Sony VAIO VGN-FW11ZU review

Sony have refreshed their popular VAIO laptop range with four new models.

Three are aimed a business users, a new departure for the company we all know for its consumer electronics. This one, though, is designed more for the living room than the boardroom.

That's immediately obvious thanks to the 16.4 inch screen, which makes high definition movies look stunning. Like Acer's latest media laptops, it has the same 16:9 shape as a widescreen TV, rather than the 16:10 format of most widescreen monitors. Colour reproduction was great at both the dark and light ends, with sharp, clear detail. Although the 1600x900 resolution isn't enough for full 1080p HD, it still does justice to high definition movies from the built-in Blu-ray drive.

These are becoming more commonplace, but the VAIO's is unusual in that it can write as well as read discs. At the moment, blank Blu-ray discs are very expensive, but prices are bound to fall. For the moment, the drive can also burn CDs and DVDs in all the usual formats.

The sound and the fury

Beneath the impressive screen is a chassis that exudes style and quality. As well as feeling pretty tough - we were hard pressed to make the screen flex by twisting it - it's packed with useful ports and sockets. Like other recent Sony offerings, and the latest Macs, the keyboard has a 'Scrabble tile' design, with flat keys that are separated from each other. Touch typists may find this very hard to get used to, but for general use it's comfortable and doesn't detract from long work sessions.

The VAIO's entertainment credentials are further boosted by a hefty set of speakers fitted between the screen and keyboard. While they won't be able to compete with standalone sets, they're punchy enough to handle films, and a distinct improvement on the average laptop speakers.

What's on the inside is just as impressive as the VAIO's exterior. It's one of the first laptops we've seen that uses Intel's new Centrino 2 platform, which means it includes a newer, faster processor, built-in WiFi that handles the latest 802.11n standard, and a decent dedicated graphics chip.

As we expected from the terrifically quick Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile T9400 processor, which runs at a blazing 2.53GHz, performance in our benchmark tests was impressive, putting many desktop PCs to shame. A general (2D) score of 204% is more than enough for work and play, and even more ambitious applications such as video editing.

The VAIO also provides some gaming potential thanks to a proper graphics processor. The ATI Radeon Mobility HD 3650 is a slightly older chip, but still motored to a respectable score of 42% in our benchmark, based on the game Call of Duty 2. While it's clear that the VAIO won'tbe able to handle the latest and most demanding titles at the highest detail settings, plenty of modern games are within reach.

The rest of the specification is generous, and again lends itself well to home entertainment. A 300GB hard disk is big for a laptop, and enough to store a sizeable collection of music and movies, while 4GB of RAM is double what we're used to seeing in most portables.

Big screens and fast processors tend to have an impact on battery life, and the VAIO's is acceptable rather than outstanding. In light use it lasted us nearly two hours and 20 minutes, but when playing back a DVD the VAIO ran out of juice after just under an hour and a half, so you wouldn't be able to watch a whole movie away from the mains.

The other almost inevitable consequence of the high specification is that, with its battery, the VAIO weighs in at over 3kg, so it isn't the most portable machine we've ever seen. For a big screen model, though, it's not too bad. Keeping it at home as a compact alternative to a desktop PC is another option, though in that case you might prefer Acer's slightly cheaper 8920G, which has a bigger screen, with full 1080p resolution to take full advantage of its read-only Blu-ray drive, and slightly better performance.