Ah, Sony picturebook, the holy-grail of gadget lust. The forefather of netbooks, next to the PSION and Jornadas, HPCs. Alas, the common failure point of the picturebook, PSION, Jornadas and HPCs was the price-point that was way above today’s netbook.

If Sony can bring it in at US$400 … I’ll be gladly surprised, and would plunk in the dough for one!

To me for it to be popular they need to make it narrow enough like the HP Jornada or Psion 5mx to enable it to be carried in a jacket pocket. Otherwise it will never gain much sales as that is the missing form factor people want; a touch type keyboard jacket pocket PC.

@MarceloR

The only thing that stops me from using a C1x, to this day, is the lack of built in Wifi. Other than that, it would be a very usable device.

Agree the picture looked faked from the HP. Its squarer at the edges compared to the base Sony FCC photo which we know to be true

Hey I still use mine. I have the PCG-C1X which is
the second and last model to use an Intel processor. When the Transmeta units came out later, I ordered one without checking the specs and had to sell it off on eBay. I do scientific/engineering calculations and won’t use any Intel-clone processor as the floating point operations can’t be trusted for correctness (even on AMD’s.) It currently has an SSD with an oddball ZIF to IDE adaptor taken out of a 1.8 disc IBM made for the X41. Runs Linux (Debian Etch) quite well.

“Um, unless my eyes deceive me and/or I am missing the joke but that is a seriously bad photochop job on that Sony pic from the comments.

It’s just the HP Jornada 7×0 with a Sony badge cropped onto it and a little work done around the hinge. The powercable, LED and keyboard are identical…”
—————-

I agree with Fishd above, that photo looks like a fake. That is a Jornada 680/690/720 device with a Sony logo ’shopped in. The stylus and LED light give it away.

@Timray where are “these specs everyone is leaking”? I’ve not seen anything

Hi James,
Very interesting what you discovered with the PictureBook and his form-factor already produced by Sony.
I tried to explore another path : I tried to list all Sony’s products where model starts with PCG-1 like the PCG-1P1L :
http://www.netbook3g.com/netbook/un-notebook-cdmaevdo-chez-sony-netbook

You’re all correct. Those specs were the only official ones I could find from Sony and they are the Crusoe processor. Mine was a C1X which had the Pentium. Nice notebook.

BTW, James, the specs you have listed aren’t even close to what the first gen Picturebook actually had. The one you’ve posted may be the first generation of Picturebooks with the Crusoe processor.

The original Picturebooks shipped with low MHz Pentiums, and they performed pretty darn well. I preferred my first gen PCG-C1X over my PCG-C1MV. The thing was built like a tank, and was pretty darn quick.

I owned a couple Picturebooks, back in the day, including the last generation of the device, which was terrible because of the Transmeta processor. If got much better performance out of my first gen 233MHz Pentium, than I did out of that last gen with the Crusoe.

A Picturebook device with a current processor would be an interesting device, if it’s priced right. With Sony, that can be a big IF, though. If they price it like they did a few years back, the thing will be DOA.

I paid 1900 bucks for my last gen Picturebook. These days, that wouldn’t fly.

Um, unless my eyes deceive me and/or I am missing the joke but that is a seriously bad photochop job on that Sony pic from the comments.

It’s just the HP Jornada 7×0 with a Sony badge cropped onto it and a little work done around the hinge. The powercable, LED and keyboard are identical…

While I am eagerly awaiting this new device, I have to say that the old Picturebook is a lot sexier than this new black plastic look. Then again, if they can bring the price down to netbook levels, I’ll buy one and love it – hopefully as much as my old Toshiba Libretto 100!

i’m just glad to see something different coming to market!

it’s definitely the PictureBook reincarnated, in the screenshots posted the internal dev name was “PicturePro”. i never owned 1 but did the original PB have a touchscreen? because this 1 listed that it does. i’m surprised everyone leaking the specs hadnt mentioned that yet.

“Portable devices we’ve owned in the past” would be a great blog page. I’d love to read about other people’s old gadgets.

I still have a working picturebook, which I do not use anymore. It runs Windows ME >, which it turns out was shorthand for Vista.

Anyway, that was one of my all time favorite computers. It was one of the all time sexiest piece of gear, with the two tone metallic lavender…