Exclusive: New VAIO Hybrid PC and VAIO Chrome Coming This Summer

Sony has always been known for its ingenuity and amazing design in hardware but most of us may have noticed recently that we have not seen anything ground breaking and extraordinary from the company. Engadget recently unearthed some info about about the upcoming Sony tablet supposedly featuring PlayStation certification as a “full blown media and gaming tablet” , however Sony has some more goodies cooking in their kitchen as we speak.

So, there this interesting VAIO Hybrid PC and the reason why it is a hybrid is it consists of two components. Yes, there is an actual notebook that will be pretty thin, featuring Intel’s Light Peak technology which is what we know now as Thunderbolt, that same interface that current MacBooks Pro are sporting.

Just to tease you a little bit with the hardware specs, you will be presented with and Intel Wireless Display, SSD of hard drive flavor, i7 processor, no optical drive, HDMI output with 3D support, expect battery life to run from 8 to 16.5 hours and the thing should weigh around 1.13 kg.

Now the second component/unit that’s what will be unique to this VAIO when connected, it will provide:

• Discrete GPU (AMD Whistler-XT with 1 GB VRAM)
• Blu-ray disc (reader/writer) drive
• HDMI Output
• VGA Output
• RJ45 Ethernet port
• USB
• weighing around 0.68kg

The connector is kind of funky and reminded me of VAIO DVD-RW i.Link plus power connector, only this time it looks like it’s gonna use USB and AC connection.

Overall the notebook looks pleasing to eyes, aesthetically designed in its VAIO fashion, however we are not quite sure about the purpose  of the second component. It again reminds me of a desktop model Sony marketed back in 2007 – VAIO RM series that featured a twin-unit form factor.

The next VAIO we unearthed is the VAIO with Chrome OS.

As Google is prepping its Chrome OS debut, Sony is hard at work to bring you their first VAIO pimped up in Google’s OS of course. Expect to see the following hardware specifications of this new PC:

• Nvidia Tegra 2 (250) platform
• 11.6″ (1366×768) LCD display
• 1 GB of Memory
• 16 GB eMMC (electronic multimedia card)
• Ultra-low power GeForce GPU
• Wireless WAN
• Wide Keyboard (18mm) will be pretty similar to the Google Chrome Cr-48 laptop keyboard
• Dimensions: less than an inch thick at around 19.9 mm; width is at 11.7″ (298 mm) and it is 21.5 cm (8.46″) deep
• It should weigh around 2.2 lb (or 1kg)
• 8 hour battery life

Features like Bluetooth and GPS will be enabled later on, so don’t expect those two right at launch in summer of 2011.

As far as the software department, you will love the Quick booting, Chrome OS auto-update will ensure you are always on top of new features and Sony will throw in some VAIO related software as well.

That is all for now guys, we will bring more info as it becomes available, sorry cannot post any actual pictures and I am not that great at drawings…Stay tuned though!