Sony Vario PCG-U3

Hi all
Just got one of these units anyone else got one?
seems to me to be a real mini beast so does everything
looking to exhange ideas questions etc
regards
Mike

From what I've seen, this isn't a Handheld PC, just a Mini-Notebook, like the JVC Mininotes. To clarify this, do you have a 'C:' drive? and what is the OS? Windows CE or XP?

Nick

I almost got a U3 some time ago from a local seller. But another local buyer beat me with a significantly higher price offer.

Later when I went to Hong Kong, I saw the U1 in person, which is basically the slower predecessor to the U3, and it was a different color; everything else is the same. I was tempted to trade in my C1MVM for that, but thx to friendly suggestions, I didn't.

The size of the unit is amazing, but the keyboard is really too small for much typing. It is about the same as the new Libretto L100. The screen resolution is XGA, or 1024x768, at 6.4 inch. That is a bit dense at 200 dpi (as dense as a 4 inch VGA PPC). And finally the standard battery doesn't last long, and adding the extended battery makes the unit so large it loses the size advantage

So considering all these - keyboard, screen, battery, etc, I am happy I stayed with my C1MVM. Sorry to sound negative about your new laptop; don't get me wrong, it is an amazing piece of technology, but rather that's good enough is up to you to decide

nope, its not on my radar for realistic reasons ... no $$$ for it! ... the C1MVM is very nice too ... U3 should be nice for me as I can type fairly well on units with smaller keyboards, atested when I use the 680e myself.

Once again, battery life is a major setback. The very latest greatest notebooks have 10+ battery life ... making them somewhat on par with HPCs. If only they work out the instantOn functionality and I would say notebooks would be on the verge of displacing HPCs. Granted, the price of such notebooks would be prohibitive, but give it a couple of years and it should be ok.

IMO, the price and battery life factor would be amongst the first to be fixed for notebooks whereas instantOn capabilities seem to get little or no attention from OEMs or Microsoft.

Hey, how about some pics for your U3?

Nick, depends what you mean by "handheld PC". It's a full PC, and it's handheld . it does run WinXP (or linux, or *bsd, or whatever you want - apart from .ce)

It looks a great device, but it's a bit too small for a full-on PC to my eyes: I'd go for the libretto U100 personally, as the keyboard appears better. I say "appears", but that's only from going on the pics that I've seen on t'interweb.

Mike, you have far too many nice toys

So how you class a Handheld PC you would include a JVC Mininote?

Nick

JVC had real hpc's, didn't you know?

Nick, I wouldn't get hung up on the definition of a handheld PC.

As cmonex says, there's a WinCE powered JVC device too: the MP-C33. The other mini-notes are full-on PCs capable of running full OSs from disk rather than RAM.

Guys
thanks for the interest, all points noted (sorry about the pun) The U3 is a windows XP machine with 512m ram with a 20G hd. I needed a small computer that would read PDF files with a good battery life, U3 so far has done this, all other computers tested HP 720, HP 728, Smartbook, Jornder 820 all proved to have problems.

The keyboard is small as mentioned but is usable, my friend who is a typist can type pretty fast, but says its not easy.

I get some pics posted soon

regards
mike