My Sony UX 180-p (1 year and 3 months later)

Ah, look at it! Such a beauty. Sadly, a beauty that didn’t stay long.

A review, after 1 year and 3 months later on using it daily.

Boy, a gadget that does everything from MS Office, to streaming music using your EDGE sim card. I mean, it did all. And as you can see, it is like carrying a mini laptop. Many raving reviews regarding this mini laptop. But how well stand in the test of time?

The laptop was a great tool for those who needed a laptop, always connected to the internet wherever and whenever. It is a tool, for those who travel a lot and not care about the size of the keyboard. Not just for those hiker geeks, but also bluetooth geeks. Yes, this is a great mini laptop for you. IT HAS ALL THE BASIC INGREDIENTS YOU NEED.

Sadly, after using it for a while, I started to notice the sad truths about it. But as one of the pioneers of making a full capable mini-laptop on the go, Sony did a fairly well done job. But if you ask me should you buy it? No, not really.

So, why the long face you asked?

1. Battery life.

Battery life is one of my number one concern. Yes, all those reviewers already wrote about how horrible the battery life was, and as a Sony follower, I tend to take some internet news with a grain of salt. I do trust sony to make great hardwares (not much of a software company), so i always need a lot of convincing. But believe me, the 2 hour battery life they say, is more like 40 minutes. Of course I had bluetooth running and also my internet running. I think to get that 2 hours, you just let it run by itself until it dies with all functionalities turned off. Bah!

2. Hard Drive protection

I am pretty sure that it has some kind of a protection built in to detect free fall or bumps and shut down the hard drive automatically. Just a slight bump, it sometimes hangs the computer and I had to restart it

3. Random Hangs

The UX-180p also hangs randomly. I checked the heat, it wasn’t that hot. So, I just restart it. I checked the power, it still has power. I tried plugging it to the wall socket, it still does it randomly after a 1-2 hours of usage.

4. EDGE Internet shutdowns

Sometimes when you’re using your EDGE sim card to access the internet, and all of a sudden you go through a tunnel without signal, the UX-180p does not know how to re-connect. I did try to re-open the software, nothing. I pulled out the sim card and re-insert it, nothing. I shook it, nothing. I hit it, ….. ok.. I didn’t try that. But.. it was a great idea whenever I get frustrated.

5. Did I mention battery life yet?

oh.. .never mind..

6. It does get pretty warm.

To counter the battery life problem, most of the time I plug the UX-180p to a wall socket. and after a while, it does get pretty warm. But, this is actually just a small thing to worry.

So,

for the past 6 months, I haven’t used my UX-180p and currently it is up for sale. One of the coolest thing is that I could stream sirius programming while being at work. (At work, we are forbidden to stream music because of the bandwidth issues we’re having daily) But now, I’m streaming sirius programming through my T-Mobile Dash.

Should you go buy a UX-180p?
Well, if you still think those are not a problem you would care, try getting one and see how you like it. My last suggestion would be for you to get the newer model like the VGN-UX490N/C. Just hope that sony have fixed the bugs/problems.