Sony VAIO CS Series VGN-CS21S/W

Sony have been long considered the unofficial champions of the Electronics industry, and it's little wonder why - when you witness a Sony Vaio in action.

This product comes in what Sony likes to call 'cotton white'. A soft and luxurious looking colour that isn't too dull or too bright. It looks smart, yet graceful. It isn't likely to turn too many heads when travelling on a train with it, which can only be a good thing surely.
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...same time.

Sony really have produced a fast, uncompromising machine here.

Now for some of the more techie info.... The camera is a 1.3megapixel with bulit-in motion eye detection. This makes it very detailed, and whilst I haven't seen this in action personally - I know that Sony's built-in cameras are usually very reliable and with little motion-blur as you sit there video-talking to friends across messenger.
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Sony have been long considered the unofficial champions of the Electronics industry, and it's little wonder why - when you witness a Sony Vaio in action.

This product comes in what Sony likes to call 'cotton white'. A soft and luxurious looking colour that isn't too dull or too bright. It looks smart, yet graceful. It isn't likely to turn too many heads when travelling on a train with it, which can only be a good thing surely.

Upon first opening the laptop, I was pleasantly surprised at how neatly the integrated camera fitted in to the surrounding frame, and at how defined the keys look. They have a quiet and reassuring click when you press them, letting you know that you've pressed them correctly - but without waking up someone in the next room.
The screen is 14.1 inches which is an ideal size for seeing movies, doing your spreadsheets and for travelling (it's fairly light so not too bulky for the bag). It utilises the X-black LCD technology at 1280 x 800 resolution. In English, this means that you're going to get a nice bright, crisp image with immense detail. Photographs look stunning when viewed on the screen in my opinion, with tremendous depth to the colours.

In terms of the performance of the hardware itself, the laptop is very fast - due mostly to it's speedy 4gb of memory and 2Ghz of processing speed, helped also by the large 320gb harddrive. When opening and shutting the various tabs and windows, I found the process was seamless, easy and satisfying - without frustration at seeing a constant loading sign. The Core 2 Duo processor by Intel helps the laptop handle multiple tasks with 2 processors to handle multiple applications e.g. media player, internet explorer and word processors at the same time.

Sony really have produced a fast, uncompromising machine here.

Now for some of the more techie info.... The camera is a 1.3megapixel with bulit-in motion eye detection. This makes it very detailed, and whilst I haven't seen this in action personally - I know that Sony's built-in cameras are usually very reliable and with little motion-blur as you sit there video-talking to friends across messenger.
The built-in bluetooth allows you to connect wirelessly your bluetooth phone which is handy for sending across photos and music files (the range is roughly 10 metres from what I could tell). However the range for wi-fi which is also included is significantly more - you can expect to get up to 100metres depending on where the laptop and other device is situated (possible disruption from walls etc).

There is a built-in memory card slot, which mainly supports Sony's memory duo format, 3x usb slots supporting the fast 2.0 format of file transfer and detection. This makes life easier when plugging in your usb flash drives, mp3 players etc.

The operating system is Windows Vista Home Premium, which is actually great for both business and home applications. You can always upgrade for a price to the new Windows 7 when it's available if you prefer.
Battery-wise, I was slightly disappointed that it lasts only around 3 hours which is fairly standard, when some laptops are now offering up to 9 hours or at least the 5/6 hour mark. I expect though that we'll never be happy ever charging things, and so battery is a constant bone of contention. I found it took just over 3 hours to charge from empty to full.

The sound is impressive, supporting high-definition audio. For a laptop, the sound without additional speakers is actually very good, with music sounding more than adequate and very detailed.

Software-wise, I didn't get to use very much but I know that it comes with Microsoft Works 9.0 which is a great all-round program for features such as word processors, spreadseets, flyer/leaflet designers etc. You get Windows Media Player 11 amongst other similar products like Vaio's own musicbox utility, and also a 60 day subscription to McAfee Internet Security. You can change and delete these programs as you see fit, so if you prefer Bitdefender or Kaspersky then go ahead, purchase and download.

I'll end my review here as I could go on and on. The laptop looks great, feels great and above all - works great. My only gripe would be with the battery-life, but then I say that about nearly every laptop I come across.
My recommendation would be to have a look on Kelkoo.co.uk or pricerunner.co.uk for price comparisons as well as Ciao itself before buying. Prices always vary considerably, especially during a recession - currently between around £640 and £820.

Happy buying! Happy Sony!
Happy consumer! 

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