Next generation computing is yours for the making with the uncompromising, ultra-portable VAIO® Z.

Standard Z features:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor (up to 2.66GHz) with Centrino® 2 technology

Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate and other editions

13.1″ LED backlit display (1600×900 resolution), 3.42 pounds

Hybrid Graphics System with 256MB dedicated video RAM

Up to 400GB HDD or Up to 256GB SSD with RAID technology available

Up to 6 hours standard battery life

Built-in MOTION EYE® camera and microphone

HDMI™ output

Fingerprint Sensor and Trusted Platform Module

Blu-ray Disc™ optical drive available

XP Pro Downgrade Disc available

Verizon Wireless Mobile Broadband Built-In

Available colors: Black, Premium Carbon Fiber

The Z Series has several notable features and replaces the SZ Premium line. It’s a business-grade 13-inch notebook that’s loaded with features that make it a smart choice for those looking for a mix of style, mobility and business.

The Sony VAIO Z Series is based on Intel’s new Centrino 2 platform

It features a carbon fiber lid and will be available in several configurations and can be configured to order. On the top end, customers can choose dual 64GB solid state drives or a single 320GB hard drive. All versions get integrated Sprint EVDO Rev.A wireless cards. The antenna is now internal wheras the SZ series had an external antenna that was a bit of an eyesore.

The Z series has a high-resolution 13.1-inch display with a 16:9 aspect ration, making it possible to view two documents or We pages side by side. The 16:9 aspect ration is also ideally suited for viewing movies as it gets rid of the black bars normally seen on notebooks when viewing widescreen movies. The display has a matte finish, making it more suitable for use in bright lighting conditions than the SZ series.

The Z series will ship with Windows Vista installed, and an XP downgrade DVD that contains all necessary drivers in the box.

Sony’s hybrid graphics are more useful than ever now that you can switch between dedicated graphics for superior performance or integrated graphics to conserve your battery on the fly. On previous systems switching required a restart and was sometimes more of a hassle and meant many SZ users, including myself, rarely used the feature.

The VAIO Z weighs in at 3.4 pounds and ships with a smaller AC adapter than the SZ series, which was seriously oversized for such as small notebook.

The Sony VAIO Z has an advertised six-hour battery run time with its standard battery. An extended battery is available that’s rated to last for nine hours.

Price: The price starts at around $1700. Get a $200 Mail-in Rebate Debit Card with a new 2-year activation of Verizon Wireless Mobile Broadband Built-In

Pluses

Amazing set of features

Good sound, especially the loudspeaker

Minuses

Keypad very bad compared to the rest of the phone

Description

Technology support: GSM/GPRS

Camera with Flash

Not so small but lightweight at only 3.28 ounces

Like many recent Sony Ericsson, the K700 has lots of features, almost all of them. Camera, video, Bluetooth, Infrared, Speakerphone, name it. It even has a Lithium Polymer battery. Yet, like many Sony Ericsson phones, the K700 one has some important features that are just not as good: in this case, the keypad is amazingly bad, small round and slippery keys that feel like one of these fake phones you get at the dollar store. This is far from the good keypads of Korean phones and you just end up wondering: why such a cheap keypad?

However, I didn’t have problems of slow software like others have reported – I believe the unit I reviewed had the updated software that apparently fixes that problem. Sound quality is good and the ringtone speaker is surprisingly hi-fi (for a phone) with clear and crisp sound. So is the display, large enough and naturally colorful. The 40MB of memory also helps a lot. That makes me think that, after all, one may just accept to live with the bad keypad in order to get a feature-packed phone. It’s your decision I guess.

This time, Sony Ericsson’s PDA phone has a super set of features and a good design. It’s still a better PDA than a phone, but it’s a much better phone than the P800 was.

Some Minuses

Speakerphone captation isn’t as good as some others

Software is a bit complex

Description

Technology support: GSM

Full-color TFT display

Camera phone with functions such as flash and zoom

The Sony Ericsson P900 is the successor of the P800, a similar PDA phone that was far from perfect. In this new version, many issues have been resolved. The keypad is much better, there is a still and video camera and a larger display with 65K colors.

