Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

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.

—

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.

###

Last year we saw Panasonic launch a 150-inch Plasma TV.  This year they’re talking up their new 3D 1080p HDTV.  The first 3D Blu-ray won’t be launched until 2010, so there’s still a lot of work to go to perfect the concept.  The company mentioned that they are working with famous director / producer James Cameron on his future film Avatar on the 3DHD elements.

Head over to the Panasonic Live-blog for some of their other new products.

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!

Panasonic and Amazon have just announced they will be offering Amazon VOD on some of the new HDTV Viera-series flat panels from Panasonic.  Videos can be purchased on the TV without having to fumble with a computer or media center.  Once you buy the vid, you can watch on your TV, PC, or Mac.

Sections: Video, HDTV, Web, Online Music/Video, Trade Shows, CES

Click for a larger image.

The new 6, 7, and 8 series LED TVs from Samsung super-slim - measuring in at just over an inch thick, as you can see above.  The new models add to their theme of adding a Touch of Color to their displays so they fit in more stylistically in your home.  More can be found on our live-blog of the event.

MORE »

Today at CES, Vizio announced their VBR100 Blu-ray player.  Feature wise the VBR100 will offer 1080p quality with Blu-ray movies as well as the ability to upconvert standard DVD’s in either 720p, 1080i or 1080p.  As for video outputs, the player will have HDMI (1.3), component and composite and the audio outputs include 7.1 channel analog, coax, optical digital audio and analog stereo (RCA).  The player is set to be available sometime in April of this year and will retail for a very nice $199.

Read [PR Newswire]

Time for one of the largest press conferences of the day…Panasonic. These tend to be the largest and most dry press event of press day. Hopefully they can spice things up a bit with the 3D HDTV introduction. Besides that you can expect the regular announcements around Blu-ray players, cameras, camcorders, a GPS here and there, and some power line networked devices.

Remember, hit Ctrl+R to refresh or F5. We will be live in a few…

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!

Live, from CES, Samsung is announcing their brand new high volume memory, high speed line of cameras.  Samsung is betting on bigger capacity (64GB and 128GB) and their super fast boot time and access, which they say is 3x faster than HDD.

Samsung touts SSD’s best aspects as to why it is the perfect memory for camcorders.  The lack of moving parts means the device is less fragile and is anti-shock.  Samsung will have five units in total that rely on SSD memory.

The H106, the top of the line features 1920x1080, built-in SSD to 64GB.  Optical Image Stabilizer, a 37mm wide angle lens, HD time lapse photo are all on board.  The camera is capable of a 4.7 mp still photo.

More as it comes on price.  The unit is slated to be available in April.

Among the few products that were introduced earlier this morning by Netgear is the new Internet TV.  The new device is a small set-top box that ships with its own remote control.  As for content, as you would have expected, YouTube is on the list. 

However, there is also a wide selection of other available content available, which includes movie rentals, as well as pre-arranged content from sites such as ESPN, FOX and TMZ.  There is also a Live Internet TV menu that allows you to watch television from all over the world to include channels such as Sky and EuroTV.  The Intenet TV includes the ability to search for your content using the “vtap” search function.

Additionally, it also offers a USB port that allows you to hook up your own external drive and watch video, listen to music or browse images.

Based on what we mentioned earlier, we can expect to see the Internet TV player sometime in the summer of 2009 with a retail price of $199.  Basically, this seems like a worthwhile option with plenty of options for available content, I think the biggest barrier will be the same as the rest of these types of devices—and that is whether people will be willing to add yet another set-top box to their already crowded home entertainment setup.

Keep reading to check out a few more images of the Netgear Internet TV…

MORE »

Sections: Video, Content, Web, Online Music/Video

How Samsung can fit all of their announcements into a 45 minutes press conference is amazing. If this is like previous years Samsung will be announcing new products across all categories: HDTVs, phones, cameras, camcorders, monitors, printers, portable audio, and maybe even some portable devices/netbooks to replace the Q1 line (maybe the rumored NC20).

We will get started in just a few minutes. Once the live blog starts you can refresh every minute or so by hitting F5 or Ctrl+R.

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!

Check out the gallery: CES 2009 Press Conference: Samsung live blog