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Is Sony's Clutch-Purse-Like Sony P Notebook for You?

by Terrence O'Brien on January 14, 2009 at 01:21 PM

Snap Judgment: VAIO P Series
Other than the Palm Pre, the biggest darling of CES has clearly been the Sony VAIO P Series Lifestyle PC. There has been plenty of coverage of the clutch-purse-like device, but we wanted to boil it down to just what you really need to know.

We spent some time with the tiny "don't call it a netbook" from Sony and came away quite impressed with it on the whole. We couldn't truly test any streaming media because the network connection was clogged with a million and one devices, but otherwise the speed of it was truly impressive. Despite having an Atom processor (and not even the top of the line model), the VAIO P in our brief tests ran Vista faster than most other netbooks with faster processors and can run Windows XP (which makes us wonder if Sony is cheating somehow).

The screen is bright and crisp, but probably too small for anyone who requires reading glasses, and the pointer nub requires tiny, nimble hands.

Starting at $899 the VAIO P isn't cheap, but it's as close to a full-featured ultra-portable notebook as you're going to get in that price range (though we haven't had time to really manhandle MSI's X-Slim 320 yet). Add in the instant-on, though surprisingly slow, cross-bar menu that anyone who has used a PSP or PS3 would be familiar with, and Sony has a real winner on its hands.

So who exactly is the VAIO P for? Well, if you want the smallest possible notebook and style and speed are important, but price is not, then you should seriously consider it when it becomes available in February.

For a quick overview of the Sony P's basics, check out our video below.

If you crave some of the finer, geekier details, check out Engadget's extensive coverage here.

Tags: ces-2009-top, ces-2009-videos, ces-2009-videos-top, ceslaptops, fashion, laptops, netbook, netbooks, sony, style, travel, vaio, vaio p, VaioP

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