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Handhelds Portables Hardware Technology

Sony U750P Handtop 81

Posted by timothy from the cute-but-limited dept.
captainJam writes "In September we announced that Sony's U50/U70 line was being dropped. With news today that a North American version of this handtop is coming out, that news becomes half-truth. The U50/U70 may be no more, but the line has been upgraded a touch and simplified by having just one model instead of two. Handtops.com has a brief look at the new Sony U750P."
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Sony U750P Handtop More

Sony U750P Handtop

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  • Cool... Drool... XMas present, anybody? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @05:14AM (#10774819) Journal
    I've read U50 reviews stating that the U50/70 is expensive. That's relative -- do you really NEED such a device? Nobody really NEEDS to watch movies or do any of the other myriad things one could do with a U50, the point is that you CAN watch movies and listen to music, you CAN check your email, you CAN play games, restart your HTTPD and sendmail daemons all from the comfort of your couch, or train. This is a luxury device, and given the specs and amount of effort that must have gone into making it, I don't think the price is expensive at all. This is the Rolls Royce of iPods, you pay for quality and finesse. The U50 is an extravegance that makes life more fun, and as such, it's worth every penny.
    • I'd rather hack together something to do it, that's worth more than the money.
    • Only if I can get Linux running on one.
      I was just looking at one on a coworker's desk and it sure is a neat little machine.
    • This is the Rolls Royc of iPods..
      I agreed with everything you said until I came to this bit. Muppet. This is a hand held computer an iPod is a great mp3 player.
    • I too have noticed people calling basically any small sexy multimedia like PDA an iPod...

      Perhaps iPod (I = Me, Pod = thing that contains something) is a better word for handheld/palm/ipaq/pda. Where a brand presses its name to an object, like Hoover, then the world has a new word in effect.

      A Vaccum Cleaner wasn't a name for the device, it was a description of it.

      Anyway, nothing non-biological should be as sexy as that...

      My axim is fine for me though!
    • Santa thinks he can dance [slashdot.org] sez,"...do you really NEED such a device?"

      If one has a long commute on crowded train or bus, I can see some utility. My P2120 [leog.net] is the perfect air coach computer, but there's no way I could manage it while standing on a train.

      An e-mail address is not available for Swami [eaisai.com]. Your prayers to Him in any form reach Him directly
    • Man, this sucker really is expensive. One can (could?) get a Japanese u50 from a cheap and reliable importer like price-japan.com for something like $1250 w/ 2-3 day shipping. But they want $2000 for the US version? Bah.
      • Most importers are selling the U50 for around $1500-2000 price range. For the U70, the prices I've usually seen are $2000-2600. In the case of the U50, the only ones I've seen at that lowest range are used U50s.

        Considering, that the US model will be a slightly improved version of the U70, $2000 is not as far off as you would suggest. A sweet price would be to put around $1700-1800.
      • I didn't know of that particular importer. The correct url is: pricejapan.com.

        I checked the price for their U70... after shipping they listed it as 231,877 yen or roughly $2,198.
        • Yeah, I put the crack away. Their price, w/ shipping, for the U50 is now $1600. However, it was lower a month or so back, when I checked last. Perhaps it's gone up now that Sony has apparently stopped making them? Pricejapan.com works by finding the lowest price in Tokyo- and then the guy who runs it goes out, buys it, and ships it to you. A lot of people have got a Zaurus C860 for the best price around ($560, w/ shipping) and give it a bunch of thumbs up.
    • Since when does entirely copying a paragraph from my review constitute a 'post'? Not even a mention of quoting or anything. The first post ("I've read U50 reviews...") is copying a paragraph in it's entirety from my review -- http://www.handtops.com/show/review/1

  • Re: Dropped (Score:3, Funny)

    by theanonymousbrit ( 768697 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @05:26AM (#10774850)
    So it can survive being dropped? That's a neat feature.

  • What's the niche? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kiyooka ( 738862 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @05:26AM (#10774854)
    Wouldn't it be better to buy a laptop for that price? Then you could play DVD movies and do a lot more other things too.

    Then again, with this you can bring all your work AND media with you. Plug it in at work, detach it, listen to mp3s on the subway ride home, plug it in at home...

    Nah, I'd still rather have a laptop!

    • Re:What's the niche? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by CountBrass ( 590228 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @05:41AM (#10774887)

      So would I. But we're not the target market. It's aimed at people that need more than a PDA but need something considerably smaller than a laptop.

