Chrome OS Laptop Examined by FCC, Sony VAIO Is the Brand

We've barely heard anything about Chromebooks over the past few months, but it looks like the idea hasn't completely been abandoned.

We don't base this conclusion on anything official, not really, even though Sony is, essentially, the one that enabled us to draw it.

What happened was that a certain product developed by this particular company passed through the testing labs of the Federal Communications Commission.

For those who don't know, products that communicate over Wi-Fi or 3G have to pass a screening by the FCC before they are given the green light to start selling.

The one that has now come to our attention is Sony's VAIO VCC111 Series, the company's first Chromebook.

In other words, it is a laptop running the Google Chrome operating system (Chrome OS).

A label on the base of the netbook identifies the processor as a T25, which means that a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra SoC (system-on-chip) runs everything.

Considering that all previous Chromebooks used Intel Atom chips, this is quite a departure from the norm (Tegra uses ARM cores).

The filing reveals some other details, such as the diagonal length of 11.6 inches for the LCD (liquid crystal display). Speaking of which, the panel itself is Samsung-made.

Moving on, the product runs on a the energy provided by a 4100 mAh battery, but the length of time it will last remains to be seen.

Needless to say, Sony's VAIO VCC111 Series comes with the whole wireless spiel: Bluetooth, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and 3G.

Finally, a small solid state drive holds the OS (and little else, since Chromebooks work in the cloud), while an SD card reader and two USB 2.0 ports permit external storage devices to be utilized. As for using auxiliary displays, an HDMI port is part of the spec sheet.

For people who have some time to waste, the FCC filing is available here.

Posted in: Hardware, Preview