One existing as an ultralight laptop with the ability to dock to a larger station for desktop replacement peripherals and the other as an 11.6 inch netbook running Chrome—rumors are out that Sony is planning to unleash these two ultra-portable VAIOs on the market in the near future.

The former, known as the “Hybrid PC”, has specs like: a Core i7, an SSD, HDMI 1.4, WiDi and weighs less than 2.5 pounds. When docked, it has access to a Radeon HD 6700M (Whistler-XT), a Blu-ray burner, Ethernet, VGA, and a custom USB/AC connector. The system is also rumored to support Thunderbolt I/O in some way.

The latter would be an 11.6 inch, Chrome Netbook using an NVIDIA Tegra 2 and sporting 8 hours of battery life. 3G or 4G connectivity would be built into the netbook.

You can get more info on the supposed specs from Sony Insider.

All of this points to Sony’s efforts to build a direct competitor to the Apple MacBook Air and revamp their approach to building ultraportable laptops, which have historically been more like regular laptops.

I have to say, as long as it’s built well, the docking concept is intriguing. We’ll see if these come to market this summer as rumored.

[Via Electronista]