      Try using any laptop one-handed (laptop in one hand, use the other hand to drive) for any extended period of time.

      Think people doing stock control; data capture; viewing electronic documents (blueprints at a building site say) and you'll probably get more of an idea what this is about.

    • Re:What's the niche? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by R.Caley ( 126968 )
      Wouldn't it be better to buy a laptop for that price?

      Will the laptop go in your inside pocket when you are going somewhere?

      A better comparison might be `wouldn't it be better to buy a Zaurus and a cheap laptop'.

      Of course, Sharp are pulling the Zaurus out of north america IIRC.

    • On the subway ride home? That doesn't exactly relate to pretty much everyone. Are you one of those out-of-touch Northeasterners who thinks the whole country is just like where they live?
      • Don't forget about the rest of the world. All big capitals of Europe carry most of the daily commuters in subways.

        All of the Japan itself is commuting.

        The people who you mention to commute in personal cars - they are the minority, actually.
        • "the" Japan? Have you ever actually been to Japan? Go 15 minutes outside the city limits and there are no trains, no subways, it's car country. Of course, that's not what they display on those cartoons, so I'm sure it's your impression.
      • I live in Vancouver, BC. But i guess that doesn't matter, since you sound quite proud of your arrogance.
        • So, you actually think that everyone takes the subway, and can relate to your experience?
          • So, you actually think that nobody takes the subway, and can't relate to my experience?
            • Not many people. Certainly not enough to make a passing statement about it with the assumption that everyone does it. Only in a few cities do subway systems exist. And having lived in Tokyo for a year, with its vaunted public transportation, I can say that having a car is much better.
              • Let's just cut to the chase: what's your problem?

                First of all, yes, I did make a general statement, but one that's defendable. Even if people don't ride in a subway system per se, they might be taking a bus, or taxi, or shuttlebus, or bicycle, or whatever else. But who gives a shit? I was just trying to imagine what uses some people might have for this device, so why are you so preoccupied on this technicality? Why don't you start arguing about how some people are unemployed, and therefore might not be goi

  • Anyone owns smth similar? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ceeam ( 39911 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @05:27AM (#10774857)
    Question for owners: what these devices are good at? I mean, at $2000+ it should offer smth that $300 PDA or $450 Smartphone don't. Please - it's not a flamebait, I'm genuinely curious. :)

    • being tiny and inciting lust in other geeks (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RMH101 ( 636144 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @05:37AM (#10774877)
      that's the point: they're tiny, they look cool, and you want one. much like a mont blanc fountain pen or an omega seamaster watch compared to a biro or a cheap digital watch: they don't do anything different - they're just nicer - and some people are prepared to pay for this.
      personally i could have bought a hundred cheap watches for the price of my omega, but i keep telling myself that the amortised cost per glance at the time is quite reasonable!

    • Re:Anyone owns smth similar? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by CountBrass ( 590228 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @05:39AM (#10774883)

      Simple: it's a general purpose PC, not a PDA or a Smartphone; nor is it an mp3 or movie player: although it *can* do everything those devices can do (except make calls).

      Sure there's some crossover (the closest was the Zarus but not really). The Sony has the hardware you'd expect in a "proper" PC eg a hard disk and a lot of memory (no PDA or Smartphone I know of comes with half a gig of main memory).

      So it's aimed at people who want to do more than you can do on a PDA/Smartphone but want something smaller than a laptop.

      The reason the price is so high is a) the market is small and b) miniturisation costs money.

    • Re:Anyone owns smth similar? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What do you mean by 'smth'? Is this some stupid AOL shorthand that I'm not aware of, or are you just making up words? Speak English, damn it!

  • Just a reminder folks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @05:39AM (#10774882)
    Captain Jam [slashdot.org]

    Another one of /.'s favorite advertisers. Now we have another story plugging his crappie little site.

    News for Nerds? Shills that matter.


    captainJam's Recently Accepted Submissions
    Sony U750P Handtop
    OQO review: pics, in-depth, specs, bench, linux
    OQO For Sale
    OQO price and release date
    HagakiPC - "Postcard" PC
    Handtop Roundup
    On the Possible Handtop Paradigm Shift

    • Captain Jim (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It seems to me that Captain Jim gets off with these little battery operated toys.
    • would you rather it be an article from pc world or cnn?? Why not give other people a chance instead of cutting them up. What the guy is doing is only logical.
    • Did it ever occur to anyone that the /. editors just might not care if the person submitting might profit from a story being posted? Sure, I would like full disclosure if the /. editors were profiting in some direct way from posting a particular submission, but as long as the content is interesting who cares where it comes from. Of course that last little bit is questionable sometimes. I figure either my interests are a little out of whack, or sometimes the editors are drunk. Either way I don't care.

