Sony Vaio P adds accelerometer and GPS

Optical touchpad also added to popular mini series

10 May 2010 14:50 GMT / By Paul Lamkin

Sony has announced an upgrade to its Vaio P series of ultra-portable netbooks. The P11S1E comes in five different colours and packs quite a punch within its compact little chassis.

It's got Windows 7 Home Premium installed and processing comes in the form of an 1.86GHz Intel Atom Z540 processor, although there is talk of a top of the line model with a 2.13GHz Z560 chip inside. There's 2GB of DDR2 RAM and up to 64GB of flash storage.

The display is an 8-inch, 1600 x 768, widescreen and the resolution can be changed at the touch of a button to display text, images or HD video in a way that suits you best. An accelerometer also means that text can be read in portrait mode to feel more like a book or magazine.

The P11S1E, like previous P series models, is designed with travel in mind. It's a diddy little thing, just 24.5cm long and 12cm high and it's less than 2cm thick.

It's got Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G and GPS. The digital compass and built in real time maps software will come in handy if you're lost and you haven't already got a smartphone that you use for mapping.

No official word on price as of yet, but Liliputing is saying that prices will start at $799 in the US, so expect £700 upwards here.