The Gadgeteer reviews the Sony UX50 Micro PC

I am having a lot of fun playing with the Sony UX50 and will have a review covering the UX50 in use in the real world soon.  Meanwhile, you can get a good picture of the new Sony by checking out Julie's review on The Gadgeteer.  She didn't have much time with the Sony which is a shame because in my experience you don't really see the full impact of having a handheld computer until you use it in your everyday work for a while.  The review is very good even so and points out the ins and outs of the Sony in typical Gadgeteer style.

With all that said, I still think the UX50 would make a great travel companion for someone that doesn't want to lug a full-sized laptop with them on a trip. Using this device for picture offloading, websurfing and emailing would be perfect. Hardcore photoshop work, spreadsheet work, powerpoint presentation creations, etc, might present a problem. Unless you have bionic eyes or something ;o) I don't want to be too hard on Sony, because they seem to be the one of the few companies that continue to push the envelope and bring innovative feature rich products to the market for us consumers to drool over.

The review mentions the lack of the Tablet OS being a big drawback and while I agree with that statement she should have tried ritePen, which is bundled on the Sony.  I have always found the ability to write anywhere on a small screen like the UX50 to be particularly useful.

-jk

Comments

[Alslayer]

I don't get what is the big deal with the tablet pc os. I have a Samsung Q1 and don't see any special features of the tablet os. Windows journal is kinda neat. Am I missing out not having onenote and mind manager? I pretty much just use the stylus as a mouse.

Is there something I am missing? Where can I learn about the benefits of the os?

[Michael Venini]

It's the inking part that i can't do without. I can use Onenote on XP Pro, but any inking you make is saved as an image, and not inking. At that point there is no way to search, edit, or add to you ink.

[Ctitanic]

JK, I have checked the screen shots posted in that review. Those screen shots are in my PC around 30% bigger than the actual size of the real UX50 screen and the fonts in some of the screens are just extremely small. Excuse me... but to me XP running in a 5 inches display is just a joke. And more at a high resolution and from my experience in the real word, Windows at 800x600 is almost impossible to use due to the amount of screens that do not fit in that resolution. I'm switching in my eo to every of the 3 resolutions available all time due to screens no fitting well.

[tx6700ux]

JK,
Have you tried using Mind Manager on the UX? If so, what are your impressions? Which version of Mind Manger have you used?

Thanks.

[Fernando]

I wonder if anyone has done the Tablet PC OS install on the UX. I'd like to take the plunge as soon as I my UX50 arrives next week, but I remember my experience (as a novice which I still am) with doing so on the U70. It was a pain to reinstall the Sony drivers (they had to be installed in the right sequence). So I'll ponder on it a bit and try to see if there are any driver related quirks with the installation.

If anyone has done this already, please share any thoughts or provide any pointers.

Thanks

[Damian]

Over at the micro PC forums they guy there has installed Tablet on his UX. I agree you need more time with the unit to fully judge it. I'm getting tired of reviews done after a couple of hours use. My own review is going to be written after enough use to encounter a variety of situations, trips, meeting etc. So I don't even know when that will be :).
I'm loving it at the moment though. Skype is so easy now, no headset/brain required: truly plug and play in a way.
And a last note on the screen, even though the specs read as "very small" and high resolution I find it surprisingly easy to read. In fact after looking at the screen for a while I went vback to my powerbook and the screen looked downright fuzzy.

[Andrew]

Damian,

How does the screen look outdoors? Is it usable?