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Handhelds Hardware

Sony Switches To Its Own Processor For Handhelds 183

Posted by timothy from the slick-as-clamshells dept.
Pointing to this Associated Press story carried by the Miami Herald, Jorkapp writes "Sony has announced that they will be using Processors manufactured by themselves in their next generation of CLIE handhelds, which are due to ship this Semptember. This is only the first step though, as Sony is planning to use its own line of processors for the next generation of Playstation systems. This new processor will give users 16 hours of battery life (impressive!) and the ability to play video at a smooth 30fps." And jake writes with a link to a story at mobilemag.com which also describes the new handhelds (the UX50 was mentioned the other day), and says "both the CLIE UX50 and UX40 handhelds will be available through American retailers in September for about $700 and $600, respectively, but can be pre-ordered now through Sony's website."
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Sony Switches To Its Own Processor For Handhelds More

Sony Switches To Its Own Processor For Handhelds

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  • News: 10-15-2003 (Score:5, Funny)

    by qewl ( 671495 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:17PM (#6480551)
    Sony puts AMD and Intel out of business! Competition is always great..

  • Five-to-TEN hours of video! (Score:4, Informative)

    by HisMother ( 413313 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:18PM (#6480554)
    The story says you get double the battery life with an external battery pack. Man. This thing would be sweet for watching movies on airplanes!
    • I was thinking about watching movies on a long train trip. Aren't all electronic devices forbidden on most airlines?

      • Re:Five-to-TEN hours of video! (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Dunno about the electronics, but the stylus could poke an eye out. Verboten!
      • Most electronic devices are allowed except during takeoff and landing. There's only a few things you can't ever use, like cell phones and portable radios/TVs (because they use broadcast signals). DVD players, video games, etc are acceptable.
      • Only during takeoff and landing. Once you're above 10k feet, electronics, sans trancieving devices, are allowed.
      • I'm feeling weird replying to myself.

        Found this link [geocities.com].

        I don't know if that is still good, but it states:

        "Any passenger carry-on electronic device which is not an intentional transmitter of radio signals: a. should be prohibited for use during taxi, takeoff, climbout, descent, final approach, and landing. These devices include, but are not limited to laptop computers, video cameras, tape recorders, radio and TV receivers, CD and tape players, electronic entertainment devices, and electric shavers. b

    • Re:Five-to-TEN hours of video! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      probably not ripped ones, a custom chip means instant DRM!
    • The story says you get double the battery life with an external battery pack.

      I'm guessing you have never seen the outrageous prices sony charges for external battery packs.

      Actually, its more amazing that anyone (even sony) could even think of charging the amount they do for their external battery packs (speaking as a sony picturebook owner).

      Sunny Dubey

    • Oh yeah, well I've got a processer that get's QUADRUPLE the battery life WITHOUT an external battery pack. Hang on, give me a minute, it's here somewhere...

      In other words, I'll believe the specs, when I see them for myself.
    • The story says you get double the battery life with an external battery pack. Man. This thing would be sweet for watching movies on airplanes!

      Sony's battery-life claims are based on using low-demand apps with the backlight off. Weasel Reader, for example, really does last the claimed 7-10 hours on a charge. Movie players don't. To watch a movie, you'll want the backlight turned all the way up, and the CPU and sound chip will be running full time. You'd be lucky to watch three hours of video, let alone

  • proprietary hardware (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Pompatus ( 642396 )
    Even if the hardware is better, proprietary hardware is bad. It limits the choices of what you can do with the devicce you own. It goes beyond the "can I run linux on it", hell a valid question would be "am I able to run windows on it?"

    Beta was technically better than VHS. Look what won. Popularity is important. (possibly a bad example, I had a valid point, but I might have lost it to inebriation)

    • Re:proprietary hardware (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AntiOrganic ( 650691 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:33PM (#6480643) Homepage
      No, I've repeated this many more times than I care to, Beta was not better than VHS. Beta tapes, while technically superior in quality (and only marginally so), were only one hour long, whereas VHS tapes, clunky as they were, were two hours long, capable of recording an entire feature-length movie unattended. Eventually, the length of a Beta tape would be extended as the standard was revised and perfected, but by this time the damage had already been done and VHS had taken hold. It was this fundamental difference that led to Beta losing the video format war, not some silly "open standard."

