Handtops, UMPC - Buyers Remorse

07/18/07 + logan

Hello all,
I know I haven't been on here for some time, but as soon as I got my new ux380 I was trying to become acquainted with it.
My verdict?: Not great. I got it, and for the first day, I thought it was wonderful, but alas, I think it was the excitement of the new device. As I got to use it more, I discovered it had many flaws:
1. This thing is pretty bulky, and not as truly "portable" as I imagined.
2. The keyboard. Oh! The keyboard. No one should be given the cruel fate to have to use that thing. Enough said.
3. Pointer stick. Also a pain to use. Terrible accuracy, tends to drift a lot and the mouse nubs wear out a lot!! Also poor layout in conjunction with the aswd keys and suck for gaming.
4. Battery Life. I find myself using this plugged in almost constantly as it is always dying. Terrible when gaming, about half an hour.
5. Wireless. Both cingular and Wifi have terrible reception and cingular uses a lot of battery and is SLOW!!
6. Screen size. The small screen combined with the high rez = a headache! I have young eyes and perfect vision and still it pains me.
7. Cameras. Useless. low quality and take FOREVER TO LOAD and will not follow you nearly fast enough.
8. Docking station. Big, bulky, and not great.
9. Other thoughts. Cheap feeling and heavy. Cheap wwan antenna falls off a lot. Not as much performance as I expected. Freezes/ Crashes a lot.

All in all, not a great experience. I will be selling this and getting either the Flipstart (probably) or the oqo (maybe).
Anyways sorry for the llife story, but I hope this will help someone somehow.
Just my not-so-humble opinion.

Matt Logan Thomas

07/18/07 + ecsk2

You can't return it from where you got it from or?

07/18/07 + logan

Unfortunately, no, they do not accept returns. So...

07/18/07 + logan

I've only had it a week and it's in mint condition, Like I could repackage it and sell it, and they would think it was new, but...

edited: Jul 18 2007 + Christopher

Sounds like you got a lemon. Less than a week and your 'mouse nubs' "wear out a lot!" - wow. Battery life should be much more than that...even with heavy useage. I would call Sony about that. Do you have your BT/WiFi/WWAN all running at the same time (well, you know what I mean) when you are on battery? Do you need all of them activated? Drain city there.

Cingular slow? Is that really so surprising with EDGE? The antenna is falling off "a lot"? Is Cingular even activated on there? If so...then you've had it less than a week...entered into a contract, and you are going to be charged to break out of that, if not used on another device. I suppose you could always keep paying.

While I agree the keyboard is an acquired tasted for some, the high-resolution can get to some users on such a small screen, and the cameras can be a little slow on the application loading, but the quality is quite good - especially is you actually use it for video conferencing (one of the coolest things you can do with this device, yet most do not do)...something just doesn't add up right to this post, sorry.

The UX180, that I sometimes break out and use, sounds like an absolute dream machine compared to this new model you are describing.

07/18/07 + Hite

this post sounds fishy...

07/18/07 + logan

No fishiness hite! im ashamed you would thinnk that of me! I admit I do use it a lot and the nubs really do wear out fast on my 380. I have heard that the nubs on the 180/280 are different than the 380/390 so maybe.. I dunno. I do not currently use bluetooth, but I still get some pretty heavy drain. Wifi is better than edge. And even with 5 bars my top edge speed is 32 KBps. Pretty slow... I dunno. Also, I used the 30 day free trial, so no fee. BTW, 80$? waay to rich for my blood. And yes, the antenna falls off easily. It seems it is a little ball on the back and a slight disturbance dislodges it. My quality is blurry, almost like old fashioned video cam looking. I'll admit I haven't used it for video conference yet. I suppose I will give it another week, but I dunno, The keyboard is pretty hard to type on... BTW, I was thinking, what if somebody made a little keyboard that fit over the existing one, that had better quality and could velcro or clip on, so you could take it off, slide the screen down, and pocket the keyboard. That and if it had a touchpad, I would be happy. Also, do your keyboards get hot? Mine does and I'm afraid it's getting too hot and will fry it. I swear this is not a bogus post. I really have a UX380.

07/19/07 + MeanSquare

I'd would have to say that your UX must be on the extreme low-end of the quality control bell curve. I've owned a UX for about a year now, using it constantly every day. My trackstick is nowhere near bald. My antenna is intact, etc., etc. all down the line of your issues except for two: I never did use the internal modem or Cingular service. I use a Sprint USB modem instead. Also, I'd agree that the quality of the camera isn't that great. It's about the same as you'd get off of a cellular phone though. This is just my experience, but I'm a member of several handtop-related sites and I've never heard of someone who had anywhere near the depth of issues you seem to be having.

So, I'd contact the folks you bought your UX from and see if they might help you get a UX that actually functions. If they're reluctant, go to Sony and tell them about your issues (and especially the fact that your unit is only a month old). You may have to bump up the tree a bit before you get someone who can help, but it's certainly more worth your time than putting up with all those issues.

Recent Blog: MeanSquare's Review of the Sony UX (with comparison to OQO)

07/19/07 + ecsk2

logan said: "Unfortunately, no, they do not accept returns. So...

"

Who is this?

