Sony Vaio 505E Lite review

The Sony Viao E505 LT could be yours for just £1,230 (£1,445).

Only a year ago, this kind of money would get you a big clunky notebook with fairly uninspiring performance. Not so today - the Viao is a beautiful looking machine. Get out this notebook on a train and you'll certainly turn heads. It isn't all show though, as our Performance section will reveal. It's based around a 300MHz Pentium MMX processor. The chip is supported by 64Mb of RAM and a 6.4Gb hard disk. The screen is a 10.4in TFT effort.

Portability is the reason you by a notebook over a desktop PC, and at a bantamweight 1.40kg, Sony have worked wonders here. The floppy and optional CD-ROM drives are external units, although bringing them with you only adds 350g to the weight.

A less widely considered aspect of portability is battery life. The Sony Vaio is the lightest notebook on test, but they seem to have trimmed too much off the weight of their battery. Despite being of the longer-lasting litium ion variety, our tests revealed that it only lasts 1h 12mins in test conditions. By contrast, the chunky Dell remained conscious and capable of work for nearly three hours after we severed its connection with the mains.

Sony's Vaio is as pleasant to use as it is to behold. Sony has managed to make the keyboard about as small as is possible without compromising comfort. If you have big hands, you may have to concentrate a bit, but you should adapt pretty quickly. Our only complaint was that the function keys were tiny - but as the mouse has made them largely redundant, this appeared an acceptable compromise.

Its touch pad was well up to standard too. It was precise, and clicking by tapping the pad worked as well as you'd expect. Neither could we fault the Sony's screen. The display was bright, with crisply defined detail that coped well with small text. Even under close inspection, it seemed evenly lit across its whole area and there were no dead pixels (the tell-tale sign of a cheap screen).

The most noteworthy aspect of the Sony has to be its thickness - or, rather, lack of it. Shut, it stands 20mm high. Open, its base is a mere 13mm deep. These dimensions are achieved by fitting the LiION battery into the notebook's hinge. Removed, it's a cylinder about the size of a packet of Rolos (but with 33 per cent extra free).

Performance was pretty good, although no competition for a 300MHz desktop system. We put this down to the other core components - motherboard, graphics controller and hard disk, which rarely have the same power as the desktops. Against similar notebooks, performance is still only average.

If you're looking for the best in performance and ergonomics for your pound, your best bet is something a bit clunkier, such as Dell's excellent Inspiron 7000 C400LT. For those tempted by the ultra-slim designs, the Sony is a very respectable player, bar one feature.Its battery life was simply too fleeting to make it a serious contender for long-distance work. Just over an hour is not acceptable any more.