Philips Ultra-Widescreen 21:9 Cinema LCD Moves the Letterbox Bars To the Side [HDTVs]
Or even watching the large number of films that aren't filmed in 2.40:1? If all you watch is big-budget blockbusters (2.40:1 is the aspect ratio of Panavision 70mm film), then this will be great for your rich-guy home theater.
But if you're thinking about watching HDTV (native aspect ratio of 16:9) or any of the many, many thousands of films shot in less-than-21:9, you'll have to throw some letterboxes on the side. You won't even get to enjoy those IMAX scenes from Dark Knight in their glorious full-frame beauty. But if you never take Iron Man out of your BD deck, this is the TV for you. Philips is looking at a Spring '09 release, with more details coming next month. [Philips via GadgetVenue]
I've had plenty of time to spend with Sony's bite-sized Vaio P, and now it's time to deliver a verdict on whether or not the 1.4-pound device really performs as advertised.
If "everyday use" means some light multitasking focused around the internet, then you may be using the Vaio P with regularity. But assuming media notebook status entails watching HD Youtube vids while working in Photoshop, the answer to the second question is a definitive "no." On the other hand, any way you slice and dice it, the Vaio P is a netbook. I came into to this review with modest expectations, and tested it as such. I didn't beat the hell out of it by trying to install Adobe Premiere or play Crysis on the thing. But seeing as Sony was talking a big game, I tried to do more than browse pages, listen to music and check email.
As far as battery life goes, if you're web browsing over wi-fi while listening to music and messaging you should get 2-3 hours out of the battery. I kept the brightness at 3/4 and had the power management set to "Vaio Optimized," and found the results to be acceptable, if average for these kinds of machines.
One gripe I do have, however, is with the keyboard and mouse layout. The key size and general spacing isn't really the issue, as I've used much smaller and much worse before, but the lack of space between the space bar and the mouse buttons is really problematic. I typed this entire review on the Vaio P, and one problem I kept running into is that every time I went to hit the space bar, I accidentally tapped the mouse button. It's so sensitive it would register a click without being fully pressed. So every 90 seconds or so, the cursor moved from where I'm typing to wherever my mouse pointer was and to! tally de railed whatever I was typing. Annoying.
As for my final verdict, the Vaio P is an undeniably attractive, fun, exciting gadget on design alone, but I'm not quite sure it lives up to its marketing hype or its $900 starting price—ours as tested was actually $1200. The Sony Vaio P works well as a machine for the living room or kitchen, and for style reasons fits well in those environments and is easily stashed. But it won't replace your workhorse laptop, not even on a part time basis, due to graphical limitations, an inability to run resource-heavy apps and that damned issue with the keyboard and mouse. [
We're not firefighters, so this idea may be completely crazy. But if we fought fires for a living, we'd feel a lot more comfortable doing battle with this mean-looking gas-propelled missile launcher concept.
Rumors regarding the 
Eyeing 
It's has been quite a while since we last heard about the 
Posts