07/19/07 + logan

I got it from MacMall, before they put it on sale. It had a few scracthes on it when I got It and was not in the box I had seen it in befroe. I am thinking now that they sent me a refurbished unit.

07/19/07 + ecsk2

logan said: "I got it from MacMall, before they put it on sale. It had a few scracthes on it when I got It and was not in the box I had seen it in befroe. I am thinking now that they sent me a refurbished unit."

Where does it say you can't return it?
link

BTW this store seems to be runing the free e-commerce oscommerce...

07/19/07 + logan

OTHER NON-RETURNABLE PRODUCTS:

In addition to Apple, other manufacturers' policies and restrictions disallow product returns. The following manufacturer's products (not all inclusive) are also not returnable to MacMall: 3Com, Compaq, Cisco, IBM, Intel, HP, Toshiba, Adobe, Quark, Lenovo and Sony. Other manufacturers apply to this list, so please call us for the latest information. You will need to contact the manufacturer directly regarding return or replacement of these brands under their respective guarantees and/or warranties. Please contact us if you would like to obtain copies of the manufacturers' guarantees and warranties prior to purchase.

07/19/07 + elsewhere

Hrm.

I don't have any of: UX, FS or OQO but

> 1. This thing is pretty bulky, and not as truly "portable" as I imagined.
OQO will be more portable. FS probably even more bulky.

> 2. The keyboard. Oh! The keyboard. No one should be given the cruel fate to have to use that thing. Enough said.
FS almost definitely the best of the three. OQO's keyboard is smaller and sparser than UX's

> 3. Pointer stick. Also a pain to use. Terrible accuracy, tends to drift a lot and the mouse nubs wear out a lot!! >Also poor layout in conjunction with the aswd keys and suck for gaming.
FS will give you more options. Some people seem to like those options, YMMV.
"total gaming experience" is rumored to be comparable, between Sony and the FlipStart.
OQO is probably not close.

> 4. Battery Life. I find myself using this plugged in almost constantly as it is always dying. Terrible when gaming, about half an hour.
FS has a larger battery, in both "full" and "slimline" configurations- so it should do better. In practice, it will never be enough, and you'll be miserable. Buy extra batteries, and extra power supplies.

> 5. Wireless. Both cingular and Wifi have terrible reception and cingular uses a lot of battery and is SLOW!!
I suspect you won't see much difference between the three. Wireless radios SUCK (lots of juice). Maybe tnkgirl can help you build an interface to an unpowered crystal radio (using morse code)....

> 6. Screen size. The small screen combined with the high rez = a headache! I have young eyes and perfect vision and still it pains me.
FS is a bit bigger with same resolution. OQO is a bit smaller with lower resolution, but all of these are probably likely to cause eye-pain.

> 7. Cameras. Useless. low quality and take FOREVER TO LOAD and will not follow you nearly fast enough.>
IIRC the UX has the best camera configuration out there. So, its not going to get any better elsewhere.
FlipStart is rumored to be forthcoming with a "snap-on" camera for the outer case soon.
On the PLUS side, it should be better than the built-in one.
On the MINUS, probably the built-in camera sucks a lot

> 8. Docking station. Big, bulky, and not great.
Again, Sony's probably got the best ones. A choice of full dock, or video/network dongle.
You're going to be looking at more pain from either FS or OQO.

> 9. Other thoughts. Cheap feeling and heavy. Cheap wwan antenna falls off a lot. Not as much performance as I expected.
> Freezes/ Crashes a lot.
FS users report that it *looks* cheap. Probably both OQO and FS feel heavy. I'm not sure about antenna configuration,
but if the antennas are all internal (I suspect) your coverage and signal strength will be worse.
Sony has the fastest CPUs out there, so any other options you go with will end up being slower.
The OQO is supposedly---- much slower. The FlipStart, despite a much lower rated clock
is rumored to be pretty close in performance. But only has 512mb.

any FS, UX or OQO users who would like to comment and/or correct the previous, I'd be much obliged.

07/19/07 + ecsk2

logan said: "

OTHER NON-RETURNABLE PRODUCTS:

In addition to Apple, other manufacturers' policies and restrictions disallow product returns. The following manufacturer's products (not all inclusive) are also not returnable to MacMall: 3Com, Compaq, Cisco, IBM, Intel, HP, Toshiba, Adobe, Quark, Lenovo and Sony. Other manufacturers apply to this list, so please call us for the latest information. You will need to contact the manufacturer directly regarding return or replacement of these brands under their respective guarantees and/or warranties. Please contact us if you would like to obtain copies of the manufacturers' guarantees and warranties prior to purchase."

Ok sorry yeah, but you're indicating your product wasn't as indicated nor/and not working properly correct??
I'd take that up with BBB.

link

07/19/07 + MeanSquare

Also, you should visit the SonyStyle.com site and drill down to Updates for the 380. There's a new firmware download for the cellular radio that should improve reception and some other aspects. The Intel site has updates for the WiFi card and for the display adapter, both of which improve performance. (The display adapter driver has some nifty features including hot-keys for switching display modes.) There are a number of other updates of drivers for other hardware bits as well that may prove helpful.

Recent Blog: MeanSquare's Review of the Sony UX (with comparison to OQO)