Arne Hess

Editor in Chief

Website

Sony
is well known for their mobile gadgets and what they released now makes me
speechless again (I want it, I want it, I want it... ;-) )
The Japanese electronics giant on Monday unveiled the world's smallest personal computer that
runs on Microsoft's Windows XP operating system.
The hand-held gadget called 'type U', a new product in Sony's VAIO series, weighs only 550 gm and measures
6.7 inches in width and is 108 millimeters high, the company said.
Priced at $1,873, including Japanese sales tax, the type U will hit the local market at
the end of May.
Its standard memory capacity is 256 megabytes and hard-disc drive capacity is
about 20 gigabytes. Input can be done by either a stylus - a pointed instrument
used on pressure-sensitive screens - or a collapsible keyboard.

[Read More]

ms mobiles

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Cool device! So it looks like Pocket PC devices will become obsolete if people can have a device of similar size as Pocket PC but with full Windows XP! Don't you think?

pdantic

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Geeeeze. This is great! Leave it to Sony to come up with a great product like this! Any idea if it will be sold in markets other than Japan?

Rick

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It may compete with Pocket PC, but there is still the issue of software.  Windows XP software are much more costly.  So I don't believe this type of new PCs would mean the death of PPCs.  It's a really neat device though.  And I agree with Arne:  I want it, I want it...

jatoac

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if this would run winXP tablet pc edition...

Oliver

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I don't know if it is coincidence but it's EXACTLY the size of a betacam videocassette and EXACTLY twice the weight. Actually thinking about it - this is too accurate to be coincidence ! So, now you know how Sony designs their gadgets ;-)

Arne Hess

Editor in Chief

Website

LOL... That's cool stuff! You mean the good old Beta tape right? I'm still addicted to Beta (and even still have a Beta VCR) since it was much better than VHS but died because the wrong license politic from Sony... :-( Thanks for sharing it! I should check my Vaio Notebook... Maybe it's 16 times a Video8 tape or something like that!? ;-)

adamz

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It needs a different user interface.  The desktop version of Windows XP was not designed to be usable on such a small screen.  Also, there aren't any Windows XP applications designed to be used on such a small screen.

jayson

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That won't kill the ppc because that is not a PDA.

Here are several advantages (or differences) of the ppc vs. miniturized tablet pc's:

1)  PPC's still do a better job in organizing (it's a PDA anyway).  With a miniturized tablet pc, you will have to keep your MS outlook turned on and the comptuer running to give you all those appointment allerts, etc.

2)  Related to #1, keeping it on would mean more power consumption. 

3)  PPC's are still a third or half the price of that thing.

Mark

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I agree what jayson said, these devices won't take over Pocket PC because the real windows Xp  takes a lot more memory to run, making it a lot more expensive.  Also, Pocket Pc has the advantage of instant power up.

Will struggle due to:

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Battery life

Arne Hess

Editor in Chief

Website

[11] Sounds good but what do you mean with "not some dumbed-down Tablet PC OS"? Windows XP for Tablet PCs is a full featured Windows XP with some useful pen-driven enhancements like a kind of "Transcriber", etc... which makes the OS more useful to use it with pen based PCs. :idea:

Also I have to admit that I miss Bluetooth which is my prefered way to connect my mobile PCs to GPRS and 3G/UMTS and using a Bluetooth dongle or CF/PC card isn't that smart for such a device...

Tugas Tambahan

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[10] I had a chance to play with one of these units first hand here in Japan and I must say......  Whoa!  There are two flavors, one lower end 900 MHz Celeron M 256Mb one and another 1GHz Pentium M 512Mb version.  They run the full Windows XP Home Edition (900MHz) or Professional (1GHz), not some dumbed-down Tablet PC OS.  The screen is slick and beautiful and can pivot landscape or portrait-wise.  You can even hook it up to a full-size monitor and use it as a regular PC.  Battery life is claimed to be 2.5 to 6 hours depending on how it is used.  It also has 802.11 b/g and a compact flash slot.

jirishd

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the Xscale chip is capable of 1Ghz, of course we won't see it for some time to come. if this kind of scaled down TabPC takes a bite out of the PPC market, so be it, it can only prove to motivate the PPC makers to step it up a bit. so i say, cheers to Sony.