAmber (See profile) - August 31, 2006 3:10 PM PDT
Release of UX180p
John
by digital843 (See profile) - June 29, 2006 7:10 PM PDT
You need to think outside the box with this PC.
For example: Place the UX series dock in my game room, run video or VGA out to the TV, run wired ethernet into the dock, plug in a wireless USB keyboard and mouse into the dock and you are set. I game room PC capable of running DIVX files. At the same time, if I want a laptop/portable experiance, all I have to do is lift it out of the port replicator and walk out the door. Easy, I've just killed 2 birds with one stone, err... PC.
Obviously if you want a laptop with a 17 inch screen to watch DVD's on the plane with, this is not your unit. But as a PDA/smart phone replacement that can also dock to act as a full size PC, this thing is the best little digital Swiss Army Knife I've seen in years.
Perhaps I'm jaded. I have been using a Sony Clie' UX-50 PDA for years. So to me this is the unit I've dreamed of. But if you start thinking in unconventional terms, this thing has a lot us uses.
by MS-07B Gouf (See profile) - June 22, 2006 2:48 PM PDT
Can the UMPC compete with Sony?
Both the UX180P and the UMPC will fill a niche in the PC mobile/portable world.
This is what the Nokia 770 COULD have been!
This is what the H/PC Should have been, had Microsoft been supportive of it!
The UX180P is several steps above the P/PC, and several steps below the the small mobile Laptops, and should make OQO and Tiqit think hard...what to do next?
It would seem that whether one's interest is in P/PC, H/PC, UMPC or Laptop, the Sony Vaio UX180P would be in a class of its own, (micro pc)....M/PC?
Wayne
by N0ISV (See profile) - May 29, 2006 11:55 AM PDT
WRONG!
512mb is ample memory on even a desktop
it is on the sonystyle website
C'mon if you can't find something to complain about, don't make things up.
by Wild Eep (See profile) - May 21, 2006 8:29 AM PDT
Split between computers...
looking at this thing makes a Macbook pathetic.
DAng
by Wild Eep (See profile) - May 21, 2006 8:15 AM PDT
AV-out on Sony UX
by okinawatyphoon (See profile) - May 20, 2006 11:30 PM PDT
You people are so NEGATIVE.
by tim liora (See profile) - May 20, 2006 11:05 AM PDT
screen size confusion?
by nishantt (See profile) - May 16, 2006 4:07 PM PDT
Sony is living in a 1980-something dreamworld?
That was before Samsung, LG, Apple, etc. ate Sony's lunch while Tokyo burned.
They really must be deluded.
Thank goodness I sold my Sony stock in 1999.
by Maisycq (See profile) - May 16, 2006 1:54 PM PDT
