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The Sony VAIO NR is the latest family of stylish, colorful, consumer friendly notebooks from Sony. What makes the NR series genuinely unique for Sony is that the starting price is less than $800 ... making the NR the lowest-priced notebook the company has ever produced. You can configure a VAIO NR online at SonyStyle.com in a variety of colors or buy a stock configuration from various retailers.
The VAIO NR is available in three colors (brown, white, and silver) with a full range of Intel processors (from the 1.46GHz Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor T2310 to the 1.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5450) starting at $799. The only screen offering is the 15.4" WXGA but the notebook can take up to 4GB of RAM. Built-in wireless 802.11 a/b/g is standard.
Styling and Design
The overall first impression that one has when looking at the NR series is that this notebook was designed to look nice yet be affordable. From the range of available colors to the fabric-like textured LCD cover and palm rests the NR is a simple yet striking design. The "granite" silver version looks like metal at a distance but upon closer examination it's clear that the notebook exterior is made of thick plastics.
As mentioned above, the lid of the VAIO NR also has a nice textured finish with the VAIO lettering in a recessed silver plastic. Overall the look is very clean. After opening the lid and seeing the matching silver plastic interior of the NR I expected a cheap feel to the case with a significant amount of flex to it. Surprisingly the case is very sturdy with relatively thick plastic and metal interior reinforcement in just the right places.
The VAIO NR lid does not have a latch to hold it closed, but the hinge mechanism works well and firmly holds the lid in place. There is some flex to the screen lid but it’s just enough to keep the LCD from being too rigid. There certainly isn’t enough screen flex to worry about.
Sony officially classifies the VAIO NR as a "portable" notebook. We're pretty sure all laptops can be considered "portable" but the NR is reasonably thin for a 15.4" notebook (1.5" at its thickest point) and has a weight of only 6.2 pounds. That said, the depth (front to back) of the NR is a little large compared to other notebooks in the same class. In fact, we couldn't get the NR to fit in some smaller 15.4" notebook bags. |
