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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 Vaio P Series will also have Windows Vista and an additional “Instant Start Mode” to access media like videos and music.  The Instant Start Mode features the Sony Xross Media Bar interface interface which will be familiar to many Sony-fans because it is like the PS3 and PSP menus.  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.

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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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Like always Sony has made us trek all the way over to the convention center for their press conference. We are expecting the regular announcements LCD TVs, new OLED displays, cameras, new computers include the teased P series, new Blu-ray players and more. The one catch will be that Howard Stronger, Sony CEO, will be offering a keynote tomorrow morning and will surely save something for that time—so this can end up being a bit dry. Either way stick around to this page for live coverage of all the announcements (you can reload the page by hitting Ctrl+R or F5).

For more CES press coverage head over here or check out our 2009 CES page for all the CES news, CES keynotes, CES photo galleries/booth tours, and more!

Ever since the release of the MacBook Air, Apple users have been able to flaunt the multiple uses of their notebook trackpads over the majority of Windows users.  Multi-finger gestures have slowly come to some other laptop manufacturers, but have stayed mainly with Apple.  Synaptics, the maker of TouchPads, the most popular trackpads in non-Apple laptops, is bringing some of those features to the rest of the laptop market.

There are four new features from Synaptics in its Synaptics Gesture Suite 2009: Two-Finger Scroll, Two-Finger Rotate, Two-Finger Pinch Zoom, and Three-Finger Flick.  Most of them are pretty self-explanatory. 

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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

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.

The new Pavilion dv2 series from HP is nice, but what about those of us who want just a bit more screen space and power?  HP hasn’t forgotten about us, and is announcing its Pavilion dv3 series beside them.  While the dv2s have a 12.1” display and no optical drive, the dv3 comes with 13.3” of LED lit screen and a SuperMulti DVD drive.  Perfect for people who don’t want to carry extra accessories with them to actually use disc media, all in a nice looking (if a bit to bronze for some tastes) package.

The dv3 is built more for all around use than the mobility-specific dv2.  It has a large array of processor options, all from AMD ranging from a 2.0GHz dual-core Athlon to a 2.4GHz dual-core Turion.  The RAM is bumped up to support up to 8GB for better performance.  There’s even a fingerprint reader built into the hand rests for easy and secure password protection.

There’s three USB ports lining the sides, with the third being an eSATA combo, making some external hard drives even faster, perfect for those of us who have a ton of data on externals to save space.  As with the dv2, there is an HDMI connector built into the dv3 for easy connection to an HDTV.

The dv2 seems like a great all-around computer for the college students who don’t want Macs, or anyone else who might need a laptop.  It should easily handle most games out there at the moment, and should handle most other tasks rather easily.  And, there’s even a backlit keyboard for those of us who spend hours typing away at night in dark rooms.

At CES, HP will also have a new Mini PC on display, the 2140.  The 10.1 inch screen Mini PC is the latest that they have to offer in this department. 

It is encased in an aluminum scratch-resistant covering, only 2.6 pounds, Illumi-Lite LED display which is also available in standard resolution or Hi-Def resolution, full-sized QWERTY keyboard, and customizable hard drives to fit your specific needs.  In addition, HP wants to reduce the amount of energy used by the 2140, and so it runs on a low power Atom processor, that uses less energy and works more efficiently.  Bluetooth 2.0 technology, integrated Wi-Fi, and a VGA webcam are preloaded onto the machine. 

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The laptop market seems to be downsizing all the time.  Well, at least in size of the laptops at least.  There are some sacrifices to be made along the way, but there’s always some sort sort of sacrifice.  With the new HP Pavilion dv2 series HP is going the way of the MacBook Air and sacrificing the optical drive in order to make for a more featured device (well, sort of unlike the Air then).

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