Articles tagged with: sony

When Ericsson was setting out its vision of the future the other day, we didn't know that its mobile bedfellow, Sony, was just signing off the copy on the announcement of its ground breaking new image sensors for mobile phones.

Busting past the current 10mp barrier set by Samsung, it's prepping the IMX060PQ, a 12.25mp CMOS sensor ready to slip into camera phones from next year.

That Vaio TT we mentioned last month - Sony's finally got round to announcing its arrival here in the UK. The 'World's-lightest-Blu-Ray-laptop^TM' that digs HD and can pack up to 256GB of SSD capacity in its 11in frame will go on sale, appropriately enough, on 11/11 for a starting price of £1599 with a 2GB RAM, 120GB hard drive combo.

That won't include the much vaunted Blu-Ray option but will include built-in HSDPA with a month's worth of T-Mobile service in the box, via a pre-pay SIM - although the TT won't be locked to the pink network if you've got other plans for your mobile browsing.

It'll also be one of the first laptops that punters will be able to customise internally using Vaio by You. Our cup floweth over. Make the jump for the full specs and press release.

Ever had a secret urge to customise your own Vaio? No? Well, listen up anyway. Sony's taken a leaf out of Dell's (note)book to launch Vaio by You, its cringingly titled new online ordering system.

Available via the Sony Style website it'll let you select a base model and then spec details such as the hard drive (or SSD of course), optical drive and operating system.

It'll all be very familiar to fans of Dell laptops but a brave new world for Sony, which notes that it'll mean you'll be able to buy a consumer-orientated CS1-Series with Vista Business and a Z2 workhorse with Vista Ultimate. Crazy, eigh?

The fun starts this Friday, 24th October. Should give you enough time to prepare for the thrill. Click through for the full press release.

We’re extremely cautious about the veracity of this one but, while we’re awaiting a reply from Sega itself, we thought we’d flag up a story on tech-gossip site the Register that claims the former console king will launch a new handheld media-player-cum-games gadget next year.

Called the Sega Vision, it will feature eight key functions, including a music player, digital camera, games console and a built-in TV tuner. As The Register notes, it sounds like something intended to take on Sony’s PlayStation Portable.

However, as we said, we have a few doubts over the reliability of this story. More after the cut.

Two weeks after it was unveiled in the States, Sony has said the Blu-Ray ready Vaio NS1 will be coming to our shores.

Announced today the 15.4in laptop gets Sony's 1280x800 X-black widescreen LCD with a Motion Eye webcam buried in the lid. Its top spec VGN-NS11Z/S comes with the aforementioned Blu-Ray combo drive for HD movie watching and DVD burning. Across the board the NS1 will also support speedy Draft-N Wireless.

Naturally there are also a few Sony style touches thrown in. "gently rounded edges" match the colour scheme's "soft tones", while, "the surface bears a subtle and delicate texture as pleasing to the touch as the colours are to the eye." Cute. Click through for the full specs and press release.

If lightweight laptops with lightweight specs are getting you down, Sony has the antidote. The Vaio TT is a fully loaded machine yet only tips the scales at a smidgen (that's a technical term for 37g) over a kilogram.

Inside the typically Vaio-esque carbon-fibre case is not only an optional Blu-Ray player (making it the world's lightest Blu-Ray laptop) but also space for a whopping 256GB of solid state memory in two 128GB SSDs. Read on, chums.

Electronic books (or electronic book readers, to be pedantic) with displays indistinguishable from the printed page have long been a pipe dream, but technology is now at the point where such gadgets are not only possible, but also affordable.

Sony first dabbled with the e-ink screens necessary for such a device back in 2004, with the Japan-only LIBRIe, and then launched the much improved PRS-500 Reader in the US two years later. The PRS-505 Reader followed in 2007, and this slightly revised model is now available in the UK for the first time. So, does it spell the end for paper? We doubt it, but not for the reasons you might think…

A fair few manufacturers have dabbled with dedicated ebook readers over the years, but no one has really cracked it. Sony is the latest to try – it launched the PRS-505 Reader in the US a year ago, and it’s just gone on sale in the UK.

Looks-wise, it’s a vast improvement over the last ebook reader we reviewed, the iRex Iliad, but Sony hasn’t done much to push the features forward. At £200, however, it is temptingly priced – at least if you do a lot of reading and hate carrying books around.

Our latest hands-on video takes you through the PRS-505’s features and shows the fabulous e-ink screen inaction. Watch it after the cut.

Sony is bucking the trend for small-screened netbook computers with the launch of a notebook with an 18.4in display.

Dubbed the 'Super Notebook' (well, dubbed by Sony, anyway) the new Vaio AW series is pitched at imaging professionals. As such, they have been kitted out with screens capable of displaying full high-definition (HD) resolutions – 1900 x 1200 pixels.

There’s a fair bit more information about these new Vaios, as well as some details about some new desktops, but as they're all pretty niche products, we’ll leave it to Sony's press release (after the cut).

For reasons best known to itself, erstwhile personal-audio king Sony has launched a "Designed for Walkman" licensing scheme.

Any company signing up to the idea will be given technical information on the inner workings of Sony’s WM-Port connector. This will allow them to design accessories for Sony’s Walkman range of personal media players. As a reward, these companies will be allowed the honour of displayed this very attractive badge on their product and marketing materials.

And that’s just about it. But if you’re an accessories manufacturer tempted by the idea of making some overpriced earbuds under license for what is now a minor, minor, minor player in the personal-media-player market, then read on after the cut for some very important information.