Remember Sony Japan’s paperclip-toting teaser campaign a few weeks back? Turns out, that paperclip is the new Sony VAIO P ultraportable in cross-section; the Japanese company has refreshed its 8-inch slimline notebook, with the new VAIO P getting a choice of Intel Atom Z530, Z540 or Z560 processors, a 64GB SSD, an accelerometer for automatically flipping screen orientation and integrated 3G and GPS.
There’s also WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and a digital compass, along with two USB 2.0 ports, GMA 500 graphics and 2GB of DDR2 RAM. The 8-inch widescreen display runs at an eye-crunching 1600 x 768 resolution, while the standard battery is apparently good for up to 5hrs (or 10hrs with the optional extended pack).
Navigation is either via the central trackball, a new touchpad integrated into the screen bezel (handy for using the VAIO P while walking) or by physically tilting the notebook to move backward and forward in the browser, flick through photo galleries or PDF files. Sony have preloaded a GPS app which can show location details together with nearby points of interest and local weather forecasts.
Sadly the new VAIO P is still too early for Intel’s latest-generation Atom Z6xx “Moorestown” processors, which would’ve squeezed out a little extra power and battery life (and answer one of our criticisms of the first-gen model, its sluggishness). Available in orange, green, pink, black or white, the Sony VAIO P will go on sale from June 2010; no word on pricing as yet.