Japanese electronics major Sony Corp announced the specifications for its latest super-light Vaio X laptop.

Weighing at 1.6 lbs with a standard battery, the laptop, which has an 11.1-inch screen and a carbon fiber body, is claimed to be the lightest in its class.

The Vaio X has a carbon fiber body, an 11.1-inch scratch-resistant LCD screen and a built-in camera and mike for real-time video chats.

It has a multi-touch touchpad and comes with both a standard battery that offers up to three and a half hours of life and a large battery that runs for up to 14.5 hours. The larger battery doubles as a tilt rest for the Vaio X.

The Vaio X comes with Windows 7 Home Premium preinstalled. It also has the following preinstalled applications, all on a trial basis: Microsoft Works SE 9.0;AOL; Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007; and Norton Internet Security.

With the Vaio X, Sony is trying to leverage a new category of portable computers with 11-inch screens.

The Vaio X measures 10.95 by 0.55 by 7.29 inches. It has a 2 GHz Intel processor, 2 GB of DDR2 SDRAM, a 533 MHz front-side bus and a solid-state drive up to 128 GB in capacity.

Communications capabilities include built-in access to Verizon Wireless Mobile Broadband, Fast Ethernet, 10Base-T/100Base-TX/1000BaseT, WiFi Atheros 802.11b/g/n, and integrated Stereo A2DP Bluetooth technology.

The Vaio X's multimedia capabilities are built around Intel technology. For graphics, it uses the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 500 and the Intel System Controller Hub US15W chipset. For audio, it uses Intel High Definition Audio.

Expansion slots consist of a Memory Stick PRO standard or duo slot with MagicGate functionality, as well as an SD memory card slot.

For buyers in the United States, the Vaio X is no comparison to the MacBook Air and Dell Latitude Z, which hover around the same price point but are much bigger and more capable.