Sony netboook is glimpsed online

WHILE JAPANESE consumer electronics outfit Sony hasn't officially made any announcements about its M-Series netboook, having given out only its name, rank and model number, other enterprising outlets haven't been quite as retiicent.

So thank you Tesco Direct for advertising kit that you haven't even got through the door yet. The only information Tesco Direct has put up on its site are some specifications and features. We can tell you that the Sony VPC-M11M1E/B netboook has a black chassis and a tiny 10.1-inch screen. Sony has kept the cost and processor speed down with an Intel Atom N450 chip running at 1.66GHz and it has 1GB of RAM and a 250GB HDD. The only other info we can glean from Tesco is that it will be loaded with Windows 7 Starter and cost £299.

From the five image shots on the site, the M-Series VAIO netboook also looks exactly like the Sony VAIO W series, so it'll be interesting to see what it will be like when we get to review one.

Anyway, we're still surprised to see Sony fight it out with its premium VIAO brand in the cut-throat netboook space.

We seem to recall Sony producing ultra-mobile VAIO notebooks about ten years ago. The only difference then was that they cost upwards of £1,500. Ouch. µ