Sony VAIO G Announced in Japan

Sony is making waves again by pushing the envelope on what you can fit into super thin and super small laptops. They've released the VAIO G 1.98lbs, 12.1" screen laptop in Japan that features an optional integrated DVD drive (which boosts the weight to 2.17 lbs) and tough carbon fiber body.

Sony of course has a lot of experience designing carbon fiber notebooks, they offer such an option with the VAIO SZ, VAIO T and the former VAIO X505 (review here) from a couple of years back which was super slim and super light and also used the carbon fiber build. Carbon fiber is lighter, stronger and better at heat dissipation than other typical notebook construction materials. The downside to carbon fiber? It's expensive to use, so you'd think the VAIO G would have an extortionate price tag. However, the reported price of around $2,000 when converted from Japanese Yen means it's not too much more expensive than some competing ultraportables.

Here are the complete specs on the VAIO G:

• Weight: 898-grams / 1.98-pounds
• Screen: 12.1-inch, 1024x768 display
• Choice Celeron or Core Solo 1.06GHz U1300 or 1.2GHz U1400 processors
• Integrated Intel 945GMS Express graphics
• Up to 80GB of disk space
• Up to 1.5GB memory,
• Quoted 6-hour battery life (highly doubtful) with 4-cell battery, 6-cell available
• Fingerprint reader
• 802.11a/b/g WiFi and Bluetooth,
• 2 USB 2.0, a multi-format memory card and PCMCIA slot
• Dimensions: 10.9 × 8.5 × 0.9~1.0-inches

Availability is slated for December 2 in Japan starting at about ¥215,000 (about $1,836) and ¥245,000 (about $2,093) for the higher spec model. No word on U.S. availability, these types of notebooks sell much better in Japan than the U.S., but it's likely at some point Sony will offer it outside of Japan as they did in the past with the super slim VAIO X505 notebook. If you can't wait for it to arrive to where you live, you can always get it imported from Japan via Dynamism.com. You can see the VAIO G Japan product page here.