News - Sony announces super-slim VAIO-X notebook

[HEXUS]

World's lightest 11.1in notebook arriving October 22nd.

Read more.

[scaryjim]

That's kind of pricey for an Atom Z netbook - there's already several products available with very similar spec at a much more reasonable £350ish. Now, if this sported a CULV processor (maybe even one of the new dual cores) it may be worth thinking about, but > $1200 for an Atom?

[TheAnimus]

Sony seam to be taking the piss with their launch day prices on their laptops.

My P series was originally been sold for double what I paid, but they saw sense about 4 months after launch.

With this that might well happen, an 8 and 16 hour battery, for a laptop like that for £600 would be about right for the high end market. I've not seen any similar other netbooks at 600grams!

[scaryjim]

I guess if it does come down to £500 - £600 it would be pretty good value, given that it's about half the thickenss and weight of similar netbooks, has the higher spec Atom Z (2GHz vs 1.33GHz), has 2GB RAM vs. 1GB and an 8hour battery as standard vs ~ 4hours. If it debut's at ~ £1000 though, as suggested by the $ retail price, it looks pretty ridiculous against e.g. Acer's Aspire One 751.

Here's hoping for a common sense price reduction shortly after launch, then

[mikerr]

What happened to netbooks being small, low cost and low power?

They now have changed from sub £250 8.9" portables
to bigger 10/12" netbooks with laptop prices... (£400 and up)

[scaryjim]

What happened to netbooks being small, low cost and low power?

I think the issue with that concept is that it was born from a top-down perspective: Asus said "Hey, maybe people want these low power, low cost, tiny little laptops" and because there was nothing like them available at that price point people went nuts for them. It wasn't necessarily what they wanted, but it filled a niche that wasn't otherwise covered (traditional slim and light laptops cost upwards of £600 at the time). Since the original 7" EEE, netbooks have progressively got larger and more expensive, and people have continued to buy them.

So, apparently, what people really want are slim / light 11" - 12" laptops at a standard laptop price. Sony are releasing one with the Vaio badge on, so it will have the associated cool tax added on top (just like Apple tax), but Acer's interpretation pretty much slots into the same price point as 15" Celeron-based laptops. I suspect we'll see a lot more of these, with Yukon / Congo and CULV based equivalents slotting in at £400+ - giving people choice at every point in the market.

I think the old netbook market, 8" - 10", needs to migrate to something more like mini-tablets, and make much better use of touch input (which will become a lot easier with Windows 7, or course). Of course, I'm rather biased on that point because a 7" full Windows touch-only tablet is my idea of perfection in a mobile device...

[this_is_gav]

There are still plenty of low cost netbooks around. They're even cheaper than they were when originally released. Now they're diversifying into other areas, I don't see a problem, so long as the budget options still remain.

[jimbouk]

Finally a successor to the X505! They could charge whatever they like, that it one slick piece of kit. I still love my Samsung Q30 which like the X505 was slick as (and cost me lots of money). If I travelled then this would be top of my list for a laptop.

[McPhee]

I want!

Wouldn't buy one though, a step too far imo. The Vaio P was pushing things...

[Michaelv]

...everything was going well for me until I read "Atom @ <5Ghz"....nothing to see hear..keep walking

[scaryjim]

...everything was going well for me until I read "Atom @ <5Ghz"...

A little harsh, maybe: while a 2GHz Atom Z isn't going to compete again a full-fat CULV processor, it does support pretty much everything *except* 64bit; including HyperThreading and (believe it or not) hardware virtualisation. It's also 25% faster than a regular Atom N270 while having a significantly lower TDP; and it uses the also-lower-power US15W chipset with GMA500 graphics which are slightly more interesting than GMA950, being based on non-Intel IP (it's licensed from Imagination Technologies). So for me the fact that it has an Atom Z makes it significantly more interesting than many of its competitors (like the rather lacklustre Yukon platform with its high power drain / low battery life)...

[Champman99]

The MacBook Air and Dell Adamo were form over function... but this is just insane. £1300 for an Atom?!

If I was going to pump out that sort of cash for a laptop I'd save for a real ultraportable with a ULV Core2 thank you sony - probably a thinkpad.

I know that isnt the 'point' of this - but still... £1300 for an Atom. Wow!

[Herr Dreyer]

Sony VAIOs are a complete rip-off and unreliable rubbish, Sony's service sucks even worse - just arrogant and incompetent, especially in Europe. Wait till yours BSODs inexplicably, all mine have and they've hardly been used. I urge others who rely on a laptop for business to go for another manufacturer that actually *tries* to back up their products and not fob or BS the public about KNOWN GPU faults etc Sony: abysmal waste of time or money.