Screen Size: 11.1”Battery Life: 5-6 Hours
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium
Weight: 2.6lbs
Sony's offering to the world of ultrathin laptops isn't quite as visually attractive or unique as their 'netbook' offering but it's one of the best out there in terms of overall features including one of the most commonly excluded features on most small laptops: a fully capable DVD drive.
The design on the TZ1 isn't exactly ugly; it just doesn't stand out amongst its competitors in the way people who are familiar with the Vaio brand might be used to. One of its more unique design features is the keyboard, which features spaced out keys similar to those seen the Macbook. This style was actually first created by Sony themselves nearly five years ago. It's not a bad keyboard although many people find the spacing between keys more annoying than practical.
The 11" screen is without doubt one of the best around, running in a 1366 x 768 resolution which is commonly seen in HDTV. This makes it the only system in the list to achieve a real 16:9 ratio making it perfect for watching films. And of course, watching DVD movies is something you can actually do with ease on the TZ1 compared to the vast majority of competitors that offer, at best, an external DVD drive option. In fact Sony goes a step further and provides DVD and CD playback on the system without even having to boot up windows, saving considerable battery life on a task that's well known for quickly draining power.
The system boasts full AV media controls as well as Firewire and 2 USB ports. There’s integrated Bluetooth support but despite an express card slot, there's no integrated mobile broadband support.
The Core 2 Duo that powers the system runs at 1.06 GHz per core and provides enough juice to sufficiently power the system although it’s slightly slower compared to some of the newer small laptops on this list. However, base installs are let down by including only 1 GB of ram, not enough to run Vista without slowdown. Luckily the machine supports up to 2 GB and most stores are selling the system as such. Despite Vista, machine battery life is excellent giving about 6 hours of power under heavy usage.
An amazing screen and internal DVD drive set the VAIO apart from its competitors, so if you need a small laptop that's capable for business use but also performs well as a media system, the TZ1 could be a very good choice. The TZ1 is one of the older systems on our list so prices have fallen since launch, averaging at around $1600.
Conclusion:
As we've seen already there are two major problems in the world of small laptops. Firstly, to make them as small and portable as possible features are eventually axed, be it DVD drives or faster CPU speeds. Secondly, the price of components makes many small laptops a particular sticking point for many, especially during a recession.
Luckily the market has expanded considerably in the last few years giving consumers not only an excellent array of different sizes and styles of laptops but also a massive variation in budget, from as low as $300 to as high as $2,000. People might argue over the system we have or haven’t included in our list but one thing is for sure: there has never been a better time to take the leap into portable computing than right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment