Sony VAIO running Chrome OS leaks, thanks to FCC.

Just when we thought Google’s Chrome OS was over and done with, Sony’s VAIO VCC111 has suddenly popped up for a routine inspection at the FCC (Federal Communications Commission). The notebook being tested was running Google’s Chrome OS. Chromebooks were originally designed as replacements for netbooks, but due to the limitations of the OS, it never really took off. Google’s idea behind this concept was to give users just basic functionality that one typically uses the notebook for- Internet surfing, working on office documents and videos. These were also a lot faster than netbooks and slimmer as well, but because most of the applications required an Internet connection to work, it didn’t do very well here.

Sony’s latest addition sports a 11.6-inch screen and is powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 250 T25 ARM CPU running at 1.2GHz. According to some of the pictures, the notebook has an HDMI, headphone and microphone jack, two USB ports and an SD card reader. The notebook isn’t very slim, which makes us believe that it may just have a proper notebook hard drive, instead of a small flash-based storage device. The notebook will also have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth onboard. As to when Sony plans to release this is still unknown. We don’t see the point of using Chrome OS at this stage when Sony could have put Ice Cream Sandwich, which would have made more sense. Not only is it familiar to use, but you have the whole app store to satisfy your ‘app’etite (pardon the pun). With Android 4.0 already hitting 10.1-inch tablets, it would have been easy to port it to the VCC111. We really hope for Sony’s sake that they do switch from Chrome OS to Android, before they plan on launching it, else this doesn’t make any sense.