Say what you like about Sony – their machines might be expensive and their customer service might throw the occasional wobbly, depending on who you speak to – but they certainly know how to put together a slick, appealing notebook. The Sony VAIO X has fallen lightly into the hands of T3, and they’ve been putting the carbon-fiber marvel through its paces.
It’s not just the Japanese getting some 250GB PlayStation3 love; Sony US have announced that there’s a 250GB version of the PS3 Slim incoming for their gamers too. The 250GB PS3 Slim will land on November 3rd, and be functionally identical to its existing 120GB sibling; unlike in Japan, there’ll be no bundled games or unusual color editions.
Knock-off consoles are always good for a cheap, moderately cheerful laugh, and so we’re surprised its taken the Chinese cloners this long to come up with a decent PSP Go copy. The PXP-2000 “borrows” the distinctive stylings of Sony’s latest handheld, but throws in a camera good for stills and 3GP video capture, an FM radio and NES/Famicom emulator.
Sony may not have made any significant changes to their flexible OLED laptop concept since we saw it first at CES back in January, but the sleek prototype is so alluring that SlashGear Japan couldn’t walk past it at CEATEC this week without grabbing a photo. Intended to showcase the potential of ultra-thin OLED touchscreens, the concept combines both display and keyboard into a single, flexible layer.
I mentioned yesterday that some retailers in the UK were already slashing the price of the PSPgo to lure more customers in to purchase. With price cuts being offered after less than a full week on the market, it would seem the PSPgo wasn’t selling well in the UK. Apparently things are going much better for Sony in America with reports of sales for PSPs growing by 300%.
A page of CrystalMark benchmark results may not be the most interesting image to lead with, but when you’re showing the overclock results of pushing Sony’s VAIO P not-a-netbook from its stock 1.86GHz up to 2.3GHz, then we’ll take notice. EeeUser Forum member Cerano was responsible for the modifications, and in fact got his VAIO P cranked up to 2.4GHz (though he didn’t benchmark it at that speed).
Sony toted along their HFR Comfort-3D video camera to CEATEC, and SlashGear Japan stopped by to check out the single-lens 240fps behemoth. Intended for recording sports events in glorious 3D, the HFR Comfort-3D has a clever half-mirror system that allows it to shoot both separate left/right eye information for those with suitable polarized glasses, as well as a 2D picture for those without.
Video demo after the cut
Sony’s final new VAIO announcement this week is the VAIO CW Series, a range of 14-inch 16:9 aspect notebooks available in a series of moderately striking colors. Chubbier than the VAIO X, certainly, the CW Series uses that extra heft to slide in an optional Blu ray burner together with NVIDIA GeForce GT230M 512MB or GT210M 256MB graphics and both VGA and HDMI ports.
“Touch me, touch me” sang 80s legend Samantha Fox, “I want to feel your body,” and while the intentions of Sony’s new VAIO L Series of touchscreen desktops may be different, the sentiment is just the same. Announced alongside the skinny VAIO X, the L Series is being pushed – like other big-screen all-in-one PCs in Sony’s past – as a hybrid HDTV and computer, though with its 24-inch 1920 x 1080 display, optional Blu-ray and optional TV tuners we suppose it does have more of a claim than most. As for the touchscreen, that’s used not only for Windows 7’s multitouch functionality but to control Sony’s own Media Gallery DVR app.
Sony have officially announced their VAIO X ultraportable, the super-slim 11.1-inch notebook first debuted back in September. The Sony VAIO X has a 2GHz Intel CPU, 2GB of RAM and Intel GMA500 graphics, together with an optional 128GB SSD and optional integrated Verizon EVDO Rev.A. SlashGear Japan caught up with it at CEATEC this week for a few hands-on shots.
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