« Does ReadyBoost do anything for a SSD System? | Main | Silly Issues With the Sony UX390N »
Installing Origami Experience on the Sony Vaio UX390N
So, I thought it would be great to try out the Origami Experience on the UX390N. Unfortunately, the dialog you see here was shown to me. How odd, as this machine is defintion quite mobile and is certainly running Vista. Apparently, though, it's not a "licensed" true "UMPC" machine. That's also apparently because it doesn't have a 7" screen (it's even smaller at 4.5"). So is this an EMPC (or XMPC) (extreme mobile PC) and thus not supported?
I found instructions at "seamonkey420 blog" on "tech-recipes.com." After following this, it installs without any issue.
It's runs full screen at 1024x600 and apps will run at whatever screen resolution you're at. That is, Origami ran at 1024x600 even while at 1024x768 while Sudoku ran at the full screen resolution. (Incidentally, the Sudoku implementation is quite good. More on that later.) The screen shot shows what I mean -- you can see part of Live Writer at the bottom with this post in it.
Origami Experience itself is like a UMPC version of Windows Media Center. I guess it might be more like Portable Media Center, but I've never seen that. The chosen set of apps isn't bad and the little quick button to the 3D switcher is fun.
A number of the links didn't work, though. The links in "Origami Experience\en-US\Shortcuts" all had the same strange issue. For instance, '%windir%\explorer.exe "http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=58443"' doesn't work.
Now, you'll probably want to have the Sony launcher button be able to launch Origami Experience instead. To do this you have to launch Vaio Central, choose Special Buttons, then in both rotation tabs change the launcher button to "Start Program" and choose Origami.
You'll now e able to launch Origami Experience with ease. With lots of personalization available for it, you can certainly make it look nice, too. It might even suffice for a reasonable entertainment console in the car -- just don't do video if it's in the front seat.
Posted by Shane on March 28, 2007 8:04 AM | Permalink
TrackBacks
http://www.kf6nvr.net/mt/kf6nvr-tb.cgi/802
Comments
Interesting article Shane, I've long wished to install Origami on my UX180p, but there is no way thats happening seeing as its only running XP : (. How is performance of the app itself? I would expect it to run smooth as butter since it was designed with UMPCs in mind, but you know MS has the ability to mess things up once and a while ; P
Also, I found my way to your blog by means of a news post over at www.micropctalk.com I was wondering if you've yet joined us on our forums, which are mostly UX UMPC oriented!
Posted by: Benz145 | March 29, 2007 9:02 AM
Hi Benz,
I think your only solution would be to upgrade to Vista and then install it using the hack. Problem is, if I recall correctly, the 180P has only 512MB RAM and I don't know if that's upgradable or not.
The performance of it is definitely smooth. All of the built-in graphics are scaled, so they look quite soft on the edges -- not just anti-aliased -- but that adds to the large button and font feeling. I don't really think it'd be worth the hassle of upgrading to Vista for, though. Other than the built-in media player functionality, it's really not much more than just a launcher.
I haven't signed up with the forums, but I'm checking them out. It looks like a nice site with a focus on the Sony UX series. Most of the UMPC sites around act like the Sony UX doesn't even exist, which is a bit obnoxious. Sure, it's not a true Origami, but that's only because it's actually _too_ small. Heh!
Thanks for the info.
Posted by: Shane Conder | March 29, 2007 9:43 AM