Let me just preface this by saying that I’m not much of a tablet fan. I just don’t see the point of the form factor for most non-professional users. They are too bulky to be very portable and without a keyboard (don’t get me started on the swivel ones, which have their own problems) they’re relatively hard to use for text entry. I tend to go with PDA/phones, my trusty TR and my desktop. Then I succumed to my OCD tendancies and got the UX. This review is based on the American 180P unit with the stock software.

Form Factor
If you whipped out the UX and handed it to someone saying “This is a laptop!” the UX is practically microscopic. The fact that Sony stuffed an entire laptop (the specs are almost identical to the base TR1 laptop) into this form factor is mind-blowing. When you start viewing it as a handheld, things get a bit dicier. It’s a bit heavy and bulky to truly be held with one hand for an extended period of time. Sony designed “gripping humps” in the back so it is possible to hold it with one hand while you use the stylus, but it’s a bit tiring due to its weight and you end up going back to two hands when not using the stylus. The UX is about as thick as the TR series was. At first it seems like a huge detriment, but with its curved lines, rounded edges and the previously-mentioned humps, it feels molded to hold in your hands. It’s very solidly built with the singular exception of the screw-on SIM card slot cover. Unfortunately, the meaty part of my left hand keeps in constant contact with this part, so it’s quite noticable. When in operation, the device does get a little warm, but never uncomfortable or too hot to hold. I wear relatively tight jeans, so I can’t really say the UX is pocketable (my line gets drawn at the iPod nano), but there are reviews by others where they can pocket this thing.

The screen slides up with an easy but solid motion to reveal the single worst part of the UX’s hardware: the keyboard. It’s easy to criticise the keyboard on something this small and new, but the fact is that Sony as a company has made some very good mini keyboards, particularly on their NR, NX, NZ and UX Clie handhelds. HTC and Handspring/Palm have been making great mini keyboards for years that could have served as models. The keys on the UX are almost flush with the surface and have almost no travel. I’ve been getting slowly used to the keyboard, but I still make frequent mistakes. It’s OK for inputting Web addresses or IMs, but it gets tedious to write out emails or long pieces of text on it. I much prefer my MDA (HTC Wizard) and Treo 650 keyboards over the UX for typing, even though both devices are much smaller. The UX keyboard is small enough to be covered with two normal thumbs, but for whatever reason, Sony didn’t consider things like shift keys being used with two thumbs. There’s only one of each Shift, Ctrl, Alt and Fn, all on the left side. Enabling XP’s stickykeys feature is a must, but it’s not enabled by default and it doesn’t help with the Fn key which is required for things like the F1-F12 keys. Again, this is something that the Clie and OQO did well.

There is a USB 2.0 jack on the device itself, although it’s annoyingly on the left side of the device. Assuming you’re right-handed, you’re going to be holding this thing with the left hand and using the stylus with the right. Video out and an RJ-45 ethernet jack are provided by a dongle that plugs into a propietary port on the bottom of the device. There are 6 hardware buttons on the sides and a mouse pointer. The three buttons on the top left handle left, right and center-click duties which work with the mouse pointer nub on the top right. The three remaining buttons are programmable: the VAIO launcher button on the left and the zoom/unzoom buttons on the right. Oddly missing is a scroll tool of some sort that was found on the Clie PDAs, the P-series phones from Sony Ericsson and the competing OQO. Surfing webpages is a nightmare without being able to scroll easily. I ended up remapping the zoom keys to be PgUp and PgDn. To eliminate the beep that happens each time these keys get pressed, I had to replace one of the Sony WAV files with a WAV file with 1/8 sec of silence. That makes surfing tolerable, but it needs to get fixed for the next model!

There’s also a fingerprint strip on the top left of the device. It doesn’t make the device any more secure, but it’s a convenient way to remember passwords and log into my device. The software isn’t great. It’s kind of buggy (blocks me from signing into things sometimes) and I tend to get grease on the screen by rubbing my finger over the sensor and right onto the screen. At least the software is relatively non-intrusive. Rounding out the plugs and ports around the device is an MS Duo slot (not even full MS!) on the top, a flip out GPRS antenna on the back, a wireless on/off switch, mic and earphone jacks, a power switch (with hold switch) and a capture button that is incredibly easy to accidentally hit.

The screen is a wonder. It’s the sharpest, clearest, highest DPI screen I’ve ever seen. Text is clearly legible with no enlargements or DPI changes even on the tiny 4.5” 1024x600 screen. I can’t go back to another LCD without it looking blurry or imprecise. The digitizer is for the most part extremely accurate. The stylus is a small telescopic stylus similar to those found on modern PDAs. Sony definitely could have fit a full-length stylus slot into this beast if they wanted to. As an aside, I went to my parents house this weekend, and my mother an old Palm V stylus in the attic while cleaning and wanted to know if I wanted it. It’s pretty sad how solid and comfotable the old Palm V stylus from 7(?) years ago was compared to the stylii with any mobile product I’ve purchased recently.

Sony also bundles a light cradle with 3 additional USB 2.0 jacks, a video out, an RJ-45 and a 4-pin firewire port. Sony, you’re killing me. First it was the 4-pin FW and Sony-only power port, now it just a 4-pin firewire. Almost every other FireWire-capable device on earth uses a 6-pin plug. I guess this is to save the UX’s meager battery, but most firewire devices require some sort of outside power anyway, so you would have to be near an outlet to use them in any case.

Software and Usage
I guess the place to start is: This is Windows XP! I know it’s a given, but for most of my experience with handhelds, it’s been “the Web-minus”. I had to carry multiple web browsers with me because some sites render better on some browsers than others. I couldn’t see video, Flash, popups, AJAX-enabled sites, etc. No more. Now I use the actual desktop browsers.