But I have to mention that the software has some annoyances. Examples? If you want to switch to speakerphone when starting a call, you press “menu” but then, sometimes the option to select is “7″, other times, it’s “8″ so you have to look everytime. And if the phone displays something new, the menu disappears before you can even press one of these keys. That kind of software weaknesses is one of the only and most important P900 weaknesses, along with the speakerphone’s fair but not excellent performance with regards to transmitting my voice to my interlocutor — I’ve seen better.

On the personalization side, the Sony Ericsson P900 is lovely. From MP3 ringtones to custom graphics, you can make it fit your mood as easily as through direct infrared uploads or wireless web downloads in a free, do-it-yourself way. It comes with some Symbian software such as Opera browser (free download). The P900 also has Bluetooth, a 32MB memory stick for a total of 48MB memory and an excellent battery life. Once you get used to the jogdial, you can really do a lot of things with just one hand.

This Blu-ray Disc™ player delivers superior HD images, supports BD-Live™ and plays your existing DVD library.

The best HD image quality available.

Take full advantage of your HDTV and the detail of Blu-ray Disc video content. This Blu-ray Disc player produces over 2 million pixels per frame to produce a razor-sharp picture with unmatched depth and clarity. That’s 6x better picture resolution than standard DVD.

HD sound that Hollywood intended.

Revel in an extraordinary surround sound experience. The BDP-S360 player supports both internal decoding and bitstream output1 of enhanced audio codecs, including Dolby® TrueHD and dts®-HD Master Audio. These HD audio formats deliver “lossless” surround sound with 7.1 channels of discrete audio for uncompromised sound

Bonus content.

Experience the future of interactivity with BD-Live™ technology. Download and stream bonus content such as additional scenes, shorts, movie-based games, trailers and more. Note: BD-Live enabled Blu-ray Disc, USB flash memory and internet connection are required.

Faster loading times.

Get your popcorn ready. With Quick Start mode, you can begin operating your Blu-ray Disc player approximately six seconds from the time it’s powered on.

Award-winning menu navigation.

Enjoy a simple and intuitive way to navigate your Blu-ray Disc player’s menus, controls and user settings with the Sony exclusive Xross Media Bar™ (XMB™) interface.

Price:

The price of these players has come down quite a bit. The regular price is about $299 but you can get one for about $250 in Amazon, which includes free shipping.

Everyone wants a computer that is small enough to carry almost everywhere. Not only small though; it should be powerful enough to do almost all personal or business tasks without the weight of a regular laptop. Leading brands, including Sony, developed solutions to this demand for lightweight, low-cost and powerful device.

The Sony VAIO Mini Laptop

Sony’s VAIO Mini Laptops or notebooks are considered by many to be one of the most stylish laptops of all. Apple has even been known to “borrow” some of its designs from Sony. Laptops from Sony are known to be the coolest looking computers in the market. The VIAO with its slim and sleek design can fit into your pocket or purse. Hence, it has gained the label of being a “Lifestyle PC” rather than an ordinary notebook.

Features and Specifications of Sony VAIO

The Sony VAIO weighs an amazingly light weight of 1.4 pounds and is almost as thin as a mobile phone. It features a built-in web camera, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G mobile broadband connectivity, and a GPS function. This 8-inch notebook has an Intel processor of 1.33GHz with 2GB of DDR2 memory, Intel’s GMA graphics, 128GB drive, a Memory Stick Duo, and two USB ports. Its resolution is an ultra-wide display of 1600×768 pixels.

The laptop is said to last up to four hours when in a standard capacity battery and eight hours with a large capacity battery. It uses Vista as its operating system with an option for fast music, photos, videos, and Internet access. You can choose from a number of colors such as red, green, classic black, crystal white, and onyx black.

Functionality of Sony VAIO

When it comes to functionality, Sony VAIO mini laptops are more than capable of checking emails, browsing the web, creating a PowerPoint presentation and typing a Word document. Since it has a built-in 3G broadband, and a quick start Vista Operating system, it allows its users to instantly log online to share photos, listen to music, and do almost anything with speed.

