The Japanese electronics giant is expected to take the wraps off two new products Tuesday. The first, the Vaio UX Micro PC, is an $1,800, 1-pound, pocket-size PC that runs Microsoft's XP Professional operating system. It will be available in July.
Depending on which wireless connection is needed at a given moment, UX users can switch between WLAN for Wi-Fi, WWAN for EDGE and Bluetooth for information exchange.
The UX also has a digital camera for pictures and a video camera for video conferencing. It has a fingerprint sensor for biometric login in lieu of passwords. The 4.5-inch screen slides up to reveal the Qwerty keyboard.
The second new product, the Vaio AR notebook computer, comes in two flavors with very different price tags. The wide-screen Vaio AR Premium can be used to record, edit and share Blu-ray disc content, as well as directly record from a camcorder in 1080p HD resolution. The cheaper version of the notebook, the AR Standard, costs $1,800, but does not offer Blu-ray capabilities.
In March, Sony released a Blu-ray enabled desktop for $2,300, and in November 2004, it unveiled the Vaio U, a PC-personal media player, for U.S. customers for about $2,000.