The Sony VAIO UX is a hand held computer that’s so small it makes a 10 inch netbook look like Godzilla. Unfortunately the VAIO UX series, which was first introduced about 3 years ago, didn’t do well enough to keep the product category alive and Sony eventually pulled it from the consumer market less than 2 years later. But that hasn’t kept some enthusiast hardware hackers from keeping their UX computers up to date..
One of the pro modders of the MicroPCTalk forum, Anh Nguyen has already successfully done extreme mods like upgrading the UX’s original Intel Core 2 Solo U2200 @ 1.2GHz of his US490, to a much more powerful Intel Core 2 Duo U7700 @1.33GHz that he also overclocked to 1.438GHz. That’s no small feat considering the solder reballing process required for BGA SMT work but instead of stopping there Anh has continued to mod virtually every part of the system and his latest mod adds functionality to the system with the installation of an extremely tiny 4-port USB hub inside of the UX in order to be able to connect additional devices…
Ben of UMPCPortal (who is also a mod on Micro PC Talk) lists some of the devices installed with the USB mod Nguyen has made. They include a Huawei E172 modem for 3G data (with a modified portion of the original EDGE modem that was inserted to function as a SIM card slot for the E172 modem, and still accessible from original SIM card slot), Pinnacle PCTV HD Mini Stick for OTA TV, and a GPS receiver.
All these modifications are contained within the compact size of the Sony VAIO UX, and without modding the casing for additional space. So major props goes to Anh and the Micro PC Talk community that has helped accumulate the knowledge needed to do such modifications.