Sony Vaio Z2 – Review

Sony has launched the new Vaio Z2 notebook, a 13.1-inch ultrabook with a breath-takingly sharp 1080p display and a second battery pack which can double mains-free runtime. There’s also an external dock box which gives users an optical drive and enhanced connectivity, as well as a dedicated GPU to cut through those pixel-crunching chores when [...]

Sony Vaio S Review

Sony has released a new 15.5-inch 1080p edition to the VAIO S Series, complete with BluRay reader. The 15-inch Sony Vaio S Series shares a lot of design features with the smaller SA and SB versions. Same magnesium alloy case, same angular design – though a closer look reveals some crucial differences. Although the magnesium [...]

iPad 2 and Sony Vaio Series

It can be hard to keep up with the ever changing technological advancements these days and when it comes to laptops, things can sometimes seem to be changing on a daily basis. Laptops being released seem to be ever thinner, faster and have better graphics and now with the advent of tablet PCs the way [...]

Sony Vaio M

Sony Vaio M is yet another netbook from Sony that shares the same specs as the Sony Vaio W with pine trail processor. It boasts Atom N450 1.66GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 250GB hard disk, Intel GMA 3150 chipset, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth and built-in webcam. It sports a distinctive chiclet keyboard that has a full size right shift key – something that has been missing from the Sony’s netbooks so far  which includes Vaio P, Vaio W and Vaio X.

Asus Eee PC 1201T

After recently Asus launching Eee PC 1201N and the eee 1201HA, Asus is going to release a new 12-incher, the Eee PC 1201T. Interestingly, ASUS has gone with AMD this time; equipping the Eee 1201T with an AMD Congo MV40 processor (1.6GHz). It even features an integrated ATI Radeon HD3200 chipset.

Update – Asus Eee 1201T review is now online

Specifications:

• 12.1-inch display
• 1366×768 resolution
• 320GB of HDD or 256GB + 500GB
• 2GB RAM
• 6-cell Battery
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
• 2 Audio Jack
• 1 VGA port
• memory card reader
• weight: 1.46kg

The ASUS EEE PC 1201T is fully capable of running 1080p videos with ease, something which most of the netbooks so far have struggled to cope up with. The keyboard on the ASUS EEE 1201T is chiclet, which looks similar to the one found in the SONY VAIO X and SONY VAIO P. It comes with a 6-cell battery. Asus claims that you will be able to get 4 hours of runtime from it. This clearly shows that the AMD Congo is nowhere as power-efficient as the Atom CPUs.

So, you do get 1-2 hours less battery runtime, but on the brighter side, you get much more muscle power.

How to enable Hardware Virtualization on SONY VAIO P (Windows 7)

The default BIOS with which the Sony Vaio P comes with does not allow hardware virtualization. Even if you install Ultimate, Enterprise or Professional version of Windows 7, you won’t be able to enjoy Windows XP feature as the BIOS did not permit hardware virtualization. Few months back, when SONY was asked to enable hardware virtualization, Sony bluntly replied that since there is not enough demand for it, we are not going to enable it. If we get enough requests, then we may think about it.

Now that Sony has released a BIOS for the VAIO P that enables Hardware Virtualization, all you have to do is download all the required files from Microsoft’s website followed by this BIOS for the VAIO P which works for all VAIO P-versions

After successfully updating the BIOS, make sure to enable hardware virtualization in the BIOS

Note: you need to be running XP/Vista/7 to run the aforementioned BIOS setup file

Also read:

SONY VAIO P review

SONY VAIO X review

Lenovo ThinkPad x100e – full specifications revealed

We now have full specifications of the netbook that was earlier supposed to be Lenovo X200e,but was later confirmed that it was infact Lenovo X100e. The Lenovo ThinkPad x100e as expected runs AMD Athlon processor.

The ThinkPad x100e features : an 11.6-inch @ 1366 x 768 Display (200 nits), AMD Athlon MV-40 processor,160 / 250 / 320GB Hard disk, 4GB memory, 3 USB 2.0 ports, Card Reader, Ethernet, Wi-Fi b/g, audio jacks, Optional Bluetooth and WWAN, HD Audio, stereo speakers and 0.3MP Webcam. It will be available with XP Home, XP Professional, Windows 7 Starter, Home Premium or Professional as OS. The keyboard is spill-resistant. It weighs 1.5kg and comes bundled with a 6-cell battery (3-cell battery is also available). You will be able to get 5 hours with the 6-cell and 2.5 hours with the 3-cell battery.

You get two way to control the mouse, either by using the trackball or by using its multi-touch trackpad. The trackball is similar to the little mouse pointer that is also used in the SONY VAIO P.

Prices starts at $449 and it will be available in red and white color.

Also read: SONY VAIO P REVIEW

SONY VAIO Bluetooth Keyboard (VGP-BKB1)

SONY VAIO Bluetooth keyboard looks a lot like the EEE keyboard except for the fact it is just a keyboard and not a whole computer like latter and does not features a display. It has the same chiclet keys as found on the ASUS EEE keyboard.

Unlike most wireless keyboards that one gets to see in the local electronic stores, this keyboard is powered by Bluetooth radio instead of optical wireless technology. This is extremely helpful as most of the netbooks have built-in bluetooth and it makes sense to use that radio instead of carrying another USB dongle for wireless.

The keyboard has well-spaced out keys for perfect typing experience.

SONY VAIO W Signature Edition – with Snowflake motif

Signature edition of SONY VAIO W is now available. It features a unique snowflake motif. There is a slight change in specs too. It comes with (bigger) 250GB HDD and 6-cell battery.

Other than that, specs have remained unchanged: 1GB RAM, Windows 7 Starter, Atom N280 (1.66GHz), WiFi and integrated Bluetooth radio.

[Sony Style]

Nokia Booklet 3G Review

There is one more netbook that comes into the category of over-priced netbooks: Nokia Booklet 3G.

Although costing half as much as the SONY VAIO X (review), at $600, it still cannot be referenced to as “cheap netbook”. PCmag was able to get their hands on this nice netbook by Nokia and they have come to the conclusion that this first time netbook maker has done a few silly mistakes on the Booklet 3G.

Here are the key points of the review:

(+) Great design
(+) Awesome battery life
(+) Nice user experience
(+) Feels luxurious
(-) Price
(-) Slow hard disk
(-) Smaller HDD capacity (120GB)
(-) 1GB RAM
(-) Slower Z530 processor
(-) Crippled performance due to Windows 7 Home Premium (pcmag folks must not have tweaked it)

Thanks to stringent rules by Intel, Nokia was forced to use Atom Z530 processor which is even weaker than Atom N280 processor.