The Stylish New Sony VAIO P Netbook

Sony are releasing their next generation of lifestyle PCs, one of which is the stylish and very desirable Vaio P netbook.  Just like the original series from last year, the new Vaio P is a truly unique mobile computer, although it comes at a price that may put many consumers off.

Uniqueness is a rare thing in the mobile computing world, with most new releases being variations of each other in terms of design and functionality.  However, Sony are well known for their ability to be innovative, and the Vaio P is certainly that.  This netbook comes with an 8.9 inch screen featuring a resolution of 1600 x 768 – very detailed for such a small design.

The people who buy this computer will be buying it for its form factor, which is colourful, fun, and very cool.  It may be small enough to fit in a purse and about half as light as most other netbooks on the market, yet it features an 88% full size keyboard that is both responsive and easy to use.  This new Vaio P comes in loud and vibrant colours like Lime Green and Hot Pink, and good old fashioned black and white as well.

The display on the new Sony Vaio P is glossy and sharp, and the resolution can be easily switched between 1600 x 768 and 1280 x 600.  This switching feature is pretty cool, as the higher resolution – while fantastic – is a little hard to read in some situations.  Audio playback and viewing angles are poor however, but more than one user using a screen this size is unlikely anyway.

The processor on-board is a 1.6GHz Atom Z530, which while not earth shattering is enough for most regular netbook tasks.  The ports on offer include two USBs, a headphone port, and an adapter port that accepts VGA and Ethernet.  One cool feature is the in-built accelerometer, which automatically changes screen orientations and allows for unique features like ‘Flicks’ which allows users to move between image files by lightly flicking the computer.

The Sony Vaio P has a battery life that stretches to about 3 1/2 hours using the included 3-cell battery, although a larger $129 6-cell version is available to improve this issue significantly.  Overall, the Sony Vaio P is a desirable and very unique little machine, although the price is a lot for an underpowered netbook.  Sony are asking $899 for the base configuration, and this can get even higher when ordering upgraded configurations.

Specifications

Intel Atom Z530 1.6GHz
up to 4GB of RAM
128GB SATA Hard Drive
8.9 inch screen
1600 x 768 resolution
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 500
802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth
2 x USB
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