It looks like the leaks were pretty much dead-on, and Sony does indeed have a brand-new ultraportable laptop called the Vaio TT. It's a thin, lightweight 11-inch model, available in two different shades of black, plus red or gold.
We're especially interested in the Vaio TT because it's the successor to Sony's Vaio TZ line, one of our all-time favorite ultraportable laptops, and a reminder that even though they're similar in size, there's a big difference between what a $500 Netbook and a $2,000-plus fully featured ultraportable laptop can do.
Sony says the new system has a lightweight carbon-fiber chassis that weighs about 2.87 pounds and measures less than one inch thick. Unlike Netbooks, the Vaio TT (and other ultraportables such as the Toshiba R500) has room for an optical drive, and there's even a Blu-ray option. Yes, that seems rather pointless, but at least there's an HDMI output for sending the Blu-ray signal to a larger display. Solid state hard drives are also available, including dual 128GB drives (making for a sizable 256GB of SSD storage).
The basic Vaio TT runs about $2,000, while the Blu-ray version is $2,700. A version with a single 128GB SSD drive will cost $2,750. The system is available for order starting today, and should ship to retail stores sometime later this fall.
