The Sony Vaio P [Portal page] was a big deal at this year’s CES. Sony teased us with visions of a computer that would fit in our pocket. While the device is certainly small, I don’t think it is a realistic pocket machine (even the flash ad on sony.jp seems to agree). My three year old Sony Vaio UX [Portal page] is more pocketable, which is why I was somewhat baffled when they released the P which isn’t even close by comparison. Here are several pictures from Engadget China poking fun at the pocketability of the VAIO P that I chortled at. I find the one with the desktop to be particularly funny. First shot is official from Sony of course.

I’m sure more than a few of you winced at the notion that the Vaio P would be trying to run Vista on a 1.33GHz Atom (Silverthorne) CPU. Probably not worth the increase in price, but jkOnTheRun has received word from Dynamism that the Vaio P will be available with CPUs up to 1.86GHz. The top model, configured with 2GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD, will feature the 1.86GHz CPU, and cost you $1899, $400 more than the otherwise similarly configured model with a 1.33GHz CPU.

[jkOnTheRun]

Lots of info tonight about the Vaio P. Here we can see some pictures of what makes up the insides of the Vaio P. Check out a few of the shots below from PC User (thanks jkk), and a cool exploded view image on display at CES from Gizmodo. Head over to jkk or the PC User link for more pics.

Chippy already dropped the size comparison with SizeEasy, but here is a great shot from SonyStyle showing the dimensions of the device all around and giving you a quick hardware tour from a few different angles.

It might not be available immediately, but you won’t need to wait too long. Pre-ordering the Vaio P through SonyStyle.com reveals a release date of “on or about” 2/3/09. There are several SKUs to choose from on the site; for the few that I checked, the date was the same.

Sony has gone all out officially introducing the VAIO P on SonyStyle.com. Hidden among the sections of information about the premium netbook is mention that the Vaio P will feature an instant-boot sub-OS that will give you limited access to photos, web browsing, email, and more. It is nice to hear that it will be based around the Xcross media bar interface, similar to what you find on the PSP or PS3, which is a graphically nice looking interface with intuitive controls. The Xcross media bar picture above is from the PS3. Update: UMPC Portal reader gentux has pointed out an actual picture of the XMB sub-OS on the Vaio P from Gizmodo.

So… the Vaio P [Portal page]. Sony says it is Pocketable right? A flash animation which you can see here shows a girl walking along, shaking her thang’ (if you will), with the Vaio P in her back jeans pocket. And guess what? It keeps sliding out, and she has to push it back in to place. I don’t quite understand how this demonstrates pocketability. It is strange especially because Sony’s VAIO UX series was probably more pocketable than the brand new Vaio P.

The mystery has been solved. The Vaio P is a laptop form-factor device that carries a pretty heavy pricetag compared to similarly sized devices. I think I’ll call it a premium netbook. I generally reserve UMPC for computers that aren’t laptop form-factor. Why premium? The price of course. Most people associate the term netbook with small, simple, and low-cost.

Anyway… Engadget has some of the first hands on videos of the Vaio P in action. As you might notice, the high resolution 1600×768 screen prompts a very wide screen. Adding to the perceived width is the lack of trackpad space due to the mouse nub. Have a look at the videos below: