Introduction
It’s a habit of large manufacturers that when they release a bit more special product, they brand it with a name that sounds very cool, pack it in a decorative box and sell it at a high price as exclusive stuff. I’m not really fond of such tactics, I find that great difference of price, characteristic of such devices, unjustified. The subject of our current review, the James Bond branded Sony VAIO UX Micro PC is different. Not because it’s not expensive, ‘cause it has a laaaarge price tag. But it is really special.
The device itself is nearly two years old; the manufacturer launched the exclusive pack at the end of 2006 at a price of 3200 USD. Thanks to XXL PC we now had the opportunity of taking a closet look, what turns James Bond on. This is what the base of our review is, we won’t be putting out an article full of benchmark results.
So it’s a James Bond kit. I didn’t expect much before getting the pack in my hands, just a few engraved 007 logos and a package full of Casino Royale pictures. I almost had a heart attack when I saw the metal briefcase you can see on the picture. This is the package, it’s unique, it’s cool, but I think the manufacturer got hold of the suitcase at the Chinese market. The lock on it is of very low quality, no matter if we input the correct 3 digit code (which can be deciphered in max. two hours if going on the trial and error path, and in two minutes if we keep listening to the lock’s sounds), the case opens only after we strike on it hard. When transporting the pack home, I felt the “exclusivity” of it, as the not-so-cheap thing weighs around 10 kgs, so if I would be the super agent, I would surely smack a few bad guys on the face with it.
Accessories a la James Bond
The special pack theoretically contains a Sony DSC-T50/JB digital camera, but this was missing from my pack some way, but since I wouldn’t have much to write about it, I didn’t miss it at all. Other stuff is really cool, let’s see them one by one.
We get a docking station with the machine, there’s nothing James Bond in this one, as it’s included with the basic edition too. The machine looks good in it, but what’s even more important, it has lots of connectors: three USB, a 15-pin D-Sub monitor output, an RJ-45 (UTP) network connector and a FireWire port, necessary for the external DVD writer.
The case seen on the picture is also included with the basic edition, but this doesn’t decrease its value, as it’s made of high quality and resistant materials, I feel that it really does protect the machine from smaller physical damages.
Besides the docking station there is a kind of travel adapter that has a D-Sub and an Ethernet connector on it. The Bluetooth-GPS receiver is a 007 gadget; we can use the machine for car navigation with it.
There are two batteries, on the picture you can see the one with the higher capacity inside the handset, and as a comparison the other one is placed near it. It’s visible that the “extended” one is really large, and the machine becomes much more uncomfortable to hold when we put this one in it, and it won’t stand horizontal on a table. The 5200 mAh (!) capacity compensates us very well for this flaw; this is the double of the basic edition’s.
As I have already mentioned, we also get an external DVD rewriter, model number VGP-DDRW4; it writes RW discs at 8x speed and CDs at 24X speed, and it also supports double-layer discs.
Besides all these we also get some chargers. These hardly fit in the aluminum case, closing it was even harder than already hard opening procedure.
Exterior
Now that we managed to get through the shock of accessories, let’s take a look at the device itself. We get the older model, VAIO UX280P, this is the version that runs Windows XP, since then there has been launched an edition with an SSD drive and Vista as an OS. The reason for the name Micro PC is very simple; Sony’s device didn’t fit in the UMPC project. Not just physically, although it’s a fact, that it’s not small at all, as it weighs 544 grams at a size of 150 x 95 x 32-38 mm (thinnest/thickest point, with nirmal battery).
There’s not much of James Bond feeling on the device itself, the logo engraved on the bottom of the front is the only sign of its nature, and other parts are the same as on the basic edition, colors gray/black, the materials used are of high-quality. The display has a diagonal of 4.5”, its resolution if 1024 x 600 pixels, there are no problems with picture quality, although smaller texts can only be read with a magnifying glass at such a resolution. Fortunately the manufacturer observed this, and there is a zoom function included: below the stick of the mouse there are two buttons that can be used for zooming. The screen is touch-sensitive, but there are some problems with this, as it doesn’t recognize touches at the sides. This greatly reduces usability, for example it’s really hard to press the X button in the top right corner, as it’s just on the limit. I don’t know if this is a unique problem of the device I received, or it’s present in each and every one.
The touchscreen recognizes touches until the red line
Above the display there is a fingerprint reader, a VGA resolution camera, and a VAIO logo, which symbolizes the analog-digital change. On the other side there is a 1.3 megapixel camera, which appears only after sliding the display. On the left we can see, under the aforementioned mouse/zoom keys, a slider with three positions, two hotkeys and the slider turning on/off the wireless functions.
Upon sliding the display, the QWERTY keyboard with a blue backlight appears. It’s not very good from the point of view of usability, as keys are small, there pressure point is quite bad, so I wouldn’t really use it for typing, but they are perfect for entering web addresses.
