In a surprising turn, boutique PC maker Velocity Micro–known mostly for its premium customizable laptops and powerful multimedia machines–announced two affordable lightweight notebooks at CES yesterday. The NoteMagix M10 is the manufacturer’s entrée into the netbook market, and the NoteMagix M5 is a touchscreen handheld PC. So far Velocity Micro has released only a limited amount of information on specs for these two systems, but here’s what we have so far, after the jump.
What’s up with companies suddenly not wanting to call their netbooks, um, netbooks? Sony’s Mike Abary sat down with LaptopMag in order to discuss the VAIO P, and as always, the company didn’t hesitate to shoot off a few more-than-controversial tidbits. For starters, Mr. Abary insinuated that the 8-inch machine wasn’t actually a good fit for the netbook category, noting that “the type of premium customer it is targeting probably doesn’t even know what a netbook is.” Furthermore, he reckoned that around 60% of prospective VAIO P buyers would be women, and it doesn’t view 12-inch laptops as a threat. If you’re hungry for even more one-liners that you can jump all over, head on down to the read link — just remember, yelling at your LCD doesn’t do anyone any good.
Sony speaks about VAIO P, evidently thinks it’s not a netbook originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The keyboard? It rocks. The screen? Beautiful. The trackball is just the right amount of gritty, so your finger sticks to it and doesn’t slide off onto the keyboard. The instant-on OS? Classy.
The keys are small, but just the perfect amount of small—you’ll only have a problem if you have fingers the size of fried carnival pastries. It took me about 15-30 seconds of mistyping to adjust and type just about perfectly, though your hands won’t feel as loose as they are on a full size keyboard by means. They’re really punchy, though shallow, too. Overall, good. The trackball is a little oversensitive, but adjustable too. What I do hate are the mouse buttons. They’re too small and not distinguished enough, so easy to miss. Oh, and it’s a smudge magnet.
The form factor looks weird in the press shots, but in person, it works—incredibly well. It’s very clearly a Porsche compared to the Chevy-esque standard netbook. In fact, Sony guys insist it’s not a netbook, which is true. It’s officially throw-it-in-your-bag-and-forget-it-sized, which netbooks are not.
I like the instant-on OS. It’s essentially a Sony XMB that gives you access to photos, internet and movies, much like other instant-on OSes, but the P’s seems exceptionally classy.
Every SKU has the same 1.33Ghz Atom inside (the Z series not the pokier N)—not incredibly speedy, and 2GB of RAM, which lets them all run Vista okay. Screen is, duh, gorgeous thanks to that incredible pixel density. The built-in 3G is Verizon only, and they wouldn’t comment on a GSM version. Oh, and that $900 pricepoint? That’s for Vista Home Basic—you’ve gotta drop a grand to get real Vista. Otherwise, the 4 different SKUs vary based mostly on storage—60GB starting up to a 128GB SSD in the $1500 model.
You’d almost think you could work on it, but we’re not so convinced yet—that’ll take some much more extensive hands on time, a couple days at least. At the very least, you’d have to widen and shrink your workflow. But we’re definitely curious to find out. Overall, it’s certainly an interesting machine—not a netbook, UMPC or laptop, but something in between all of those. What exactly that is, we’ll have to figure out in the longer haul.
We just grabbed a first look at Sony’s new VAIO P. At first glance, the screen is bright and ultrasharp — certainly stretching the limits of our eyesight. We’d say the keys are a little bit light and shallow for our taste, but good as far as most “netbooks” go, and the “nipple,” like all like pointers, will take getting used to and careful calibration, though it’s definitely sensitive. It’s certainly not hefty, but we’d say there’s the standard amount of Sony build quality, and while high for a netbook, $900 doesn’t “feel” too far off. We love lightweight, but this netbook almost feels like it lacks innards, the real deal seems almost like it’s a mock-up device. Videos of all all its best sides after the break.
Gallery: Vaio P hands-on
Continue reading Sony VAIO P hands-on
Filed under: Laptops
Sony VAIO P hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Not that we really needed Sony to tell us something we already knew, but we certainly appreciate the gesture. The hotly anticipated VAIO P is for real, and it’s coming in as the world’s lightest 8-inch netbook at just 1.4 pounds. The Vista-based device packs an almost unbelievable 1,600 x 768 resolution LED-backlit XBRITE-ECO LCD display, 802.11n WiFi, 3G WWAN, Bluetooth, a battery good for four hours (eight hours with the optional high-capacity cell) and a GPS module for good measure. You’ll also find an instant-on mode that launches directly into Sony’s Xross Media Bar interface, and the inbuilt webcam will keep the video chats going well into the morning. It’ll start shipping in early February (in garnet red, emerald green, onyx black, crystal white and classic black hues) for $900 and up, and you can peek the full release just after the break.