When it comes to ease of use, VAIO laptop’s keyboards are quite tiny. Of course, this is the consequence of loving the idea of a small and lightweight computer. However, VAIO’s keyboard is less cramped. It is very compact with a little more spacing in between them so you can easily use your standard typing methods. You can always type your emails or chat with your friends on Instant messengers without too much discomfort. You can always invest on an external keyboard and a USB mouse if you plan on using VAIO laptops as your primary computer.

Limitations of Sony VAIO

Of course, Sony VAIO Mini Laptops have their own limitations, such as limited port selection, small screen, and as mentioned, tiny keyboard. For people who would most likely spend time in an office working in front of a computer, a regular laptop or notebook might be a better choice. Another thing to consider is the price. A VAIO mini laptop would cost you around $900 USD which is actually huge especially in today’s economy. Then again, if you can afford one, why not buy yourself the world’s Lifestyle PC?  

Price:

The best place to buy it is in Ebay. You can get it in Ebay for about $450.

Description

Sony Ericsson’s first Windows Mobile smartphone will be the Xperia X1. The centerpiece of this device will be its 3-inch, WVGA (800 by 480 pixel) touchscreen.

In shape, it will be a “slider,” which means its display will slide aside to reveal a QWERTY keyboard.

In addition, this quad-band GSM phone will have support for the 3G frequencies used around the world. It will also have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Brief Specs

Operating System: Windows Mobile 6 Professional

Memory: 400 MB of Internal Storage

Screen Resolution: WVGA (800 by 480 pixel)

Screen Size: 3.0 inch

Keyboard Type: On-screen, QWERTY

Communications: Bluetooth, GPRS, GSM, EDGE, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, UMTS

Meda Type: Memory Stick Micro

Camera Resolution: 3.2 megapixels

GPS: Yes

Dimensions: 4.3 inches wide, 2.1 inches tall, and 0.66 inches thick

Weight: 5.1 ounces

Release Date: 10/31/2008

Price Comparison

A new phone runs for around $550 and a used phone runs for around $350

The Sony Ericsson W350 is a thin cell phone, we learn why the slim and cheap cell phone is a double-edged sword.

Some of its qualities exemplify exactly what we’d want in a music phone and others that what we wouldn’t. Before we’re dragged down by the handset’s doom and gloom, though, the W350 – which is designed to be a complete music experience – does present a venerable handful of unique and standout features.

The W350’s pluses

First and foremost, Sony Ericsson says the W350 is the “thinnest flip phone available on the market” today. Indeed, the phone measures in at a slim 10.5 millimeters. Unlike some cell phones, the W350 mostly disappears in your pocket or purse and won’t bulge. Beyond its sleek design, the W350 may present an “ah hah!” music feature never offered to you before.

First, just record a few seconds of the song into the W350’s microphone. While that feature alone isn’t unique (most phones today come with some sort of voice recorder), an interesting technology called TrackID is then designed to identify it.

Based on your recording, TrackID’s job is to deliver to you the song’s name, artist and even the album. With that information, you can then download it and play it to your heart’s content. TrackID will also identify music from the phone’s built-in FM radio player.

Next up in the W350’s list of perks is its price.

Despite a pricey retail tag of $229.99 from AT&T, singing a two-year service contract (which is often standard in the U.S. when purchasing a cell phone today) brings the price down to a manageable $79.99. Online discounts and other specials can knock the cost down even further to $29.99.

Buried in the W350’s details, we also have one other interesting perk: its talk time.

While even the iPhone 3G (the do-it-all smartphone champion) comes with 5 hours of talk time in 3G mode or 10 hours of talk time in 2G (2G provides slower data speeds than 3G), the W350 is rated at a surprising 7 hours of talk time. That’s a good deal more than today’s average cell phone.

The W350 offers 15 hours of music-listening time and up to 300 hours of standby time.

The phone’s last accommodating feature is your ability to use its built-in Walkman music player directly from the outside of the phone without flipping open its cover.

The W350’s Minuses

All that said, this is where the W350 can begin falling apart – literally.

Sony Ericsson aggressively pursued the slim factor to the detriment of its flip cover. While the slim flip cover shields its numerical keypad in a way the company spins as “unique,” in reality its attempt to pursue a “minimalist look” has gravely compromised its durability. The thin flip cover is more than just a piece of plastic. It has gadgetry embedded within to allow users to play and stop music as well as skip between songs. This flip cover would be the first part of the phone to crumble given the everyday wear-and-tear test.

