Watch BEOS as E Villa by Sony arrives in stores........Sony e villa Sports Clean Display
If all you want to do is surf the Web, Sony offers a nice looking Net appliance.
By Mick Lockey
January 8, 2001
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LAS VEGAS -- Sony bills its new e villa as ground zero for everyday computing needs, from browsing to downloading music.
At first glance it looks like a fancy, 15-inch display attached to a mouse and keyboard. It measures 16 inches high, 18 inches deep and 12 inches in length. The display dons a silvery-gold finish, giving it a classy look -- not unusual for Sony products, which tend to garner plenty of oohs and ahhs for their designs.
You won't get as much eye fatigue with this screen. It renders pages horizontally, and each page downloads fully so there's no additional scrolling to view an entire page. The screen displays bold, colorful, crisp text and graphics. Images looked sharp, with deeply saturated colors.
Unlike many network appliances, the e villa features a storage drive that's mounted in the unit's front case. Like most Sony devices, the drive accepts Sony's Memory Stick. Sony added that they hope to make 128MB available some time around the second quarter of 2001.
The e villa has a fairly uncomplicated home page that links to Sony's partners. You can find some interesting vendors, including one that emblazons downloaded photos on coffee cups and T-shirts.
The e villa uses the BeIA operating system, and it ships with 16MB of flash memory and 32MB of RAM. Sony also bundles the Opera 4.0 browser and allows up to four unique users. Sony says the device will ship with an Ethernet port.
The e villa will cost around $500 and should begin shipping this spring. |
