AMD HAS MANAGED to drum up a lot of support for its Brazos platform and as of today Fujitsu and Sony has joined the growing group of notebook makers with Brazos powered machines, as both companies have announced 11.6-inch models in Japan. Neither model is available as of yet, but both companies will have their models in the shops within the next two to three weeks.
Fujitsu’s model is called the LifeBook PH50/C and will be available in red, blue and black (we don’t think anyone was hurt in the making of the PH50/C though). The APU of choice is the E-350 and the standard configuration will include 2GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive. We’re sure some kind of Wi-Fi option will also be included and judging by the picture there’s at least two USB 2.0 ports and an Ethernet port, but we’d expect there to be an HDMI port and a D-sub connector somewhere as well.
The PH50/C is said to be weighing in at about 1.5kg (3.3lbs) and have a battery life of about 7.3h. We’re not sure about the retail price outside of Japan, but Impress PC Watch is quoting it as having a “cheap” price of 80,000 Yen in Japan, or a mere $965. Uhm, right, that’s not cheap at all is it, but then again, this is Fujitsu we’re talking about and products in Japan, which are anything but cheap.
Sony’s new model is the VAIO YB which will be available in ever jollier colors, namely silver, pink and green. Sony has gone for the same base hardware as Fujitsu, in other words and E-350 APU and 2GB of memory but fit a smaller 320GB hard drive as standard. The VAIO YB sports three USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI port, a D-sub connector, and twin memory card readers, Gigabit Ethernet and a pair of audio jacks. You’ll also find a 1.3 Megapixel webcam, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR as part of the spec.
The VAIO YB weighs in at 1.46kg (3.22lbs) with the standard battery which is said to be good for up to 6h of usage, although Sony offers two high capacity models which gives you either 7.5 or 11h worth of battery life, although at a currently unknown extra weight addition. No word on pricing as yet, but we’d expect the VAIO YB to be a lot more affordable than the Lifebook PH50/C.
In related news Toshiba’s NB550D went on sale in Taiwan today and it’s yet another consumer coloured notebook which comes in four different choices of randomly picked colours which includes gold (looks kind of brown to us), green, orange and a blue, although there appears to be a black version as well that is currently not available. This is a smaller 10.1-inch system which shares the same design as Toshiba’s NB520 netbook, but of course with different bits inside.
Feature wise we have an AMD C-50 dual core APU which ticks away at 1GHz, 1GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive. Toshiba has fitted three USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI port, a D-sub connector, a card reader, an Ethernet port and a pair of audio jacks. You also get 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, surprisingly Bluetooth 3.0, a webcam and a pair of very large Harman Kardon branded speakers for this size machine. Sadly the screen resolution is that of a netbook at 1024×600, but the NB550D weighs in at a light 1.32kg (2.9lbs) with a 6-cell 48Whr battery pack although we don’t have any details in terms of how long it’s meant to last. The NB550D retail for NT$13,900 in Taiwan, or $479, which is about $100 cheaper than the Atom N550 powered NB520 netbook.S|A
Lars-Göran Nilsson
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