Caption Contest: Sony Vaio P is escorted to Grand Central Station

Sony looks to drum up a little more buzz for its new ultraportable, the Vaio P, at Grand Central Station.
Paul: "There's a vaio P configuration for every wig-adorned model in your life."
Josh T.: "She's so fine, there's no telling where the money went. Wait, no. It went to the VAIO P."
Nilay: "Alias has really gone downhill."
Joseph: "It's nice when replicants find honest work."
Laura: "You have no idea how expensive it is to make something look this cheap."
Donald: "Ok, now bring out the mimes."
Chris: "Don't just stand there, let's get to it, strike a pose, there's nothing to it... vogue."
Tim: "Seven blondes walk into a Sony Style ..."
Thomas: "Hey look, those mannequins are just as slow with the VAIO P as Vista!"
Ross: "And like that, Andrew McCarthy and Meshach Taylor knew just what to do to kick-start their careers."

• Verizon softens the blow, offers $200 rebates on VAIO P wireless broadband activations

Hey Sony, where's the 1.86GHz VAIO P for America?

We already asked this question with "1.6GHz" in place of "1.86GHz," but seriously Sony, is there some sort of weird embargo on high-speed chips to America that we aren't aware of? While we Yanks have exactly one CPU option for the newly released VAIO P (that'd be the 1.3GHz Atom), those in Japan can order up the VGN-P90S with a 1.86GHz Atom Z540 processor. Of course, it's a ?15,800 ($174) option over the baseline Z520, but an option nonetheless.

VAIO P spotted and unboxed in the American wild

Sure, we were certainly rocking Sony's littlest VAIO in various locations across these United States, but the things have been taking their time in finding their way to the hands of our fellow gadget lovers. After finally starting shipping on Wednesday they're now starting to show up on the doorsteps of lucky folks around the country, with AdamW at HappyAssassin the first to give one the domestic unboxing treatment -- also performing a bonus little comparo with his friendly neighborhood Aspire One. Adam indicates that installing Linux is next on his to-do list, which sounds quite tasty to us.

Sony's VAIO P up for pre-order in all sorts of hues

Sony's VAIO P netbook ultraportable isn't slated to start shipping until February here in the States, but those absolutely certain that they want one stuck in their coat and / or rear pants pocket can get in line starting today. The pre-orders are open for Sony's 1.4 pound VAIO, with $899.99 to $1,499.99 securing your spot on the launch list. They're available in a whole heap of colors (garnet red, emerald green, onyx black, crystal white and classic black), and there's even an engraving option if you're already thinking about a rather spectacular Valentine's Day gift. Hint, hint, gentlemen.

VAIO P, now with more Windows 7

We just couldn't help ourselves, and put this Windows 7 .iso we had lying around exactly where it belongs: on Sony's vaio P. After mucking around on "the internet" figuring out the best way to install it, we ended up going the lazy route and dragging / dropping the plain files onto a folder on a USB drive, hitting setup.exe and watching the installer do its magic -- and it worked flawlessly! We weren't timing it or anything, but we'd say 45 minutes or so is a good guesstimate for the install. A few thoughts:

• It boots fast! Not that Vista was that bad on the boot front, but we're pretty happy with this.
• No Aero. That's to be expected, but the lack of transparency and visual effects makes the OS look quite a bit different than most of the screenshots out there.
• It's very responsive. To be honest, a lot of that could be from the fact that this is a clean install, minus all the crap sony loads on. Still, we're very happy for the start menu to pop open instantly, windows to redraw like God intended... it's pretty great.
• Browsing is 100% better. Internet Explorer pops open in a flash, and pages load in times nearly on comparison with "real" computers. Also, scrolling is ultra smooth, whereas with Vista it was stuttery all the way down.
• There's a lot more to explore. We've just scratched the surface, but we love what we've seen so far.

Update: both videos are after the break!
Update 2: for those who've asked: yes, the webcam works, and no, we haven't had any luck getting Aero up and running, though we have the video drivers loaded -- we're not saying it's impossible, in fact, it's likely very possible, since plenty of other similarly specced netbooks can pull it off, but it's just not happening for us just yet.

• Sony speaks about VAIO P, evidently thinks it's not a netbook
• vaio P vs Eee PC... fight!

VAIO P vs Eee PC... fight!

We've got a VAIO P in the house, and we thought it'd only be fitting to put the quintessential "it's not netbook, we swear!" up against the quintessential netbook, ASUS's Eee PC (in convenient 7-inch and 10-inch flavors). Stand by for further impressions, but boy is that screen densely packed with pixels.

Sony speaks about VAIO P, evidently thinks it's not a netbook

What's up with companies suddenly not wanting to call their netbooks, um, netbooks? Sony's Mike Abary sat down with LaptopMag in order to discuss the VAIO P, and as always, the company didn't hesitate to shoot off a few more-than-controversial tidbits. For starters, Mr. Abary insinuated that the 8-inch machine wasn't actually a good fit for the netbook category, noting that "the type of premium customer it is targeting probably doesn't even know what a netbook is." Furthermore, he reckoned that around 60% of prospective VAIO P buyers would be women, and it doesn't view 12-inch laptops as a threat. If you're hungry for even more one-liners that you can jump all over, head on down to the read link -- just remember, yelling at your LCD doesn't do anyone any good.