      Do you own a Playstation2? That's got all sorts of proprietary hardware in it. Can you run Linux on it? Yes, you can.
      • I don't remember beta tapes being an hour. We rented regular movies all the time, and they weren't two tapes.

      • I have heard that VHS defeated Betamax because there was no porn on Betamax, but there was on VHS. I wouldn't be surprised if it was an urban legend, though.

        JP

      • Re:proprietary hardware (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Do you own a Playstation2? That's got all sorts of proprietary hardware in it. Can you run Linux on it? Yes, you can.

        No, you can't. Not really.

        Sony sells a Linux kit, but Linux does not run on the PS2. Sony's proprietary software runs, and creates a virtual hardware environment which runs Linux. Linux does not have direct access to any PS2 hardware, and since that hardware is proprietary, it can't run without proprietary Sony software.
    • Sorry I don't agree. As long as there's a compiler (like gcc) and decent documentation for the architecture (boot process, board logic, etc) there's nothing to complain about it. Is intel GTL bus non-proprietary? Is AGP unencumbered? Are AMDs processors libre? Just because everyone and your neighbour own (or should I say license?) one doesn't mean it's non-propietary (take M$). If sony releases detailed specs (or even reference implenetations) for their hardware they're just as good as anyone else.

    • Re:proprietary hardware (Score:5, Insightful)

      by common_sence ( 686407 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:42PM (#6480699)
      Proprietary doesn't equal non-standard. I would assume it would have to maintain compatibility with the current generation instruction sets because I can't see Sony doing away with the Palm OS.

      Look at the PocketPC...3 different processor types and they all run Windows OS. Much the same way that Linux can run on PPC, Sun and Intel chips.

      So long as compatibility is maintained and it supports the broadest range of instructions, more power to them.

      As for MS or Linux on a handheld...WHY? Sure, I'm all for it for those who want that, bu honestly the Palm OS is one of the best handheld OS's on the market. The old PSION OS was great too. I haven't played with the Sharp Linux handheld, but every MS handheld I've used is power-hungry and a memory hog.

      soapbox

      One last thing. Just because you own the device, doesn't mean it HAS to support user changes. If you don't like the way it comes, dob't buy it! You don't buy a Ford and then complain that the engine is proprietary and that you should be able to put a Honda engine in it because of increased fuel efficiency. For crying out loud, now that there's a Linux powered handheld, BUY THAT if you really must have Linux on your handheld.

      /soapbox

      • You don't buy a Ford and then complain that the engine is proprietary and that you should be able to put a Honda engine in it because of increased fuel efficiency.

        You don't buy chicken and then complain that it is full of salmonella and that you should be able to cut both it and the lettuce without getting sick!

        Nah. I'm a vegetarian, so I just like to mention diseases in meats. Never mind.

      • As for MS or Linux on a handheld...WHY? Sure, I'm all for it for those who want that, bu honestly the Palm OS is one of the best handheld OS's on the market.

        As a new Palm OS user, I bought a Clie TG50 a few months ago, I have to disagree here. PalmOS may have been great for the original palms, but it's starting to show limitations. The TG50 is a great little machine but for someone migrating from Symbian (Nokia 9210) there are some puzzling idiosyncracies.

        The lack of proper multitasking is annoying. I ca

    • Re:proprietary hardware (Score:5, Informative)

      by worst_name_ever ( 633374 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @05:45PM (#6481023)
      Even if the hardware is better, proprietary hardware is bad. It limits the choices of what you can do with the devicce you own.

      Proprietary != Incompatible.

      The new Sony CPU mentioned in the article is a fairly normal ARM core with Sony's choice of peripherals built on-chip. This is a perfectly normal thing to do in the industry.

      • The new Sony CPU mentioned in the article is a fairly normal ARM core with Sony's choice of peripherals built on-chip. This is a perfectly normal thing to do in the industry.

