We Go Hands-On with the Sony Vaio E-Series Notebooks

Together with the C-series notebooks that we looked at earlier today, Sony's Vaio summer range also includes the new EH-notebook series devices, and during a local press event that took place just recently, we had a chance of spending some time with these laptops.

The E-series actually includes two different models as users can choose between a 15.5-inch and a 17-inch version, both of them featuring the same elegant honeycomb pattern that stands out in the crowd.

As far as the technical specifications of the two Vaio notebooks are concerned, these feature pretty much the same hardware, but the first one sports a 1366x768 resolution (much too low in my opinion for a 15+ inch notebook) while the latter has a 1600x900 display.

At the heart of the notebooks, stands Intel's second-generation processors and users can configure these systems with a 2.1GHz Core i3-2310M or with a 2.3GHz Core i5-2410M.

Both of these pack two processing cores with Hyper-Threading support, 3MB of level 3 cache memory and an integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics core.

The Intel processors are paired together by Sony with 4 or 6 GB of DDR3 system memory and Nvidia GeForce GT 410M discrete graphics with either 512MB or 1GB of memory, depending on the user's choice.

 
Storage options include three hard drive ranging from 320GB to 640GB in capacity and the E-series Vaio notebooks can also be equipped with a DVD burner or with a Blu-ray drive combo.

Connectivity options include 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0, no less than USB 2.0 ports and an HDMI video output, but, sadly, we don't get any USB 3.0 ports, as is the case with the C-series Vaio laptops, or an eSATA connector.

 
Both the 15.5 and the 17 inch Vaio E-Series notebooks are available for purchase as we speak and prices start at £529.00 and £679.00, respectively, including VAT.