Vaio Billabong Netbook Sent by Sony to the US

Sony may be especially mindful of its gaming business right now, but its other ventures seem to be coming along well enough. Its laptop business, for one, seems to have progressed quite a bit, especially considering the unveiling of the VAIO P series at the start of last month. There was another unusual netbook that showed up in Australia not long ago, named VAIO W Billabong. Now, this model has decided to head for the United States, armed with a new lid and a stronger central processing unit.

The entry-level mobile PC, like all netbooks, is meant to act as a reasonably competent traveling companion. The one now bound for the US is a limited edition version, with a unique-looking imperial Line lid and the Intel Atom N470 CPU. This chip operates at a clock speed of 1.83GHz and is backed up by 1GB or 2GB DDR2 at 667MHz and the Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3150. Storage space is provided by a 250GB hard disk drive, with a rotary speed of 5400RPM.

All of these components are packed inside a frame measuring 10.54(W) x 1.08-2.00(H) x 7.07 (D) inches and weighing approximately 2.93 lbs. As for connectivity and I/O, there is a Built-in MOTION EYE camera and microphone with face-tracking technology, a QWERTY keyboard, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, RJ-45 Ethernet and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. A pair of USB 2.0 ports and a VGA output are also present, as is a multimedia card reader and a 10.1-inch LED-backlit display with a native resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels.

The Imperial Line lid-equipped VAIO W Billabong should become available on June 11, though it has already been set up for pre-order. The price tag is of $499, about $50 more than the original. Full information is available on the official product page.