        Indeed, it is also something that Sony has done before. The MIPS core in the PlayStation 2 is not only combined on a chip with other hardware, but it includes significant deviations from standard MIPS processors: floating point exception support removed, 128-bit integer registers, dozens of SIMD instructions that operate on 128-bit
    • I know I probably gonna get whacked for "dissident option" but I think it's way better to have proprietary SPECIALIZED things.
      Yes, you can create open generic CPU, and everybody would be able to build an alarm clock or server out of it. Yet if you have a chip for alarm clock that is proprietary, but suits just fine alarm clock builders, 10 times smaller, 5 times cheaper, consumes 13 times less energy, what would you choose?

      I don't need generic thing that works 3 hours on one charge. I would go with PDA tha
      • Yes, you can create open generic CPU, and everybody would be able to build an alarm clock or server out of it. Yet if you have a chip for alarm clock that is proprietary, but suits just fine alarm clock builders, 10 times smaller, 5 times cheaper, consumes 13 times less energy, what would you choose?

        Being proprietary vs. being non-proprietary and being generic vs. being specialized are unrelated qualities.

        The question is not whether you'd use a non-proprietary generic processor or a proprietary specializ

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:19PM (#6480566)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • $700 price point (Score:5, Insightful)

    by marshac ( 580242 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:21PM (#6480574) Homepage
    I still don't understand this. At this price, you are in direct competition with a laptop, and the laptop can do a lot more. I think that HP is moving in the right direction by offering sub $300 ipaq units that are actually quite nice.

    • Re:$700 price point (Score:5, Insightful)

      by james72 ( 684835 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:30PM (#6480628)
      This argument again?! PDA / Laptop's have totally different use patterns. I don't/can't carry a laptop in my pocket. Windows doesn't boot in less than a second (even with suspend/hibernate). A laptops hard drive probably wouldn't take the knocking about my PDA gets... etc, etc. Chalk/cheese. Thank you!
      • have you seen the size of this thing? it won't fit in your pocket either, and if it does it's likely to pull your pants down.

        "excuse me, is that a clie in your pocket or a brick???"

        • The landscape form factor makes it look bigger than it really is. Check these stats out:

          • Sony UX50: 103.0 x 86.5 x 17.9 mm
          • Sony NX80V: 131.5 x 71.9 x 21.8 mm
          • Palm Tungsten T: 101.6 x 75.0 x 15.2 mm (closed)

          It's a little "wider" than most PDAs, but it's only marginally larger in the other dimensions than a T|T, which is pretty darned small. palminfocenter.com has a picture [palminfocenter.com] of a Sony executive holding up a UX50 "prototype". In context, it looks rather normal-sized.

      • I think he is right though. 700 bucks, you *can* get a laptop. Sure, a lot of geeks may/will be willing to pay that kind of money for a pda, but joe schmoe consumer will look at that 700 dollar pda in best buy, then look over towards the laptop section and see a laptop for about that amount, and think "what the hell?"

        yes, they have different usage patterns, but very very few people imho need 700 bucks worth of those usage patterns
      • If they have totally different use patterns, then why do they try to mimic the same functions as the laptop? Is video really necessary on a PDA? Sure, it's cool and all, but how is it useful? How does this function serve to justify the cost? Yeah, it can play mp3s, that's cool too, but again, same question as before. I have gone through several Palm units, and through 2 iPaqs. What did I use them for? Well, I played bejeweled a lot on the IIIc, and I played a few mp3s on the iPaq... oh yes, I also used the

        • Re:$700 price point (Score:2, Redundant)

          by james72 ( 684835 )
          I think you're missing the point... I go jogging with my PDA in my pocket, playing my latest MP3's. You can't do that with a laptop. I can't quickly lookup my mates number in the pub on a laptop. Need google when you're stuck in traffic on the way to the beach? Laptop's at home... Anyway, I think I've laboured my point enough. -James.

        • Re:$700 price point (Score:3, Insightful)

          by uradu ( 10768 )
          > then why do they try to mimic the same functions as the laptop?

