Sony doesn't make netbooks. The Vaio P, for example is absolutely, positively not a netbook. In fact, in February Sony senior vice president Mike Abary called the whole netbook market "a race to the bottom."

That's right. Sony denied that it would make a netbook. So, as night follows day, we now have the Vaio W. A netbook. From Sony.

The Vaio W will be a full-on, 1.6GHz Atom powered, ten-inch screened netbook. The other specs also fail to deviate from the cheap formula: 160GB hard drive, 1GB RAM, an Ethernet jack, Bluetooth and a couple of USB ports. The SD reader will work with MemorySticks, too, of course, and Sony has made one break with tradition: The screen is a high-res 1,366 x 768 instead of the more usual 1,024 x 600, meaning that text will be slightly harder to read.

The Vaio W will cost $500 when it launches in the US in August, and for that you'll get a plastic case in a choice of three colors (white, pink and, ahem, brown?). A case which looks like nothing more than an MSI Wind with a new logo slapped on. Could it be that Sony, in its hurry to win the race to the bottom, has forgotten that every other netbook maker is selling cheaper, sleeker machines already?

Product page [Sony]