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After several leaks and teasers, Sony finally took the wraps off its much anticipated Vaio P-series notebook at the Consumer Electronics Show this week. The device weighs in at an impressive 1.4 pounds and measures just under an inch, but while its 8-inch screen may be small, the 1600 x 768 resolution will mean a lot of viewing real estate can be crammed into that small area – albeit at the cost of very small text and icons of course.


Sony insists the new Vaio P series is not a netbook but rather a new kind of ultra small notebook. In any case, the system forgoes the 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor used in just about every netbook available and for some reason uses the Atom Z chip clocked at 1.33GHz instead. It also features either a standard 60GB hard drive or 128GB SSD, 2GB of RAM (upgradable to 4GB) and a variety of connectivity options such as built-in 3G networking, 802.11n wireless and Bluetooth.


You also have a convenient instant on feature to start up in Vista or surf the web and access other key functions using the XMB (XrossMediaBar) at the touch of a button without booting into Windows. The new ultraportable notebook will start at $900 when it launches later this month.