July 07, 2009

Sony on Tuesday announced the launch of its Vaio W-Series of mini-notebooks, or netbooks, which the company is billing as a "perfect family accessory."

While some could argue that the Lifestyle PC was really Sony's first foray into the netbook category, the W-Series represents Sony's official notice that it's throwing its hat into the netbook ring.

The W-Series PC measures 10.5 inches high by 1.28 inches wide by 7.1 inches deep, and weighs in at 2.6 pounds. It comes in three colors – berry pink, sugar white and cocoa brown – and sports a 10-inch widescreen display, which is a pretty common size for netbooks. The screen comes in 1,366 x 768 resolution, which should give it an edge over the vast majority of netbooks out there. It offers 2 USB ports, VGA Out, and Ethernet ports, as well as a webcam and multimedia slots for Memory Stick Duo and SD memory.

Like most netbooks, the Sony Vaio W-Series comes with an Intel Atom processor, in this case a 1.66-GHz N280. The system has 1 Gbyte of system memory, and a 160-GB, 5,400-RPM hard drive. In terms of networking capability, the W-Series has Ethernet, 802.11a/b/g, and Bluetooth technology. It comes with Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition pre-installed.

Other apps include Sony's VAIO Multimedia Suite (VAIO Media plus Multimedia Streaming Software), as well as a 30-day trial of Norton Internet Security 2009 and a 60-day trial of Microsoft Home and Student 2007.