Hands on: Sony VAIO P Series

Friday, January 9th, 2009

The VAIO P Series is a fascinating notebook. And Sony is going to tremendous pains to make it clear that it’s no netbook – even though I heard a couple of its employees making the Freudian slip of calling it a netbook, before quickly correcting themselves.

What immediately sets it apart is its size. The P Series can literally slip into a jacket pocket – I know because I’ve done it. It’s also incredibly light, just 638g. Even the lightest netbooks tend to tip the scales over 1kg. (more…)

Just in: Zoostorm Netbook

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

We often get a first look at products before they hit the shelves, but this is a first – right now, the “Zoostorm Netbook” doesn’t even have an official name. What we do know is that companies like Argos are already showing an interest, and from the couple of days we spent with the Zoostorm we suspect they’ll sell quite a few.

The bad news is that you’ll have to wait to buy one: PC Nextday, the company behind the Zoostorm brand, won’t be putting them on sale until the second week of January. Unlike the Fizzbook, Zoostorm’s first and ongoing foray into netbooks, which was based on Intel’s Classmate PC and aimed squarely at children, this is a unique design that it’s created in partnership with a third-party manufacturer.

And more importantly, it aims to set new benchmarks for what you can expect for the price.

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First look: Toshiba Satellite NB100

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

Toshiba calls the Satellite NB100 the “Netbook from a brand you can trust,” which I think we can safely take as a dig against less established notebook brands such as Asus and MSI, and it certainly feels quite ruggedly built. 

First look: Toshiba Portégé R600

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

At first glance, there’s very little to distinguish the R600 from the R500, but the devil is in the detail. For one, Toshiba has strengthened the base – protecting the all-important motherboard – by adding ridges for extra rigidity.

It also claims to have made the screen better protected, with Toshiba’s interesting spin being that the lid’s flexibility – which might initially make people feel that the R600 is a bit fragile – actually increases its reliability. Certainly we gave it a good old flex and it stayed in shape, which is fortunate as this was the one European sample.

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What every notebook needs: sapphire and sound effects

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

We don’t see many laptops here at PC Pro that are unashamadly devoted to luxury, but this Asus Lamborghini VX3 bucks that trend with a barrage of extravagent features.

The wrist-rest, for instance, is clad in leather, and there’s a gilded Lambo logo on the lid – just so people on the train know that you’ve spent £1,500 on such a quality product. The laptop itself is housed in a smart box and then, inside that, a plush velvet bag. Even the included Bluetooth mouse comes with a little pouch all of it’s own, and there’s a leather-coated mousepad to compliment it, too – and that’s also adorned with the Lamborghini logo.

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Eee and me – “the talk”

Friday, April 25th, 2008

I think it’s fair to say that in the PC Pro offices I’m known for two things: making cups of tea and an unfathomable love for the Eee PC. And when I say unfathomable I mean it. We’re like that couple in the corner of the tube every morning - you know, the overly affectionate ones who never come up for air and nobody looks directly at.

It was a bit of a whirlwind romance to be fair, love at first sight and why shouldn’t it have been? The Eee is thin, pretty and most importantly cheap – pretty much my ideal date. Only thing is, success has turned its head. Suddenly, with the release of the Eee PC 900, it’s not so cheap anymore and if it carries on gorging on additional tech, it’s not going to be so thin either.

All in all, I think somebody needs to sit down with Asus and explain that its baby doesn’t need a bigger screen. It doesn’t need a bigger chasis, it doesn’t need more memory or a higher price tag. There are plenty of other laptops around for that, and yet the uncomfortable feeling persists that while everyone else gets giddy about tiny, cheap laptops, Asus, almost perversely, intends on taking the Eee the other way.

And when it does, expect a very messy break up.