back to article Sony preps hi-res Atom N netbook

Sony launched its first netbook, the Vaio P, back in February. The P's high price undoubtedly put plenty of punters off, so the consumer electronics giant is having another go, this time with a more standard notebook spec. Sony Vaio W Sony's Vaio W: hi-res netbook display Well kind of. The Vaio W has a 10.1in screen, but …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    Picturebook

    "Sony launched its first netbook, the Vaio P, back in February. "

    So wrong. It is argueable that Sony probably created the 'netbook' format almost a decade ago with the Picturebook series. Obviously nobody called them 'netbooks' then, but there were designed for surfing the web primarily, but the concept is similar to modern 'netbooks'. They were also one of the first to understand the value for super thin notebooks (505) way before the trend for ultra thin laptops as well as isolating keyboards.

  2. MarkOne
    FAIL

    Correction.,

    The high price put too many council estate pikeys off...

    However anyone with a spare bit of cash will appreciate that quality costs a little extra, and you don't have to settle for second best whilst convincing yourself you havn't.

  3. Gordon 10
    Jobs Horns

    Hackintosh! Hackintosh!

    Might be worth the extra if it gives us another Hi Res OS X netbook. The HP 2140 still has some issues.

  4. eJ2095

    400 quid....

    Think will stick with me Acer one :-)

    Cheaper to up the spec on it

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    external monitor - no limits, therefore no limits on built-in display?

    "it sports a 1366 x 768 resolution...Netbooks with higher resolution screens that 1024 x 768 usually come with Intel's Z-series processors not N-series parts. Has the chip giant finally relaxed the limitations it had placed on N-series netbook designs? We hope so"

    There is no limitation on what external screen you can attach to a N270 based notebook. For example I hooked my Toshiba NB100 up to a 1920x1080 Samsung DTV screen to expand the desktop space - drag windows from its 9" 1024x600 screen onto the 1920x1080.

    So if you can achieve those resolutions with an external attached display, then why should there be any limit on the notebook's own display.

    Thumbs up to Sony for introducing a 1366x768 resolution on a 10" display. Lots of resolution and space to have lots of windows open, but in a compact efficient size.

    This really beats the 13" MacBook/MacBookPro with their 1200x800!

    For those who find things to be too small on a 1366x768 10" screen - just go into settings in the display section of the control panel and reduce the dpi so that there are fewer dots per inch which makes everything visibly larger.

  6. northern monkey
    Megaphone

    @MarkOne

    <rant>

    MarkOne? Is that your favourite shop and you're just pretending to dislike "council estate pikeys" because you are one, or is my first instinct right - you're just a complete and utter twat who probably shops in jack wills and thinks nothing of buying their overpriced at a quarter of the price toff clothes.

    </rant>

    Anyway, my actual point was going to be that at a price in the region of £400 I'd not want such a machine because it doesn't feature a CD drive!

    I'm perfectly happy with my netbook not having one because it cost me just over £200 and I can accept that sort of omission, but at £400 I'd not be particularly happy to have to shell out for an external CD-drive on top of that!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Troll

    1366x768 10" screen

    and a free glasses prescription...

    Nope, it doesn't beat a macbook, because a macbook has a proper sized screen, a proper cpu, a proper keyboard, proper mousepad....

    Formfactor Matters (tm)

  8. nichomach

    *cough*

    Launching July 12th: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=19177

    "The system measures 292mm x 202mm x 31.5mm, weighs 1.5kg and sports an 11.6in display offers a useful resolution of 1,366x768.

    Inside, there's a 1.5GHz AMD Sempron 210U processor, along with 1GB of DDR2 memory and integrated ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 graphics. That's joined by a 160GB hard drive, Bluetooth, Wireless N and Ethernet connectivity, a multi-card reader, three USB ports, HDMI out, Microsoft's Windows XP operating system, and a six-cell battery as standard.

    Not a bad-looking specification, we reckon, and the Medion Akoya Mini E1312 will be priced at £339.99 when it hits ALDI stores on July 12th."

