Design
The VAIO P's unique form factor is, by far, its greatest asset. At 9.7 x 4.7 x 0.8 inches, the VAIO P is small enough to fit in a woman's purse or in a man's long coat pocket. And at 1.4 pounds, it weighs half as much as a netbook, yet has a full-size keyboard that's fit for touch typists.If you're familiar with the original P series, you'll notice that the biggest design difference is the color. While the original P had a classy metal keyboard and deck with tasteful lid colors such as Garnet Red or Onyx Black, the new P has a plastic keyboard and deck that matches its lid and comes in loud neon shades like lime green or hot pink. Conservative white and black colors are available, too.
Keyboard and Pointing Devices
For a netbook this tiny, the VAIO P provides a rather large 88-percent of full size keyboard with plenty of spacing between its keys. The right Shift key is a little small, but the keyboard's real problem is its stiffness and complete lack of a palm rest. Despite this drawback, the generous key size and spacing allowed us to achieve our typical 80 word-per-minute rate in the Ten Thumbs Typing Tutor test, albeit with a slightly higher 2-percent error rate. Even though the VAIO P is small enough to hold and use while standing, it's keyboard is too wide for thumb-only typing.
The VAIO P offers two different pointing devices. A pointing stick sits in the middle of the keyboard and allows users to navigate without removing their fingers from the home row. We found the comfortable texture and impeccable accuracy of Sony's pointing stick similar to that of Lenovo's famous TrackPoints.
On the right screen bezel sits a tiny square touchpad perfect for navigating while you're holding the system in the air (for example, when you're standing). Left and right mouse buttons are located on the left side of the bezel. We found that, while the touchpad was less accurate than the pointing stick, it was more than adequate for launching programs, web browsing, or controlling videos.
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