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Sony just announced the latest addition to their notebook line-up - the 8-inch VAIO P Series Lifestyle PC.  The notebook has built-in wireless WAN 3G Mobile Broadband (Verizon), 802.11n wi-fi, and Bluetooth, 1600 x 768 resolution, and an 8 hour battery life.  The device comes in garnet red, emerald green, onyx black, crystal white and classic black, will retail for $900, and be available starting tomorrow.  Read more in the press release below.

SONY UNVEILS WORLD’s Lightest 8-inch notebook

Full-Featured VAIO PC Fuses Style, Mobility and Connectivity for Anytime, Anywhere Computing

LAS VEGAS (CES Booth #14200), Jan. 7, 2009 – Sony today took the wraps off the world’s lightest 8-inch notebook— the new VAIO® P Series Lifestyle PC.

About the size of a business envelope and roughly as thin as a cell phone, the VAIO Lifestyle PC weighs just 1.4 pounds and is small enough to slip into a jacket pocket or handbag while integrating full-PC features.

The model incorporates a high-resolution, 1600 x 768, LED backlit 8-inch ultra-wide display (diagonal), making it easy to view everything from entire spreadsheets to full web pages— no side-to-side scrolling necessary. It also incorporates Sony’s XBRITE-ECO™ LCD technology, producing images in brilliant detail for razor-sharp viewing on-the-go.

Stylish enough to take anywhere, the unit is available in an array of eye-catching colors, including garnet red, emerald green, onyx black, crystal white and classic black. Matching carrying cases and Bluetooth® color-coordinated mice are available to complete the look.

“The VAIO P Series Lifestyle PC is your portal to the world, delivering entertainment and computing in a head-turning device that’s small enough to put in your pocket,“ said Mike Abary, senior vice president of VAIO product marketing at Sony Electronics. “Designed for the fashionista in all of us, it’s the ideal companion.“

Engineered to provide the feel of a larger notebook, the VAIO Lifestyle PC provides a convenient typing experience by extending the keyboard to the perimeters of the chassis maximizing the typing area. The spacing between keys has also been engineered to help reduce typing mistakes making it perfect for long fingernails.

The notebook incorporates built-in wireless WAN 3G Mobile Broadband, 802.11n wi-fi and Bluetooth technologies. Users can toggle among various wireless options for the most efficient connection – wi-fi for working at a coffee shop; Bluetooth for peripherals; and Mobile Broadband service on the Verizon Wireless nationwide network when traveling outside the reach of hotspots (subscription required).

The unit features up to four hours of battery life with the included standard capacity battery and eight hours with the large capacity battery (sold separate).

It also incorporates real-time GPS functionality, making it easy to find restaurants, hotels or special sites of interest. Destinations can be found by simply typing in an address or keyword and then following the turn-by-turn directions. The Lifestyle PC even includes estimated drive times to let you know how far you are from a destination. No Internet connection is required in the United States or Canada.

The unit also has an instant-mode option that launches directly into Sony’s Xross Media Bar™ interface, so you can rapidly boot up and access music, video, photos and the Web. A built-in webcam lets you video chat with family, friends and colleagues. A third-party service is required.

The PC comes with the Windows Vista® operating system, supporting office applications and all the software programs routinely found in full-size notebooks. A windows arrangement utility has been added to easily organize all open documents or websites with one touch, positioning them neatly along side each other on a single screen.

The VAIO P Series Lifestyle PC will retail for about $900. It will be available for pre-orders tomorrow online at www.sony.com/pr/pseries. It will also be sold at Sony Style® stores starting later this month and at other major retailers around the country beginning in February.

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True to what has been circulating on the web the past couple of weeks, Lenovo has officially announced its 17-inch dual-screen mobile power horse - the ThinkPad W700ds.  And like we told you before, the ThinkPad W700ds will have a 10.6-inch secondary screen which pops out via a spring-loaded “pocket door” located behind the laptop’s primary screen.  In addition, Lenovo also said that this secondary screen can be adjusted up to 30 degrees.  If you know how a side mirror operates, that’s how this laptop’s secondary screen can be adjusted to a user’s most comfortable viewing angle.

Now, what can that extra screen on a laptop gives you?  Well, since dual-screen workstation seems to be a fad among tech lovers today, Lenovo is doing us a favor by saving us the hassle of getting an additional LCD monitor.  But aside from that sense of being “in the tech crowd” the ThinkPad W700ds’ secondary screen can very well serve users who are into digital content creation, as the laptop is said to provide high quality screen resolution.  Hence, digital photographers who are always on the move can pretty much do their post-processing of photos right on the ThinkPad W700ds.  And you don’t have to worry about storage as the laptop has two built-in hard drives and up to 8GB of RAM.

Other key features and specs of the Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds include Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad-Core processor, optional DVD burner/player, Dual Link DVI support, UDMA compact flash reader, a 7-in-1 multicard reader, DisplayPort and VGA, five USB ports, WiFi connectivity and WiMax support for some models.  You’d also get some standard Lenovo laptop security features such as full-disk encryption for hard drives, a smartcard reader, and an optional fingerprint reader.

The Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds retails for $3,663. It’s supposed to be available now at the Lenovo online shop. 

Read [Business Wire]

MSI has offered up the X-320 super portable notebook, which features a very MacBook Air styling and is scheduled to be released sometime in Q1 of this year.  The X-320 offers a nice slim design at 0.78-inches thick and weighing just 2.86-pounds.  As for the features, it will include a 13.4-inch display with a 16:9 aspect ratio and “the latest Intel platform.“

Aside from the similar look of the Air, the X-320 will offer a nice array of ports which include three USB, Ethernet, memory card, ethernet, VGA and audio in and out.  As for power, it is expected to offer either a 4-cell or 8-cell battery which will give up to 10 hours of battery life.  Unfortunately, pricing has not yet been determined.

