Sony VAIO TX Series in Carbon Fiber
Carbon fiber made its name by being a superior material - it's strong, it's light, and it can be molded into any shape. The practical applications of this material were endless, as evidenced by the amount of it on cars and planes, albeit being a little expensive. Now its found its way onto a more accessible medium: laptops. Perfect, right? No longer do you have to feel like you're lugging bricks around, and no longer does your laptop have to take so much punishment.
Sony Korea's new offerings, the Sony VAIO VGN-TX17LP/B and VGN-TX16LP/W, are wrapped with carbon fiber, making them the strongest, lightest, and now thinnest laptops in the market. Sony's boasting that they are twice as durable as competing brands, not to mention packing 30% less weight, at 1.24-1.26kg (2.728-2.772lb). The display is an anorexic 4.5mm (check out that image). Its battery life is claimed to be 9 and 8.6 hours respectively, and a whopping 14-15 hours with a higher-capacity battery. They also come with a feature called "AV mode," which is basically a 12-second boot into a multimedia mode that is Windows-independent.
The TX series debuts in Korea this year. I expect a hefty price tag to go along with all the shiny, but if you can afford it and carbon fiber turns you on, then more power to you.
Sony VAIO TX Series made of Carbon Fiber [MobileMag]