Sony has jumped the gun on what is expected to be its entry into the netbook market and we now know that the model name will be the P-series as someone at Sony Style in the US posted up some details of the new range of tiny notebooks yesterday.

Since then the details have been taken down from the Sony Style site, although you can check out the screenshot below for details of what was posted. There are some interesting details that got leaked which makes us wonder who and what market Sony is going after with the P-series.

Unlike your average netbook, the Sony P-series will use a slightly smaller 8in display, but with a much higher resolution than normally at 1,600x768 pixels. This is a rather unusual resolution and we're not sure it'll become a popular standard on such a small display.

The CPU will be clocked at 1.33GHz, but we're not sure if this will be an Atom Z-series CPU or something completely different such as a Core Solo or even a Core Duo processor. What's disappointing is that the P-series seems to be using a 1.8in hard drive which means that Sony will only offer a 60GB drive or alternatively an SSD drive up to 128GB at what we expect to be a hefty price premium.

Sony will only be shipping the P-series with Windows Vista and you'll have the choice between the Home and Home Basic versions. The P-series should be available in red, gold or black once it starts shipping. The P-series is expected to be announced during CES early next month.


Please note that the picture is not of the new P-series, but of the TT-series