Sony outs VAIO P Series laptop with built-in GPS

Posted by Chris Smith on Mon 10 May 2010

Sony mimics your smartphone with this fab looking ultra-portable.

Sony has announced a brand new incarnation of its P Series ultra-portable laptop, which we're damn sure is the best impression of a smartphone ever performed by a notebook.

The colourful new P Series features a series of firsts for the Sony VAIO series. It's got a built-in GPS system, digital compass and accelerometer squeezed into a tiny, pocket-friendly chassis that weighs in at just 600g.

For a detailed look round the new Sony P series check out our gallery.

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The accelerometer, especially, seems like a very nifty addition to proceedings. Flicking the screen will allow you to flip through pictures, while turning it into portrait mode offers an easier way to read web pages or documents. This ties into the new side-mounted controls, which assist in two-handed on-the-go use. This, undoubtedly, could come in very handy for ebooks also.

The built-in GPS and compass are aided by the new VAIO Location Search functionality which, in turn, makes use of the Everywair 3G connectivity at top speeds of 7.2Mbps. So, users will be able to use GPS on the P Series just as they would on smartphone devices like the Apple iPhone.

Alongside the new features is an 8-inch display screen, with a motion eye camera and loaded with Windows 7. It runs off an Intel Atom processor, with 2GB RAM, a 64GB flash drive. and all in all is the same tidy little package we saw in the original P Series.

The new Sony VAIO P Series is available in green, pink, orange, black or white from June 2010. No word on pricing yet, but last year's P Series shocked us into submission at a whopping £849 for the lowest spec model. Expect no favours from our Japanese pals here either.

Link: Sony