Sony claims Vaio X as lightest laptop

The Vaio X series is just 13.9mm thick

Sony has unveiled a new range of Vaio laptops for business travellers that feature a slimline design and a low starting weight of just 655g, yet have a claimed battery life of up to 16 hours.

Available from November, the Vaio X Series is described by Sony as "a perfectly balanced package for style-aware business travellers", and comes with an 11.1in display based on the firm's X-black widescreen technology.

The models in the series are exceptionally light, and measure no more than 13.9mm in depth at any point across the chassis. Sony also highlights the styling of the new range, with gold, black and "premium carbon" finishes available.

Despite their light weight, each Vaio X Series is a full specification business laptop running Windows 7 Professional, 2GB of memory, a Flash solid state drive (SSD), a Vaio Everywair HSDPA modem as well as 802.11b/g/Draft n Wi-Fi support.

However, the quoted weight of 655g applies to a specific model fitted with an S battery, no integrated HSDPA modem and a 64GB SSD, available exclusively from Sony's web site. But even with a standard battery, the weight is still just 780g, about the same as Toshiba's ultra-light Portégé R600.

The models are based on Intel Atom Z550 and Z540 processors running at 2GHz and 1.86GHz respectively. These are single-core chips, so some performance is likely to be sacrificed to get such a light laptop.

Each Vaio X has a standard array of ports, including two USB, gigabit Ethernet and VGA ports, plus audio jack sockets and card slots for Memory Stick and SD card Flash storage. Bluetooth is also standard.

Sony said that the combination of a low-voltage processor and power-efficient LCD panel allows customers to use the Vaio X for approximately eight hours using its standard lithium polymer battery, while an optional extended X battery accessory boosts this to 16 hours, the firm said.

Prices for the new systems cannot be quoted "for legal reasons", according to Sony.