Sony wows with 8-inch, 1.4-pound Vaio netbook

Wed Jan 7, 2009 8:59PM EST

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Dubbed the Vaio P Series Lifestyle PC, the eight-inch wonder—complete with WWAN 3G broadband, GPS, and an instant-on option for music, pictures, and video—easily stole the show at Sony's CES presser Wednesday.

Set to ship next month and priced at a cool $900, the P Series drew a crowd of photographers after Sony's pre-CES event, and it's easy to see why—this is one of the sexiest netbooks yet. Slim, light, and available in five colors, the P Series Lifestyle PC looks small enough to slip into a jacket pocket (well, a largish jacket pocket), yet it still manages to pack in a tight, 1600 by 768 LED display, an integrated Webcam, and yes—it runs Vista.

Wireless options on the P abound as well, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and integrated 3G through Verizon Wireless. Also on board: GPS, good for location-based services and geotagging photos, as well as an "instant-mode" Xross Media Bar for no-wait access to your tunes, videos, photos, and Web browsing. Sony promises four hours of juice from the standard battery, or up to eight hours with a larger-capacity battery. Under the hood (this from Gizmodo), you've got a 1.33Ghz Atom processor and 2GB of RAM.

Overall, pretty nice—although the $900 (and up, depending on the options) price tag might be a tough pill to swallow, and it remains to be seen how the little guy will handle a monster OS like Vista. (Although given that the P Series can run Vista and has such a high-resolution screen, maybe we should call it a notebook rather than a netbook.) Thoughts?

Comments on Sony wows with 8-inch, 1.4-pound Vaio netbook

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  • 6 Posted by ddouglas248 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:39PM EDT Report Abuse

    Isn't Vista going to be replaced by Microsoft Windows 7. I don't think Vista is doing well with Windows users right now.

  • 7 Posted by figmillenium on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:59PM EDT Report Abuse

    One word sums it up: Why??? Continues the perception that Sony has such huge profits they can afford to have their engineers waste time developing this.

  • 8 Posted by kb2hap on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:48PM EDT Report Abuse

    $900!!!! What the!!!!! when all other comparable machines are running $300-$500. there out of there mind. no wonder why sony is doing so badly there pricing and making products like everyone makes 6 figure salaries....PS3? theres nothing special about that netbook. so its a little smaller all of the other spec are the same as the others out there...Dreamers!

  • 9 Posted by daocampo on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:36PM EDT Report Abuse

    That post by alan_r_cam is really a joke. XP is loaded with bugs and fixes. It will be ushered out with the refinements of Vista in the new Windows 7. Vista can be a problem at the enterprise level but the OS runs perfectly fine for personal use, especially if you just turn off UAC and disable the annoying warning message. Ubuntu? Are you kidding? That has got to be the ugliest most un-user-friendly OS I have ever used, and that includes Kubuntu. The installation module stinks, and the graphics suck, including fonts in the Web browser when running Firefox -- 3P software just aint there for it, You are truly a lost computer geek if you like it that much. As for the new Sony NetBook, I like it but will Sony give the customer a rebate for all of the eye fatigue and eventual vision damage it will cause?

  • 10 Posted by anotherfinemess2 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:55PM EDT Report Abuse

    Maybe I run my Window 3.1 on this baby. I think the vista is the bunch of the goat droppings.

  • 11 Posted by sirebral on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:24PM EDT Report Abuse

    "Also all the Vista wining is a pile of you know what. I am running Vista Basic on my Eee PC with the CPU is power save mode (~600 MHz) and life is very good. I agree that running Vista Premium would be a bad idea but Basic works great." I like it when people justify their point by justifying the argument they are filing against. FAIL. Looks cool. It is shorter then most I think. Right now I am waiting for my DELL Mini 9 to come. This time UPS beat FedEX by a long shot. I have my SD Card first. I hope I don't have to wait another day. ++VISTA SUCKS DONKEY BAL LS++, mkay?

  • 12 Posted by sirebral on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:24PM EDT Report Abuse

    daocampo: I love Ubuntu. The power and resources I get from it are amazgin when most of my work is graphic editing, typing, html editing, layout, and web surfing. I don't play games on it, but I do get to work more with it instead of waiting for the system catch up to me. I love it, but it does require some level of tech skill.

  • 13 Posted by dang_joseph on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:35PM EDT Report Abuse

    Sony never called it a netbook, only the press does. Sony's first tease was that it will change the way you look at laptops forever. Again, only the press are calling it a netbook I may buy this depending on how usable 1600 wide lcd is with 8" form. I like the new HP 2140 with 1368x screen though.

  • 14 Posted by figmillenium on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:59PM EDT Report Abuse

    Dear Ben (aka: the Gadget Hound, 'We live in a Windows world') Patterson, Dude, you have no taste. You seem to want to fondle every thing with a microchip. Are you in bed with the industry??? BTW, change the shirt in your picture, and the MacBook Pro does nothing to change your irreversible lameness. Can't believe you get paid for this drivel.

  • 15 Posted by lipr94 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 6:53PM EDT Report Abuse

    This is about the same as my Acer Inspir one. 3G 2Gig good battery windowsXP sorry no GPS or instant on but for $100 and 2 year att 3g contract a much better deal

  • 16 Posted by rsdautel2000 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:54PM EDT Report Abuse

    At $900, please explain to me why would I want one of these over a new Dell XPS1340 ... which is about same price, except packs a C2D chip and 4GB RAM. OK, so the Sony is wide & thin. Who asked for wider than 16:9 AR anyway, are we CinemaScope optimized now? And my gut tells me that an Atom processor trying to run Vista is gonna choke like Tommy Dorsey on sleeping pills.

  • 17 Posted by markbxnet on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:07PM EDT Report Abuse

    Hmm, $900!? I have an Asus N10J with 1.6GHz Atom, 320GB HDD, 2GB RAM, nVidia 9300m GS, and 1024x600 10.2" screen. Cost was $550US. The only advantage I see of this over the N10J is if you need GPS or 3G. But you can get add-on cards of your choice for those. Plus I like the larger resolution, wish I had that on my N10J for 1024x768 compatability.

  • 18 Posted by stevenbradleysteele on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:43PM EDT Report Abuse

    Sony Sony Sony, A netbook for $900.00?. Get Real This isn't the mid 90's any more and there are far too many competitors for you to be charging that insane price. Besides you don't have enough of the stupid idiotic cult following of apple for instance to get away with charging triple what the actual retail price should be.

  • 19 Posted by cashmoneydubz on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:19PM EDT Report Abuse

    man, i wish i would have waited. i spent almost $2500 on a sony super mini laptop with a 8in screen. its a beast tho. not as cool as this looks. but from sony, $900 is pretty cheap. esp for the features this has. frickin sweet. vista is no problem for these things, just turn off that dumb sidebar widget.

  • 20 Posted by robertwesthill on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:45PM EDT Report Abuse

    I was Sony's biggest fan till I bought a Sony Vaio laptop. In less than 18 months I went thru 2 hard drives, a screen, a mother board, power supply and it never stayed connetced to my wireless network. My daughter finally spilt 3 drops of water on it and took it out of it's misery. Sony cancelled the last 18 months of my warrenty because of water damage so I asked for a partial refund for the last 18 months of the warrenty, I'm still waiting for a check. I replaced the Sony with a Acer Netbook at just over $300 and all is well. I'm fine with XP and the limitations of the netbook. I believe Sony is still living on their reputation from 25 years ago. There products just aren't that good anymore.

  • 21 Posted by drfeelgoodz2003 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:48PM EDT Report Abuse

    Hey Billy-bob: Thanks for re-releasing Windows 386 and calling it Windows Vista - Kudos to you and your swell company!

  • 22 Posted by f4denz on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:57PM EDT Report Abuse

    Vista is fine, I love the haters that have never used it. Sony is in real trouble, they once again release a product with a price tag that is almost triple their competition. It is a great little machine, but $900 for a basic model. Really, this is why Stringer needs to go. They simply have lost touch with reality.

  • 23 Posted by davidleung9 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:38PM EDT Report Abuse

    Acer Aspire One netbook, saphire blue with 1GB RAM, 16GB SSD, webcam, mic/speaker, is all I need in a netbook. There is a slot for SD card as well. All for $300 at Circuit City internet.

  • 24 Posted by camilallam on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:17PM EDT Report Abuse

    Sony is a wonderful company with grat ideas that surpass anything done up to know in electronics in general. I don't understand why their are still bounding themselves to Windows and this whole ancient crap system of OS. They ought create themselves a revolutionary system that work with their machines, like they did with cameras and other gadgets.

  • 25 Posted by elkabong635 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:53PM EDT Report Abuse

    Sony is on its last legs. Google Gphone is junk as well. Why can't anyone beat Steve Jobs? He's sick as heck and STILL he beats everyone. Checkout the Taiwan knockoffs, they are coming on strong. Expect China and South Korea to really start beating up Japan in the coming year. What moron is going to spend $900 on a dinky laptop? Might as well get an iPhone or any number of clones.Hello SONY? Its called a recession! Maybe the Arabs will buy it, they can afford to put ski slopes in the dessert.

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