Sony VAIO CW 14-inch Laptop

Dell Studio |Dell Studio One, VAIOs from Sony are well-known for their appeal in the laptop segment, especially for their build quality and design. The 14-inch Sony VAIO CW continues in that tradition, distinguishing itself from the masses with stylish (and thoughtful) design and great performance, while packing in a healthy Nvidia GPU.

The Sony VAIO CW series of laptops is available in various colors. Our review unit (VPCCW16FG/W) was icy white all around, with the VAIO logo engraved on its non-glossy screen lid's (no fingerprints here!) center. Prop the screen up to reveal a chiclet-styled keyboard with plenty of palmrest to park your hands while typing. The palmrest is slightly raised and prominent - this actually aids comfort while typing. The VAIO CW is very well built, has rounded edges, and feels like a premium laptop. It weighs all of 2.4-kg with a six-cell battery, which is lesser compared to 15-inch laptops like Dell Studio 15 Artist Edition and Acer Aspire 5542G perched in our Top 5 Mainstream Laptop recommendations.

The Sony VAIO CW comes with a 14-inch LED backlit screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio, supporting a maximum resolution of 1366x768, and a 1.3MP webcam is recessed on its top bezel. The Sony VAIO CW's screen isn't as bright as the Samsung R470's but at par with the likes of Dell Inspiron 14z and Lenovo Ideapad Y450. It offers good viewing angles and watching movies as well as reading text is pretty good. Typing on the chiclet-styled keyboard is extremely comfortable and the key feedback is just about right. The VAIO CW's touchpad and the two mouse buttons are nice to work with. The laptop's hinge (below the screen) has a host of quick-launch buttons: for launching a browser, turning off the screen, or launching the VAIO's app console--all this really helps in day-to-day usage.

Despite its 14-inch frame, the Sony VAIO CW is incredibly powerful under the hood. It has an Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 2.53-GHz processor, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 320GB hard drive, and a GeForce GT230M graphics card. Besides the standard offering of input-output ports, the Sony VAIO CW doesn't skimp on must-haves like Gigabit Ethernet, Draft-N Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connectivity. The VAIO CW doesn't come with an eSATA port, but includes HDMI-out (to play HD content on an LCD TV) and FireWire (transfer images or video from your camera, handycam) ports, along with Sony's proprietary MagicGate slot . Apart from 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium, Sony also bundles in a host of proprietary apps for managing your multimedia content. A very healthy set of features, overall, from the Sony VAIO CW.

The Sony VAIO CW is one of the most powerful mainstream laptop we've encountered for some time. Its WorldBench 6 scored past 100 without a hiccup, and our round of synthetic benchmarks posted very high numbers on the VAIO CW. What's interesting, though, is its bundled Nvidia GPU--the GeForce GT230M. Apart from handling HD content and 3D applications, the graphics card is enough to satisfy gamers with modest expectations--yes, you can game on it, if you like gaming on a 14-inch screen that is. The Sony VAIO CW is a very good compact, all-purpose laptop in terms of pure performance. Onboard sound from the speakers situated on the hinge is good, but not great.

But it has a glaring trade-off with battery performance--the bundled six-cell battery failed to last an hour on our benchmarks. The most you can expect from the Sony VAIO CW is over two hours, on a conservative battery plan, which is poor compared to other mainstream laptop offerings.

Dell Inspiron Mini 10

Dell Studio One 19 Desktop Computer - Dell’s netbooks have always been in the middle of the pack. They’ve typically offered sleek designs and plenty of customization options, but not the best ergonomics or battery life. This time around Dell took full advantage of Intel’s new Atom N450 processor (Pine Trail) to give its Inspiron Mini 10 a major boost of endurance. Thanks in part to this more efficient CPU, the Mini 10 offers over 9 hours of battery life without a bulging battery. We especially like the more distinctive look, not to mention the several fun color options. You also get a 250GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM, and Windows 7 Starter Edition. At $369, the Mini 10 is fiscally attractive, too. But has Dell done enough to catch up to the likes of Acer, ASUS, and Toshiba?

Design

Dell’s new Mini 10 is a fairly dramatic departure from its predecessor. This netbook sports a wedge-shape design with a lid that sits on top of the deck instead of dropping down behind the body. When closed, the rear of the deck is exposed, bringing to mind the design of Dell’s original high-priced Adamo. The black deck is also imprinted with a crosshatch pattern that adds a nice texture. At 10.5 x 7.7 x 1.3 inches, the Mini 10 is a shade larger than the Toshiba mini NB305, and is also larger than the older Mini 10 (10.3 x 7.2 x 1.3 inches). Weighing 3.0 pounds even, this model is also slightly heavier than the netbook norm of 2.8 pounds.

The shell of our Mini 10 was made of white plastic, which hides fingerprints well despite having a glossy finish. Other color options include black, blue, green, pink, purple, and red. Users will also have the option to select one of 229 different lids from the Dell Design Studio, ranging from a New York Yankees pattern to artists’ designs and lipstick colors. Personalization doesn’t come cheap however; these options cost $85.

Heat

After playing a Hulu video for 15 minutes at full screen, the Mini 10 got toasty. The touchpad measured 95 degrees Fahrenheit, the space between the G and H keys was 100 degrees, and the center of the underside measured 108 degrees. The right section of the underside towards the front measured a disturbing 120 degrees after this test, but in the 104- to 108-degree range with little to no activity. We consider anything higher than 100 degrees to be unpleasant.

The style of the Mini 10’s keyboard has also changed. Instead of being completely flat, the keys are now terraced so that the top is smaller than the base, but still wide enough for us to type comfortably for extended stretches. Some may prefer the Toshiba mini NB305’s metal island-style keyboard because it has more space in between the keys, but the Mini 10 beats that system when it comes to its more solid feedback.

dellinspironmini10w_sh_touchpad.jpgUnfortunately, Dell kept its touchpad with integrated mouse buttons. On the plus side, this allowed the company to keep the Mini 10’s touchpad large at 3.0 x 1.4 inches. However, the buttons are quite small, and not as usable as a traditional setup. Since the last Mini 10 (and 11z), Dell has switched from an Elantech to a Synaptics driver, and no longer supports multitouch gestures such as rotating, two-finger scrolling, and pinching to zoom. This may be a good thing, since those gestures were tricky to use on the previous Mini 10s. Still, those who concurrently use both their right and left hands on the touchpad will find it more difficult to use; the cursor would sometimes move before we clicked down, which was annoying. Overall, we prefer larger touchpads with discrete touchpad buttons, which is exactly what you’ll find on such systems as the Toshiba mini NB305.

by Michael A. Prospero on January 20, 2010