Vaio P was ahead of its time?

I've owned a first-gen Vaio P530 since March 2009, and it's still the only computer to which I've genuinely had an emotional attachment. Incredibly portable, dead silent (with SSD), high-res screen... a great combinations. So, now that the P has been discontinued, I've been toying with the idea of picking up a later-gen model so I can hang onto it for longer, but there will still be things that annoy me about the P:

-Dreadfully underpowered with the Atom/GMA 500 combo
-Lack of high-speed interconnect
-Substantial battery drain while asleep/powered off
-While the horizontal resolution of 1600 was fantastic, the vertical 768 is still a bit short

Considering the popularity of the MacBook Air and its inspiration of the Ultrabook concept, this largely illustrates to me that the P was ahead of its time. People appreciate portability and good design and are willing to make some sacrifices in performance in order to achieve that, but not beyond a certain point. The P is underpowered for all but the most basic tasks, and I understand why it was killed off. But given the progression of technology, I think the time is coming for its rebirth.

I suggest the following (keep in mind that this is mostly based on the upcoming Ivy Bridge chips, or possibly Haswell):
-In order to make room for some increased power, increase the physical dimensions to 5.75" x 9.75" x 1" (up from 4.75" x 9.75" x 0.75"). This really won't take away from the portability of it, and is still vastly smaller footprint than the 11" MBA
-Put in a Core i5 ULV chip (or future equivalent), and for the love of all, don't disable any chip features in the BIOS
-Increase the screen size to accommodate a resolution of 1600x900 (with same pixel density)
-Ports: audio jack, 2x USB 3.0, 1x Thunderbolt
-Use mSATA SSDs for storage (preferably Intel)
-Jam-pack it with built-in battery
-Increase built-in RAM to 4GB
-720p webcam

How about you? Loved your Vaio_P, but wished some things were different? See some potential for it in the future?

 

I love both of my VAIO P computers. Gen2 doesn't have the battery drain issue.

I like your ideas... except mSATA, I'd rather see 1.8 SSD with the uSATA connector. I'd like more ram also.

My 1.86Ghz P is pretty snappy compared to the oild 1.33Ghz P.

 

I was mostly thinking of mSATA for the sake of saving space (since the drives don't have casings), but whichever will work...

I've seen some postings locally for second-gen Ps around $350... Might snatch one of those.

 

I love my P enough that I upgraded to a Gen 2 when I saw it pop up on Craigslist. I have yet to see another gen 2 on Seattle's craigslist and I've been looking since last December! I got incredibly lucky.

As Computer Cowboy said, gen 2 doesn't have the battery drain issue and I feel that the center nub is more durable. I also don't experience any dust stuck behind my screen like I did with my gen 1.

It's such a great little computer. The only thing I hate about it is Atom, I can get by without USB3 or a different screen but the Atom is so damn slow. At the very least I wish it had a Core 2 Duo when it was introduced!

 

I think a rebirth of the Vaio P with Intel Ultrabook guts inside an unorthodox, unique design (perhaps similar to the original two Vaio P's, perhaps something totally new and off-the-wall) is a total no brainer.

The two problems with the Vaio P, as I understand it, is that (1) the Atom was just too slow, and (2) people at the time were not prepared to spend that much on a tiny ultraportable. But now Sony could get ULV i5 power in the P, and the MacBook Air 11 has gotten people comfortable with the idea of spending $1000+ on an 11" machine. The time is perfect for a return.