          Because you can. My main problem with these devices is the price. There's just no way I will carry a $700 item in my pant pockets, period. And I suspect there are plenty more people that think the same way--I just can't see these things flying off the shelves. Too many hazards: knocking it against a table edge while walking, losing it while running, putting it in the wash with the pants, etc. While its features are certainly very nice and
      • doesn't boot in less than a second

        That will likely change. Google for '"instant on" computer'.

        But anyway, you're right. For now. However, I'd like to see the general purpose PC usurp the PDA. The problem is, laptops are inherently large, for three primary reasons: (1) more horsepower, (2) bona-fide keyboards, (3) big displays. I might add (4), more ports/plugs, etc.

        I don't want to give any of those things up. But I want them to fit in my pocket. I think it can happen. Moore's law will take care
      • My Powerbook returns from sleep in a second.
    • Everything but fit in your pocket.
    • This thing fits in your pocket and has excellent battery life; neither of those is true for even the smallest laptops (which Sony also makes). And small laptops are actually quite expensive, usually upwards of $2000.

  • just an ARM core in their ASIC (Score:5, Interesting)

    by js7a ( 579872 ) * <james@nOspAm.bovik.org> on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:22PM (#6480581) Homepage Journal
    With the meager about of cache (32Kw split) that Intel ships with their Xscales, I don't blame Sony for taping out their own chip.

    I've been trying to get Intel to increase their cache in response to the pressures from the kind of algorithms people want to run on portables, but even though they'll sacrafice battery life on the altar of huge, bright, color LCDs in their reference designs, they won't even double their cache.

    • I read both articles and I dont think it is an ARM. I wouldnt be suprised if they did write their own ISA. They have been working with IBM on the micrcores for the playstation 3 and writing a nice low power ISA with MM instructions seems quite likely to me. There are many tools to easily adapt compilers [gnu.org] and debuggers [freshmeat.net] to any instrcution sey you like. I suspect it is actually multiple core and controlibly speculative. That way you simply dont waste power but get reasonable performance.

    • Re:just an ARM core in their ASIC (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I've been trying to get Intel to increase their cache

      Hey, I've been trying to get Intel to give me the $20 bucks they owe me. Next time you see them, can you let them know? Or I'm not loaning them my lawn mower ever again.

    • Interesting. Intel is the same company that put 1MB of L2 onto the PIII CPU that is in the Centrino chipset so that they'd get acceptable performance at a low clock.

      I wonder if this is another one of Intel's strategies to separate Xscale from their x86 line as much as possible - they just might not want anyone using an Xscale in a high performance task when a Centrino would do the job twice as poorly (for the task). Centrino is nice, but not something you want to build a palm device around.
      • Intel is the same company that put 1MB of L2 onto the PIII CPU that is in the Centrino chipset so that they'd get acceptable performance at a low clock.

        I don't know of any Intel like that. The Intel I know of added 1MB of L2 cache, partitioned it into 32K slabs for maximum perfomance and power efficiency and then proceeded to rework the pipeline of the more efficient P3 core, introduced micro-ops fusion, dynamically change the clock of the FSB and generally sqeezed as much as they could out of every clock
      • I wonder if this is another one of Intel's strategies to separate Xscale from their x86

        I'm afraid so. Revolt! [opencores.org]

  • Battery Life Impressive? Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by syntap ( 242090 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:23PM (#6480588)
    This new processor will give users 16 hours of battery life (impressive!)

    Huh? Maybe 16 hours is impressive for a laptop computer or a Windows mobile device but this is a Palm OS device. My current color Clie gets at least that with backlight on most of the time.

  • And among other things (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:23PM (#6480589)

    And among other this this processor will probably embbed some Sony(TM) internal DRM technology preventing you from putting the device to any good and proper use (OGG baby!). Other that that I would think that some of the more established CPU manufactureres (i.e. Motorola or Transmeta) would probably come with equaly impressive CPU solution of their own if it would be as simple as that. This is not to say that Sony doesn't have the know-how needed to produce one, but it also means that any serious attempt at this market will probably be the result of years of development and refinement. Unless they are developing the CPU on the basis of some already established architecture (ARM?) they are in for tough time if they are to produce The CPU to power their next-gen toys.

