Sony VAIO CR Series

The new Sony CR series is the latest addition in family of stylish and colorful notebooks from Sony mostly known as VAIO laptops. The new Sony VAIO CR series comes in some very unique colors like sangria and cosmopolitan. The new Sony CR VAIO series is designed for students and professionals who are looking for a professional laptops or in other words stylish and extreme performance laptops. You can simply buy a Sony VAIO CR series by from the internet booking it in a color and specification you desire or you can get it a from a whole sale dealer.

The new SONY VAIO CR series is coming in with a Core 2 Duo processor which is available in many different configurations like from the Intel T7100 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo up to the T7700 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo. It is coming with only one screen configuration that is 14.1 inches WxGA. It RAM can be increased to 4GB and it has a built-in wireless (Wi-Fi) 802.11 b/g for high speed interne connectivity.

I used a SONY VAIO CR series dove color laptop. . Following are the specifications of my Sony VAIO CR series laptop:

* It has a 14.1 inches screen WXGA with a 1280 x 800 pixel resolution with a very .glossy finish.
* Color: Dove white
* My Sony VAIO CR has 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 processor installed on Intel Centrino platform.
* My laptop came with 120 GB SATA hard drive which spins at 5400 RPM.
* The main memory of my laptop is 1GB PC5300, 667 MHz, DDR2 SDRAM. Actually there are two 512MB cards installed.
* It has a built-in DVD+R Double layer which also got DVR rewriting functionality.
* It has three USB 2.0, one FireWire 400 port, one Express Card 34, one S-Video, one VGA, one Memory Stick Pro reader, one SD card reader, headphone / line-out, microphone-in, modem, 10/100 Ethernet external attachment ports and switches.
* It has a built-in wireless for high speed internet connectivity (Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n)
* It uses Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 965 Express chipset with up to 358MB video memory which shared with the main memory.
* My laptops came with pre-installed Windows Vista Home Premium version.
* The dimensions of the notebook are 13.2” x 1.67” x 9.8” (W x H x L) respectively.
* The notebook weighs 5.5 pounds.

Gorgeous Design:

The very first impression any one would get by giving a look to the new Sony CR series VAIO laptops is that it very well designed to attract attention of the people. As first impression is the last so Sony managed to attract many customers toward its new laptops series just because of the design. I myself bought the CR VAIO for many reasons but the main attraction toward the notebook was its stylish design. From the range of available colors to the polished metal-like accents the CR is a design that gets your attention. The dove white version which I bought particularly gives a very familiar look to Apple’s new iMac series in many ways specially design and outlook. The reason Sony adopted the iMac style is to attract college going student towards CR VAIO series because most students go for Mac the book.

The lid of the VAIO CR also has a nice glossy finish with the VAIO made by ever shinning material or some kind of Mattel alloy. The new CR series VAIO laptops gives a very clean look from the first to the last view. When opened the lid of my laptop I saw a white plastic interior of the CR VAIO then I expected that it would have been made of a cheap plastic case with a significant amount of flex to it. Surprisingly the case is very sturdy with relatively thick plastic. The interior is also given metal reinforcements where necessarily needed.
Hardware Performance:

The new Sony VAIO CR-series is coming with Intel Core2 Duo processors which provide more than enough performance. My laptop has a 1.8GHz low-end configured processor but still it gave excellent performance in my tests that I performed on the laptop. Those customers which can easily afford to pay for 2.4 GHz processors for their CR series VAIO laptops will find their notebooks extremely powerful in-spite the fact that it sis coming with a low graphics resolution adapter. VAIO CR series has 3DMark05 graphics resolution whose performance is extremely low not only this but the CR uses the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 which shares the notebook’s system RAM which decrease not only the graphics performance but also the overall performance of the machine when the main memory is shared. The review unit I bought came with only 1GB of system RAM. If the CR was equipped with 2GB or more these benchmarks would have been slightly more impressive.
Display:

It has a 14.1 inches screen WXGA with a 1280 x 800 pixel resolution with a very not only with a glossy finish but limit less beauty with excellent color and contrast. The display features fairly bright. The backlight of the screen has eight levels of brightness. Viewing the screen in horizontal angels are great which makes the screen an ideal choice for watching a DVD or a streaming video or a presentation been given to two or more then two persons. However, vertical viewing angles are among the worst I’ve seen on a notebook in this price range. If you tilt the lid of the screen slightly the whole screen will go black and some times even wash out.
Interior:

When you will open the lid of the note book the most attractive and unique thing you will find on the note book will be its white stylish keyboard. Unlike most traditional PC notebook keyboards the CR keyboard looks more like a Mac-Book than a PC. They keys are very well cushioned. They are very touch sensitive keys and will respond to a very light touch even. But if you are a traditional keys lover then you should not be going for the new Sony VAIO CR series. The keyboard is quite solid with no flex still it is made up of plastic. But if you will get used to it then you will find it extremely soft and enjoyable then other traditional keyboards.

The touchpad of the new sonny CR VAIO series is very nice. It is comparatively very large which can be utilized in a very usable manner. It has an extreme responsive surface. The mouse buttons compared to the pad are very small and also shadowed in the body as well as very noisy making it uncomfortable for the users.
Audio:

The new Sony VAIO CR has stereo sound which is made using three speakers. These speakers are located on the right and left sides of the keyboard as well one speakers on the front of the interior. Well I haven’t heard any best speakers then these built-in speakers on the notebooks. CR series has extremely great sound and you will enjoy a lot watching movies and listening to music on it. There is also an head phone jack which is located at the left side of the laptop which is the best location and external speakers can also be connected there in addition.
Heat and Noise:

The VAIO CR runs on extremely cool temperatures with the 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo processor. I suspect that with higher speed of the processors the more the heat will be produced. When running in high room temperatures the left bottom side gets slightly warm but the overall temperature remains cool enough to use the notebook in your lap. Temperatures are likely kept within acceptable limits thanks to a rather large copper heat-sink visible through the vent on the left side of the CR. The CR is thicker but lighter that’s why it remains remarkably cool overall.
The system fan is very quite in running and it can’t be heard in an ambient noisy room you will have to put your ear on the laptop to hear the noise of the fan. But the fan emits large amount heat and yu will feel uncomfortable to put your hand near the fan.
Battery:

Sony claims the battery life of the standard 6-cell battery at 2.0-3.5 hours of use depending on how you use the notebook. During my test I obtained 3 hours and 2 minutes of battery life using the notebook at half screen brightness, wireless off, and a mixture of Word usage and idling. Clearly you would need to have the screen brightness turned even lower and do little more than let the notebook idle if you want to obtain the full 3.5 hours that Sony claims. You can get a large capacity battery for an advertised 3-6 hours of usage time unplugged, but the larger battery will stick out from the back and add weight to the notebook.