Sony's LAST little laptop!

When it manufactured personal computers, Sony got a reputation for producing some unique and niche machines. But sometimes they were a bit too niche...and that was the P-series' downfall.

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[bap]

Hello, I am a member of the VAIO library team. There are some .mod files in the recovery disks which you can also patch. These will also enable instant on and some other software to work on the device.

[MrMegaManFan]

You know what I love about this channel? No BS. The title says what the video is. No clickbait thumbnail with a big question mark saying "Have you seen THIS laptop?" You show us what you're doing, you do it, we like it. Perfect.

[kaitlyn__L]

I used to lust after these, they seemed so futuristic at the time. It’s kind of funny how of their time they seem now — small yes but clearly held back by some pieces and unable to go any smaller than that.

[TechKingdom]

What a cool little device. I love how Sony Vaio devices of that time period were just so unique.

[pendantblade]

I remember reading about these things in tech magazines. It's like whenever you upload it's a like an injection of nostalgia.

[MrFastFox]

I remember when these released as a kid, and I wanted one bad. I still think they're charming and adorable and I love the design and the concept. But it looks like it'd be a complete PITA to use even ignoring it's poor performance.

[appleinfl]

Those physical Wi-Fi switches were the bane of my existence when they were on most laptops. Users would inadvertently hit the key or switch and have no idea why the internet stopped working. Can’t imagine the battery savings were enough to warrant the headaches.

[jasonnovak]

I have a Vaio VGN90HS which I received that was in the Vista (Japanese) oobe setup wizard, just waiting to start installation. I'd made a Norton Ghost image and uploaded to the internet archive as "Sony Vaio P Series VGN 90HS Vista Hard Drive Image".
It includes a working instant boot partition (and recovery partition). Pretty sure will work on most 1st gen VAIOs, I think the main thing that changed was the CPU / drive / memory between models, a way to get around locks in the installation media. I did a teardown video replacing the factory SSD.

[JavierVegaPerry]

Love this video, bought a vaio p some months ago and use it as a "fun project" with debian 12 (no gui) mostly for nvim note taking and light coding, it works well for this specific use case :D I really like the form factor and hope this type of devices return (aside from GPD devices).

Thanks for the great video.

[SockyNoob]

I love tiny laptops like this. I think GPD and some other companies make modern laptops in the same footprint as this.

[ObiWanBillKenobi]

2:41 What is this ASCII aquarium program, and where can I get it? 🐠🐟🐠🐟

[JanusCycle]

That Recovery Patcher look really useful. Thanks for showing it. Well done on the restore effort here. I always wondered about what these odd machines are like.

[JoeyMarziano]

I have always loved the design of these computers. I know now a tablet with a keyboard case is a million times better, but I’d still totally buy a modern version of the P with an edge to edge touch screen and one of those yoga book style hinges to fold the keyboard back.

[nickwallette]

3:44 Hey! That was me! haha I bought my P-series on a whim (thanks, eBay ... you've clearly got my number) and it had the recovery partition still, so I took advantage of that! :-) It took a few tries, because the USB ports are a bit anemic, and my burner (a variation of that same Pioneer BD-RW drive) had trouble burning a disc until I powered it externally. Bear that in mind if you run into any issues with external drives.

Sorry it didn't work out quite right for your model, but glad you found a partial workaround. 👍

[Max_Mustermann]

1:21 - SD card readers weren't that uncommon on later VAIOs. My old CS series also had one in addition to a Memory Stick reader. Although it is interesting that they put two card readers in such a small machine.

[TheCarlosMendonca]

Thanks for filming this review. I got the "crocodile leather" Vaio P off of eBay a few years ago for next to nothing from a lawyer who bought it new many years before. He barely used it and it was in great shape. I may still have the recovery CD somewhere. I eventually installed Windows 7 with all drivers that were still found on the internet. I'm pretty sure I have them saved on my NAS. I also dual-booted with Arch 32 running i3 and performance is just okay. Browsing is really painful with anything more than 1 tab, DOSBox games run just okay, and I couldn't get FreeDOS and sbemu to work consistently last time I tried. It's a fun little toy, but nothing more, and I use it to run SonicStage on an MZ-RH1 MD. I really loved the form factor, though, and I wish someone passionate and knowledgeable like polymatt would bother restoring it (battery mostly) and even doing a gut-level upgrade while maintaining the form factor. I know that GPD tried to get close to it with the Pocket, but it's just not the same thing.

[Smk]

I've jumped onto this model from Toshiba's Libretto. Loved the form factor but the performance, even with all the tweaks, was just...well.
This.
Pretty much until GPD came out with their Pocket line, this form factor was below expectations in performace departament.
But damn if doesn't it looks

[DrMikeE]

As a computer collector (I have about 140), I was drawn to watch this video as I am one of the dummies who repeatedly fell for the beauty of the Sony Vaio P. Lightweight, absolutely beautiful, these PCs were the slowest machines I've ever laid my hands on, by far. I still have a Windows 7 one, which was a slight improvement over the Vista one (yeah, had at least one of those as well), but one would have to be a masochist to rely on a Sony Vaio P for writing or working with documents, internet browsing and email, etc. Truly disappointing, given that I still find the Sony Vaio P to be possibly the lightest and definitely the most beautiful PC I've owned.

[chriswathen]

I worked at an electrical retailer when the P series came out and I lusted after them...until I tried one. Absolutely beautiful design which is novel in that it genuinely can fit into the inside pocket of a coat whilst still having a decent enough sized keyboard. But the list of mistakes made was huge. The screen resolution is far too high for something so tiny, it's pretty much essential to have some sort of scaling turned on which leaves it barely having any more usable screen space than a 1st gen EEEPC. Even by netbook standards it is chronically underpowered, the two main weak points being the graphics which can't even run aero (which an EEEPC can) despite being bundled with Vista Premium in many markets, and the decision to use a miniature 1.8" spinning hard drive as the storage device when other manufacturers were using some sort of SSD at the time. It gave the P much more storage but it also made it excruciatingly slow. Don't rate that docking station either - a brick the size of the power supply clipped to it just to get VGA and Ethernet. Either it greatly increases the bulk for not much extra functionality if carrying the machine around or it gets left behind and lost. For the money this thing was shocking (IIRC it was a £1000 machine in a market which previously had considered £300 about the limit for a netbook, with many for sale well below that) . However I did always want one and picked one up a P19WN (yet another variant which was sold in the UK market) 6 or 7 years ago cheaply from ebay. If you put WIndows XP on it the machine will run relatively well but it's really not much practical use for anything other than as an email banger - nor even was it when brand new. A real shame because so much effort went into the design and had Sony just put in better hardware to create a true premium netbook to match the premium pricetag it could've been a big hit.

[edwinfndz]

I remember seeing these laptops. They cost around $900. That was and still is a lot of money. For an Intel Atom processor? A robbery!