14 DAY TRIAL // In early September, at the IFA 2009 consumer electronics show in Berlin, Germany, Sony officially announced one of its thinnest and lightest notebook designs, dubbed Vaio X-series. Although it was announced more than one month ago, the laptop has so far been kept under wraps, as far as its technical specifications and pricing details are concerned. Fortunately, that isn't the case anymore, as the company finally decided to announce the specifications of what it claims to be the 'world's lightest' notebook. As it was speculated, the Vaio X-series will be powered by one of Intel's Atom processors, which means performance won't be that high when compared to other notebooks on the market.
According to Sony, the new laptop is expected to weigh in at just 700 grams, which is a great measure for the company's claims of the “world's lighest” notebook. The machine is scheduled to arrive in stores in North America sometime next month, providing users with yet another high-end ultraportable laptop. However, unlike the majority of thin and light systems that have recently been launched on the market, the new Vaio X-series will adopt Intel's Atom platform rather than the more potent CULV platform or AMD's Neo.
A quick look at the technical specification sheet of the new system will reveal that Sony will provide its customers with a new 11.1-inch laptop, boasting a maximum resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels and a 2GHz Intel Atom Z550 processor. The machine will also feature a carbon-fiber chassis, 2GB of RAM, a GMA 500 integrated graphics chip and a solid state drive with up to 128GB of storage space.
Additional features of Sony's new Vaio X notebook include a Gigabit Ethernet port, WiFi, memory card reader, Bluetooth and 3G connectivity and a battery life that is said to reach an impressive 14 hours of runtime, when packed with a super-extended capacity battery. As expected, the laptop will be made available with Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system and will come with a starting price tag of US$1,300.
