A Vaio For Your Pocket

By  |  Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 1:29 am

Sony Vaio PI haven’t run into a Sony Vaio P notebook here at CES in Las Vegas yet, but judging from Gizmodo’s hands-on report and photos, it’s going to be worth the effort to track it down for some hands-on time. The P is a 1.4-pound pocketable machine that has an 8-inch screen and runs Windows Vista, and while it’s far from the first attempt to cram Windows into such a tiny device–micro-Windows pioneer OQO debuted a new version of its system with an OLED screen today–I like its looks. The keyboard looks like it’s trying to reduce a standard notebook-sized design into a smaller space, which is appealing approach; most of the really, really li’l Windows machines I’ve seen have been undone by oddball keyboards. And the Vaio has a ThinkPad-style pointing nub, which makes sense on a gadget this small and eliminates the need to reserve real estate for a touchpad.

The Vaio P is due to ship in February and starts at $900, making it pricier than a netbook…but maybe a bit cheaper than you’d have guessed a gimzo like this from Sony would have been in years past.

 
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4 Comments For This Post

  1. tom b Says:
    January 8th, 2009 at 8:23 am

    It looks like a lot of design compromises were made– a physical keyboard on a device that size? I’d save $700 and get more functionality with an iPod Touch.

  2. Jeff Says:
    January 9th, 2009 at 3:51 am

    Like the size, but since it runs Windows Vista, it’s not even worth considering in my opinion.

  3. Harry McCracken Says:
    January 11th, 2009 at 6:26 pm

    I checked out the Vaio P at CES–it’s not really pocket-sized (unless you’re talking a trenchcoat). Keyboard was pretty good; pointing stick was tricky (but might get easier with use); screen was pretty small to cram on the whole Windows Vista interface. I understand that Sony doesn’t like people calling it a netbook, but it strikes me as a sort of subnetbook…

    –Harry

  4. Rita Says:
    January 20th, 2009 at 11:01 am

    Its a good article. I came across a very recent article that talks about Sony Vaio Flex laptops that use OLED technology and is a foldable screen. To learn more you can use this link below:-

    http://www.kanbal.com/index.php?/Electronics/sony-flex-vaio-contrast-the-foldable-laptop.html