Sony today unveiled a new ultra-portable laptop with looks and specs to make even a strong-hearted geek-traveller go week at the knees and slobber.
 Sony's sexy new Vaio G: expensive enough to make a banker weep |
Sony today unveiled its new Vaio G laptop - a super-light laptop for business users with a 4:3 XGA screen.
It is, incredibly, only 1.1KG, despite packing a super-multi DVD writer, as well as a 100GB hard drive, two USB ports, an ethernet port, a VGA port, an SD card reader, a PCMCIA slot and even a modem.
About the only thing Sony hasn't put in is a DVI port and a Firewire port.
Sony says the Vaio G can last up to 11.5 hours, which probably isn't out of the ballpark given Sony's choice of Intel's Core Solo CPU rather than the more power-hungry Core Duo.
The Intel GMA950 graphics chip presumably also saves power -- it's hardly a grunty GPU, but adequate for Vista desktop use (just don't expect half-decent performance from any games.)
Sony is also making a big deal of the Vaio G's durability. It showed excruciating videos to journalists of the torture tests it put test units through at its Tokyo headquarters, including dropping the notebooks repeatedly, twisting the LCD screen perilously, repeatedly opening and closing the lid hundreds of times and pressing down on top of it with a 120KG weight.
The notebook is 'rated' for drops from 90cm (if switched off) which is apparently the average height of a person walking with a notebook, or 72cm while operating -- the average height of a desk. However, Sony does add in fine print that "Sony does not guarantee against PC damage, or malfunction when dropped from this height."
One interesting aspect of the notebook is the extremely small and light power adaptor. It's about a fifth of the size of a MacBook Pro power adaptor, or approximately half the size of a box of cigarettes. It only weighs 170g - about the same as a light mobile phone.
The design of the notebook is also a new high point in Vaio design: a laser-etched keyboard ensures that keytops will never become worn, and the keyboard is nearly silent to use due to a small amount of rubber padding under the keys. Keyboard feedback has been preserved, though.
For those who want to rush out and buy one right now, the new model number is VGN-G118GN/B and the unit has an Intel Core Solo U1500 (1.33GHz), 12.1” LCD XGA display, 100GB HDD, 1GB DDR2 SDRAM, Fingerprint Security, TPM
Chip and HDD Shock Protection. It costs $3,699.
 Proflie view: slim and beautiful, or black and toned, depending on your orientation |
 Laser etched and rubber backed: this keyboard is designed to take a pounding |