Sony might have stopped updating the VAIO UX series ultra mobile PC a while back, but the amazing guys over at MicroPCTalk certainly haven’t. In what is being championed as the masterpiece of the forum, a modded UX490 (the lastest UX model from Sony, released November 2007) features nearly every major mod that the community has come up with over the last several years. [original thread here]
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You’ll probably recall that I got my hands on a matte black retail version of the oft mentioned UMID M1 a few weeks ago. In the initial unboxing, I noted that the build quality felt really good on the retail version. There were a few unsettling reports of some poor build quality on pre-retail models, but all of those seem to have been put to rest with the retail version finally sifting through to folks.
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The interwebs were set ablaze by our earlier article showing you an awesome wearable computer setup powered by a Sony VAIO UX380N UMPC. Now we’re back with more from the creator himself. I sat down (virtually) with fiveseven808 and asked him som questions about his wearable computing setup and what he might hope to do with it in the future.
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I know its been a while, but I’ve been waiting to get my hands on a full tablet PC so that I could do better demos than simply using my Sony VAIO UX180 and showing you what’s happening using a monitor as I have done in the past. Hopefully you will agree that the format of this video demo is better than those that I did previously!
But beside all of that, have a look at the Crayon Physics Deluxe video demo.
The game works great with touchscreens and there is even a demo that you can try before purchasing:
The idea of the game is that you are drawing with a crayon, and your drawings become physical objects that interact with the rest of the crayon based levels . The goal is to get the red ball to touch the star, then you get to move on to the next level. There is more than 70 levels to complete in the full game. The game was also the grand prize winner of the Independent Games Festival in 2008!
Another gem from the geniuses at www.micropctalk.com. MPCT forum user fiveseven808 has created a wearable computer setup using a Sony VAIO UX380 [Portal page] to power the whole thing. Fiveseven808 was kind enough to give me a good run down of the setup and some images as well.
Components include:
Main system:
Input/Output:
Essentially he took the MyVu headset, removed one of the eye pieces, and mounted the other to his glasses to that he could see his surroundings and the UX’s screen at the same time. The MyVu is attached to the UX through the A/V output port on the UX’s port replicator dongle. With some additional addons he provided his UX with extra battery life via an external battery, and several input methods to communicate with the UX while the rest of the kit resides within the backpack.
Unfortunately I must report that fiveseven’s UX380 recently died due to some physical failures, but I got a chance to talk to him about his initial vision for the project:
I guess my original goal was to design a prototype wearable computing system that is expandable, cheap, compact, yet powerful enough to be used as an every day computer with the possibility of having augmented reality systems and other passive information systems convey useful location based information to the user at all times.
I had a chance to speak with fiveseven and have somewhat of an interview with him that I’ll share in the near future. You’ll be able to read fiveseven’s comments on the project. I personally found this setup, and the idea behind, it very cool. Here is to hoping that he manages to track down another UX to continue his work.
Sony, along with others such as Samsung, was one of the early companies that jumped into the idea of the ultra mobile PC with some great devices. For a company that hesitated to jump on the netbook bandwagon, Sony was surprisingly passionate in their early ultra mobile PC work, updating their Sony VAIO UX series on a nearly bi-yearly basis. Though the UX series never made it to the big-leagues (read: widespread consumer awareness) it apparently made some friends in Hollywood.
Over the years, the Sony VAIO UX series has appeared in a surprising number of films and music videos, often toted as a futuristic high-tech gadget, or a high-class luxury device. With the help of my compadres over at www.micropctalk.com, I’ve compiled a short-list of videos where the VAIO UX is featured and some screenshots of the devices in use from a few of the mentioned locations. I’ve also included Wikipedia links in case you are unfamiliar with the media:
Paul Blart: Mall Cop (film)
Same Girl (music video)
Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill)
Drop a line in the comments if you’ve ever seen your favorite gadget featured in a movie or other form of media.
The guys over at Micro PC Talk have had Mac OS X running on the VAIO UX series [Portal page] for some time now, but a recent video by MPCT forum user perrin21 shows a UX390 running the latest version of Apple’s OS X pristinely. Perrin21 added a few nice mods to his UX390 [Portal page], including a draft-N WiFi card to connect to his/her Airport Extreme, and an Mtron SSD. Everything else on the unit is stock. The video demonstrates the general responsiveness of the OS on the unit and a fully functional, and calibrated, touchscreen. There is some web browsing action, a demo of Boxee, and Front Row, all appearing to work beautifully on the UX390. Not bad for someone who wants OS X in their pocket, am I right? Catch the video below:
I stumbled across an interesting looking little program called GMA Booster while browsing the MicroPCTalk forums.
Apparently devices which have 945GM/GME/GMS/GSE or 943/940GML/GU Express chipsets are ULV versions of what is normally called the Intel 945 chipset (and can be found in many of the netbooks and UMPCs out there today), and they all feature the same GMA 950 graphics, but for the ULV chipsets, GMA 950 is underclocked to help improve battery life among other things.
A nifty little app called GMA Booster (website no longer exists) steps the GMA 950 graphics back up from 133/166 MHz, to the level that is found in non-ULV version of Intel 945, 400MHz. The nice thing about this is that it seems to be a simple instruction set sent to the chipset; it doesn’t change any voltage levels, and isn’t pushing the clock speed higher than it is designed to go, just up to its regular level.
Interested in knowing if your UMPC/Netbook/MID uses GMA 950 and could benefit from GMA Booster? Just hit up the Portal and navigate to your device, check the Graphics category on your device’s Portal page to see if it uses GMA 950.
I tested GMA Booster on my VAIO UX180 and the HP Mini 1000 [Portal page] to see what difference GMA Booster could make. I ran Crystal Mark and compared the graphical test scores before and after using GMA Booster to push the graphical core up to 400MHz.
Sony VAIO UX180
| Test | Before | After | Change |
| GDI | 4097 | 4654 | +557 (13%) |
| D2D | 2412 | 3604 | +1192 (49%) |
| Total | 7623 | 9391 | +1768 (23%) |
HP Mini 1000
| Test | Before | After | Change |
| GDI | 2110 | 2384 | +274 (13%) |
| D2D | 2936 | 3778 | +842 (28%) |
| Total | 5046 | 6162 | +1116 (22%) |
As you can see, using GMA Booster to put GMA 950 up to 400MHz increased the graphical performance (as rated by Crystal Mark) by a little more than 20% on both devices. While 20% isn’t huge, I think it could be noticeable depending upon what you are doing on your device. It probably won’t translate to a direct 20% performance increase in the graphical applications that you are using as there is more that factors into graphical rendering, but again it could help the performance. Other benchmark programs which more specifically rate graphics capabilities might note a bigger improvement in scores.
GMA Booster is ‘donerware’ as the dev calls it. It is basically free, but you need to download it again after a week to keep using it. If you donate you will receive a serial number to alleviate that hassle.
If you do venture out and give GMA Booster a try, why not comment here and letting us know how it works with your device?
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