Sony press release verbatim:
Design That Works: The VAIO N10-Series
A new addition to the VAIO range of notebooks brings together sharp design and affordable practicality
The VAIO N10-Series is for everyone who wants a practical, general purpose notebook for use at home or as a student. It represents excellent usability without frills, but – and this is key – it remains very much a VAIO at heart. One look at the clean, classic design makes that clear.
“We believe there are lots of people who want a portable which is strong on core features but does not compromise on design or quality,” says Jun Koyama, Director of IT for VAIO Operations Europe (VOE). “The N10-Series is here to provide them with exactly that.”
Essential Sony design values are matched by essential specifications. The range features Intel® Core™ Duo processors, hard disks ranging from 80GB to 100GB and either 1GB or 512MB of memory.
There are constants across the range, particularly where comfort and ease of use are concerned. The A4-footprint chassis is partnered with a highly legible 15.4-inch widescreen display operating at 1280 x 800 resolution. The result is an all-purpose, portable format with a generous on-screen workspace and an ergonomic keyboard. Power-efficient integrated graphics performance comes courtesy of the Intel® 945 GM motherboard chipset.
VAIO portables are noted for their superior displays, and the N10-Series is no exception. Sony X-black LCD™ screen enhancement greatly boosts the range of contrast, so blacks are really black and everything else is rendered in more natural and realistic tones. Colour also benefits, appearing richer and more vibrant – a long way from the basic standard of generic LCDs.
A double layer DVD±RW drive is fitted to all models, so very large amounts of information indeed (up to 8.5GB per double layer disc) can be archived for safe storage or easily shared with others. Students in particular may find this extremely useful.
High-speed 802.11a/b/g wireless networking is standard on all models, as is wired Ethernet (100Base-TX/10Base-T), so connectivity with home wireless or wired networks is built-in. All N10-Series notebooks also feature handy SD Card (Secure Digital) and Memory Stick™ slots (Memory Stick™ Duo and Memory Stick™ PRO Duo compatible), making use with digital cameras and many other digital devices a simple matter.
Source press release with links to larger images here.
MacDailyNews Take: First of all, yes, we did a genuine “Grade A” double-take when we first saw the press release images. Right down to the chiclet keyboard, no less! When companies do this, it really draws attention to their lack of original ideas and their inability to innovate. See Microsoft’s Windows Vista, for example: It’s Windows XP dressed up to fool the general public that it’s “just like Apple’s Mac OS X.” Now poor Sony with this OS-limited, can’t-run-Mac OS X-but-obviously-wishes-it-could, knock-off spawn of a MacBook Pro and a MacBook.
Buy this mess, put Vista on it and you, too, can have a retarded stepchild of Apple’s Mac platform.
Shouldn’t Apple, or at least Jon Ive, be getting royalties from Sony for the design? If they aren’t, then Apple’s lawyers should do something about this travesty.
MacDailyNews Reader “Dave” put it so eloquently and humorously in a comment we’ve grabbed from below and moved right up here: “Sony’s new line of laptops: MockBook and MockBook Pro.”
“Essential Sony design values!” It’d be funny if it wasn’t so sickening and sad. This is the move of some no-name Chinese company, not Sony! How the mighty have fallen.
I can´t believe it….!
It even copied the same letters and numbers on the Keyboard!!!
How dare they!
And it uses the same sony battery as the sony battery in the Mac notebook!!!!
MacBill,
you’re right to put them on your shitlist; I’m following suit.
But it’s sad, isn’t it. I remember buying the first Sony Walkman in the the early eighties – a revolutionary device! For the first time you could hear stereo music on the move. Sony won our love and admiration then. But now it’s looking more and more like it’s time to get a divorce.
Sony has – a bit like me – grown old and ugly.
@Moe:
Maybe they did, but the MacBook isn’t that much different from the iBook, then they have copied the iBook and in a late phase they’ve copied the MacBook keyboard.
MacBook is slight more polished and I think it is more beautiful than the iBook.
This Sony Vaio looks CHEAP!
MW: half, they can’t even get half Apple style after copying.
I know liberal thinking when I see it; it is characterized by hyper-attention to unimportant details, followed by claiming that this suggests something different and/or a secret alliance. Case in point: Sony manufacturers a disk drive for the original 128k Mac; thus, Sony and Apple have had a deep working relationship for many years that allows them to clone the look and feel of Apple’s machines.
