The question was widely debated throughout the past year. Will Sony produce a netbook of its own? No way, most agreed, Sony will not be going «lowcost». Well, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas gave us the answer!


Sony’s announcement of a mini-Lifestyle PC (as opposed to «netbook») with a 8-inch "ultrawide" display (resolution of 1,600 by 768 pixels) weighing less than 700 grams (638 g or 1.4 pounds to be exact) was indeed big news.

The Vaio P Series comes in four colours (black, white, red and green) and has an Intel Atom processor, 2GB of RAM and a 60GB hard drive. Unlike netbooks, which run either Windows XP or Linux, this one uses the much greedier Windows Vista.

This little PC (10.99 x 7.87 x 0.93 inches) also offers the possibility to launch into Sony's Xross Media Bar interface for immediate multimedia access (Web, music, video, photos). Mobile broadband, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS technologies allow the user to be connected. The device comes either with a 4-hour or 8-hour battery pack.

The Vaio P Series are available from February for a price starting at £849. So indeed, Sony does go "mini" but certainly not lowcost!


> Vaio P Series

The Windows 7 Beta is now available (again) for public download. Service had shut down over the weekend because of the volume of demands, qualified by Microsoft as « phenomenal ». 

Initially Microsoft wanted to offer Windows 7 Beta only to the first 2.5 million testers. However over the weekend the company decided to make the software available without any limitation in numbers over the next two weeks and add more servers to handle the demand.

If you decide to try out this protoype Windows, bear in mind that the Beta expires on August 1, 2009 and remember to back up all your data. Some uers have reported problems with their MP3 files when using a pre-beta version. Hopefully that will have been fixed, but just in case, take the time to put your files in a safe place before installing the new operating system.

> Download Windows 7 Beta

The phone-watch has been around for quite a while, any (movie) spy will tell you so. LG however creates the news by offering to bring its model to shops later this year.


LG’s phone watch a.k.a the GD910 boasts a 1.43 inches touchscreen and features voice recognition as well as a built-in camera for videoconferencing. Nice for sure, but how good on one’s wrist?



The watch has most features any classic handset would provide such as 3G, HSDPA and Bluetooth. Of course, it will also allow you to listen to your favourite music …and it will tell time! SMS can be composed with your fingertips, but it surely will take some practice and nimble digits. And when you want to know what your text messages say, you can opt for the Text to Speech option either with the speaker or an earpiece.

With all these features the watch is fairly big, but still manages to remain on the slim side (less than 14 mm). Price and availability of this piece of sci-fi fantasy are still unknown. However if you want to play Micheal Knight -of Knight Rider- calling on Kit, be prepared to spend some serious cash. James Bond himself might be on the waiting list.