Sony claims 'lightest notebook' crown The fight for the right to claim ownership of the world’s lightest notebook has been won by Sony, the company claimed today, thanks to its launch of the Vaio X. Vaio_X_01 Sony's Vaio X: good lookin', but Atom-based Weighing in at just 655g, the... ahem... “exquisitely crafted” notebook measures 278 x 185 x 13.9mm and is …
This is simply for drooling over in display stores and for people with way too much money. I can't imagine they expect to sell more than a tiny number. Sony actually do (finally) make a reasonably priced nice spec netbook for people who want one.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-VAIO-W11S1E-Mini-Notebook/dp/B002GZNGRQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1255006034&sr=1-1
By the way the price has been dropping even on that one - the RRP is £430 and it was £399 a few weeks back - I suspect even that was expensive enough that they weren't selling many. I think it is a good deal at the present price. It's the cheapest netbook I have seen with a WXGA screen, and its got a slightly faster CPU (N280) than most netbooks, too. Plus it looks pretty.
They killed my toy! The TZ series fell into this segment (price, screen size and resolution) but has a real chip and an optical drive. Why would you remove these - it really made the machine stand out from the crowd! Tiny, powerful enough for VS 2008 and SQL Server 2008, small enough to fit into a bag and with a build in DVD burner.
Sob.
(Unless of course this is to sit along side the TT range that replaced the TZ in which case I have to ask what the point is...)
Re: D@v3: It takes it "kind of" out of the netbook range the same way the pacific ocean is "kind of" damp. That's macbook pro money, and _that's_ already a bit steep for what it is.
But it looks good and it's a Sony, so it'll be perfect for some slick suit to flash around and he'll have plenty of time to shop for a new one before this one goes out of fashion.
My first VAIO back in 1999 was of stunning build quality, but Sony have been sliding downwards for ages now and doing things on the cheap. The casing might have an aluminium palm rest but the sides will be plastic with decals that rub off within 6 months of very light and gentle usage. That's what happened with my last 2 VAIOs anyway.
I decided for a change to buy an Alienware laptop for some on the go gaming, but that is even worse. Cheap plastic all over and a hinge that has broken twice now. The warranty repair is useless too, they take it for a month, scratch it up and break something else while they're fixing it.
I really hate to say it but the unibody MacBook I have has really impressed me in terms of build quality. Now if only I could run a decent OS on it and it had a graphics card up for playing some games... It seems there's no perfect laptop for me out there at the moment...
First off, "D@v3" - it's a notebook notta netbook :-) ....ergo, any stupidly inflated price is acceptable...
Secondly, I guess it's fairly safe to assume that the machine is NOT "13.9mm wide and 2.25mm thick" as that would make it about the same size as my microSD card!!!! Methinks those dimensions are really in "cm" not "mm"!!!!!
Personally, I think that this just gonna be too small to use for more than about ten minutes at a time due to RSI injuries.....I'll stick with my HTC Touch Pro for awkward typing and leave this sort of toy for people with more money than sense!!
Feature for feature, Apple isn't that much more expensive - the cost is increased if your outside America of course - us Brits pay a great deal more for Macs than they do over the pond.
But if you place all the features of equivalent windows laptops alongside the latest Macbook range, *including* build quality, it's not an astronomical difference.
What is different, of course, is personal requirements. Mac definately is for the more "arty" crowd, even though it's made some inroads into the wider consumer market.
These super slim stupidly expensive windows based machines also have a market, I'm not sure exactly what that market it is though - more brains than sense?
I agree, from a common sense point of view.
However, Sony did the same with the 'P' series - those stupidly small things with a small keyboard and only a nipple-mouse. They outright refused to call them netbooks, presumably to allow them to be priced at £800, but as a result shot themselves in the foot as MS wouldn't give them XP unless it was a netbook. As a result, the 'P' series laptops were tiny, underpowered things running Vista.
They did *not* perform well.
I see the same thing coming with these. Windows 7 may carry less bloat than Vista did, but on an Atom processor I expect them to be pretty slow, and at that price, they'll struggle to sell them.
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