Sony Vaio W series

Sony Vaio W series ... REVIEW !!


Sony joins the netbook race in earnest


There we were, thinking that Sony was completely above the netbook scramble currently gripping the computing industry. It's got the VAIO P Series ultra portable laptop after all, and it's got its reputation for classy, lifestyle kit and high price tags. Why would it need a neetbook? But what’s this – a VAIO W Series: Intel Atom, Windows XP, sub RM 3000 price tag... a netbook through and through.

The first thing that stands out in the W Series, is how generic it is. Under the hood you'll find an Intel Atom N280 plus 1GB of RAM powering Windows XP. Then there’s a 160GB HDD, a 10.1-inch screen, Bluetooth, draft in WiFi and an array of memory card slots. At this point, we could be talking about any one of a score of netbooks released in the past six months.

But the W Series does have something more than your average netbook. First and foremost is the screen. Although 10.1-inch is the new standard size, Sony has packed in one of its tasty X-black LCDs, assisted by LED technology. Furthermore, it ups the resolution to 1,366 x 768 pixels – larger than the normal 1024 x 600 resolution standard.

It's an important leap too; apart from being sharper and better defined, you can see a lot more on screen at the same time – particularly when it comes to browsing websites – and dramatically cuts the amount of time you spend scrolling pages and improves usability tenfold.

Watching videos on the X-black screen is a pleasure too, with far better blacks and colour depth than you'll find on cheaper devices. Sure, we're not talking BRAVIA standards by any stretch of the imagination but if, like us, you use your netbook as a cheap portable entertainment device as much as you do for typing emails and browsing Facebook, it's a highly welcome improvement.

The battery life is something of a disappointment, however. Sony quotes around three hours of normal use, although we were actually able to squeeze out a little more than that during our tests. Even so, it's nothing to write home about and leaves you reaching for the power cable all too frequently.

The W Series manages to steal a march in the keyboard department. This is a feature that it shares with the P Series (although minus the infuriating control knob) - it's one of the growing number of pebble keyboards, sporting those superb isolated keys. It was one of our favourite features on the Samsung N310, and now we're starting to think every laptop should be forced to use them, by law if necessary. They are simply a cut above other keyboard designs and a dream to type on.

A few concessions have been made, of course. The right shift key is so small you'll need a trained flea to press it, and the tab button is peculiarly small, while in contrast the 1 key is just massive. Good for fans of hyperbole, perhaps. Under your fingers, it also feels a tad plasticky compared to the P Series' smooth, metallic effect. But these aren’t deal breakers. Combined with the excellent and precise mouse trackpad, we put this as one of the best quality keyboard and trackpad combinations to date.

Sony has priced the W Series at RM 3200 ++ - low enough to keep it in netbook territory but clearly at the high end of the scale. Is it worth it? Sony’s attention to design and build quality is certainly in evidence, the X-black screen and superb keyboard going some way to setting the W Series apart from the crowd. Even so, we can’t escape the niggling feeling that Sony isn’t showing us how netbooks should be done, rather that they can be done with the VAIO brand.

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