170,000 Reasons

1. I guess Japan was always gonna be trouble for me, with my weakness for gadgets and the superlative-inducingly high density of gadget-per-square-metre that is contemporary Japan, one should not be so shocked to hear that I dropped a fat stack of the Yens on a new gadget.

2. This time, it the new Sony VAIO UX50, a proper full function PC that just so happens to be the size of an old cassette Walkman and weighs just half a kilo. It packs a punch as well, with built in Bluetooth, 802.11a/b/g, ethernet, two cameras, fingerprint scanner, backlit keyboard (which totally blows, but it’s better than not having one at all), built in MemoryStick and CF slot, 4in widescreen touchscreen display, and docking station. It’s powered by an Intel Core solo U1300, has 512mb of RAM and 30Gb hard drive. Not that exciting, but did I mention that it weighed a shade over half a kilo?

3. Battery life is not that exciting either, running in a a bit under 3hrs if you do everything you can (short of turning it off) to conserve power. The screen is gorgeous, but the reflective screen is damn annoying if there are any bright lights behind you, though the backlighting is strong enough for comfortable viewing outside. Which is exactly what I need it for.

4. The main reason I bought this is because of the CF slot. Now instead of toting the MacBook Pro around when I go on holidays with the camera, I can instead use the VAIO, which weighs in at about 1/5 of the weight. So I can shoot whatever, swap out the card, put it in the VAIO and copy it straight over to the computer. When I have a chance I can review and delete the crud, apply metadata tags all before I get home. Once I get home I can copy the lot over to the Mac where I can edit and rate and sort and all that stuff. I figure the chiropractic bills I won’t need to pay in a decade’s time is worth the expense now.

5. And while all that can be done with a Nikon Coolwalker et al, the VAIO has the added advantage of being a computer, which means when I’m not on holidays or I’m not out shooting (which, for now, is still a strictly amature hobby) I have a lightweight computer I can use to write with, or watch movies, or chat online through my phone… endless possibilities.

6. And of course, it’s dead sexy and I just wanted one anyway.

Comments

  1. You dirty little whore. Only because I want one but they are two and a half grand down here. At least it’s not another Mac Thing.

    Comment by Zadro — July 16, 2006 @ 10:26 pm

  2. Haha, well no reason I can’t run a cracked version of OS X on this thing :)

    But, no, I don’t mind having Windows on it, since it’s built on good hardware with good drivers, and I only run a small selection of applications on it. So far it hasn’t crashed at all, and I haven’t rebooted since about a week ago when I installed an update. Can’t complain.

    Comment by JohnK — July 18, 2006 @ 3:09 am

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