Review: Sony Vaio VGN UX1 ultra-mobile PC

Windows Vista in the palm of your hand

With a strong background in ultraportable notebooks, Sony has been pretty busy in the UMPC (ultra-mobile PC) arena of late. The Vaio VGN-UX1 is its latest device to arrive and follows in the footsteps of the UX50 and UX90 models.

The UX1 is Sony's first UMPC to run Windows Vista - the Business edition, to be more precise. The basic components consist of a 1.3GHz Intel Core Solo U1500 processor, 1GB of Ram and a 32GB solid state hard drive.

You can take a closer look at the UX1 in our image gallery.

Stylistically, Sony has done an excellent job with the UX1. The front is home to the 4.5in touch-screen display, a fingerprint reader, six buttons (three of which can be customised), a wireless on/off switch, joystick pad to control the pointer, and the power switch. One of the device's two cameras also sits just above the display.

On the left side there's a single USB2 socket and Compact Flash card reader, while on the top you'll find a macro mode switch (used when taking close-up photos), a capture button and a Memorystick Pro/Duo reader. The battery unit lies at the rear, along with a slot to store the stylus.

On the underside sit headphone and microphone jacks, a power socket and the interface used by the included docking station.

The UX1 feels very comfortable when held with both hands; the mouse buttons and joystick pad fall under the thumbs making it very easy to get to grips with. Weighing in at just under 500g, it's also easy to hold for extended periods of time.

Slide the screen upwards, and the UX1 reveals its Qwerty keyboard, complete with a classy blue backlight. Whether the sliding mechanism would survive regular rough treatment is debateable, but it certainly feels solid and won't slide without a firm push.

The 4.5in screen is much smaller than the 7in version seen on Samsung's Q1. In order to increase the amount of desktop space you've got to play with, Sony has opted for a 1,024x600 widescreen resolution - this can be reduced to a 800x600 if required, though with this 4:3 aspect ratio you won't be using the full display area.

Viewing angles aren't great, especially vertically, but since you'll be viewing it primarily from straight on it's not a huge problem. Sony has used its X-Black display technology often seen in its Vaio notebooks - this gives a glossy effect to the screen and improves colour reproduction and definition.

The included stylus is passive, which means it relies on the touch-sensitive nature of the screen. It's therefore possible to simply use your fingers to navigate around the Vista interface. For certain tasks this works fine, but attempting to delicately select the correct link in a web page, for example, can be very tricky. Indeed, even with the stylus this can prove a difficult task.

It's possible to zoom in on the display, but this then involves scrolling around the desktop, which isn't a perfect solution.

Sony has attempted to make running common programs easier by including its Vaio Touch Launcher application. Accessed by pressing the left-hand shortcut button, this houses nine shortcuts to programs such as email, music and Windows Media Player. Extra large buttons are used, making it easy to use your finger instead of the stylus. You can also adjust the volume, screen brightness and orientation.

Writing on the UX1 can be performed either via the qwerty keyboard or using the stylus and Vista's Tablet handwriting-recognition feature. Due to the small keys, it's not possible to use your fingers on the keyboard - instead, you must use your thumbs in an SMS text message fashion.

We managed to achieve around 25wpm (word per minute) after only a short time with the UX1 and would expect this to improve over time. Errors such as slipping onto the wrong key were common, especially when aiming for the space bar, but again this is something you'd get better at.

Handwriting-recognition in the Tablet Edition of Windows XP never failed to impress us, and the same functionality is now included with all but the Home Basic version of Vista. Due to the small screen size, it's only good for writing relatively small passages of text, but many will no doubt prefer it over the miniature keyboard.

Alternatively, you can switch the scribble pad into a soft-keyboard. This can slow things down considerably though, since it requires you to point to each individual letter to spell out words.

Sadly, the small size of the screen doesn't allow for the Dialkeys soft-keyboard as demonstrated on the Samsung Q1.

In order to maximise battery life, Sony has gone for an ultra-low voltage Intel Core Solo U1500 processor running at 1.3GHz. This is supplied with 1GB of 533MHz DDR2 Ram - if you feel this isn't enough for your needs you'll be disappointed to hear it's non-expandable.

