If you thought that Sony's VAIO UX50
was impressive, then the new VAIO UX90
is sure to up your pulse rate. The VAIO UX90 builds on the formula of its
predecessor and adds such features a solid-state hard drive and mobile digital
television.
The VAIO UX90 brings a 16GB flash-solid state disk
(Flash-SSD) to the table instead of the traditional mobile 30GB hard drive used
in the VAIO UX50. The Flash-SSD allows the system to respond 3 to 6 times
faster than the VAIO UX50 (Outlook application load times drop from 9 seconds
to 1.5 seconds) while also improving battery life by as much as 13%. Weight has
also dropped from 1.15
pounds to 1.08 pounds thanks to the Flash-SSD.
Another new addition to the UX90 is OneSeg digital
television support which we also saw in the recently introduced VAIO TX3 Series. Many
of the features that we saw in the VAIO UX50 carry over to the VAIO UX90
including the 1024x600 screen with XBRITE technology, sliding keyboard, three
USB 2.0 ports, Bluetooth, Firewire, built-in webcam and fingerprint scanner.
Users have a choice of Core Solo U1300/U1400 and Celeron M 423 processors while
512MB of memory is standard fare. Users also have a choice of either Windows XP Home Edition or Windows XP Professional.
Sony has set a 209,800 yen price tag ($1,800 USD) and July 3
launch date for the new VAIO UX90 in Japan -- no word yet on US pricing or
availability.