On the bottom of the machine is the air vent, two 3.5 mm jack connectors (headset and microphone, although there is a built-in on from the latter) and the plugs for the charger and the docking station. The hole of the stylus is on the back, along with a foldable antenna, which enhances WiFi use – this one falls off quite easily, I don’t know if it’s a unique problem. On top, near the Memory Stick Duo slot, we can see the exposure button of the camera, and then there’s a USB connector on the left.
Hardware, services
The core of the system is a 1.2 GHz Intel Core Solo U1400 ULV processor, the abbreviation stands for Ultra Low Voltage, so the CPU doesn’t eat much electrical energy; the system bus has a speed of 533 MHz, L2 cache size is 2 MB. There is 1 GB of DDR400 memory; the GMA950 video controller can have maximum 128 Mb of this. The hard disk has a capacity of 40 GB, the user can have 30 GB of this by default, and the rest is a separate system backup partition, so if there’s trouble we can restore a factory default XP anytime. The hard disk has many security functions, for example it automatically parks the read-write head if it senses an acceleration that is more than allowed.
The Ethernet port supports 10/100 Mbps transfer speeds, the WiFi unit has great reception quality and supports 802.11a/b/g standards. Bluetooth is of version 2.0 (+EDR) and there is no infra port on the little VAIO. With the help of the built-in modem we can use mobile internet, but this service is available only on the American Cingular network, so I couldn’t test it. It’s no big loss, as there’s no HSDPA, the modem supports only EDGE transfers.
The operating system is Windows XP Professional with SP2. We get quite a lot of software pre-installed, Office 2003 and Pen Plus are full version applications; Norton Internet Security and Microsoft Works 8.5 can be used for 60 days, while TrendMicro Anti-Spyware and SmartDraw Suite Edition are 30-day trial versions. VAIO Touch Launcher is of course full version software.
VAIO Touch Launcher
Speed was just as I expected, the CPU that counts as quite fast amongst UMPCs and the 1 GB of RAM were enough to run basic applications without any problems. Thanks to the USB ports and the VGA output we can connect a monitor, a mouse and a keyboard to the machine, so we can use it as a full value computer when on the docking station. The operating system start up rather fast, even though there are more than 60 entries in the task manager after boot, which is about triple the amount as in a usual Windows XP.
Summary
We won’t have any problems with online time, thanks to the two batteries. The normal-sized one keeps the machine running for about 3 hours, while the extended capacity one offers about 6 hours of online time, I think the latter one will be enough for everyone.
Before the summary let’s take a look at multimedia features. The gadget is theoretically perfect for listening to music, as we can attach any kind of 3.5 mm headset, and it has a medium sound quality when on loudspeaker. It plays back DivX/XviD movies without a problem, and we can even watch DVD movies, using the external drive, there will be no trouble with picture quality. It’s not the best choice for games though; the performance of the GMA950 chip is not enough for more demanding 3D games. The situation is not that bad, however, as the DX9 and Shader Model 2.0-compatible runs Quake 3 like a charm for example, but we shouldn’t be experimenting with Crysis. It’s possible that HD movie playback will be problematic as it doesn’t support this format that much, and the CPU in not so powerful to make up for it.
Summary: well, what could I say? For such a price buyers get a really nice package, but this amount of money would be enough for a really good notebook… or for a not so good notebook and a smart PDA. The machine itself is still very good, it’s comfortable to use, and I’m only disturbed by the touchscreen’s problem. I would in no way buy it for so much, but it’s still cool stuff.
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| Sony VAIO UX280P James Bond Edition |
Bocha
Translated by Szaszati
Sony Micro PC was supplied by XXL PC.
The device can be bought at:
Budapest VI. Jókai tér 6.
Budapest VI. Teréz körút 18.
On-line at www.xxlpc.hu.
Specifications
| Sony VAIO UX280P James Bond Edition | ||
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| Operating system | Windows XP Professional SP2 | |
| CPU | Intel Core Solo U1400 (1.2 GHz, 533 MHz, 2 MB L2 cache) | |
| Chipset | Intel 945GMS | |
| Display | 4.5” diagonal, 1024 x 600 pixels resolution touchscreen | |
| Memory | 1024 MB DDR400 | |
| Hard disk | 40 GB, 4200 rpm | |
| Video controller | Intel GMA950 | |
| Sound | AC 97 | |
| Optical drive | External DVD writer (Dual Layer) | |
| Communication | 802.11a/b/g WiFi Bluetooth 2.0 Cingular Wireless Edge GSM modem | |
| Connectors | 1 x 3.5 mm- jack output 1 x 3.5 mm microphone input 1 x docking connector 1 x USB 2.0 | |
| Extras | lots of accessories QWERTY keyboard | |
| Camera | 1.3 megapixel for taking pictures 0,3 megapixel for video calls | |
| Battery | 2600 and 5200 mAh included in package | |
| Size | 150 x 95 x 32-38 mm | |
| Weight | 544 grams | |
