It's a sony !!. Review on Sony VAIO CR - VGN-CR363/B

Recently sony has launched new laptop CR 363. Initially I was looking for DELL or HP Around 40K. but when I saw this laptop, I just get crazy about it!!

Here are some specifications :

CPU-- Intel Core2 duo Processor T8100(2.10GHz) *

Hard disk-- 250GB 2GB DDR2 SD RAM

OS-- Genuine Window Vista Home Premium *

Sony vaio is good in performance and is very good for a official use.Sony vaio is very thinner and lighter in weight.Its weight is 2.5kg, which is very light weight to carry for users.

*Build and Design

Youhave to hand it to Sony, they've done a nice job with the styling of the VAIO and the selection of colors and designs is unprecedented.The Espresso Black with copper accents that comes with the VAIO is sleek, cool and professional looking.

The area around the keypad has a piano-gloss finish; the speakers are at the top corners. The 82-key keypad is very comfortable; the entire look is a Mac-copy-paste job, but I found the tactility much better.Wrist space is adequate, and the touchpad is placed such that you don't find your fingers accidentally touching it; it has two buttons and a fingerprint scanner between them.

*Display

The screen is bright and crisp. Sony vaio has 14.1 clear bright LCD .One can get a bright view glossy screen in this LCD.I enjoy watching movies though screen size is small.There is a webcam above the screen; it supports the Motion EYE feature, which tracks the user's face as it moves (within a certain range).

*Keyboard

Open it up, and the laptop seems very slick. It will immediately remindyou of a Mac - especially the keypad. The most appealing part of this laptop is keyboard. Keys are very smooth and distant. So even fat person can also operate easily.

*Input and Output Ports

Left side: Two USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 400, S-Video, Monitor-Out, heat vent, microphone and headphone jacks.

Right side: USB port , Ehternet and modem port , SD Express Card slot, Magic Gate , DVD slot. The port selection is actually quite good, except for the fact we only get three USB 2.0 ports. I'd like to see four, but I can get by with 3 on a notebook of this size.

Audio

The VAIO has stereo sound via speakers on the left side and right side.If you check out the pictures of the notebook you'll seethe speakers located on near keyboard. With the speakers being on the side they don't exactly direct the sound at you and I thought this would be problematic, but the audio is surprisingly good and volume level also quite good. The headphone jack is located on the left side when you want better audio quality or need to avert disturbing others.

Heat and Noise

The VAIO runs nice and quiet with the 2.1 GHz Core 2 Duo. It would run warmer if say a faster 2.4GHz was configured, but as far as this review unit goes there's nothing to complain about. The bottom right side gets a bit warm, but never so much that it would be uncomfortable on the lap. I ran three benchmarking tools at the same time to stress out the machine and make it work hard, but even then temperatures stayed reasonable and comfortable to the touch. So while I complained about the thickness of this notebook, the amount room inside allows things to stay cool so extra thickness isn't all bad.

The fan ison the left side and it is quiet when running, you have to putyour ear down at desk level to hear it over any other ambient noise inthe room.

Battery and Power Adapter

Sonyquotes the battery life of the included 6-cell battery at 3.0-4.5 hoursof use depending on how you use the notebook. In my using of thenotebook at half screen brightness, wireless off, and idling for 2hours and then light usage (typing in Word) for 1 hour I got exactly 3hours of use. So that falls on the low-end of Sony's claim, and if Iwere doing anything during that 2 hours of idle time you'd get lessbattery life. You can get a 9-cell battery for a longer usagetime unplugged, but the 9-cell will stick out from the back and addweight to the system.

Performance

This Vaio aims to be an ultra-portable while not leaving performance behind. The powerhouse of the laptop is an Intel Core2Duo T8100(2.10GHz), the ultra low-voltage version of the Core2Duo laptop solution. The low-rpm hard disk is the other thing that increases battery lifewhile letting performance take a hit. The 2GB of RAM is shared with the onboard graphics. The RAM can be increased by another 2 GB, which seems essential, because Vista comes preinstalled.

Conclusion

The Sony VAIO ends up being a decent portable notebook that's very nice looking and is built well. It also stacks up well feature for feature against the MacBook. If you'd like to be able to use Mac OSX I'd say go with the Apple MacBook, but if you're sure that Windows XP or Vista is your OS of choice I think the VAIO should win out so long as price is in line between similar configurations of these notebooks. One more thing, this laptop doesn't come with recovery discs. One has to made after through recovery center. As of now my laptop doesnt come with serious issues . If price is not as issue, go for it !!!!