Sony is said to be working on a HybridPC for the VAIO family and judging from the rumors it will be out of the ordinary. Sony’s new creation consists of two main components, one convenient and power notebook with an Intel Core i7 CPU and high-speed interface Thunderbolt, and a form of docking station with a more powerful graphics card and optical drive.
Sony uses the new Sandy Bridge architecture with a more powerful CPU from the Core i7 series. The VAIO PC will come with a SSD, no optical drive, but support for the new high-speed interface Thunderbolt and Intel Wireless Display technology for wireless video. The computer also gets a HDMI output with 3D support, and a battery time of up to 16.5 hours (depending on battery). Despite the seemingly strong specifications the computer will not weigh more than 1.13 kilo, alas we don’t know the screen size.
Sony VAIO Hybrid PC can then be paired with a form of docking station that not only houses the missing optical unit (DVD/Blu-ray burner) but also a more powerful graphics circuit and a loads of connectors. The GPU is based on AMD’s Whistler XT GPU with 1GB dedicated graphics memory. Whistler XT is one of AMD’s more powerful mobile GPUs and is used by Radeon HD 6700M and offers 480 stream processors and performance up to 700 GFLOPs. The docking station also sports HDMI, VGA, USB and Gigabit Ethernet and weighs 680 gram.
We have talked about the potential for using Thunderbolt for docking stations. If the information published by Sony Insider is true, Sony might be the first to attempt such a solution, even if the exact connection between computer and dock was not revealed.
Sony’s new HybridPC will get a classic sober design and sounds like a solution for users that not only enjoys high mobility but also needs a desktop replacement at home.
Launch date and price unknown.
Source: Sony Insider