    My $0.02

  • My Latitude LS gets 2 hours max (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:24PM (#6480597)
    And that's the way I like it!

  • Price point (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The Tyro ( 247333 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:26PM (#6480611)
    700$ seem expensive, but if you get the top-o-the-line zaurus and throw in a WLAN card, you get about the same price. However, this thing has a bigger screen, and it sounds like the sony may have much better battery life.

    Marketing claims, however, aren't... we'll see when it gets independently reviewed.

    Proprietary processor though... Hmmm... that might be a red flag.
    • Most of the people who get these will not be paying for their own, so price isn't too big of an issue.
    • I fail to see how the processor is any more proprietary than say a Motorola processor if it will still run the same OS.
    • Any word on if this is a variation of their "cell" processor or not?

    • Re:Price point (Score:4, Interesting)

      by 73939133 ( 676561 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @05:20PM (#6480915)
      Proprietary processor though... Hmmm... that might be a red flag.

      Well, the weird part isn't the ARM core, it's the undocumented and proprietary audio I/O, DSP, memory architecture and other devices that Sony puts into these devices. You can't even access those through the proprietary OS that runs on these machines.

      However, this thing has a bigger screen, and it sounds like the sony may have much better battery life.

      The Sharp actually seems like a nicer handheld and the Sharp screen has double the number of pixels. However, the better battery life and built-in BT and WiFi make the Sony a winner.

      Also, the PDA software on the Sharp just isn't competitive: the Palm PDA apps are far better than the Sharp, and Bluetooth configuration on the Sharp is a nightmare. Furthermore, in a twist of irony, you can develop commercial apps for the Sony for free, using all free tools, while you need to pay a lot of money to develop commercial Qt/Embedded apps.

  • Sigh (Score:5, Funny)

    by S.I.O. ( 180787 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:35PM (#6480654)
    > which are due to ship this Semptember

    Damn, I was hoping for an Awegust release.

  • Where have I heard this before? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SlashChick ( 544252 ) <erica AT erica DOT biz> on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:37PM (#6480666) Homepage Journal
    "This new processor will give users 16 hours of battery life..."

    Hmm... where have I heard this before? Oh yeah... Transmeta. [vnunet.com]

    It will be great if the handheld lives up to its hype... but I'll be waiting for benchmarks of a released product before I believe it.
  • It would be nice if sony had another instruction set on these chips. Linux can adapt very quickly to new architecuyres unlike some commercial software. Gcc is especially easy to adapt to new architecture and with tools like KMD [freshmeat.net] you can have a whole compiler assembler debugger withing days reather than starting from scratch.

    Its nice that companies now have a choice to make their own chips because the software is portable across architectures.

  • nice hardware, weird software (Score:5, Informative)

    by 73939133 ( 676561 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @05:04PM (#6480818)
    The Clies are nifty hardware, but their software is getting weirder and weirder. Nominally, they run PalmOS, but the user interface is quite different and the Clies ship with a lot of applications that won't run on any other Palm.

    Furthermore, some important Palm functions, like anything using audio, won't work on the Clies because Sony has created their own undocumented and proprietary APIs. Memory on these devices is also getting really strange, with 16M of RAM, 16M of more RAM that is somehow not quite as accessible, and 29M of built-in flash memory, plus some other RAM somewhere else for some other purpose.

    Furthermore, Palm applications in general often don't scale well to high resolution or non-square screens, meaning that primarily applications designed for 320x480 landscape mode on these Clies will work well on them, while regular Palm applications will often just be scaled-up 160x160 windows.

    I guess the best way to look at Clies is as consumer gadgets, not hardware running an operating system: you get the software that comes with them. Some additional Palm software may work on them, but perhaps not all that well.

    I wish Sony would just put Palm out of their misery and buy them. They could then do something sensible like put PalmOS on top of a decent kernel, like Linux, QNX, or Symbian, while keeping the existing applications; those kernels could do as good a job at running existing Palm applications as PalmOS 5 does, and they don't suffer from the same memory management or driver stupidity as PalmOS. They would also make PalmOS a much more credible platform for enterprise apps. And, unlike PalmOS 6, they are here right now, they are debugged, they are mature, and they are efficient.

