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New VAIOs Made of Carbon Fiber

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-feel-pretty-so-pretty dept.

Shawnzyoo noted that Sony has released their new series of VAIO TX laptops. In order to make them stronger/lighter/thinner, they are now made of carbon fiber. No plans to release it in the US yet, so start learning Korean if you want this one.

4 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. I'll Let Them Try It First by Comatose51 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Carbon fiber is used fairly extensively in cycling and we've learned a few things about it. They have lower heat tolerance and abrasion resistance than metal. I'm not sure if those are qualities you want in a laptop which tend to get hot and rub against the table.

    --
    EvilCON - Made Famous by /.
    1. Re:I'll Let Them Try It First by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Early Thinkpads, starting with the Thinkpad 700c and including most 7-series models until the 770z, had carbon fibre cases as well as lids. It's strong and light, but metal inserts (like screw anchors) in carbon fibre tend to pop out easily with very little force. Overall, a well-designed ABS case is probably just as good at a fraction of the cost.

  2. Electrical properties by asadodetira · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd like to point out that using carbon fibers or nanotubes in consumer electronics has electrical advantages. Using a conductive filler you can achieve electromagnetic interference (EMI) protection or electrostatic dissipation (ESD). Other conductive fillers such as carbon black or metallic powders would work but due to the small aspect ratio of the particles they require large amounts, and this degrades the mechanical properties of the polymer. Some more infomration here http://www.patagon.8m.com/equations/cnt.html

  3. Re:Learn Korean? by kromozone · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Most Koreans can't understand anything babelfish says. It's complete unintelligible gibberish to them. Korean->English can be equally nightmarish. Most Koreans don't follow traditional rules for word separation, so the system can't figure out where the words end. In addition, hangul uses a very limited range of pronunciation whereas as its parent language, Chinese, has a variety of different inflections. As such, each Korean character has up to 50 or 60 different meanings. I can get by with most stuff, even technical documents, but talking to a University age student on the Internet is excruciatingly painful. It's like they all use some hyper-evolved form of leet-speak where you can't use spaces.