Sony’s Kazuo Hirai: liveblog from AsiaD!

We’re back! AsiaD‘s concluding today, but we’ve got a couple of big hitters left on the schedule. Kicking things off this morning — yeah, it’s morning, we’re in the future — is Sony’s Executive Deputy President, Kazuo Hirai, and we’re guessing he’ll be shooting it straight regarding the PS Vita, those nasty “outages” and whatever else he feels like keeping us abreast on. Join us after the break for the blow-by-blow!

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Sony’s Kazuo Hirai: liveblog from AsiaD! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony cuts the VAIO SA’s starting price to $1,000, starts shipping the 15-inch VAIO SE

Lots of PC news flowing out of Sony Electronics’ US headquarters this fine Sunday morning. First, the company slashed the starting price of the 13-inch VAIO SA laptop from $1,250 to $1,000, while the lower-end SB series now starts at $780 (it had been going for $800 after instant savings). We asked Sony’s PR team what that means for folks who recently purchased either of these through Sony’s online store, and still haven’t gotten a response, but the company was quick to remind us that it’s up to retailers such as Best Buy to set their own price protection policies. (Thanks, Sony!)

Moving along, that 15.5-inch VAIO SE series we reviewed a month ago is at last up for sale, beautiful 1080p display and all. You can find her on Sony’s site starting at a thousand bucks with a Core i5-2430M processor, 4GB of RAM, a 640GB 5,400RPM hard drive, DVD burner and, of course, that 1920 x 1080 panel. So, is all that worth a flaky trackpad and poor battery life (sans $150 slice)? That, friends, is a decision you’ll have to make for yourself. Finally, in more granular news, the 14-inch C and E series are getting expanded Sandy Bridge processor options, while the 16-inch F series and L series all-in-ones will come with Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum, Sound Forge Audio Studio and ACID Music Studio pre-installed. In addition, the SA, L, F and E series are all getting speed bumps, as are pre-configured SB and Z series laptops. Oh, and the SB is now available in red. Got it? Good. Lots of up to date specs at the source link.

Sony cuts the VAIO SA’s starting price to $1,000, starts shipping the 15-inch VAIO SE originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony Notebook Screen Provides 3-D Without Glasses

The Sony VGP-FL3D15A will provide glasses-free 3-D images by measuring the viewer's distance from the screen by webcam. Image courtesy of TechOn!

Sony’s just come out with a thin panel that lays over the screen of Vaio laptops to produce 3-D images without glasses. The software uses a built-in webcam to judge your distance from the screen and optimize the graphics.

It’s nothing new, but still pretty cool. Toshiba debuted similar technology with the Qosmio F755 3-D notebook last month. Sony and Toshiba use similar facial depth technology, where two images are projected simultaneously, one for each eye.

Sony unveiled the 3mm panel, the VGP-FL3D15A, at the Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) trade show in Berlin. The panel arrives on the heels of an announcement that Sony, Panasonic and Samsung will unite behind standardized 3-D glasses.

Sony’s IFA spread was all about 3-D. The company also announced a touch-screen PC with 3-D screen, a 3-D capable media player and a 3-D projector.

The sheet will be available next month in Europe for $183. The Vaio S series laptops will retail for around $1,000.


Sony adds lenticular sheet to laptop for webcam-enhanced glasses-free 3D

It looks like those not fond of 3D glasses will soon have another means to add an extra dimension to their laptop. Sony’s now showing off a simple lenticular sheet that can be placed on top of a standard laptop screen for a 3D effect. That will initially be available for Sony’s VAIO S series laptops and, most interestingly, it comes complete with some head-tracking software that takes advantage of the laptop’s webcam to adjust the 3D image based on your position. Unfortunately, as simple as it may seem, it’s still not exactly the cheapest solution — you can expect to shell out €129 (or about $180) when this option becomes available next month.

[Thanks, Ron]

Sony adds lenticular sheet to laptop for webcam-enhanced glasses-free 3D originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Sep 2011 13:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony VAIO S Series review (15-inch)

It’s sad to say, but most of you who are going back to school have probably already returned by now — though if you’re in class right this moment you should probably be paying attention. If you managed to get back to campus without bringing a new laptop along, you might just want to keep reading — Sony’s just released a 15.5-inch addition to its VAIO S Series that not only adds a crucial bit of extra display acreage, but also bumps things up to a full 1080p.