If you slightly bend the thin flip cover, you’ll even be able to see its weak structural integrity. This will add further to your fear of accidental rupture. Moreover, Sony Ericsson fails on structural integrity a second time with its battery cover, too.

While many phones have a battery cover that slides open relatively easily, the W350 requires you to dig a fingernail on one side and pop the cover open. Even though you’re following its intention, you may feel as if you’re breaking the phone.

Replacing the battery cover is just as awkward. As lots of “teeth” need to snap back in place, you’ll essentially find yourself trying to squeeze the phone back together. Again, the thin battery cover and gracelessness of removal and replacement are a directly compromised result of the W350’s overall slim design.

With some perks associated with the 10.5-millimeter mark, some may find that the resulting deficiencies cancel out this benefit.

The features of W350’s

Here’s the full feature set of the Sony Ericsson W350, which hit AT&T stores across the U.S. on Aug. 19, 2008.

A Walkman player for listening to music with an included 512-megabyte memory stick that’s rated to hold up to 470 songs or 40 full albums.

As compared to many phones today that come with or can be upgraded to several gigabytes, though, some may find this initial storage space inadequate.

A 1.3-megapixel camera proves to be relatively low quality in contrast to many other cell phones today that come with 2.0, 3.0 or more megapixels.

Polyphonic ringtones, a built-in speakerphone and vibrating alerts for various actions.

A basic Web browser that’s optimized for the mobile Web.

Email, picture messaging (MMS), predictive text input, a sound recorder and text messaging (SMS).

Picture wallpapers, wallpaper animation and a main navigation key. This horizontal navigation key, which sits in the center of an oval-shaped button, may prove to be too small for some people. Some may find themselves accidentally pressing the “up,” “down,” “left” or “right” keys instead of the center navigation key.

FM radio, which requires an included cord to be inserted into the phone that doubles as its antenna, along with XM Satellite Radio, which does not.

While you can listen to what’s on the radio for free using the FM radio function (and you can hear static in the same way), XM comes with a three-day initial trial. It’s $8.99 per month thereafter.

The W350’s organizer includes an alarm clock, calculator, calendar, flight mode, notes, a phone book, a stopwatch, tasks and a timer.

It’s Bluetooth capable with, for example, wireless headsets. The phone also has a modem and USB support.

If your favorite songs are on a CD or your computer, for example, you can use this USB compatibility to drag tracks from your computer onto your phone via an included USB cable.

The W350 comes with a battery, charger, USB cable, 512-megabyte memory stick, cable for radio listening, Sony Ericsson software for your computer as well as a media manager for transferring music.

The flip phone, which measures in at 104 millimeters by 43 millimeters by 10.5 millimeters and weighs in at 80 grams, comes in four color choices: “electric black,” “ice blue,” “hypnotic black” and “graphic white”.

The Bottom Line

While the W350 is highlighted by some transfixing features that may cause a double take, so does the handset feature some disquieting design concerns. Though the low-priced flip phone ultimately delivers on its slim form factor and full feature set, its structural integrity may not stay sound for as long as you’d like.

The Sony Ericsson W580i Walkman cell phone has a lot of cool features but there is one feature in particular that is an awesome innovation. While features like a basic camera, simple video and voice recording, photo sharing and ringtones now come standard in most phones today, what about fitness?

Now that is currently a relatively untapped market for cell phones that has typically been satisfied through other devices or traditional gyms.

So what about embedding fitness functionality in your mobile phone? Now that’s novel – and the Sony Ericsson W580i Walkman has done it with relative ease and effectiveness.

I’m going to focus my analysis on that aspect of the W580i. The rest of what you’d expect in a modern-day phone is there as well (and it comes in black, white, pink and jungle green).

Here is how to find the fitness feature in case you didn’t know about it or couldn’t locate it. Click “Menu” from the main screen on the W580i, scroll down to “Organizer” (it’s the icon with the calculator and the calendar in the middle of the bottom row) and click “Fitness”. Yes, you have now discovered the W580i’s interesting and practical fitness feature. Before you get started, though, make sure to introduce yourself to the W580i now that the W580i has introduced itself to you. In “Fitness” mode, scroll down to “Settings” and then “Personal Data”.

