Sony Finally Caves, Launches Netbook

Sony has debuted the Vaio W, the machine Sony is calling the company's first netbook while ignoring the fact that it said it would never produce a netbook.

In January, Sir Howard Stringer showed off the company's Vaio P-Series Lifestyle PC. It wasn't a netbook, except it kind of was. In response to all the, "why would Sony launch a $900 netbook and refuse to call it a netbook?" press, the company said it would not be releasing a netbook because the whole netbook market was “a race to the bottom.”

So completely ignoring all of that, Sony has introduced the Vaio W-Series, a $500, 10 inch netbook based on Intel's Atom. A 1.6 GHz CPU, 1,366 x 768 display, 160 GB HDD, 1 GB of RAM, 2 x USB 2.0, Ethernet, Bluetooth, 802.11a/b/g, an SD reader, as well as support for Sony's own Memory Stick Duo, Windows XP Home, VGA out, and a webcam.

Expected availability is set for about August and customers will have a choice of white, brown or pink. For those of you interested in how the Vaio W measures up to the Vaio P, check the table below. Bear in mind we don't have an official specs sheet for the W-Series (the press release was pretty skimpy on details) so we're just filling in parts we do know.