Yes, this is a laptop that can not only be configured with a Blu-ray drive but has enough pixels to do the resulting footage justice, meaning it could make a passable player for movie night. But, does it have the chops to do your workload justice? Is it worth the $1,000 minimum asking price, at least a $100 premium over Sony’s 13-inch models? Join us as we find out.

Continue reading Sony VAIO S Series review (15-inch)

Sony VAIO S Series review (15-inch) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony announces VAIO L Series all-in-one PC

Sony didn’t exactly dwell on it during its IFA keynote, but the company also expanded its desktop PC offerings today with its latest VAIO L Series all-in-one. This one packs a 24-inch multitouch display complete with a touch-sensitive bezel, along with your choice of second-gen Intel Core processors (yet to be specified), NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M graphics, 8GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive, and a Blu-ray / DVD burner combo drive. And, judging from the number of times its mentioned in the press release after the break, it also appears to be 3D-capable. Still no word on pricing, but it looks like this one will at least be available in Europe starting in October.

Continue reading Sony announces VAIO L Series all-in-one PC

Sony announces VAIO L Series all-in-one PC originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Aug 2011 11:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Live from Sony IFA 2011 press event

What better way to kick this year’s IFA conference in beautiful Berlin, Germany than a good old fashioned Sony press conference? We’re getting ready to get things started here, so sit down, grab a beverage and reach for those 3D glasses to read along at home [note: this liveblog is not in 3D].

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Live from Sony IFA 2011 press event originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Aug 2011 09:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Engadget’s back to school guide 2011: laptops

Welcome to Engadget’s Back to School guide! We know that this time of year can be pretty annoying and stressful for everyone, so we’re here to help out with the heartbreaking process of gadget buying for the school-aged crowd. Today we’re getting down to the very important business of helping you sift through laptops, and you can always head to the Back to School hub to see the rest of the product guides as they’re added throughout the month. Be sure to keep checking back — at the end of the month we’ll be giving away a ton of the gear featured in our guides — and hit up the hub page right here!


Ah, laptops. Some of us received our first notebooks the summer before college if not later. But times have changed and we’re sure for many of the kids reading this freshman year is just an excuse to upgrade from the clunkers that carried them through high school. Either way, this one’s pretty much mandatory — unless you’re a serious gamer who insists on a desktop GPU for marathon sessions of CoD: Black Ops, you’re going to need a laptop for pounding out last-minute term papers in the library, taking notes in class and posting incriminating photos on Facebook. The problem is, the market’s overrun with laptops that purport to be just perfect for the back to school set. They can’t all be worth your money, though, so we whittled the list down to a handful of choices for each budget — and if you’re lucky you’ll get your very own HP Pavilion dm1z for the pretty price of, well, nothing. Simply leave a comment below to be entered to win, and check out our giveaway page for more details. So wipe off the glasses, grab your clicker, and get ready to jump past the break for a top-level overview of this year’s picks for back to school.

Continue reading Engadget’s back to school guide 2011: laptops

Engadget’s back to school guide 2011: laptops originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony Vaio Z gets the in-house teardown treatment (video)

Another official teardown, another predictable revelation: the new Sony Vaio Z‘s viscera are thinner, flatter and, er, more compressed than those of its predecessor. But at least this dissection is performed by an actual Vaio engineer who ought to know his stuff. In the video after the break, Shinji Oguchi explains how cooling was improved using a range of tricks, like aerating the laptop’s guts via holes in the keyboard. He also splits open the innovative external media dock, which connects via Intel’s Light Peak technology and uses a discrete GPU to give the Vaio Z some gaming oomph. Finally, there’s a separate, speeded-up video of Shinji putting the whole thing back together again from memory. The poor guy must be sick of it by now.

Continue reading Sony Vaio Z gets the in-house teardown treatment (video)

Sony Vaio Z gets the in-house teardown treatment (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Aug 2011 07:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony Vaio Z Review: So Fast, So Light

The Vaio Z is Sony’s sculpted little reminder that companies besides Apple can make exciting laptops too. More »