Sony Updates The Ultraportible S Series Notebook Line With Core i5 & i7 CPUs, 15 Hour Battery Life

Sony has always been in the business of making sleek and powerful notebooks and the S Series just got a little more awesome. The 13.3-inch Windows 7 notebook line now starts out at a modest $999 with a Core i5-2410M CPU, 512MB AMD graphics, 500GB HDD, 4GB of RAM and a CD/DVD burner. But the sky is the limit here. You can spec this little guy out with a mobile Core i7, 1GB AMD mobile GPU, 1TB SSD, 8GB of RAM, Blu-ray burner, Verizon or Spring mobile broadband, and a slim sheet battery that bumps the battery life from 7.5 hours to 15 hours. Of course these options aren’t cheap and a fully loaded S Series runs north of $5300. The super battery however only costs an extra $149 for any configuration.
The new S Series just hit the pre-ordering stage of its life and is expected to ship late next month. Oh, and yeah, 13-inch MacBook Pro what?

SONY BRINGS MORE POWER TO GO WITH NEW S SERIES LAPTOP
Optional Sheet Battery Doubles Battery Life Up to 16 Hours
SAN DIEGO, May 25, 2011 – Sony’s newest S Series VAIO® laptop combines for the first time portability, performance and power in a thinner, lighter design perfect for everyone from students to business travelers.
The new S Series continues Sony’s efforts to offer users more personalized options and flexibility that fits their lifestyle. Select S Series models sport elegant design in burnished brown, jet black or platinum silver with magnesium and aluminum materials, and incorporate a built-in lithium polymer battery that when coupled with the advanced large-capacity optional sheet battery, can stay mobile and unplugged for up to 16 hours with certain configurations. Intelligent charging enables you to charge the optional sheet battery separately and attach it to the system without shutting down for maximum flexibility.
“Users these days want a laptop that will last for hours without charging, is small and light enough to carry around with you but doesn’t sacrifice any of the performance and power that you’d find in a full-sized PC,” said Mike Lucas, senior vice president of Networked Technology and Services Division at Sony Electronics. “You can fly nonstop from Los Angeles to Tokyo or attend a full day of classes on just one charge with this S Series laptop when combined with the optional sheet battery.”
This 13.3-inch S Series is packed with powerful performance—all in a thin 0.95-inch profile that only weighs 3.8-pounds with the standard battery. Incorporating all the mobility of VAIO laptops, this new model delivers impressive portability and performance with the available second generation Intel® Core™ i7 processor. Coupled with Hybrid Graphics as well as dual channel solid state drive options (select models), the S Series laptop is truly top of the line.
Ultra Mobility and Performance
Performance is top priority with the second generation Intel Core i7 processor that delivers even more performance automatically when you need it. With Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0, the processors increase speed automatically delivering the performance needed for multitasking.
AMD Radeon™ HD 6630 1GB Hybrid Graphics card (select models) with 1GB VRAM gives a premium visual quality and intense HD performance without placing huge demands on the CPU. Plus, it offers a performance boost to your day-to-day processor functions for a faster, more optimized overall computing experience.
For maximum performance and ample storage, select models feature dual channel solid state drive with RAID 0 technology.
The S Series laptop comes with one-touch VAIO, ASSIST and WEB buttons, for launching Media Gallery™ software, VAIO Care™ software and access to the web without full boot-up into Windows®, all with a touch of a button.
The new S Series models offer a built-in web camera powered by an Exmor™ sensor that allows for great low-light performance. With exceptional picture quality, the 13.3-inch (1600×900) widescreen display includes an LED backlit keyboard, illuminating the lettering for typing in low-light situations. And with the built-in microphone you can video message with family, friends and coworkers. Face tracking technology allows the camera to automatically adjust focus and follow you as you move around while video chatting.
Packed with Multimedia
Sony knows entertainment is always at the forefront and the VAIO S Series delivers. Whether you’re watching a stunning Blu-ray Disc™ movie (select models) or enjoying video captured from your compatible camcorder. The versatile Blu-ray Disc drive on the VAIO S Series laptop (select models) combines the power of HD video playback with the convenience and utility of DVD and CD read/write functionalities. Providing the best picture and the best sound with stunning clarity, Blu-ray Disc technology is the ultimate way to enjoy your entertainment.
With Intel® Wireless Display 2.0, you can sit back and experience your favorite videos, photos and music on your TV. Stop crowding around a laptop screen and view and share content from your hard drive, home network or the internet wirelessly on your HDTV utilizing the adapter (sold separately; restrictions apply).
Pricing and Availability
The VAIO S Series laptops are available for pre-sale today at www.sonystyle.com/sseries starting at about $1,350, and the optional sheet battery at about $150.
Additionally, Sony added two new colors to its existing S Series line. The new pink and blue S Series models will available at www.sonystyle.com/sseries starting in June.

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ThinkPad Proves Big Things Come in Small Packages

Ultralights aren’t for everyone, but with the ThinkPad X220, Lenovo sure is doing its best to make the case that they can be.
This latest version of its super-slim executive standby is ThinkPad doing everything it does best. Still impossibly portable — at 3.3 pounds despite the bumped-up 12.1-inch, 1366 x 768-pixel display — Lenovo packs in everything a traveling professional (or just about anyone else) is likely to need.
The centerpiece is a new Core i5 Sandy Bridge processor, which upends the middling performance we usually expect from an ultralight. Benchmarks trounce just about everything we’ve tested of late — save for a few recent-vintage high-end machines — and they completely blow historical ultralight benchmarks out of the water, beating most machines with the last-generation chip by 30 to 40 percent.
What’s more remarkable is that the chip’s beefed up integrated graphics gave us a solid gaming experience on the machine, too, with performance clocking at or above what you’d normally get with a lower-end discrete graphics processor. Much has been said about the joys of Sandy Bridge already, of course, but to see it put to good use in such a compact machine is almost beyond words.
Beyond the i5, the machine’s specs are totally up to code: 4 GB of RAM, 320-GB hard drive, SD and ExpressCard slots, and three USB ports (one chargeable). There’s no optical drive and while there’s no HDMI port, there is a DisplayPort socket, so plan your cabling accordingly. The keyboard is outstanding and typical of the ThinkPad brand. Audio isn’t particularly inspiring but it’s good enough for a machine of this stature.
Lenovo trumpets the X220’s better-than-average battery life, but in our testing, it hit a mere 4:53 using the six-cell battery. Hardly epic, but that’s still good. There are a few battery options available as upgrades if you want to stretch your work time.
I reserve just one complaint for the X220 and that is the touchpad design. The textured surface is pleasing to the touch, but Lenovo has foregone separate buttons in order to maximize the size of the touchpad in a very cramped area. The bottom portion of the touchpad wraps around the end of the palm rest, and to click you press on these corners of the pad. Unfortunately, something’s off with the engineering of this: The pad misses clicks all the time, and it makes the cursor stutter badly when you’re (subconsciously or not) resting a thumb on the pad as you prepare to click. Great idea, but the execution isn’t there.
At $1,300, it’s certainly on the higher end of prices for modern laptops, though it isn’t obscenely expensive. We’ve seen higher price tags for bulkier machines that didn’t come close to performance like this.
WIRED Insane battery life flirts with five long hours. Blazing performance outdoes your kid’s gaming laptop. Super-lightweight, but solidly built. Milspec tested (though not yet certified).
TIRED Half-baked touchpad design. Please, Lenovo, please swap the Fn and Ctrl keys once and for all.

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