One of the unwritten laws of the electronics world is that Sonys are expensive. Whether it be TVs, games consoles or in this case, laptops, people usually pay a premium for anything the Japanese manufacturer produces.
But it's not impossible to find a bargain Sony, as we've found with the Vaio NR series. These laptops are extremely low priced but still bear the prestigious Vaio logo. The entry-level VGN-NR11M/S costs £549, while the top-rung VGN-NR11Z/S, reviewed here, will set you back £649 and according to the Sony Web site, is available soon.
Design
There are good and bad aspects of the NR series' design. Our biggest peeve is the colour -- it has a dull zinc finish with a mottled surface. This gives it a sort of industral appearance, and we're not big fans of it. The colour is offset slightly by the laptop's soft, curved corners, though, which the women in our office seemed to appreciate.
The NR11Z/S is a fair-sized machine. Its chassis weighs a lardy 2.8kg and measures 360 by 31 by 269mm. It's hardly the most portable of laptops, but it's the right size if you're looking for an everyday machine that can replace a desktop PC. It would be great for students, in fact, because the 15.4-inch screen is big enough to replace that of a television in a small room.
The NR series has a large, comfortable keyboard. There's no dedicated numerical keypad, but the each key is of a decent size so stray fingers are less likely to hit one by mistake. The laptop also has four USB ports, one of which you may want to dedicate for a USB mouse.
Towards the front of the machine, there are SD and Memory Stick Pro card readers and a hardware switch for enabling or disabling the wireless LAN. We're also happy to see the Ethernet and modem ports sit at the rear of the laptop and not the sides -- meaning your arrangement of cables is less intrusive.
That's about all that is of note on an otherwise bland-looking laptop. If you like no-nonsense devices the NR series should be right up your alley.
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