We can easily say Sony did not score big success with netbooks in these years since they become popular.
That’s not because their products were bad, they were actually better than most others. But they were expensive and in a world where prices is perhaps the main criteria a customer has in mind, Sony Vaio netbooks were destined to fail from start.
Latest rumors claim that Sony will be moving out of the netbooks segment (with devices powered by Intel ATOM processors), although no official reaction from Sony’s officials was released. Still, we should expect Sony to embrace the new AMD Fusion hardware platform in some new lines of mini laptops, which should be unveiled in these next days at CES 2011. There are not exact details on them, but according to Cnet, they might be similar to netbooks in terms of size and weight, but faster, more powerful, more solid built and of course, more expensive.
The AMD architecture will allow the new Vaios to offer the extra performance, but there are still many uncertainties, like energy efficiency, heat or operating temperatures. Still, Sony are not the only one to adopt the new platform, Lenovo also already announced some mini notebooks with dual-core AMD Zacate processors inside (like the 11.6 inch IdeaPad S205) and HP has a new DM1z incoming as well.
Sony to drop Atom powered netbooks for mini laptops powered by AMD hardware
What’s really interesting is to see how will these new Vaios be able to compete with AMD powered machines brought by other manufacturers in terms of prices. I for one expect a surge of such “powerful” compact notebooks in the next months and for Sony, the price uncompetitiveness matter will still be a matter. Cause even though these laptops are more expensive than standard everyday netbooks, they will still be overall affordable (somewhere around 400-500 bucks), and that’s something you can almost never say about a Vaio.
Via Cnet and NetbookNews
