I don't know which I hate more, Sony products....or WinXP...but I'll give it up to Sony, this is a pretty nifty looking device. Note: this is NOT really a competition for the 770, being it that the price is 6 times (I got my 770 at $300) the price of a 770....but it'll give UMPCs a run for their money.

http://handhelds.engadget.com/2006/0...-ux-previewed/

http://www.digitalworldtokyo.com/200...x50_handhe.php

I used to have one (my wife now has it), but I just couldn't get on with it having been used to a Psion.

The main shortcomings were battery life; the web browser not being very good (Opera's a god send after it) and PalmOS being absolutely rubbish. Keeping open an SSH connection in the background whilst checking IRC, the web or instant messaging was ridiculous.

Also, video watching on the UX50 isn't particularly feasible IIRC.

I got mine second hand for about $100 (rough conversion from ukp) more than my 770 new; $50 more if you take into account buying a Bluetooth keyboard for the 770.

Interesting, but not as useful as the 770, for me.

Cheers,

Andrew

no andrew, he means the new umpc from sony, running xp pro.... it is also called the ux50 just like the palm OS beast that I am writing this on

Ah, apologies then.

With two letters and two numbers there are over 67,000 combinations - typical they'd choose ones they've already used!

Since "UB40" was already taken, and nobody in their right mind would ever choose "U2" ever again...

Andrew, I am right or did the old model not have the two zoom keys?

Robert

I don't remember it having zoom keys. It had, from memory, the jogwheel and four application hardware buttons.

Apparnetly Sony really wants us to use the full product code -- the Palm OS UX-50 is the PEG-UX50, while the Windows OS UX-50 is the VGN-UX50. There does seem to be a certain logic to the naming scheme (the industrial design is similar, so the last half of the name is the same, but the OS is different, so the first half of the name is different) but ...sheesh.

The PEG-UX50 doesn't have any hardware buttons for "zoom." NetFront has a similar concept to Opera's optimized/non-optimized views, though.

A friend recently gave me a well-used PEG-UX50, and I have been using it around the house for email. I wish I was using the 770 for email, but I guess SnapperMail has made me sort of impatient with less-than-perfect email clients. Or maybe PINE's learning curve is just too much for me. Something like that.

The zoom/view hardware buttons were not conceived by Opera. They first appeared on the Nokia 7700 handheld, and are available to all apps.

I wasn't comparing the optimized/non-optimized features of NetFront to the hardware buttons on the 770, I was comparing them to the menu option for "Optimized View," which is a rather different feature. As far as I can tell, the PEG-UX50 doesn't include any hardware features similar to the hardware "zoom" buttons on the Nokia 770 (or 7700, as you observe).

It's also true to say that Opera didn't conceive the concept of this "optimized view" business either, as NetFront goes back a ways and even the lackluster Blazer web browser includes a wide page/optimized view option, but Opera has been obviously designed with mobile devices in mind since at least version 7 -- as is evidenced by their "small screen rendering" feature.