  9. Rob Beard

    Overpriced Sony...

    As usual it's overpriced. I mean only a numpty would pay the extra for a Sony Vaio.

    But on the other hand, at least this one CAN do HD (720p) resolutions natively. Would be interesting to see though if it would be up to decoding 720p video, I guess if they popped in an Ion chipset in there then they would be able to.

    Still wouldn't pay £400 or it though, I'd say £300 tops. The Medion which nichomach mentions seems like better value (and no stupid limit on what resolution the screen can do as it's got an AMD CPU and ATI graphics).

    Rob

  10. b 3
    WTF?

    MEAH! HP2133 copy!

    h40059.www4.hp.com/hp2133/

    which, i have to say, cos i got one, does have incredible sound..plus 800px VR :D

    bbbbut the via 1.2ghz cpu WELDED into the mobo i do NOT like!

    it's slooo as a pig..:\

    cheers,

    bill

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    numpty with a viao

    I bought a sony vaio TZ 11.1" notebook. Its just a little bit bigger than the latest "netbook" offerings at 10" but is a proper full spec notebook. Mines is a 2007 model so a bit out of date now, but still going strong. Battery life of 7 hours on wifi, full res screen and a dual core processor... Call me a numpty if you like, but IMO Its worth the money.

    REL 720p... I have an asus eee 900 as well, it plays 720p no problem with its celeron whatever its got.

  12. Johnny Utah

    Lenovo IdeaPad S12

    Lenovo now offers an IdeaPad S12 model, that they describe as a netbook, with an N270 and 12.1" 1280x800 screen.

  13. Nexox Enigma

    @ AC #3

    """1366x768 10" screen...and a free glasses prescription"

    Actually the 8.9" 1280x768 screen on my HP 2133 is quite useable. Probably far moreso than a 1024x600 or whatever sad spec most netbooks come with these days.

    And wow, the Macbook is more of a computer than a netbook... which is probably why they cost so much more.

    @ AC1 Re: Picturebook

    Actually the picturebooks were nothing like netbooks, since they had optical drives and generally cost over $2000 US for the lowest spec version. And the Picturebook was not the original, since it was a poor and over-priced copy of Fujitsu's ultra portable.

    @ Ac2:

    """So if you can achieve those resolutions with an external attached display, then why should there be any limit on the notebook's own display.

    Thumbs up to Sony for introducing a 1366x768 resolution on a 10" display."""

    Actually the internal screen resolution is arbitrarily limited by Intel to keep netbooks from cutting into sales of real laptops, which are more profitable to Intel. And HP has been selling the 2140 with the same resolution and screen size for some time. They also had the above-mentioned 1280x768 8.9" screen. Over 5 years ago I purchased a Fujitsu with a 10" 1280x780 screen, which was what Sony was using in their ultra portables at the time. I believe Fujitsu has a 5.6" 1280x768 available these days, which is far more impressive than this Sony. I believe Macbooks also have the option for a 1440x900 13" screen, which is better than your quoted 1280x768, but not as good as Lenono's X200, which can be had with a 1440x900 12" wide screen.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    1366x768...

    ...is worthless unless they have a good GPU to offload video playback from the Atom CPU. Not too many netbooks are capable of adequate 720p playback.

  15. JC 2

    Fail

    Never wanted to watch HD video on a low spec system, don't see that changing any time soon. This'll be used for web surfing which it fails at with the screen dimensions it has, either make it a swivel screen so you can use it or put in a blu-ray drive and powerful enough CPU so it'll decode when formats the integrated video won't handle are tried, so you can make proper use of the thing as a movie viewer since there's little else the screen is good for at present.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Loving my 2133

    Hi res screen, reasonable speakers, plays ripped DVDs fine, spotify runs ok over a 3G modem - what more you want? A knee warmer? You get that too! And all for 200 quid. Sony have got a lot of work to do...

  17. Rob Davis
    Thumb Down

    Re: Nexos Enigma - NO 13" MacBookPro with 1440x900

    check the apple store

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