    • They could then do something sensible like put PalmOS on top of a decent kernel, like Linux, QNX, or Symbian, while keeping the existing applications; those kernels could do as good a job at running existing Palm applications as PalmOS 5 does, and they don't suffer from the same memory management or driver stupidity as PalmOS.

      In case you didn't know, at least until version 4, PalmOS was built on top of the AMX RTOS from Kadak [kadak.com]. Alledgedly, their contract did not allow Palm to expose the multitasking API t

    • Several months ago, I bought a Clie PEG-SJ20. I have used the daylights out of it since then, running third-party software and X-Master hacks (think old MacOS-style INITs) galore and even using a [Sony-built or at least Sony-endorsed] external keyboard. Every Palm app I've tried has run flawlessly; this includes even a few featherweight music composition apps which use the built-in piezo buzzer thingy to play tunes. Maybe the parent post was referring to sampled audio, which my unit doesn't support. I do wa

    • Re:nice hardware, weird software (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I develop Palm apps for a living. Supporting the Clie and its various differences has been an annoyance to me in the past, but I have to defend Sony on a few points here. Sony wrote a lot of extensions to the Palm OS in their API because quite frankly, Palm was dragging its ass. Until OS5, Palm didn't have a high res API of their own, or a real sound manager API.

      So yes, something written using the Palm OS5's (more recent) sound API won't work on an older OS4 Clie. You can hardly expect Sony to put o

      • but I have to defend Sony on a few points here. Sony wrote a lot of extensions to the Palm OS in their API because quite frankly, Palm was dragging its ass.

        So? I didn't make any statements that this was Sony's fault. In fact, I find it pretty amazing what Sony has been able to do with what has got to be one of the most poorly designed operating systems around.

        So yes, something written using the Palm OS5's (more recent) sound API won't work on an older OS4 Clie. [...] Sony's newer Clies actually do run

        • Again, you don't know what you are talking about. Check AeroPlayer or Pocket-Tunes; they don't work on OS5 Clies and their developers can't get them to work because Sony isn't publishing the API.

          But, hey, if you can prove me wrong by posting a pointer to Sony's audio API documentation for OS5 (note that they have some documentation for some audio API on their site, but that's not what goes with their OS5 Clies; I think that's for their OS4 stuff, which is yet different), then I, as well as the developer

          • Will the Sony Sound Developer Kit [cliedeveloper.com] suffice for your needs?

            No. That's been out for a while, and it is apparently not sufficient to do high quality audio playback, according to the developers of AeroPlayer and Pocket-Tunes. Those APIs apparently are good enough only for simple game sounds.

            Given your desire to use AeroPlayer and Pocket-Tunes , you appear to use Palm apps for entertainment. Would that be considered pathetic by your standards?

            I'm sorry, but I don't understand the quest
    • I guess the best way to look at Clies is as consumer gadgets, not hardware running an operating system: you get the software that comes with them. Some additional Palm software may work on them, but perhaps not all that well.

      Unless you've actually verified this yourself, I cry FUD. I own a Clie SJ-33, and it's lovely. It runs every PalmOS app I've tried on it. The Clie-only apps and Clie HiRes modes in standard apps (e.g., Weasel Reader) are just bonus. It's no more a "[non-expandable] consumer gadget

  • Magnesium...Titanium... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Stonent1 ( 594886 ) <stonentNO@SPAMstonent.pointclark.net> on Saturday July 19, 2003 @05:09PM (#6480853) Journal
    None of them satisfy me. It's depleted uranium or nothing! I want to drop my pda on the pavement and damage the pavement and not the pda.

  • Sony, good design and hidden flaws ? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BlueTrin ( 683373 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @05:22PM (#6480928) Homepage Journal

    I remember when I was in university, my roommate got a Sony VAIO. I think that telling its story could provide some information about how proprietary hardware could cause you headaches, especially with manufacturers such as Sony:

    At first we were amazed at its design and size. But in the following months, he had to buy stuff and accessories from Sony (Sony's stuff is not often compatible with other manufacturers hardware) which were about twice more expensive than their counterparts from other manufacturers. That is even more true with PDAs upgrades which are extremely expensive compared to the original price of the device.

    When he wanted to install a BSD, there was no support for his laptop for some months because Sony did not release at this time specs of the hardware used. Not to mention the integrated Wincam which was unusable outside of Windows

    When XP was available, he discovered that he could not install it because of the proprietary hardware and there was no drivers available for windows XP on the Sony website. Furthermore Sony does not deliver Windows install CDs, but restore disks. When he contacted Sony, the last tech he talked to said they (Sony) don't support XP Pro since it wasn't the original software installed. Sorry, but his little sticker said "designed for Windows XP".

    Not to mention some poor design about heat/small size, after a hour or more of an operation which uses alot of CPU (compiling, playing some video, picture editing), the back part of the laptop was so hot that he burned himself one time in closing it.

    You just have to search some reviews from users on google Google [google.fr], to see that many users had complaints about their proprietary hardware. So knowing that Sony will use a proprietary processor in their PDA kinda scares me and I hope that future users of this device will not encounter as much problems as he did.

    • But this isn't a Windows box. This is a palm device. No matter what Palm OS based device you buy, you're buying into proprietary hardware. Buy a Palm, and you have to buy Palm accessories, so really, what is the solution in the current market? Saying it is a proprietary processor is kind of amusing, because it has to be based on a StrongARM design. TI, Intel, and now Sony make processors based on that which will drive the Palm OS. I really don't see how Sony has become worse than Palm or the other licensees
    • This isn't unusual at all. Any OEM hardware you get will have the same problems...

      Lots of systems I've owned, or just come across, have some strange hardware that prevents them from working. Maybe it's common hardware, but just has a strange quirk that makes it fail with the normal drivers. This happens on Windows just as much as BSD/Linux.

      My own notebook has a SIS video chipset... SIS does not release documents on just about any of their video chips, so I should have stayed away from their products c
  • and install windows?

  • Sony: "The computer industry lacks standards..." (Score:3, Informative)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @06:10PM (#6481126) Homepage
    I love it! I love it! Sony says here [sonystyle.com] (if that bizarrely long URL doesn't work, just go to SonyStyle, search on UX40, and click the Specifications tab):

    "Computer Interface: The computer industry lacks standards, and therefore, there are a multitude of varying software packages and add-on hardware options. This device is not manufactured to any specific software, and Sony does not and cannot make any warranty or representation with respect to the performance of this product with any particular software packages and/or non-Sony add-on hardware option except those mentioned in this document. Sony hereby disclaims any representations or warranty that this product is compatible with any combination of products you may choose to connect. While Sony representatives or Sony authorized dealers may be able to assist you and may make recommendations, they are NOT authorized to vary or waive this disclaimer. Purchasers must determine for themselves the suitability and compatibility of the hardware and software in each and every particular instance."

    Now, I ask you, ain't that the truth?

  • Sirius Cybernetics Corp anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by groomed ( 202061 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @07:32PM (#6481450)
    "We have the capability of injecting wonder, joy and levels of customization into a portable device so it becomes more like a companion or a friend to a lifestyle that uses digital technology."

    -- Masanobu Yoshida, president of Sony Corporation's Handheld Computing Company

  • Sorry Sony (Score:2, Insightful)

    by agent dero ( 680753 )
    both the CLIE UX50 and UX40 handhelds will be available through American retailers in September for about $700 and $600

    I'm awfully sorry Sony, even though the Clie is cool as hell, $600!!!!

    Dell sells complete desktop systems for around $400 - $500. With monitor.

    Substitute portability for sensibility.

  • Playstation Portable (Score:2, Insightful)

    by chadlnx ( 686255 )
    Noting in your newspost that Sony will be adopting this technology into the "next generation of PlayStations", I'm going to guess that this means the up and coming PSP. If that is the case and these handhelds are getting 16 hours of battery life with a solid 30fps, I think (for the first time) Nintendo has something to worry about. Of course, games will make the processor a bit more busy than keeping your address book updated. Also, the motor for the game disc itself. It will be an interesting battle re

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