By Chris Chang, posted Jan 5, 2010 at 8:00 PM, 2,392 views,

Sony Vaio P Knockoff For a Netbook Price

The “Shanzhai” makers in Shenzhen never cease to amaze me, re-inventing not only the software, but also the hardware itself, like this Vaio P knockoff. It is almost similar to the real one, but it comes with better features.

This bad boy purports to be targeted towards the shanzhai market, and it’s fit for every casual users in China. It has a killer industrial design and the specs of a netbook, I can tell you I’m loving it.

Price and Configuration

It is powered by a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive and a 3-cell battery. It also supports 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and will only run you $1700RMB (about $249). Much more affordable than any netbooks selling out there.

Design

At first blush, this thing is just stunning. The rounded corners and glossy white finish are pretty attractive, it’s quite “short” too.

Still, smudges will be seen when you put your fingers on it.

The 10.1″ (1024×576) LED screen is the same with the ones you see on standard netbooks. The chiclet keyboard looks beautiful on this machine, and the keys provide a smooth typing experience for users.

As you can see, the machine comes equipped with a TrackPoint nub which is 100% similar to the Lenovo (IBM) Thinkpad. There’s no trackpad so you can only use the nub which is integrated well with the keyboard and works just good enough. I loved the mouse button layout, perfectly placed below the spacebar. Also, the machine is seemingly designed to merely accommodate a keyboard and a screen, no palm rest for users.

The knockoff is not as thin as the MacBook Air, but with the big keys, it surely makes typing more comfortable.

Well, you also get a webcam located at the top right corner of the machine, just beside the display. It’s exactly the same as the real Vaio P.

The ports are distributed along the sides: two USB ports, VGA out, Ethernet port, microphone, and speaker jacks. At the front, you can also find a SD card reader. What’s missing is a HDMI port. We are not sure where the speakers are but no worries, the sound quality is better than those on the MacBooks.

More shots

Performance

This isn’t a computer you’re going to want to do intensive gaming on, and streaming HD videos may be okay. For the benchmarks, it does not look impressive and almost the same with any netbooks.

You will not want to waste your time tweaking your OS to increase performance for games, since it’s designed for getting on the internet, send some emails, and working with your Word documents.

Battery Life

This Vaio P knockoff only delivers a total time of 1 hour, 37 minutes with balanced performance settings, the Bluetooth is off and continuously surfing the net. Maybe it can be further improved by adjusting lowest brightness for the display.

Wrap-up

If you’re in the market for a new netbook, this Vaio P knockoff is what you are looking for. It’s affordable enough for casual use and fulfills the lowest requirements for doing basic stuff on PCs such as surfing the net, watching YouTube videos, looking out for your friends on Facebook or Twitter and so on. Unfortunately, the battery life is short so you probably need to purchase one more battery for backup. One more thing. It has a 3G SIM card slot for users to enjoy the 3G Internet anytime, anywhere.

Knockoff Vaio P Outdoor Shots

Here’s a leaflet promoting the Vaio P knockoff…