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The Future

The U101 is a sequel to two previous laptops, the U1 and U3. It is not unlikely that there will be a sequel to the U101. I have been asked many times about the status of the future model, so I figured that this page is a good place to start storing what little I know.

Fact: You can currently buy the U101 from a variety of vendors around the world. The U101 is the current model of the Sony "U" series.

Fact: Production of the U101 has been discontinued twice. The first time was to fix its problem with dead pixels, and then production resumed.

Fact: New U101 units are not currently being produced: vendors are selling their stocks.

Fact: As of mid-September 2003, the portion of Sony's web site dedicated to the "U" series has been removed. The U101 page is still there, but you can no longer get to it unless you know the address. And the U101 is now listed as a past model.

At this point, everything is speculation and hearsay, so take all you read below with a large grain of salt.

My source says the U101 has been discontinued twice, as I stated above. To quote him: "The first time was so that Sony could address the dead pixel issue. They addressed it and re-released. This time it is so they can launch a new product (likely a new addition to the U series.)"

I do not know for sure if there will be another U-series computer, but there are now (December 21, 2003) some pretty solid rumors that there will be.

Sony apparently was planning on selling the new model in December 2003, but there have been production delays, and it will not appear until SECOND quarter 2004. This delay caused the demand --- and the price --- for U101 models to skyrocket around the end of November, and it probably won't go back down. Purchasing a U101 is very difficult right now, and many stores in both Tokyo and the U.S. no longer have them in stock.

Since the U101 was originally supposed to be released in a March/April timeframe but was released in May and available overseas in June, and the UX5 has now been pushed to that same timeframe, it is reasonable to assume that you won't see the UX5 for sale outside Japan until June. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

The production delays on the UX5 largely appear to be related to mass-production of the processor; see the 12/19/2003 posting in this forum here; (note: some of that posting is in Cantonese).

Lawrence Camera, who runs an electronics store in Tokyo by the same name and occasionally sells on eBay, has posted a little useful information to an on-line forum about the forthcoming model. He got it from a Hong Kong source, but he also has been known to talk to tech guys at Sony, so it's pretty reliable if he's saying it. Again, this is still hearsay to a certain extent, but it's pretty solid hearsay given the source. However, since forums tend to be occasionally unreliable (to access), I've copied the information below.

What's it look like? Few people know, and they're not telling. The one set of pictures I thought I had found turned out to be for a different model. You'll just have to wait and see.

The new model is currently named the PCG-UX5 (the U101 is officially the "PCG-U101", so you can call this the "UX5"). Rumor has it that the name means the "Ubiquitous Extreme 5", so take that for what you will.

These are the specs that the rumors claim:

• Processor: Transmeta Efficeon, 1 GHz. Sony is switching back from the Intel Celeron (used in the U101) to the Transmeta chips again (the Crusoe was used in the U1 and U3). Rumor has it that Sony sank some money into Transmeta and may be trying to capitalize on that investment.
• Chipset: nVidia nForce 3 Go 120. I've heard of the nForce 3 chipset before --- it's an integrated motherboard-and-video chipset --- but I don't know anything about the Go 120.
• Video: 7.1" XGA CG display (1024x768). This matches the U101, but hopefully won't have the dead-pixel problem that plagued the U101.
• Memory: 256 Mb DDR SDRAM, upgradable to 512 Mb. This matches the U101's specs.
• Hard disk: 40 Gb. That's 10 Gb more than the U101. It's probably also partitioned in half like that of the U101.
• Networking: 802.11b/g. No word on Ethernet support, but it probably has Ethernet. The U101 has 802.11b, but not 802.11g, which is faster (if the wireless base station supports it).
• I/O: USB 2.0, 2 ports. This matches the U101.
• OS: Windows XP Home Japanese, SP1. This matches the U101.
• Price: 169,800 Yen. This will probably change, so I won't bother converting it to dollars for you.

Really, things are still up in the air. You could wait for a who-knows-what to appear who-knows-when, if you want. You might then be able to buy whatever the new thing is, or you might be able to get the U101 cheaper (since it's the previous model). However, if you wait, there's no guarantees yet about anything. It's your risk to take.