Once that sinks in and I start using it as a an XP laptop, for some reason it doesn’t feel as snappy as my TR, which is rather surprising, considering the CPU is faster. I guess that’s the slower HD (single platter vs dual-platter) and half the RAM. For the most part, it’s not struggling with anything and plays video, like the H.264 480P trailers from Apple without problems. If anything, they look amazing due to the high-res screen.

Included software is the usual assortment of time-bombed trial-ware (Office, Norton, etc) and Sony-specific crap, like a slick-looking but rather useless launcher, support center, memory stuck formatter, etc, etc. The amount of crap on this thing is to the point where the programs menu completely fills the UX screen when open. Strangely, even though this is a pen-based device, there doesn’t seem to be any handwriting-to-text software bundled with the US version of the UX. There’s something called PenPlus, but that seems to exist mainly for the purpose of writing squiggles on the screen and saving them as note cards.

The touch screen is a surprisingly natural way to operate Windows, especially once you enable the tap-and-hold-to-right-click feature of the touchscreen software. I’d like a visual cue that I’m in right-click mode a la Windows CE, but I suppose I shouldn’t be too greedy… Thankfully, unlike OQO Sony used a passive touchscreen, so any stylus or your finger can be used to click on the device. The mouse pointer thingie on the top right of the device and the mouse buttons on the top left are comfortable enough to use in a pinch if you don’t feel like whipping out the stylus for something (your thumbs are right there), but for lots of clicking, you really want to use the stylus.

Battery life is a definite problem with this device. Even on the lowest screen brightness setting and WiFi on, I can’t get much more than 2h 15m out of the battery. WiFi is a mixed bag. On one hand, the UX is the first device I’ve had that has no problem whatsoever immediately connecting to my WPA-based WiFi network. Other devices (like the TR initially, my MDA, etc) did not always connect and others (particularly my TR with Ubuntu Breezy and Dapper) took a while to connect. On the other hand, the range of the antenna isn’t as good as the TR’s. From my apartment, I can pick up less than half of the APs on the UX as I can with the TR.

Disaster Recovery
This trend over the past 3 or 4 years of not including recovery media with a device and expecting you to burn your own is ridiculous. I think the TR1 series was the last from Sony that actually came with pressed CD recovery discs. The UX (and a few other Sony devices like the U and X series Vaios) take this a step further and require you to buy a Sony-branded CD burner at extra cost is insane. The recommended model for the UX is $400. I was able to pick up the previous model (which works fine) for half that, but still. This isn’t for general usage, this is solely for disaster recovery! If anything my years on the TR forum have shown me, it’s that the 1.8” drives are the primary point of failure among products that use them. Sony does include a backup utility that will back the hard drive up on a DVD, but it’s useless without the aforementioned DVD burner.

Conclusion
The UX is a first-generation product and it shows. In general, it’s well-designed and solidly built, but it has some truly glaring hardware flaws. For someone like me who is a heavy Web and light email/text with requirements that PDAs can’t usually handle like VPN access and SQL Server management tools, this device just replaced my laptop, particularly when I need to travel by train. For those with heavy email needs, or need a long time between charges, this is the wrong way to go. I guess it’s best for gadget freaks who know what they’re getting into and have cash to burn.

Pictures:
UX vs TR [2] - The TR is known as a relatively pudgy and thick laptop, so this should give you a good idea how thick the UX really is. As I said earlier, it’s part of what makes the UX so comfortable to hold, although less pocketable. Think of it as the Kate Winslet of handtops.

UX vs MDA - A very bad keyboard vs a very good one.

The rear end of the UX - The battery, the EDGE antenna and the love handles that make the UX comfortable to hold.

Thanks for your time and energy in writing this review!!

Good job, Drachen! I was surprised that you got it first before Erik got his hands on one.
Anyways, it looks like a great portable Internet-enabled, Video/Audio device.
Hope someday Sony will make it slimmer (maybe a little bit thicker than X505).
I cannot wait to play with this UX in person.

great review…i am almost sold on the device but for the short battery life.

I always end up with a solid 2.30 - 3.00 hours (wifi on and full brightness) when my UX power management is set on vaio optimized, like my HP TC1100 did. Sounds ok for me, and the charger is pretty small.

One note about the scrolling. By default mine uses the button beneath the right click button (what you call the centre button) as a scroll. You press it and move the mouse pointer up and down to scroll. Easy. I wonder if it’s a US thing that it’s set as a centre button.

Drachen, good review.

I’m getting a UX in a week or so. I’m going to Australia for Summer Holidays and getting the UX there.

Just so you know, in Australia the UX comes with a recovery disk.

Also, you should take a look at your power management on your UX, clearly you don’t have it set correctly. Most people seem to get 2.3 to 3 hours out of the UX with no problems.

Anyway, good review. I’m going to write one too after I get mine, we can compare notes.

:D

Thanks for the props on the review.

About the battery: I stand by what I wrote in the review. My working average is about 2h 15m to 2h 30m depending on usage. I’m using VAIO Optimized setting, but I jack up the screen to setting 2 on battery. I also use WPA encryption on my AP. I’ve seen other reviews that say anything from 2h to 2h 45m and the cNet review of the UX50 said 147m (2h 27m), so I’m not too far off. I’m duly impressed that anyone can get 3 hours out of this device with wifi on and full LCD brightness.

ji.comau: I found out about the scrolling ability on handtops.com after I wrote the review. It does function as a middle-click before you install the Alps stick driver.