With such a slow processor, applications do take their time to load. Indeed, the CPU and memory usage dials seen on Vista's Sidebar often teeter near 100 per cent and indicate just how much stress the UX1 is frequently under.

In our tests, it took two minutes 45 seconds to boot up Vista from cold. However, when we removed the 90-day Norton Internet Security trial, this improved to one minute 30 second, which doesn't show Norton in a particularly good light. When resuming from standby, it took just three seconds to power up.

During general usage, the UX1 does slow down at times - it took over 15 seconds simply to load Vista's Control Panel at one point, although this was with other applications running in the background. You won't notice it too much when web browsing or editing documents, but fire up a photo editor and the processor will start to struggle.

However, the UX1 gets a performance boost thanks to Sony's decision to include a solid state hard drive, which is much faster than a standard disk drive. Conventional hard drives are also far more susceptible to damage when in transit, and since the UX1 is designed to be carried around this can only be a good thing.

Should things get a little too hot, a small fan kicks in to direct hot air out of grille situated on the top of the chassis; another grille is located on the underside of the UX1. Once this fan activates, it keeps going for some time and, although it certainly can't be described as noisy, if you're in a quiet room you'll notice it whirring away.

Two cameras are situated on the body. The one at the front houses a 0.3-megapixel CCD and, in conjunction with the inbuilt microphone, is designed for video conversations, while the second camera, a 1.3-megapixel model, sits at the rear of the display, popping into view when the screen is slid upwards.

But with no flash, indoor shots often end up blurred and unusable. Outdoor shots come out better, but many camera phones will beat the UX1 in terms of image quality.

Sony has furnished the UX1 with Wifi and Bluetooth, but omitted infrared. With infrared included, the UX1 could have been put to good use as a universal remote control for a home cinema.

The UX1 also comes with a docking station that houses a VGA output so you can hook it up to a nearby external screen. The dock also provides an Ethernet socket, three USB2 ports and a single Firewire port.

Since you're unlikely to carry the docking station around with you at all times, Sony also includes a small dongle that attaches to the docking station socket on the UX1 - this provides VGA-out and an Ethernet port.

Thanks to a DC input on both the docking station and UX1 itself, the battery can be recharged if you don't have the dock at hand - of course, you will need the power cable.

The battery that ships as standard with the UX1 has a maximum life of two hours 40 minutes. Considering the portable nature of the device, we were hoping for much longer.

When used for general web surfing, document editing and other relatively undemanding tasks, it kept going for just over two hours. However, if you're planning watch video and listen to music, this will drop quite considerably; playing constant video, it lasted one and a half hours.

To extend the battery life, the UX1 will accept Sony's VGP-BPL6 battery. This offers around double the capacity of the standard model, but it will also just out from the right side of the casing.

Just as with the Samsung Q1, the Sony's UX1 will only appeal to a niche market - its £1,999 price tag will also help to limit its appeal.

Someone who simply wants to surf the web would probably be better off with a PDA or smartphone, while those wanting to watch video or listen to music will find plenty of portable media players with far better battery life and smaller dimensions.

However, if you want everything Vista has to offer in the palm of your hand, Sony's UX1 certainly delivers the goods.

Despite the slow processor, it handles Vista's Aero effects with aplomb and works perfectly well as a web-browser, video player and document editor.

But for a device that's meant to be carried around throughout the day, the poor battery life will be the reason many decide to steer clear of the UX1.

We can see why Sony decided to include a keyboard on the UX1, and we like the sliding screen method of revealing it, but with the keys so small it's very hard to type for extended periods. And while the display has been limited to 4.5in to keep the UX1's dimensions down, the relatively high WSXGA resolution means it's often hard to navigate Windows and read what's on screen.

Sony might have been better off accepting a slightly larger sized chassis in return for a 6in or possibly even 7in display. This would have improved navigation and general usability, and possibly even allowed for a larger battery to be fitted as standard.

Of course, this would also make it both heaver and more expensive, while the larger screen would be a bigger drain on the battery.

At present, UMPCs are still in their infancy, but with the likes of Samsung, Sony and co developing new models such as this, it won't be long before the right balance of portability and usability is struck.

Also consider:
Samsung Q1
An innovative design, but held back by poor battery life

Sony Vaio VGN-C1S/W.CEK
No outstanding features, but strikes a balance between performance, portability, screen size and battery life

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