Smaller and lighter has been the trend in laptops for quite some time now, and Sony appears to now be leading the pack in this regard. Sony is readying to release the lightest ever eight-inch laptop, which clearly takes aim at the emerging “netbook” market.

The new light laptop offering will be of Sony’s popular Vaio brand, and will run the Vista OS, with all the capabilities you would expect from a “regular sized” laptop. The price is a bit steep compared to similar small notebooks, or netbooks, as the new model is expected to retail for approximately nine hundred dollars (US).

The specs are quite impressive, with the device weighing only 1.4 pounds, and as Sony put it “thin is a cellphone”. Sales should start in February.