So tiny that they couldn’t even fit the battery inside! With a mere 6.4-inch screen and weighing just over 800 grams, this is the astonishingly small Sony Vaio PCG-U3—a Japanese exclusive powered by an x86-emulating processor from Transmeta.
At its heart is the top-tier (for its time) 933 MHz Crusoe TM5800. It’s actually a VLIW chip—a close relative of Elbrus and Itanium, not your typical Pentiums! While it certainly runs cool, it executes code not optimized for its clever architecture with all the grace of a Celeron. Sometimes, it even feels like that infamous Covington Celeron, unburdened by the 'nuisance' of an L2 cache.
The CPU is paired with 256 to 512 MB of RAM (this particular unit has 384 MB), though 24 MB of that is eaten up by the Code Morphing software's translation cache. While the memory and PCI controllers are integrated into the CPU and the southbridge is handled by an ALi chip, the graphics are powered by an ATI Mobility Radeon with 8 MB of VRAM sitting on the PCI bus. Rounding out this leisurely orchestra is a 20 GB 1.8-inch hard drive. And boy, is it sloooow.
But honestly, cramming all of this into such a tiny chassis back in 2003 was a massive feat. It’s just a real shame the battery has to live on the outside, noticeably ruining its pocketable dimensions. That said, Windows XP runs surprisingly briskly and feels quite pleasant to use. It boots up Heroes of Might and Magic, handles Office—what more could you ask for? It can even play movies and music. All in all, a truly wonderful tech toy!
