Sony Steps Into The Netbook Market: Unveils Sony Vaio W

When Sony unveiled Vaio P series in January this year, everyone called it a netbook, but Sony disagreed and wanted to call it a ‘lifestyle PCâ€. Well said, with the $1000 price tag it had and sleek pocket-size design. But this ‘lifestyle pc†had a low powered atom processor. So neither could it be called a full featured laptop because of the low powered processor and nor a netbook because netbooks donâ€t sell for a thousand dollars in these days of recession. Bummer, nobody bought a Vaio P.

But it seems like Sony wants to come to the right track now. Unveiling the Vaio W series, which looks and works like a netbook from all sides.

The Vaio W netbooks will sport a 10.1” display and will be released mid-August for about $500. Like most other other netbooks, it will be powered by an Atom processor, 1GB Ram and Windows XP. Storage available will be 160GB although Engadget notes that one should not expect a SSD option.

The W netbooks will also come with a 1366 x 768 high resolution LED backlit screen that will make browsing web pages easy with no side-to-side scrolling.  It will also get SD card slot, webcam built in and  for connectivity there is Bluetooth and wifi, although there is no word on gps and 3g.

The new release from Sony will surely get it on the road in the Netbook race. Even though itâ€s a bit expensive than the regular netbooks in the market, but itâ€s Sony man!

Sony Vaio W should be available mid-August. To pre-book, visit SonyStyle.