Sony Tuesday became the latest entrant to the exploding netbook market with the unveiling of its Vaio W-series. The Sony netbooks, which will be available next month, make Sony the last major PC manufacturer to get into the netbook game.
Sony's Vaio W-series netbook weighs 2.6 pounds and is 10.5 inches high by 1.28 inches wide by 7.1 inches deep, according to specs released by Sony and reports from the Vaio W-series launch event in Tokyo Tuesday.
The W-series netbook has a 10.1-inch widescreen display with 1366 x 768 resolution -- notably more than many of the 1024 x 600 resolution netbooks out there -- and includes two USB ports, VGA out, Ethernet port, a Webcam and multimedia slots for SD memory and Memory Stick Duo. It's based around anIntel Atom processor -- a 1.66 GHz N280 -- and will come pre-installed with Microsoft's Windows XP Home Edition.
On the storage front, the netbook has 1 GB of system memory and a 160-GB, 5,400 RPM hard drive. Its wireless capabilities include 802.11a/b/g and Bluetooth.
Sony's Vaio W-series will be available in Japan, most of Europe, and North America in August. Sony will sell the W-series for about 60,000 yen (about $630), which makes it more expensive than some netbooks from Acer and Dell and about the same as offerings from Toshiba, Fujitsu.
Sony in a statement also played up the environmentally friendly aspects of the W-series, pointing to its mercury-free LCD with LED backlight, its Energy Star version 5.0 qualification and its recycled packaging materials.
While worldwide PC shipments are expected to continue to fall in 2009, most analyst firms -- including Gartner, which shared its latest forecast at the end of June -- predict a bounceback in 2010. According to Gartner, PC shipments will grow by about 10. 3 percent next year, with comparatively cheaper netbooks continuing to put pricing pressure on larger, more sophisticated laptops.
