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Sony unveils the VAIO P Series Lifestyle PC @ CES 2009

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Sony finally unveiled their mystery notebook product at CES 2009 this past week. Dubbed the VAIO P Series Lifestyle PC, it’s the lightest 8 inch notebook out on the market weighing in at a mere 1.4 pounds and measuring a mere 0.78 inches thick (full measurements are 9.65 x 0.78 x 4.72 inches).

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The Lifestyle PC is definitely filled to the brim with features and specs including:

  • CES 2009 Sat Day 3 342 Intel Atom processor running at 1.33 GHz
  • 8 inch LED backlit display with a resolution of 1600 x 768 and XBRITE-ECO technology
  • Up to a 60 GB hard drive as well as up to 128GB SSD
  • Approximately 4 hours with standard battery or 8 hours with the large capacity battery
  • A max of 2GB of RAM
  • Built-in GPS
  • Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n via Atheros chipset
  • Bluetooth support including Stereo A2DP profile
  • WWAN support
  • Memory Stick PRO (Standard/Duo) media slot with MagicGate functionality
  • MMC slot
  • SD memory card slot
  • Intel HD Audio Sound System
  • Intel Graphics Media Accelerator
  • Built-in MOTION EYE webcam and microphone
  • Windows Vista Home Basic for the base model. Windows Vista Home Premium for the higher end configurations
  • Available in garnet red, emerald green, onyx black, crystal white and classic black

The Lifestyle PC also has a one-button quick-boot option allowing you to boot into a small Linux kernel. This mode features Sony’s xross media bar interface and provides access to web (Firefox browser), email, photos etc. A Sony rep told me the boot time for the quick-boot option was timed at around 17 seconds. It’s a great way to access your system without jumping into Windows (especially since Windows Vista is running on this device). Here are shots of the interface

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Curious about the keyboard design? Here are shots of the keyboard:

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Here’s a welcome change – there is no touchpad on the Lifestyle PC. Sony chose to go with a trackpoint-like device. Smart decision – I’ve always been a fact of trackpoints.

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The base model sells for $899.99 and features the Intel Atom 1.33GHz processor, 8 inch display, 2GB RAM, 60GB HDD, GPS, integrated mobile broadband, Bluetooth and Windows Vista Home Basic.

The next model up sells for $1199.99 and replaces the hard drive with a 64GB SSD and replaces Vista Home Basic with Vista Home Premium.

Finally, at $1499, the 64GB SSD gets upgraded to a 128GB SSD.

Not exactly netbook-like pricing is it? Oh wait.. it’s not a “netbook” … it’s a “Lifestyle PC”. Sense a bit of annoyance on my part? You bet.. but more on this later on. For now we’ll stick with the product announcement on the Sony netbook err.. VAIO P Series Lifestyle PC.

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Written by flung

January 12th, 2009 at 6:13 am