Sony (Japan) has announced a new ultraportable, the Sony VAIO VGN-SZ90, based on Intel’s new Duo Core CPU platform (1.66GHz – 2.16GHz). The VGN-SZ90 has a 13.3-inch widescreen display. It also features hard disk shock protection, and a carbon fiber chassis (more on that in a moment). This model is available for the Japanese market only, at this time.
According to InformationWeek, Sony is offering $500 off of some laptop lines, in exchange for working Dells. Unfortunately it looks like it’s only for the VAIO BX line:
Sony’s trade-in offer of $500 for working Dell systems eclipses the $300 it provides for trade-ins on all other systems for Vaio BX series notebooks. Sony said the rebate can be claimed by solution providers for their clients. Such a trade-in would represent a hefty discount off the price of some of the Vaio BX notebooks, which start at a street price of $1,171.
HardwareCentral published a The Best, the Worst, and the Ugliest: 2005 list, and for their product of the year runner-ups, they listed the Sony VAIO VGN-T350P and VAIO VGN-TX670P, saying “Sony showed again how, if only it would cut its prices by $500, it’d rule the PC market“.
I have compiled a list of the top 15 ultraportable laptops, based on page views here at Ultraportable Laptops and Notebooks. Page views aren’t the most accurate way to gauge what the best laptop is, however they do reflect the amount of interest, and in this case I used both page views of the laptops as well as news stories. It covers October (when we moved to the small-laptops.com domain) through the end of December, 2005, however based on what I’ve read over the past year or so, and the amount of press certain laptops have received, I feel it’s probably fairly accurate – it includes a mix of both older laptops that were refreshed last year as well as new models. Where there were varying models between regions, I’ve taken that into account and added them together (under their most common model name).
CNET Asia published their Top 10 Notebooks of December this morning. Interestingly enough, the list had six ultraportables (12-inch screens or less)