Enter your height, weight, year of birth and gender to improve its calorie-counting accuracy so the W580i can specifically customize itself to you. It is absolutely worth it. On the other hand, you’ll notice “Advanced Calibration” on that screen as well.

I’ve found that important for its distance calibration, but on the flip side, it’s somewhat cumbersome to request of a first-time user. The W580i will ask you to walk a “known distance” and then record how many yards you traveled. Because using yards instead of feet may be a bit boggling for U.S. customers, you’ll need to remember that there are three feet in a yard.

Once you do, things get interesting. First, you’ll notice the W580i has a built-in pedometer. The “steps” feature counts your walking steps based on movement. If you just walk and hold the W580i still in your hand (which I initially did as a test), the steps might not register correctly. In fact, I initially thought the feature didn’t work.

If you correctly slip the W580i in your pocket and walk with a natural sway in your hips, though, it’ll register relatively accurately. So long as you have “step counting” activated, even if you forget about your W580i while it’s in your pocket or bag it will do its job to track your steps.

The walking feature measures your distance (again unfortunately in yards), the number of steps and how many calories you’ve burnt. You’re able to change certain unit settings – i.e. from kCalories to kJoules or miles to kilometers – but not yards to feet. This should be an option.

Along with monitoring your walking, the running function is also based on the phone registering your movement. When you begin running, there’s a bit of a delay for the data measuring to kick in. When it does, it does with relative accuracy. This, of course, is all based on the human accuracy of your “advanced calibration” when you manually measured and input yards based on a known walking distance.

Results are recorded and shown to you in an archival fashion so you can see today’s walking data, information on all your running sessions and information on previous days and weeks. The running feature monitors your distance traveled, time traveled, average speed, maximum speed and calories burnt.

But the statistics monitoring becomes really impressive in the “Advanced” section of your “Results” page. This is a Java-powered application that requires a memory stick and connects to a mobile Web site.

Within this more graphical display, you’re hit with additional training data, eye-friendly graphs on up to 20 sessions, motivational medals to reward you for reaching your goals and fitness trivia.

From an overall fitness perspective, the W580i is genuinely innovative, practical and ultimately useful in support of a healthy lifestyle. But the W580i could do more. The W580i doesn’t measure your heart rate. Heart rate is a critical element for many people who work out and closely monitor their results against their goals. This functionality could have been added with a chest strap that wirelessly communications with the W580i. Take note, Sony Ericsson. This is a missed opportunity

In addition to its dedicated and downloadable fitness applications, Sony Ericsson has been kind enough to include other built-in elements you’d want during your workout. The W580i has iPod-like functionality so you can plug in your earphones and listen to your favorite music tracks courtesy of your phone.

It’s also lightweight (3.3 ounces) and compact (3.9 by 1.85 by 0.5 inches). The W580i’s talk time is rated at a surprisingly high 9 hours with standby time up to 15 days and music play up to 20 hours in music mode.

The embedded SmartChipTM, which signals to your cell phone carrier who you are, is obnoxiously difficult to remove.

After removing the W580i’s battery cover and then removing its battery, I found myself having to use a knife in order to pop out the SmartChipTM. You couldn’t pop it out with your fingers. That’s unnecessarily difficult.

Perhaps the W580i’s “shake control” feature makes up for it, though. You can skip or shuffle music tracks with the mere flick of your wrist.

For a non-smartphone (i.e. a phone reminiscent of a computer’s interface and functionality), this is a premium phone and it’s price as such. The Sony Ericsson W580i Walkman has a retail price of $299.99, which you’d likely not pay.

Committing two years of your life to AT&T, though, will drop the price by $100 to $149.99. Want more for less? A mail-in rebate via an AT&T promotion card scrapes off another 50 bucks.

With a two-year service contract and the mail-in rebate (after the weeks it’ll take to get to you), now you’re talking about snagging this premium fitness phone under the $100 barrier for $99.99. That’s generous, appropriate and a valuable opportunity for this feature-packed and innovative mobile phone.