  • Still no Bluetooth? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Hast ( 24833 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @05:53AM (#10774917)
    This seems like a perfect applience for Bluetooth, unfortunately they forgot to include it, again.

    Wireless keyboard and mouse as well as going online through mobile phone doesn't seem too bad as far as I'm concerned.

    And those complaining about "get a laptop instead" clearly have no imagination. These are made to work in situations were you only have your hands to hold it. Eg during your train ride to work (which many US people don't do). It's made for use on the move, in those situations a laptop is just not possible.

  • Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Graymalkin ( 13732 ) * on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @06:59AM (#10775057)
    I'm at a loss to understand the appeal of these. I can see the appeal of a handheld computer system with a large screen and I grasp the desire to have a lot of storage space on such a handheld. What I don't get is why a PC with its general purpose nature is being shoehorned into such an inappropriate form factor. It seems to me a device truly meant to be a haldheld and not cimply a tiny PC would be an overall better design.

    I can see very few instances where something running a StrongARM/XScale chip with 64-128MB of RAM isn't going to be powerful enough to handle chores that would end up relegated to a handheld device. Current PocketPC and Palms can play video, compressed audio, and even 3D games. This is on top of all of the mundane uses like note taking, calendar keeping, and contact management they might be used for.

    Running typical desktop software on a handheld device doesn't seem very appealing to me either. Running a full version of Word on a handheld while riding on the train sounds a bit ridiculous to me. A Word document viewer on a lightweight device makes a bit of sense but not the full application. I don't see many people with an overwhelming desire to run Outlook XP on their handhelds.

    Then there's the price tag of these suckers. The U750 costs more than most high-powered laptops and quite a bit more than even extremely powerful and feature filled PocketPC and Palm handhelds.
    • You miss the point that, people who buy this don't buy it themselves, a company or whatnot buys it for them. It's the same as business class airline seats...nobody but the rich actually buy them, everyone else has their company do it or upgrades with mileage.
    • I think you're missing a key portion to this advice-- hook it up to the dock, and you can connect a regular monitor, mouse, keyboard, [insert device here] and this is a full desktop machine. So imagine... You have a dock at the office, a dock at home, a dock at your summer house-- whatever floats your boat. You take this thing with you, and it's a nice little Palm/PPC device, but you drop it any of the docks, and you have a full desktop machine. Plus, at every place-- every place you have the dock as wel
      • It isn't really a full desktop machine even when docked. It's a machine for $2000 (at least for now) that is only about as powerful as a cheap ass Wal-Mart PC and less capable in many ways than a moderately priced laptop. It also requires docks, keybords, monitors, and a slew of other peripherals in all of the locations you're planning to use the thing.

        As a handheld or even simply as a portable computer the U750 falls down horribly. It's a handheld that gets at best three hours on a single charge and won't
        • It isn't really a full desktop machine even when docked. It's a machine for $2000 (at least for now) that is only about as powerful as a cheap ass Wal-Mart PC and less capable in many ways than a moderately priced laptop.

          I don't think I said anywhere that it was *powerful* compared with current desktop machines. Still, it runs a full version of windows, desktop versions of applications, and should be able to connect to whatever peripheral you need.

          It also requires docks, keybords, monitors, and a slew of

  • Spam for Nerds (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The thread links to another news item on another 'discussion' site, which in turn links to another news item, which links to another... GREAT! This is the last time I try to RTFA.

    A challenge for slashdot posters would be to see how many many spam links like this can get on a front page news story. There should also be a spam-chain scoring mechanism to score how many successive spam links a thread can have, with an extra bonus for pop-ups for IE users.

  • Getting it wet? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Does it work underwater?

    No? I guess I'll have to wait for the U571 model then.

    (I'm so sorry for that)

  • I want a keyboard (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jack Porter ( 310054 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @08:38AM (#10775346)
    I've got a U101 and it's a great carry-everywhere notebook. I can do all the emailing, websurfing and occasional sshing that I need.

    But why on earth would anyone want one without a keyboard? I've tried surfing the web with tablet and there's nothing worse than trying to type a URL with a stylus.

