New Sony VAIO TZ-Series ultra-portables announced

Inspired by F1, water gardens – and – existing customers

29 May 2007 10:15 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Sony has announced the newly updated Sony VAIO TZ-series ultra-portable notebook range.

When creating this updated VAIO, the Sony peeps surveyed over 5,000 existing TX-Series owners and made tweaks dependent on the results of the survey, a simple yet brilliant idea.

60% of the surveyed said they use their ultra-portables on the move, while 74% say that a balance between size and weight is "very important". Taking this on board, the screen housing and the base of the chassis are now constructed using carbon fibre re-enforcement technology.

This ensures durability while keeping the weight down to a remarkable 1.19kg for absolute portability, even the AC adaptor has been miniaturised.

Almost 70% of customers rate design as important, and so Sony says it plays a central part in defining the VAIO TZ-Series’ appeal. The "Full Flat" design is stylishly minimal and Sony says that every detail is carefully considered, right down to the aesthetic of the keyboard, inspired by "the submerged stones of a Japanese water garden".

More survey-inspired improvements were due to the fact that after web browsing and email, customers reported that their second most popular activity is watching DVDs, so VAIO engineers added two special features to the TZ-Series.

You can enjoy films and music easily any time thanks to "Instant On", which lets you play DVDs and audio CDs without booting into Windows. A set of dedicated AV buttons provides the necessary play control.

Actually listening to what your customers want isn’t rocket science, but it refreshing.

Specs for the TX-Series listed below, UK pricing and availability to be confirmed.
o CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo U7600 or U7500
o RAM: 2GB DDR2 SDRAM
o HDD: 100GB or 80GB
o Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
o Optical: DVD+-RW/+-R DL/RAM
o Screen: 11.1-inch X-black LCD featuring 72% colour accuracy and LED illumination
o Security: Fingerprint recognition; TPM
o Special controls: Instant On; AV buttons
o Wireless: Intel wireless LAN 802.11 a/b/g, Bluetooth
o Weight: 1.19kg
o Software: Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Premiere Elements, Click to DVD, WinDVD 8.0 for VAIO
o Case construction: Carbon fibre lid and base
o Operating system: Windows Vista Business