Digital Trends

Sony Vaio UX50

June 9th, 2006 | by Brandon King

The touch screen can be calibrated via an included utility, but we found no reason to recalibrate from the default settings. Other bundled programs include the Hardware Diagnostics application, software keyboard, and video download manager. Like all VAIOs, Sony included the VAIO Control Center and Power Management utilities. Adobe Photoshop Album 2 Starter Edition and Microsoft Powerpoint viewer (not a full version of Powerpoint, but capable of running a slide show) round out the media abilities of the UX50. One point worth noting is the relatively weak Wi-Fi performance. Even with all power saving features disabled, we still had trouble even detecting any access point with a signal when our VAIO S480 laptop would register as two bars.

As for general specs, the UX50 ships with a 1.06GHz Intel Core Solo U1300 processor, 512MB memory, and 30 GB shock mounted hard drive. As expected, the UX series uses an integrated Intel 950 graphics card with 128MB of memory (part shared with the main memory). At first glance it might seem obvious to wait for the US version of the UX. But, if you do not intend to use the wireless EDGE capabilities, you might be better off getting one of the Japanese models if your camera uses a CF card (a huge bonus for photgraphers).

Weighing in at 1.2 lbs, the UX makes an excellent PC for field use in a number of situations. The only potential problem we see is battery life. Sony estimates battery life at 4.5 hours of regular use in battery optimized mode and with the standard battery, and up to 9.5 hours with the optional extended battery. Turn on the wireless and performance power consumption profile, and that time drops to around 3 hours with a standard battery and regular use. We also tested downloading a large file over the Wi-Fi connection with power management turned off. After 15 minutes, Windows reported 80% battery left, which figures out to 1:15 of continuous downloading and full performance use. At first glance this seems remarkably poor, but when taken into account full processor speed, maximum screen brightness, and full-time, full transmit power, wireless transfers all guzzling electricity, the battery performance is not horrible. When we used the same test, but with the “VAIO Optimized” power setting which offers a good balance of power and energy consumption, only 7% of the battery was drained after 15 minutes. That equates to approximately 3.6 hours of full time Wi-Fi use with just this one tweak. The standard battery weighs in at 2600mAh, while the noticeably larger extended battery provides 5600mAh of power. But take into account that the extended battery weighs half a pound alone, costs $350 and many people will probably stick with the provided standard battery.

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