Sony’s newest model range in the school of Vaio is the NS, a 15.4″ skinny thing with Blu-Ray, 4 gigs of RAM and a “textured exterior” for your salad fingers. It’s also accompanied by the CS, a similar machine with a 14.4″ widescreen display and a 5.7lb weigh-in.

These machines have Intel Core 2 Duo processors, “ample storage,” and — as has been Sony’s thing of late — a reasonable price tag: a basic, no-frills NS will cost only $650. Vaio NS comes in blue, white and silver, while the CS comes in colors so strangely-named I can’t even discern what they really are: “Sangria, cosmopolitan, and dove.” It sounds like the weirdest legal practice this side of the Rockies.

The CS will start at $920, with BD models starting at $1,070.

“Style and function to fashionable consumers,” is the pitch, but at just a grand for a Blu-Ray laptop, frequent flyers of a staider sort might be the real market here.

Sony Vaio NS notebook with Blu-ray: [via] – [source]

The battle among gadget-makers has been intense over the past decade or so. However, we have come across very few instances when a brand goes head-on with another, especially in the marketing aspect. Samsung’s positioning for the X360 is a case in point. The product, apparently, has now taken the crown for the “lightest laptop,” at 1.27 kg. Samsung is making no bones about the fact that the X360 will be an Apple MacBook Air killer, which weighs 1.36kg, with a slogan that says “Lighter than Air.” However, the company has stopped short of claiming the “thinnest” tag as well. Released specs of the notebook include a 13.3inch SuperBright LED-backlit LCD, Intel Centrino 2 ULV processor (800 MHz front side bus), RAM support from 1GB to 4GB (DDR3 at 1066MHz), fingerprint reader for biometric security and most interestingly, a nano-silver ion particle treatment for the keyboard to keep bacteria at bay.

Wireless connectivity is enabled through 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.0 & EDR, as well as a wired LAN port. With a 7-in-1 memory card reader and 1.3MP webcam to boot, we have reasons to believe the X360 may after all give the Air a run for its money. Let’s wait and see.

Samsung X360 – a laptop that weights only 1.27kg: [via]

Super-gadgets are the style order of the future. And, Intel has pulled out an ace just when the techie tribe was getting a little claustrophobic about the constant repetition of technology and design. The company has unveiled a new concept laptop/UMPC, tentatively codenamed the UrbanMax. It reminds us of some of the sliderphones available in the market with regard to the design, but in terms of technology, we have enough reason to believe that the platform is peerless…at least for now! It features a resistive touch screen that can be tilted to suit the user’s convenience. Specs on this one are awaited, so watch this space.

UrbanMax – sliding laptop from Intel: [via]

Akihabara News got its hands on Fujitsu’s U2010/U820, its freshly-upgraded and tiniest laptop. The new model has an Intel Atom Z530 CPU clocked to 1.6 GHz, a gigabyte of RAM, a 5.6″ display set to 1280×800, WiFi and Bluetooth, and 5 claimed hours of battery life. Upgrade to the larger, pokey-out-the-back battery, and you’ll get 11 claimed hours.

The pros: it now has a proper tab key, in almost the the normal position, and the keyboard is clearly much-improved over the oddly laid-out U1010/U810.

The cons: The screen-bezel ratio is still gruesome. Built-in 3G, shown off at CES 2008 in a prototype, never did make it in. Which is a shame, because the OLPC-like antenna ears were cute.

Fujistu U2010 UMPC has 11.1 hours of autonomy: [via]

As low-powered as they tend to be, you can’t help but like those little-rascal netbooks. Maplin’s Minibook sports a seven-inch screen and weighs a pound and a half.

Selling for $333, the iddy widdy thing includes a 2GB solid state drive, 128MB of RAM and built-in Wi-Fi. Application-wise, it features a web browser, e-mail client, word processor and spreadsheet program. Even cooler is you can add storage with an SD flash memory reader supporting 4GB-or-lower Secure Digital (SD) cards. There are also three USB ports so you can stick a bunch of thumb drives in the Minibook to add storage, too, although if people see you doing that in public they’ll probably think you’re autistic.

Maplin’s Minibook – small on price and small on size: [via] – [maplin]

Folks who want to maintain their personal space can always look forward to the Orbitsound T3 speaker. While it isn’t as private as a pair of headphones, it won’t cause hearing damage either if used properly, unlike a pair of headphones.

The T3 uses amazing airSOUND® single-point-stereo technology to power its personal stereo aura. The Orbitsound T3 also doubles as a great portable stereo speaker system on the move for use with laptops, music and video players. Great in the office or a hotel room: sit the T3 on any flat surface for great airSOUND spatial stereo sound. Measuring just 102 x 60 x 20mm (22mm at maximum) and weighing 115g, the T3 is powered by a lithium rechargeable battery, providing up to 10 hours playing time on a single charge.

You can pick one up for approximately $170, but make sure this is not used in a library or place of worship unless getting shown to the door is your thing.

Orbitsound T3 portable stereo speaker: [via]

Lenovo’s newest entry to the ThinkPad line, the W700, is a behemoth: the type of laptop IBM’s own mob bosses might tie around a blog informer’s ankle before pushing him off a pier. Weighing 8 pounds, the W700′s is clearly aimed at mobile creatives: the 17-incher sports the first Intel Quad Core Extreme CPU and NVIDIA’s Quadro FX 3700 chipset.

There’s also configureable RAID hard drive bays, up to 8GBs of DD33 RAM, an optional Blu-Ray Burner, an on-board color calibrator and even a built-in Wacom digitizer. And a num pad for playing World of Warcraft, natch.

Far too much laptop for most people, and expect battery life to be appalling, but for creative professionals who need to remain at top-efficiency no matter where they are, this looks great. Expect to pay creative professional prices: the minimum configuration of the W700 starts at $2,978.

ThinkPad W700 – another laptop launched by Lenovo: [via]

Chinese PC giant Lenovo has rammed into notebook market with its two ultra portable laptops, IdeaPad S9 and IdeaPad S10, which support host of popular applications such as web browsing, email, music and other MS Office applications. The Lenovo IdeaPad S10 is a super-slim and highly portable laptop. It runs Intel Corp.’s Atom processor and Microsoft Windows XP. The 10.2-inch laptop comes with two USB ports, two speakers, built in webcam, a four-in-one multi card reader, WiFi connectivity and an Express Card slot. The keyboard is 85 percent of a full-function notebook PC’s keyboard. It also features an energy-efficient LED backlit display to ensure longer battery life. The IdeaPad S10 provides two configurations, the first being 512MB of memory and an 80GB hard drive and the second configuration having 1GB of memory and a 160GB hard drive.

First notebook PCs-Lenovo IdeaPad S9 and S10: [via]

This computer looks like a normal book on the outside, but when you open it you are about to find a complete PC that includes everything a normal laptop would. It’s still just a concept but it would surely make a good impression, but also a statement about the society’s virtualization – something that not everyone would agree wit. But still it’s an interesting product. The Laptop Book, has a CD-Rom drive complete with CD, a keyboard that can be removed so as to access the battery, and a switch that turns off the screen light once the book is closed.

Immagine a thief breaking into your library looking for a hidden safe, and when he finds this susspicious book he realises it’s nothing but a PC… that would surely surprise him .

Laptop Book – Open to reveal a Computer: [Via] – [Yankodesign]

A rumor has been circulating the gadgets blogosphere for a couple of days regarding the launching of the new Asus Eee PC 900, the big brother of the original Asus Eee PC. Eee PC 900 would be getting an early launch next month in Asia but it looks like the US won’t have to wait very long either. Theres also some new info regarding the price, it seems the Asus Eee PC 900 will be available for 549$ and not for $500 as expected.

We’ll have to wait and see if people will buy it, but my personal opinion is that they wont rush to buy, its too damn expensive for its class.

Asus Eee PC 900 launching on May 12 in U.S. for retail price of $549: [Via Gizmodo]