vaio

Sony expands its iTunes rival across Europe

Designed as a cloud-based alternative to iTunes, Sony's new digital music streaming service has added a few more European countries to its audience, with the U.S. potentially next on the list.

Already available in the U.K. and Ireland, the company's "Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity" service hit France, Germany, Italy, and Spain this past weekend.

Offering music from Sony's own label as well as from other publishers, Music Unlimited gives consumers the ability to stream songs to a variety of different Sony devices, including Bravia TVs, Blu-ray players, home theater systems, PlayStation consoles, … Read more

CES: Rounding up Sony's new laptops

LAS VEGAS--Sony's Vaio line adds several new models, including a high-end 3D gaming laptop and a slim 11-incher that is clearly aimed at replacing less expensive Netbooks in the company's lineup. Here are the new models, rounded up for easy viewing.

>> Sony's 13-inch Vaio S Series aims up the middle The Vaio S series aims to offer a stylish 13-inch Vaio at much more competitive prices.

>>Sony trades Netbooks for the 11-inch Vaio Y series In the space of 12 months, Netbooks, though still popular, have lost some of their sheen, and we'… Read more

Sony jumps into 3D laptops with the Vaio F series

Laptops that use active shutter 3D glasses have been few and far between, but the handful we've seen (from HP, Asus, and others) have all been at least as good as their desktop counterparts, which require a checklist of compatible video cards, cables, and monitors to function. Sony is now joining the fray with the new Vaio F series 3D laptop, a 16-inch system that makes use of both Nvidia's popular 3D Vision technology and Sony's own 3DTV system.

The display has a native resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixels, which is a nice upgrade from most 3D laptops, which trade down to lower 1,366x768-pixel panels. The native 1080p screen is suited for HD video, so we're pleased to see a Blu-ray drive included as well. Of the F series, Sony says, "This laptop is a multimedia powerhouse melding cutting-edge technologies such as Blu-ray Disc and 3D functionality into one portable device."

The F series also includes the 2D-to-3D conversion feature found on many 3D flat-screen TVs, which creates a faux 3D effect in 2D content. It's a gimmick at best, but can occasionally be useful, perhaps in video games, but your mileage may vary. There's also simulated surround sound, thanks to the S-Force Front Surround 3D system. … Read more

Sony's 13-inch Vaio S Series aims up the middle

The high-end Z-series of Sony Vaio laptops has its fans, but with prices starting at $1,899 and going to over $3,000, it's out of the price range of most laptop shoppers. The Vaio S series aims to offer a stylish 13-inch Vaio at much more competitive prices.

Sony says the S series offers, "easy portability and long battery life, perfect for the tech-savvy student or mobile professional," and it's certainly a bit lighter than some other 13-inch systems in the same general price range, at 4.4 pounds and only 1 inch thick.

While the standard SSD hard drives and high-end gloss of the Z Series may be missing, the S Series includes Sony's G-Sensor Shock Protection technology, which is basically an accelerometer for protecting the hard drive in case of falls or bumps, as well as Bluetooth and Sony's Vaio Care button, which lets users access a suite of tech support tools right from a quick launch button above the keyboard. … Read more

Sony, Lenovo look to move beyond Netbooks

Sony will move beyond traditional Netbooks, a market it has never fully embraced, while Lenovo is making a case for these more powerful, but small laptops already.

Sony will move its Netbook-class laptops up-market with Advanced Micro Devices newest Brazos processors, according to sources. Those AMD chips integrate two processing cores and graphics silicon with robust performance--the latter feature a major departure from Intel's Atom, the standard for Netbooks.

"Sony wants to get out of Netbooks," one source said. Intel has "created a great opening for AMD. They can now drive a big truck through that [… Read more

Sony takes on MacBook Air with 11.6-inch Vaio

Sony has announced a new 11.6-inch design in its Vaio Y series being sold in Japan that, by all appearances, is targeted directly at the latest MacBook Air.

The 11.6-inch design will be tacked on to its existing 13.3-inch model and will weigh in at just over 3 pounds, about a pound heavier than the new 11.6-inch Air. At its thinnest point, it is just under an inch; at its thickest point it is just over an inch.

But if a little more heft isn't a problem, the Vaio VPCYA19FJ/B model packs a relatively … Read more

Laptop nightmares: Scary systems with fatal flaws

The Halloween season my be winding down, but that doesn't mean there aren't still plenty of scary laptops out there. Of course, the vast majority of laptops we review are pretty decent examples of technology. After all, there are only a handful of common components used in most systems, and things such as speed and battery life are, if not standardized, at least largely predictable based on the list of what's inside the box.

That said, we occasionally run into a laptop that just rubs us the wrong way. Maybe it's a key missing feature, or terrible design, or an unusable touch pad--or sometimes products simply don't work as advertised. We've compiled our own list of the scariest laptops of 2010, the models that either had one or more frightening flaws, or else were just dogs. … Read more

Before 2010 MacBook Air, there was 2004 Sony

Though a moot point now for consumers, in 2004 Sony came out with an ultrathin wedge-shaped laptop that was a progenitor of the MacBook Air, particularly Apple's 2010 incarnation.

At the Apple event this week in San Francisco, Steve Jobs said the new MacBook Air "is the future of notebooks." That's debatable of course but it's clear that PC makers like Sony and Hewlett-Packard already saw that kind of future a long time ago. The problem was that either their timing was off or they didn't execute the designs as well as Apple--or simply that the laptop was too expensive.

Back in 1998, HP released the ultrathin, 3-pound Sojourn made from magnesium. (And more recently the wafer-thin Dell Adamo XPS eclipsed the older Apple Air by using a heavily wedged design.)

But Sony's offering may be one of the best examples of a laptop that pretty much matches Apple's design--except Sony did it six years ago. The nickel carbon body Vaio X505--no longer available--had some very impressive specs for its time. (See 2004 review.)

Like Apple's new Air, the Vaio X505 used an ultralow voltage Intel chip: a Pentium M "ULV" 1.1GHz processor. And similar to the Air, it was 0.38 inches at it thinnest point and 0.83 inches at its thickest (and keep in mind this was remarkably thin for a design that was probably conceived in 2002). The Sony X505 was smaller than the 11.6-inch Air, packing a 10.4-inch display,… Read more

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