Sony Vaio SZ

Sony Vaio SZ

• Sony Vaio SZ: The Facts

  The Sony Vaio SZ series is a collection of ultra portable notebooks featuring a variety of user orientated set-ups with 3 models to choose from, offering characteristics such as, value for money, fast processing, excellent communications, and connectivity with Sony's embedded VAIO Everywair. The Vaio SZ series also features some new technology from the Sony team to give their new breed of laptops an edge in the busy, fast paced world their products live. With that focus, they have integrated materials usually found on aircraft and Formula One cars into to the SZ's construction. Carbon-fibre, which is 200% stronger and 30% lighter than conventional materials, help the SZ series improve their mobility, because of their drop in weight and increased durability against damage from knocks and drops. The Hard Disk is also protected from incidents like these with a Hard Disk Drorotection sensor that freezes your laptop before it hits the ground when dropped, protecting valuable date. Another threat posed by working on the move is security, Sony have improved this technology greatly, something that a few embarrassed civil service and ministry of intelligence officials would've been very grateful to have! Fingerprint recognition has been developed so logging in is much safer, you can't hack a fingerprint! Also, if your laptop falls into the wrong hands, the SZ series has "Trusted Platform Module, which provides hardware based data encryption. Sony have improved at the screen as well, the latest generation, labelled X-black features an LED back light giving it greater colour ranges and prolonging battery life. Equipped with an impressive selection of preinstalled software as standard, the SZ series is ready for use straight out of the box and few users will feel the need to make big changes to get the right set-up. The Windows Vista Business package offers a great office based set up, as well as, applications including Adobe Photoshop Elements 6, Norton 360, WinDVD 8.0 and Adobe Acrobat Reader, run on an Intel Centrino platform.

• Sony Vaio SZ: The Verdict

  Overall, these notebooks provide great performance on the move, with carefully thought out portability and security as well as impressive design and ergonomics. If the SZ series is a range of notebooks that interest you, you're the kind of person that needs portable high performance and is willing to spend a little more on a brand and a style.

  To see what Review Centre users thought about their Vaio SZ, have a look at our Laptop Reviews and see what else is on the market that may be to your taste.