It’s a Sony Vaio P and in my local online stores I’m seeing this ultra-mobile PC for just 470 Euros. It’s a shock to me because the last time I looked, the Sony Vaio P’s were selling for near 1000 Euros. With Windows Vista Home edition and a hard drive, you might want to think about performance but even so, it’s rare to find a stylish, 3G-enabled ultra-mobile PC at for this price and weight.
Our full review of the P-Series is available here.
The ‘gotcha’ is that this offer only seems to be happening in Germany so maybe Sony Germany overestimated the stock requirement and have a few thousand QWERTZ versions in store somewhere. Clearly they can’t be used for any other country and they need to be shifted to make way for Windows 7 versions.
If you’re in Germany though, this isn’t a bad offer at all! I’ve picked out one of the offers from a reputable online retailer. Misco have the VGN-P11Z with 60GB HDD for 474,81. (No affiliation) Amazon.de have the Black VGN-P11 for 532 Euro (affiliate link below)
Still needs an SSD upgrade! And maybe an OS switch to XP, Seven, or Linux?
Stylish 640gm 8†UMPC with 3G, GPS for just 470 Euros…with a … http://bit.ly/2OlAHz
#gps
I choose the viliv s7 over this!
Chippy.
Can’t you remap the keys and move them physically?
Owydd
Why would they need to push these? I thought with Sony if the laptop or desktop had Vista Home Premium, there was a free upgrade to 7 Home Premium when it came out? This deal is still going on until January.
Maybe it’s just a US thing.
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/os7upgrade.pl
The successor 21Z is already for sale. Not that there is much difference between the two (as far as I can see it`s only the size of the hard disk).
I just don`t think that the sales of the vaio p are really great. At this price it`s ok for somebody who is into mobile computing, but I can`t imagine many people buying this device at 800€. It`s just got too many flaws for suich a price.
There were a large number of special ebay deals in germany some weeks ago. I brought a P11z for 430 euros, but the device is almost unusable: The 60gb HDD is so extremely slow and Sony decided to put the 8gb restore partition at the start of the disk, so you can’t use the fastest part of the HDD…
I have repartitioned the HDD with one large partition and installed Windows 7. Now wake-up time from suspend to disk is 43 secs compared to 120 sec with Widnows Vista and the original partition scheme.
This makes the device a lot faster, but I think an SSD is the way to go. I just ordered a Runcore 32gb SSD and hope it will arrive in the the next two weeks.
@James Pond: I tried the Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook remix, but it does not support the WWAN hardware and it has no driver for the GMA 500 graphics. The UI is so slow, it was unusable. So Windows 7 is the only real option for this device :-(
What about Moblin ? 2.1 for example..
Ironically Moblin 2.1 does not support the GMA 500 graphics processor:
“Platforms with the GMA-500, Nvidia, or ATI Graphics chipset are not supported.” (http://moblin.org/downloads/releases/2.1/moblin-2.1-netbook-and-nettop-project-release)
Otherwise this would be the perfect OS for this device. I tried Moblin on my MSI Wind Netbook and startup time was impressing.
They have been selling the vaio p at these prices since the end of september. I got myself a black one for 550€, just to find out that one week later it was only 520€ at the same store…
Anyway: after installing windows xp and getting the high capacity battery (~6h with wwan) this has really become my favourite mobile device!
Great build quality, best keyboard on a sub 1kg device I`ve seen so far, (somehow) pocketable (even with the high capacity battery), fast wwan (the reception is far better than with my se experia x1), nice resolution and great looks.
Only the color, contrast and viewing angle of the screen aren`t unfortunately that great.
All in all I really love this device!
Stylish 640gm 8†UMPC with 3G, GPS for just 470 Euros…with a …: It's a shock to me because the last time .. http://bit.ly/3gYhZR
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Chippy O’ my P series Sony Vaio signature. It’s a marvel! 2 Ghz, 2 Gb ram, 256 Gb.SSD, GPS. 3G, etc… It’s very silent, 0% noise. It DOES NOT come hot as someone said. Also, the battery charge is good, 3 hours 25 minutes, with Wi-Fi on and normal screen intensity. For the small microscopic tiny letters on 1600 display, it’s easy, just go in control panel, put 125% letters. Also, some told the middle keyboard mice is a patience skill, but not for me, i like, also, NOBODY told, to just tap on with finger, it does: enter! I had Viliv X70 and with touch screen, many times i did taps on the beside icons, on the taskbar, because i have large, but not very large fingers. I like also the keayboard is spacefull and better than screen tapping. The only thing that i have for some month hards, is the price; but you must know 256 Gb SSD are all still expensives. Also, you think, less than 1 inch thick all inside: GPS, 3G. The Wi-Fi is MORE sensitive than was terrible unsensitive in the Viliv X70, I installed Windows 7 in the Viliv and the Vaio comes with Win 7, so i compare, carrots with carrots! I had 3 Wi-Fi places in Viliv X70, now i have 7 on this Vaio! I know why, because Vaio they installed N in this model, it does a big difference, and also it has faster download and upload with same web browser. The microphone in this is BETTER than the one in Viliv X70. I tested it with the same person at Skype. I like that large screen. I have it for some 5 to 7 years long. Because it’s very nice and fast. I love the INSTANT ON, Viliv don’t have it. It’s very fast and full of functions. It’s the FIRST TIME ALL my friends and relations want one. 2 bought when saw. Thanks Mr Sony, he’s genius. Maybe Chippy is running to buy one now?