Now this is the time when I feel that I shall be a little bit rough and stern in my approach! Sony Vaio P is not really a netbook as revealed by the manufacturer but we cannot claim it to be anything close to a notebook as well! Simply it looks like an overstuffed full sized business envelop that can glide into the rear pocket of your loosely hanging waist line jeans! The worst thing is that Sony ended up calling it a lifestyle laptop! May be they are right! It can be a lifestyle lappe (a laptop) for those petite men and women who share the same eagle-eye vision! Rude on my part!

Why can’t we call it a net book?

Sony Vaio P

The price is a major factor! On one hand when the netbooks market is flooded with the cheaply priced ($499) computers which supports basic computing, Sony Vaio P seems to be overly priced starting at $899 and can shoot up to $1,999 depending on the configuration chosen! The other features which make it stand apart from the netbook category are the inclusion of the features like mobile broadband, instant-on mode and GPS!

An element to be praised

Well, there is something that I really appreciate about this Sony Vaio P is the keyboard which is quite usable given the tiny footprint of the device! The keyboard is however, 88% of the traditional ultraportable Vaio TT. A bit of cramped feeling comes at the beginning but the issue goes off after a while. The spacing of the keys is quiet appreciable. There is a bit of trade off as I did not find a touch pad. Instead there is a pointing device in the middle of the keyboard which has a fabric like feel and therefore makes it possible handle the key quite efficiently. The mouse buttons are found just below the keyboard. They are long and narrow and quiet responsive. The interesting part is that there are two other buttons by the side of the mouse buttons. One is for arranging open windows side by side and the other is for launching the Vaio Media plus software. It also serves the instant-on mode!

Ports

The size of Vaio was self explanatory to put across the message that there will not be enough ports. On the front is the Memory Stick and SD card slot along with power switch and wireless on/off! On the left I found a power jack, one USB port and a headphone jack. On the right, I found another USB port and a proprietary connector which is there for a tiny dock which can cleverly detach from the power brick and has a VGA port and one Ethernet port. Hover on the back and it is bare!!

Display, webcam and audio

8” screen with a resolution of 1600×768 pixels yet easy on the eyes! Though, there are certain web pages which display tiny fonts, this can be eliminated by the keyboard shortcuts! The audio was surprisingly loud from the tiny speakers located above the keyboard. However, the sound was a little harsh. Sony Vaio P has a motion eye camera installed on the right side of the display. The picture quality was quite clear with Wi-Fi but a little blocky with the mobile broadband. The voice quality was good… Well Sony is known for its good quality in both sound and picture!

Performance

The pair of 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z530 CPU and Windows Vista home basic did not really perform well! With 64GB SSD disk, the boot time was 1 min and 3 seconds and the shut down time was 34 seconds. This did not really impress me at all. Though file transfer rate was considerably fast, the mini lappe really became hot. It was unusual as the top of the keyboard was also considerable hot. Especially at the bottom, the heat was uncomfortable.

Wireless and Battery

These two performed well. Intel Wi-Fi card for an Atheros 802.11b/g/n adapter gave a good Wi-Fi throughput and range and the standard lithium-polymer battery gave a 4 hours runtime under standard test conditions. The extended battery gave up to 8 hours of runtime! This is significantly good! Under stimulated conditions, the standard battery lasted for a respectable 2 hours and 4 mins.

Conclusion

Overall, the sleek, slender and stylish Sony Vaio P goes heavy on your pocket but no doubt, it will make some jealous people stare at you. However, you have to compromise with the performance which did not meet the expectations and it did not justify the price, too!