    This thing is just a really expensive media player - I can't see any other use for it.
  • This review (and the link in it to an older model) doesn't mention how the handwriting recognition is. So many handheld reviews don't mention how the handwriting recognition is. They all talk about how easily you can hook a keyboard to it. I don't understand this.

    If it's got a keyboard, i.e. you have to set it on a desk or table or something to use it, it's really not mobile, is it?

    I want a handheld device I can hold in my left hand, write with the stylus with my right hand, use my natural handwriting
    • The U70 does not use an active digitizer for the stylus. Some would argue that's a weakness, however, it allows one to use a stylus or any other point object (fingernail, etc). If you want a full review including a discussion on its handwriting recognition, check out:

      Sony U-70 review [blogs.com]

      The guy, JK, who wrote that review went so far as to install the tablet pc os on the device. Said, the handwriting is very good.

      The shipping version of the U750P will not have the tablet pc os, however, it includes ritePen
    • Drop by eBay and get yourself a Newton Messagepad 2100. 4 AA NiMH batteries last over 2 weeks with heavy use. Form factor is nearly identical. The Newt is 1.5" longer but just as thick and wide. And you still get the best handwriting recognition available. Larger screen, 2 PMCMCIA slots, serial interface and with some effort wireless and ethernet capability. Depending on the item, options and auction, it may cost you $100-200.

      The plug-in keyboard is nice and i've used it at airports with the Newt tucked awa

  • Looks like (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SomeOtherGuy ( 179082 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @10:57AM (#10776520) Journal
    Another example of taking all the shortcomings of a handheld device and mixing them with the shortcomings of a laptop.

    In the real world I can't use this thing (or anything similar) in the field until I can make it through an 8 hour day of moderate to heavy use (outside away from power) without the battery going dead on me. And guess what, add the "wonders" of wireless network connectivity and GPS (2 important things for us people that have a userbase that works outside) -- and the 2 hour battery life will be at at about 60 to 75 Minutes. (I know to some of you that would constitute a full work day....but it is still not good enough for me)

  • Where is Apple? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bodhammer ( 559311 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @11:49AM (#10777078)
    Take: 1 Newton 2100 for HWR Quality

    2 CompactFlash slots for Music and Storage (microdrives must be supported)

    1 Zaurus SL-C3000 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/15/linux_4gb _hdd_pda/) for form factor, bright touchscreen display, keyboard, NetBSD/FreeBsd/OsX (or linux)

    add Ethernet, and 802.11b/g, USB 2.0

    Full day battery(8 hrs) battery life with user replacable, standard AA NiMH batteries

    Support, source code, and a vendor supported dev. community

    Stir Vigoriously, pour into a sub $600 package

    Sell hundreds of thousands of units!!!

    • I notice that you failed to mention weight, screen resolution, and exact size into consideration.

      This is a good thing, as I have no idea how you would power a handheld with these requirements for 8 hours using only two AA NiMH cells, so you're clearly accounting for an extra 14 cells strapped to it.
      • RTFP: 1 Zaurus SL-C3000 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/15/linux_4gb _hdd_pda/) for form factor, bright touchscreen display, keyboard

        Sharp is saying 7 hours for the SL-C3000 (http://www.engadget.com/entry/9534321442142743/ ) with a 1700mA battery. I have 2200mA AA batteries right now.

        Are you trolling?

        • SL-C3000 power consumption: 3.2 Watts. Without 802.11b/g. With an unknown number of hours to back that up, but we'll assume that 7 is correct. That's 22.4 Watt-hours from that one cell.

          2200 mA NiMH AA @ 1.25 V: 2.75 Watts. Using a sample of Powerex 2200 mA cells with a tested mAh rating of about 2070
          mAh, this brings one cell to about 2.6 Watt-hours. So, to match the 3.7 volts of the SL-C3000's battery pack, you'll need 3 AA's in serial, for a total watt-hour delivery of about 7.8 Watt-hours, giving y
  • ...I can't afford one, so I'll just pass my idea on.

    1. Install streamlined Linux distro.
    2. Install PearPC.
    3. Install Mac OS X in PearPC.
    4. Sell/use as a New Newton with Inkwell.
    5. ????
    6. Profit.
    _________________________________________ _______
    Gratis is now giving away iPod Photo's. Got my
    4Gen iPod two weeks ago, now getting a photo.

    http://www.freephotoiPods.com/?r=11380836

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