Continental Fairy

My new pink laptop

When I first saw this perched on the display shelf I knew I had to have it. My first impression of the Sony Vaio NS20EP was that it’s VERY pink, you can’t deny the fact that it’s solely aimed for the younger teenage girl. But the more I inspected the Vaio, the more I was impressed. Yes, it was pink, but not in a tacky way, actually it was pretty cute. The sleek and subtle metallic pink finish was impressive and unusual, nothing I’ve ever seen before.

But as we know it’s not all about apperance. So let me go through the specs with you.

15.4 in TFT active matrix 1280 x 800 - is very neat and bright, even when you let the machine run on battery the brightness does not waver, which surprised me a great deal. I have owned 3 laptops before this and I have found in those that when ran on battery mode the screen dims to save power, but this machine stays on the same screen brightness as if it was plugged in on the mains.

250GB – Hard Drive

3gb of RAM – more than enough for daily use.

Intel© Pentium© Dual-Core Processor – copes perfectly well with large intensive applications. I have had no problems running multiple programs such as Photoshop CS4, Dreamweaver, Illustrator all at the same time.

Integrated 1.3 megapixel camera - which to be honest I’m not too impressed with, but then again maybe I was used to my previous laptop camera which was about 2 megapixel. But don’t let that put you off, the Vaio I bought came with the ArcSoft Magic-i Visual effects which proved a big hit with the kiddies or adults. I don’t know whether this comes as standard with all Vaio NS20E but it’s certainly a plus.

4 USB ports – great for connecting all your gizmos. Ipod, digital camera, memory stick etc.

DVD Rewriter Drive – which obviously lets you burn information and media on a wide variety of DVD disks.

WiFi enabled- this means that you can connect your Vaio to the internet within range of a wireless network. Personally, I find that as soon as the Vaio is turned on it connects very quickly on my network and have not had any issues with connectivity.

Firewire port - offers you high-speed transfers, mainly used for transfering large amounts of data usually videos. You will need a firewire cable for this.

Energy Star Certified – products that carry the Energy Star Label are more energy efficient.

Battery Life – is excellent! I have a seen a few reviews that complained about poor battery life, but I found that it lasts for more than 2 and a half hours whilst running different programs (this usually drains the power). As I have mentioned before, even when unplugged from the mains it does not compromise the brightness of the screen either.

Sony Vaio NS20EP

Keyboard & Front

Front

Metallic Pink Texture

There are also a few cons that I wish to point out with the Sony NS20EP, firstly, there is no volume control apart from the one on the desktop. Back up disks are not included to I would suggest that you burn your own once you have your laptop set up. It would have been nice if it came with a 19′ screen. I would have also liked it if it had Bluetooth but hey we can’t have it all can we?!

So there you are, I think that the Sony Vaio NS20EP is a great buy, not only that it’s ideal for a first computer, but anyone that wants a reliable, stylish, user-friendly laptop. Just what I expected from Sony, and for £458.00 you can’t really go wrong. It’s not just for teenage girls… suitable for grown ups too!