The Gadgeteer published a great review of Sony UX50. If you are a bit interested in this device, don’t miss this review. I’m curious how JK can make a better one after all the time he spent with his unit.
My first impressions of this device were that the pictures that I had seen on the web, did not accurately convey just how thick and heavy this little guy was. I’m not sure even my pictures here can get that point across. The UX50 isn’t a pocket device by any means. It’s still gear bag sized uPC that just happens to have a PDA sized display.
Battery life for this little guy is supposed to approach 4.5hrs. I don’t know how accurate that is though. Maybe if you turn off the backlight and don’t access the hard drive. By default, the battery life indicator on my review until reported 2hrs after a full recharge. That was on the optimized setting. This is where I have a real gripe about all uPCs. That’s just not enough untethered power for a device that is supposed to be totally mobile. Who wants to carry around an AC adapter and power cord with them everywhere they go? Not I.
Back to the screen / display. Like most Sony devices, their displays are very nice. Bright, vibrant, etc. But there is a problem with the UX50 display… It’s too darn small! It’s just 4.5″ diagonal. For a PDA, it’s a perfect size. But for Windows XP, it’s pretty hard to read text. By default, the screen resolution is set to 1024 x 600. You can set it to something lower, but it doesn’t help all that much because then you can’t fit as much info on the display. The Zoom buttons aren’t very useful either as they just pump up the size (a maximum of 3x) and allow you to scroll around on the screen. It doesn’t allow interactivity with the running apps. It’s just a view only zoom.
