14 DAY TRIAL // Sony offered some pretty interesting surprises in the field of Vaios this summer, including here a whole new series, dubbed CS, which targets young people in general and women in particular. We've had the chance to take a very close look at these products and we can certainly tell you that the designers from Sony have managed to do a pretty good job at adapting the Vaio concept for the female audience. And we're not talking just about the colors, but about the external design as a whole.
First and foremost, it's important to mention the fact that the CS series includes the CS11-SP, CS11-SQ, CS-11SW and CS-11ZR models, available in white, black, red and....pink. Yes, pink, which Sony's representatives believe will enjoy the highest level of success among its customers, the whole range being targeted especially at fashion-conscious users who really want to make a statement regarding their tastes.
After having a chance of reviewing two Sony Vaio notebooks quite recently (the Vaio FW11 and the Vaio Z11), we can certainly tell you that the CS series has undergone quite a lot of changes from an aesthetic point of view. Thus, the notebook sports some pretty curvy edges, as well as a rather strange keyboard, which looks like that one you would normally find on a toy notebook, not a real one.
Another interesting change is the placement of a all the multimedia control buttons right above the keyboard, alongside the power button to the left (previously found on the hinge) and the “Capture” button to the right. This “Capture” button is actually a very useful addition, since it automatically launches the webcam application (allowing users to shoot video clips in quite a fast and easy manner). And since we're on the subject of the webcam, it's also important to mention that the webcam installed on the CS has been re-designed, now sporting a round shape, rather than its usual, rectangular one.
We've talked quite a lot about the external design of the products from the Vaio CS series; now let's take a look at what we can find on the inside. The first three models (CS11-SP, CS11-SQ and CS-11SW, respectively) share the same hardware configuration, which includes an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor P8400 CPU, accompanied by 2x2048 MB DDR2 SDRAM running at 800 MHz, a 320 GB S-ATA HDD rotating at 5400 RPM, plus an NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS GPU with 128 MB of on-board memory.
The display found on all the models from the Vaio CS series is a 14,1-inch, X-black LCD screen, which generates a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. All of the models share the same set of connectivity options, which include USB 2.0/FireWire/Modem/Gb LAN/WLAN 802.11a/b/g Draft n and Bluetooth interfaces.
The only difference between the aforementioned notebooks and the CS-11ZR is the fact that the latter features a Blu-ray Disc Drive, instead of the DVD+-RW/+-R DL/RAM unit found in the case of the other three models. Even the battery life is the same, namely of around 170 minutes.
Of course, we'll be able to tell you more about what the CS series is really all about when we'll put it through some more thorough testing, but until then, we'll just let you enjoy the photos.
