Price:£520
The Design:The laptop has a dotted silver and black design throughout. It has a rough feel to all of the plastics which looks good and I think it would hide chips and scratches quite well. The laptop is of average size and average weight so no problems there!
The keyboard feels very nice to use and is of a good size. I love the large speaker holes above the keyboard and the hotkeys to the right come in handy.
The touch pad is in keeping with the laptop design and is set in slightly giving a definite boarder around the pad so you don't need to look where your finger is.
The Screen:
The screen is a high contrast 15.4 inches and has a max resolution of 1280x800. You can tell the screen is of very good quality and I would be happy to use this as my main computer.
The graphics chip is an Intel integrated GMA 4500MHD and can handle games that go easy on the graphics. If you are serious about gaming then I would opt for a different laptop however if you are an occasional gamer than this should suffice.
The Hardware:
Processor: Intel Pentium Dual Core 2.0GHZ
Pre Installed OS: Windows Vista Home Premium (I installed Windows 7 which worked fine)
RAM: 3GB
Hard Disk: 250GB
CD drive: DVD&CD rewriter
Interfaces:
External monitor,external microphone, headphones, rj-11, rj-45, 4 USB ports, built in card reader, built in Sony magicgate card reader, iLink, built in webcam, built in microphone, built in speakers
Enhancements:
The laptop has a built in AV mode which I really liked using. Whilst on the desktop if you press the hotkey it brings up a software suite that is just for watching films and listening to music. I found it very easy to use and worked brilliantly with my USB remote control.
I tested the webcam, microphone and speakers on Skype and they all work fine at a decent quality. The speakers are of good quality however to get the best sound for music and films I would use an external speaker set.
Built in WiFi is always a plus and is expected from a laptop like this. The toggle switch again allows easy on/off functionality however I did find myself knocking it off a few times whilst using it on my lap.
The camera is an amazing 1.3 megapixels which is actually impressive for a laptop like this, makes for a very good video conversation.
Tests:
The first test as always was installing Windows 7. The install didn't take long to finish and I was impressed with the start up time from the fully formatted system. The built in Sony software must be making it lag a little on startup.
I installed my Company Of Heroes and the play speed seemed OK on the medium and low settings. I was honestly expecting a little more from the laptop in that area. I could play a full length game however I did have a fair amount of slowdown during times of graphical processing demand.
I think with a little tweaking I could get more out of the 3GB RAM, it seems like the laptop isn't making full use of it!
Battery Life:
I was quite impressed with the power consumption. I ran several applications for about 3 hours before the laptop asked to be plugged into a power source. I think the laptop must have some fairly advanced power saving chips inside it.
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I am very impressed with the design of this laptop and think it is very sexy and sleek. I felt the RAM wasn't being used to its full potential however it was by no means a slow computer. I feel like this could come off as a bad review however I am considering switching to using this laptop full time!
This laptop nearly got 5/5 however I felt the slowdown made it go down a mark!