That’s so typical and yet so sad does anything more need to be said? Let me guess — you’re a fan of the dirty sock-Mossad 9-11 conspiracy theory too, right? *bonk!*
Minor point. The beautiful iMac was prominently displayed in a Nissan ad, not Toyota. The back of the computer with the the word “iMac” was shown, along with the mighty mouse and the front of the unit, Apple logo and all. Saweeeet.
It will be interesting to see what price point it comes in at – in comparison with the spec.
Sony haven’t gone with slot loading drive.
OK, up to now only Apple has used a case shaped and colored (coloured, in the quoted press release – they trying to be British?) like that. I happen to be using an older G4 iBook vaguely resembling that right now.
The screen resembles the one on the smaller MacBook Pro, as does the CPU. Neither of these features is unique to Macs.
Sony uses a tray-loading, rather than a slot-loading, optical drive – a huge plus for people who like the 3.5″ CDs – like me. Sony also includes a PCMCIA slot – which some folk see as a ‘must-have’. And two buttons! – when will Apple get a clue?
I had to look twice to be sure the pictures were not reversed images … the OD is on the left and the ports on the right. This is a Good Thing for people who regularly use a ‘portable mouse’ – they have short cords – but less convenient for folk who use the OD a lot. And I counted those ports – two. Both USB. My low-rent iBook has a third – and it isn’t USB!
You guys have your shorts all twisted up over a vague physical resemblance. Do you get this twisty over Paris Hilton trying to out-Madonna Madonna? Or Madonna trying to out-Marilyn Marilyn? Or Jayne? Or Mae? If you aren’t going to be picky about overtly sexual blonds, why get twisty about this? People start to wonder about guys who get hotter about their computers than they do about women.
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Not that I’m saying you’re strange, just that you really need to Get A Life! … OK?
That Sony looks nothing LIKE the Macbook. IF you go minimalist and white, there’s only so many options.
Everything is going white these days. Apple started this trend, but that doesn’t mean it owns the freakin’ colour.
It doesn’t even look like it’s the same shade.
And anyway, Apple INCLUDE A FRACKIN’ SD READER!!!!
I don’t think it looks like a MacBook at all. Seriously. Put them side by side. There are of course some design cues picked up by Sony but alomost every manufacturer takes a little from somewhere. Nobody’s successfully tried to copy my Aluminum yet either!
poor Fake – so sorry for Sony
Apparently only the Zune can sync songs with it…….
This is obviously the work of Karl Rove…
Mr DLMeyer…
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“And two buttons! – when will Apple get a clue?” They did! And they innovated right over the heads of all the lame PC designs to give the world the “two finger right clickable touch pad!”
From the looks of it, the monitor is white and the rest is grey. A minor variation from Apple that makes the whole system look ugly. They ruined the design that they stole. If one wants to steal something, they could at least do it a bit of justice.
I expected this of other korean and chinese knock-offs, but to see Sony put their name on this, it rather saddens me. What new depths have they sunk to this time!
Apple sued e-machines years ago on their iMac ripoffs, will they have the guts to go up against a giant like SONY? This could get interesting, but I don’t think they do.
SMacSteve, Yeah … that and the “Mighty Mouse”. Neither is at all intuitive, each requires more dexterity than a lot of users can manage regularly, and each is proof that Apple recognizes that people WANT two-button-mouse functionality. And yet Apple is adamant that they will not offer a two-button option.
The Mighty Mouse is a two-button mouse ‘under the hood’ – you can’t prove it from the outside. From the outside it resembles all the one-button models that went before. Why? Somebody … won’t say who … is being ornery. Contrary. Egotistical. Rigidly, neurotically, defending a questionable decision made two decades ago – when 640K of RAM WAS enough.
Would make a Linux notebook
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I meant >nice<
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The Horror…..
SONY has now gone down the Microsoft route of trying to beat the competition.
Just copy!
Apple should sue their ass off.
All this says to me is that SONY HAS NO TALENT OR CREATIVITY IN THE COMPANY and that they have just turned into a version of DELL.
For gods sake, create something fucking new OR if you cant compete with Apple sell your business and give up.
I wounder how many more Apple customers are going to get when people buy the Macbook thinking its a Sony Vio.
HEHE – copy the competition Sony, and lose individuality or product with your competior and lose business.
that keyboard looks like crap, bet it’s even worse to type on
It actually looks more like a white iBook G3, what with the silverish semi-glossy body casing surrounding the white keyboard.
Pathetic.
How low has Sony fallen. I’d expect this from a cheap chinese or korean company but not from Sony.
I hope Apple sues them
And Apple ripped off IBM’s Thinkpads with the black MacBook. Get real guys. It’s like you’re the furries of the computer world.