Continue reading Sony gets official with VAIO P: world’s lightest 8-inch netbook
Sony gets official with VAIO P: world’s lightest 8-inch netbook originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
SanDisk’s Gen 1 pSSDs just starting shipping in August, but already we’re staring at the successors. Here at CES, the outfit has introduced its Gen 2 pSSD lineup, which is comprised of the pSSD-P2 and pSSD-S2. Said drives are aimed at low-cost PCs (netbooks, in particular) as well as commercial applications such as POS terminals, printers and ATMs. Unfortunately, “aggressively priced” is as close as we’re getting to an actual sticker, though we are told that they’ll be available in 8/16/32/64GB capacities as early as next month.
SanDisk outs Gen 2 pSSDs for blossoming netbook sector originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We know, we can’t imagine how this naming convention could be confusing at all, but VIA’s vice president of corporate marketing Richard Brown has stepped forward to clarify things a bit. In short, that Nano 3000 we heard about a few days back will not be dual-core, but the firm is still lining up a dual-core version of its Nano processor in order to totally slay Intel’s Atom in the future. According to Mr. Brown: “The Nano 3000 isn’t dual-core. It’s a different version of the Nano that’s based on a more advanced manufacturing process.” So, the take-home here is that VIA actually has a couple of new chips in the pipeline worth keeping an eye on, and we’re even told that the Q4 release date for the still-elusive dual-core CPU remains solid. CES 2010 sure seems like a swell launching pad, no?
Filed under: Laptops
VIA’s dual-core Nano still on track, but it’s not the Nano 3000 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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While the original Wind U100 has stooped below $350 in many shops, the upgraded version — complete with a 160GB hard drive and a much needed 6-cell battery — is currently going for around $420. The PC abusers over at HotHardware managed to get this slab onto their testing bench, and test they did. After applying the recently released v1.09 BIOS, which enables press-of-a-button overclocking, they found that it worked remarkably well. In fact, they noted that this feature alone placed the Wind a step above its rivals for those who appreciate even minor increases in speed. They even went so far as to benchmark the OC’d machine against a standard U100 and a few other competitors, but we won’t ruin the surprise by blurting out the results here. Have a gander at the read link for more, but don’t blame us if you come away with an unexpected urge to buy a netbook.
Filed under: Laptops
MSI’s upgraded Wind U100 gets tested and overclocked originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 04:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Here we’ve got the fruits of AMD’s new Neo platform: the Pavilion dv2 series of entertainment laptops. Starting at 3.8-pounds with a keyboard 8% short of full-sized, this 12.1-inch (1,280 x 800 pixels) ultra-portable features a 1.6GHz Athlon Neo MV-40 processor, up to 4GB of memory and 500GB of disk, optional 802.11n WiFi, and WWAN (Gobi) support. Now what if we told you that this 64-bit Vista Home Premium laptop (no need for the XP fallback here kids) measures less than an inch thick and can be configured with ATI Mobility Radeon HD3410 discrete graphics and an external Blu-ray player for $899 when it ships in March? More you say? Ok, there’s also Bluetooth, HDMI-out, an integrated webcam, and 3.5 to 4-hours of battery with prices set to start at $699. Isn’t CES wonderful?
HP’s 12.1-inch Pavilion dv2 with Blu-ray — don’t call it a netbook originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
And here you thought AMD’s 45-nm Conesus was its next generation netbook / ultra-portable processor. Sorry, for that you’ll have to wait until the beginning of the second half of 2009 according to Bahr Mahony, Director of AMD’s mobile division who we just spoke with here at CES. Instead, AMD’s Athlon Neo ultra-portable platform built around existing 65-nm processes is scheduled to make its retail debut in the US in March. Remember, AMD won’t be challenging Intel in a race to the bottom so Neo is aimed squarely at that soft, chewy marketshare nestled between the underperforming $499 netbook and over-the-top $1,499 ultra-portable. Neo boasts more processing power than Intel’s 45-nm Atom at the cost of a higher load on your battery thanks to the 35W thermal envelop of the Neo chipset combined with a discrete, ATI Mobility Radeon Hd 3410 graphics. The result however is what AMD calls balanced performance from ultra-thin notebooks capable of smooth 1080p playback of your HD media — a feat that Atom-based netbooks saddled with integrated graphics struggle with. Interesting, now let’s see the 3rd party benchmarks. AMD’s data versus the Atom posted after the break.
Continue reading AMD kinda sorta takes aim at Atom with Athlon Neo
AMD kinda sorta takes aim at Atom with Athlon Neo originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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