The Sony VAIO NW laptop seems set to start a portable price war, promising to deliver the best priced Blu-ray laptop available in the UK, bringing the technology within every household budget.
The VAIO NW will hit the shop floors in the US next month with a starting price of $800 (£485), or including Blu-ray for an extra $85 (£50). So what do you get for your money?
Well, the 15.5-inch laptop delivers a true 16:9 aspect ratio screen and built-in Blu-ray player for quite possibly the best HD on a budget around. As far as the main spec is concerned, the VAIO NW is motored by an Intel 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor in tandem with 4096MB of memory, 400GB hard drive and the added choice of a capacity 5.5 hour battery.
It possesses an isolated keyboard for more restful typing and a translucent, textured touchpad (not multi-touch). There’s a display off button for saving power and a ‘instant internet’ button for browsing without having to boot-up Windows (64-bit Visa Home Premium supplied). Media playback is a big focus of the new notebooks, with Sony using its XBrite-Eco LCD displays and an HDMI output for High Def playback.
With a “wavy textured finish”, available in three colours - walnut brown, birch white, and rattan silver - and bundled with the excellent media software you’d expect from Sony, the Vaio NW range is sure to be as popular as the original VAIO range, especially considering it will retail at around half the price of the base 15” MacBook.
For the time being, Sony VAIO NW is only on sale in the US and there has been little word of a UK launch but, if the pricing continues in the same vein, this could prove to be one of the most aggressively-priced multimedia laptops out there.