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LAS VEGAS--As a computer, the Eee PC from Asus is intended to be the opposite of intimidating--it's made for children after all. But its potential as a market force is apparently giving chills to its larger industry peers.

Here at Sony's annual Open House event, the senior vice president of Sony's IT product division said the tiny $299 notebook could potentially shift the entire notebook industry.

"If (the Eee PC from) Asus starts to do well, we are all in trouble. That's just a race to the bottom," said Mike Abary.

He means that if mainstream PC buyers start to find their needs met by a lightweight, simply featured, inexpensive portable, it's likely to impel all of the major players in the industry to pile on by lowering their prices. And that's in an industry with already low margins for retailers and manufacturers.

If the Eee PC just catches on with Linux developers, enthusiasts, and the tech-savvy early adopter crowd, that's fine by him. "But if mainstream buyers buy it, then, whoa," Abary said.

So should Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and their ilk be frightened of Asus? So far, the version of the Eee PC in the U.S. only comes with Linux, but that will soon change. Japan got its Windows XP version last month, and the U.S. should be getting one in the next few weeks. (See the full review of the Eee PC by CNET's Dan Ackerman.)

And even with just the open-source version available stateside, the numbers say it's striking a nerve: the company reported moving 350,000 units of the Eee in the first quarter it was available last fall.

Sony's not the only one taking notice. Acer is reportedly readying an Eee competitor, and the yet-to-be-officially-announced HP Compaq 2133 was developed with the Eee firmly in mind.

As for Sony, though it did start offering lower-priced notebooks last year in the $800 range, don't expect the company to go any lower just yet. Abary says so far the company is just "keeping an eye" on the Eee's activity.

Sony has always positioned itself as a premium brand, and will continue to do so, as was evident in the rest of its PC offerings on show here.

The company has been at the forefront of the uber-personalization trend that's taken over the notebook industry. By charging more, the company has more leeway with the options it can offer customers. It began doing colored laptops three years ago and is now branching out into personalized patterns, and--as suspected--textures.

People who buy their Vaio at the SonyStyle store online have as many as 36 different choices for personalizing their laptop. The Graphic Splash line has three different patterns and multiple color combinations, as well as a choice of font on the keyboard. "That's what consumers really, really want," Abary told a gathering of reporters earlier in the day.

Sony also said that Vaio as a brand sells particularly well with women, which could also explain Sony's increased emphasis on personalization. Though 80 percent of notebooks sold industrywide are owned by men, Abary estimated, Vaios' percentage ownership by men is in the low 70s, indicating a higher-than-average ownership rate by women.

But it's not all about appearances. Sony is also pushing its lineup of home theater PCs, which are not primary PCs, but still start at $1,699.

Though Sony had earlier indicated that its TP home theater PC (that white round one), didn't sell particularly well last year, it still decided to bring it back for Round 2. It's still round, but now it's got some high-definition guts. Sony beefed it up with a Blu-ray Disc player, Intel Penryn processors, and two Cable Card tuners. It's also now available in black for $1,699 to $3,000.

Though it was released in the fall, the all-in-one PC from Sony, the LT, is part of the same strategy. Again, though it's a PC like Gateway's One or Dell's XPS One, Sony positions the product as a TV with PC capability instead of the other way around. Doing so is likely to lure more high-end customers, with the LT's Bravia-like bezel echoing Sony's line of LCD TVs.

Amid the parade of Sony products announced this morning, it might be easy to get lost in the crowd--unless you happen to be clad in floral patterns of bright pink and blue.

That's how Sony's Vaio laptops tried to stand apart, anyway, in the latest iteration of its "Graphic Splash Expression Collection." Despite the ornate names of the newest crop--which include "Victorian Lace" and "Flora"--it's actually quite subdued compared with earlier releases that boasted leopard prints and giant polka dots.

The patterns and colors can be mixed and matched, and personal engraving is free for the 1,200 laptops in this limited edition. But perhaps its most distinguishing aspect is under the hood: The keyboards can be customized with three new designer fonts. Other than that, the 15.4-inch widescreen laptops have the usual run of Vaio specs and options.

Sony customers like different, but not too different.

Though Sony now offers midrange notebooks, the higher-end Vaios are selling much faster, according to Mike Abary, senior vice president of Sony's IT products division.

The options for colors and limited-edition designs from artists helped push a lot of Vaios out the door in the last quarter. Those artsy laptops also come with higher price tags, and for that reason, don't expect Sony to get into the low-end laptop race any time soon, Abary added.

The personalization trend in PCs that Sony has latched onto has overall been successful, but for one area: the VGX TP-1 living room PC. That's not selling well at all, Abary said. "But, we didn't expect it to. It was more of an experiment in the digital home category," he added, because thus far it's still unclear how soon consumers will embrace the idea of using a PC as the centerpiece of the digital home and entertainment experience.

One thing Sony is certain of, however, is that its small business customers aren't so hot on Vista. "We see a huge demand, I mean, huge, for PCs that are downgradeable to (Windows) XP," Abary said.

The Vaio NR popped its head up in Germany a few weeks ago, and Sony announced yesterday that its new budget laptop will make its U.S. debut next month. With a starting price of $750, it undercuts Sony's current budget model, the Vaio N, by a hefty $200. Despite its low price, Sony didn't skimp on design, outfitting the 15.4-inch, 6.2-pound with a textured chassis it describes as "fabric-like" and "pleasing to the eye and cool to the touch." You'll have your choice of three colors, which Sony calls wenge, silk, and granite and everyone else calls brown, white, and silver.

Sony lists four Vaio NR configurations. An Intel Core 2 Duo processor is offered on the highest-end config, the NR160, but the other three units, the NR110, NR120, and NR140, use lower-end Pentium Dual Core processors that operate on a 533MHz frontside bus. The entry-level Vaio NR110 model features a Pentium Dual Core T2310 CPU, 1GB of memory, a surprisingly roomy 120GB hard drive, Intel GMA X3100 graphics, b/g Wi-Fi, and a DVD burner. It all adds up to a good value, but we'd want another gigabyte of memory to ensure a pleasant experience with Vista Home Premium.

Just in case the usual laptop custom design options--usually a bold primary color on the lid, or maybe a set of flaming skull stickers--aren't doing it for you anymore, the creative minds at Sony have a new way to support computer users' self-expression. The company has commissioned artist Maya Hayuk, a painter whose work has been seen on several album covers and an Absolut ad campaign, to create new designs for Vaio laptops.

The result was unveiled Tuesday night by Sony, in the form of two limited-edition 15.4-inch Sony Vaio FZ series laptops, with the new designs on the back of the lid.

The flowery "Grow" design and the angular "Never Stop" are both available only through SonyStyle retail stores and the SonyStyle Web site, starting at around $2,500. The systems also include matching desktop wallpaper, a video clip of the artist discussing her work, and a signed certificate of authenticity.

Update: It took us a minute to figure out that the Blu-ray region hadn't been set in the software. That and the sheer length of this review mean you should look for it tomorrow. Almost done.

Apple's new iMac remains the all-purpose all-in-one to beat, but Sony's just-announced Vaio LT19U has three features we've never seen in a PC/monitor combo before. This $2,899 model (an update to last year's Vaio LS1) has a Blu-ray burner, a pull-out sled for adding a second hard drive, and a VESA-standard wall mount input. It also comes with an external (boo) ATI Digital Cable Tuner (i.e. CableCard), as well as a host of other features. As follows:

• 22-inch widescreen LCD (1,680x1,050)
• 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 CPU
• 2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
• 500GB 7,200-rpm hard drive
• 256MB Nvidia GeForce 8400 GT graphics chip
• Windows Vista Ultimate
• 802.11n wireless networking
• Built-in ATSC and NTSC TV tuner
• Built-in 1.3-megapixel Webcam
• 3-watt stereo speakers, and built in 5-watt subwoofer
• Various USB, Ethernet, removable media and audio ports

Sony also announced the Vaio LT15E, an $1,899 model with a standard-def DVD drive, a slower CPU and other reduced specs. We're not sure how that one will fare against Apple's cheaper, better-looking (although less wall-mountable) 24-inch iMac. But if you have money to blow and like the idea of a Blu-ray-capable PC on the wall of your office or bedroom, the $2,899 model might turn a lot of expensively groomed heads. We'll have our review up by the end of the day, so stay tuned for the full story.

Sure we've seen it in Japan for months, and you can actually order one from gadget importer Dynamism.com, but we're still pretty excited that Sony is finally releasing the Vaio TZ laptop here in the good ol' U. S. of A.

Last night, at the event space on top of 30 Rockefeller Plaza (known as the Top of the Rock), Sony showed off what the company calls a "new line of richly designed, high-performance ultraportable notebooks." For once we pretty much agree--even with an 11.1-inch LED backlit display, Web cam, carbon-fiber casing, and a full-fledged Core 2 Duo CPU (not a wimpy Core Duo or Core Solo), it's impressive that the entire package still squeezes down to less than 1-inch thick. It's also got integrated WWAN (via Sprint), which is quickly becoming a must-have for ultraportables.

Of course, all this pint-sized goodness doesn't come cheap. The basic model starts at $2,299, and if you add the optional 32GB flash-based, solid-state hard drive, you're talking $3,000.

The Vaio TZ is available in classic black, premium carbon, champagne gold, and hand-painted Bordeaux, starting today (although the SonyStyle Web site lists the TZ as shipping around the end of July).

The rumored Vaio TZ that we previously reported on has arrived! Importer Dynamism.com has begun selling the Sony Vaio TZ90, the latest T series laptop currently shipping in Japan.

The TZ90 commemorates the launch of Sony's first ultraslim notebook, the Vaio 505, almost 10 years ago. That laptop sired a long line of tiny ultraportables , including the X505, T series, and TX series.

Back in the day, $2,000 would get you a 200MHz Pentium processor, 32MB of RAM, a 2.1GB hard drive, integrated modem, and external floppy. With the Vaio TZ90, you get considerably more, though the starting price has increased to $2,299: a 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600 ultralow voltage processor (which means the TZ90 is not yet a Santa Rosa system), an integrated DVD burner, and your choice of a 160GB hard drive or a 32GB solid-state drive--or both, if you're willing to sacrifice the optical drive. The Vaio TZ90's 11.1-inch display incorporates LED backlights, which have helped extend battery life on previous Vaio models. The backlights also allow for thinner screens, which contribute to the TZ90's scant 2.3-pound weight.

As mentioned earlier, the TZ90 is available only in Japan and through Dynamism for the time being; we can't wait to see it on our shores.

When we told you about several leaked Sony laptops a few weeks ago, there weren't any photos of the ultraportable Vaio TZ11 to share. But Andrew at NotebookReview.com managed to uncover some images and more detailed specs on a French retailer's Web site.

"Anyone think that keyboard redesign looks a lot like the MacBook keyboard?" Andrew asks, and our answer is a hearty yes. We just hope it's comfortable for typing--which is tough to do when the case is only 10.9 inches wide.

Like its TX series predecessor, the 2.6-pound TZ11 is expected to include an LED-backlit display, which not only keeps the case slim but should also extend battery life. Also note that (at least on this European version) Sony has dropped the annoying WWAN antenna that hung off the side of the Vaio TXN17.

You'll find more photos and full specs at NotebookReview.com.