Check out the gallery: MSI shows off the slim-figured X-320 notebook

This is Asus’ Eee Keyboard.  This isn’t some run-of-the-mill keyboard, this will be a fully functioning computer housed in the body of a keyboard, the Eee Keyboard.  On the right side, there is a five inch touch screen display/touchpad. 

Asus would like its Keyboard to travel around the house and wirelessly hook up with televisions and displays via ultra wideband.  Asus calls this the “First Wireless Media Center Enabled by Ultra Wideband HDMI.“

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Check out the gallery: The Asus Eee Keyboard

Along with the S121, Jerry Shen also unveiled the upcoming convertible Eee PC.  The new model which still has not had a release date announced will be the Eee PC T91.  While most of the specs were not yet announced, we can tell you that it will feature an 8.9-inch multi-touch display, an Intel Atom Z520 processor, TV tuner, built-in GPS and be running Windows XP Home.  The T91 was also noted as weighing just 2-pounds and being around 1-inch thick.  While we were able to snap some pics, they were pretty tight on getting hands on as the display unit was still just a prototype.  Similar to the availability date, the pricing information was not mentioned.

Check out the gallery: Asus shows off the convertible Eee PC T91 netbook

Asus has shown off their new S121 notebook at this afternoons press conference, which is touting the world’s first 512GB SSD.  Other than the massive amount of solid state storage the S121 also features a 12.1-inch backlight energy saving display, a 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 processor, 1GB of RAM with support for up to 2GB, Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth and a 1.3-megapixel webcam.

The S121 weighs just 3-pounds and measures in at 11.7 x 8.3 x 0.9-1-inches.  Additionally it was said to offer up to 8 hours of battery life.  Additionally the S121 will also have a fancy styled exterior with a “majestic glossy brown Infusion finish,“ metallic hinges that have Swarovski crystals embedded and leather covered palm rests.

Pricing and availability are still unknown, of course during the QA when pressed Asus CEO Jerry Shen suggested a price tag of around $1,649.

EMTEC, a company especially known for their mobile peripherals, plans to have their newest netbook, the Gdium, on display at CES 2009.  Let’s begin with the specs.

First off, it comes with a nice 10 inch screen with a 1024x600 resolution, overall measures out at 9.8 x 7.2 x 1.25 inches, and comes with a full sized keyboard.  The nice feature in the Gdium is that it is completely Open Source and comes preloaded with applications such as Firefox, Thunderbird, VoIP, a blog editor, audio player, video player, undisclosed security programs, and Open Office suite apps.  With Open Office apps, you are able to utilize word processing, presentations, spreadsheets, etc.

EMTEC wants to emphasize low energy usage and so it sports a MIPS-64 chip designed by ST Microelectronics and it runs on an optimized version of Mandriva Linux OS.  Now, if you plan to share this netbook with others, you can keep all of your data safe as well as the others who use it.  The Gdium comes with something called the G-Key, which allows users to store their data and apps on a USB flash drive and not have to save anything on the actual machine.  When you own one of these machines, you have access to its personal, dedicated website.  Within this website is a social networking program and other resources targeted at students.  In addition, it contains email devices, forums, blogs, news forums, and everything else to keep you connected. 

Chris Mack, EMTEC’s EVP Sales & Marketing in North America, had this to add about the Gdium:

“The Gdium netbook offering is unique to the marketplace. The revolutionary new design and the unique synchronization feature of the G-Key separate Gdium from the rest of the pack. With a sub-$400 retail price point, we believe EMTEC will become a key player in the netbook market.”

The netbook industry is rapidly becoming very popular so it makes sense EMTEC debuts their netbook at CES in hopes many people check it out and might become interested in buying it.  You can expect a lot of other netbooks at CES as well.

Read [EMTEC]

The One Laptop Per Child program is trying to live up to its name.  OLPC has a deal with Yoko Ono to use John Lennon’s likeness in order to promote the purchase of these laptops for every child.  There is a new commercial that OLPC will run using a John Lennon sort-of-sound-alike together with some video footage from an interview that has been altered to match the video to the audio. 

The message is simple—empower children everywhere with knowledge using laptops.  Personally, I think if Lennon were still alive, he probably would promote something like this.  The ads will run on CBS, Time Warner, and Fox networks.  These companies donated the commercial time to the OLPC program.  You can see the video after the break. 

Via [Geeksugar]
Help [OLPC]

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The latest netbook from Asus has begun to make an appearance, and in what seems like a growing trend, it features a 12-inch display.  Personally, I have a hard time relating anything more than a 10-inch display as a netbook, but more on that in a future post.  As for the new model, it is the Asus S121, which following suit with the previously released S101, this is also in the “luxury” category. 

We do have plenty of images, however the details are mostly speculation.  So far the S121 is expected to feature an Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.0, a built-in card reader and a built-in webcam.  Also, as you would expect, the pricing is still unknown.  Of course, if we take the $699 price tag of the S101, then it is likely to expect the S121 to come in a little higher, possibly at $799.

Keep reading to check out a few more images of the Asus S121…

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MSI has officially unveiled the “world’s first hybrid storage netbook” effectively dubbed the MSI U115 Hybrid.  Of course, at first glance, the U115 may seem like many of the other netbooks on the market.  It features a 10-inch display with a 1024 x 600 resolution, 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, a 1.3-megapixel camera, built-in card reader and a 3-cell battery.  Additionally, the U115 Hybrid is running Windows XP, and has an option to add a 6-cell battery as well as Bluetooth 2.0.

Now, as for what makes the U115 different from the rest—it has two built-in storage options.  The U115 include a standard 120GB hard drive along with an 8GB SSD. 

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