Sony VAIO Duo 11 Price, Specifications, Tablet-Ultrabook Hybrid Features, Release Date, Exclusive Demo Video, In the Flesh Photos!

Someday, future tech enthusiasts - I'm sure - will try to come up with a list of the most gorgeous gadgets ever released. It's hard to tell right now what criteria they'll use for the rankings but what I know for sure is that their list will mean very little to me if it won't have Sony VAIO Duo 11 in it.

I've seen many sleek and svelte gadgets in the past but very few - I reckon - can stand shoulder to shoulder with the Japanese company's new tablet-ultrabook-hybrid in terms of looks. I mean, the photos of the gizmo would speak for themselves.

Launched alongside Sony VAIO Tap 20 in an exclusive media event at the Mind Museum last October 4, Sony VAIO Duo 11 is a high-performance, hybrid device - with a sliding capacitive touchscreen LCD display - that switches effortlessly between being laptop and working as a slate.

Measuring only 17.85 millimeters at its thickest point when in tablet mode and weighing just around 1.3 kilograms, VAIO Duo 11 flaunts an elegant brushed metal shell and scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass touchscreen protecting its stunningly sharp and brilliant 1920x1080 11.6-inch OptiContrast display panel.

Despite its compact size, the hybrid possesses considerable power plus a rather impressive battery life, which are both important for today's users who are always on the go. It runs the touch-optimized Windows 8 operating system with Intel Core i5-3317U Processor, has 128GB of SSD storage, handles multi-tasking with 4GB of RAM, and is powered by VGP-BPS31 Lithium-ion battery delivering up to 4.5 hours of regular use. Not bad, I think.

In tablet mode, you can use your fingers to navigate the interface or utilize the new digitizer stylus, which Sony has successfully brought to the VAIO Duo 11 along with 'Note Anytime for VAIO' software which turn the VAIO Duo 11 into a virtual notebook for easy note taking, and Active Clip allowing users to select parts of an image and save them to a fully shareable scrapbook. During presentations, the stylus can be used to write notes and comments directly onto the PowerPoint document when in slideshow mode for greater interactivity.

What I find particularly cool about Sony VAIO Duo 11 is its slide mechanism, which quite frankly looks a lot like that of Nokia E7 or Nokia N950. To reveal the keyboard, you have you lift the back portion of the screen via a thin ridge of plastic while pushing the front part a bit. To fully enter Ultrabook-mode, you need to push the touchscreen all the way back to a roughly 45 to 50 degree angle.

Check out the sexy back!

Knowing that it would be inconvenient for users to always have to touch the screen while they're using the keyboard to work on documents or navigate the web, Sony added an optical pointing stick with left and right click buttons. Actually, you'll also find something similar on Sony VAIO P netbook released in 2009, the difference though is that Duo 11's pointing stick is already optical like the ones on BlackBerry handsets as opposed to looking like a Mongol pencil eraser.

Alright, that's it for now. Sony VAIO Duo 11 will become available in the Philippines by the end of October with an official price tag of Php 69,999. I believe Sony will be offering a 12 months 0% interest promo for this device, so you might want to take advantage of that.

While we're all waiting for the hybrid to hit store shelves, let's become more familiar with Sony VAIO Duo 11 (and see how its slide mechanism works exactly) by watching this TechPinas exclusive demo video;