14 DAY TRIAL // Announced at the CES 2011 fair at the beginning of January, Sony's S-series of notebooks have finally started shipping to customers worldwide, and earlier today, during a local Vaio event, we got to spend some time with this thin and light laptop to get an idea about how well this will fare up against its competitors.
The model that we got to play with was called the Sony Vaio VPC-SB1V9E/B and is powered by an Intel Core i5-2410M processor paired together with 4GB of DDR3 memory and an AMD Radeon HD 6470M graphics card.
Storage was provided by a 500GB hard drive (SSDs as well as larger capacity drives are also available) and the 13.3-inch notebook even featured a DVD drive, making it one of the few highly portable notebooks that come standard with an optical unit.
This is definitely a plus, but even more important for business users should be the addition of an integrated WWAN 3G modem that definitely adds to the mobility of the laptop.
Other features include a fingerprint reader and a TPM module, WiFi 802.11n, USB 3.0 and Bluetooth connectivity, Intel Wireless Display 2.0, switchable graphics and a seven hours battery life.
This, however, can be doubled with the addition of an extended battery that can be easily attached to the notebook, even while in operation.
While this design is definitely a major improvement, the battery itself does add quite a significant amount of weight to Vaio's notebook and blocks all the vent holes that are placed on the bottom.
It's hard to say how will this affect the cooling, but it will definitely increase the temperatures of the inside components and may even push the fan to reach higher RPMs while in operation.
Otherwise, the notebook seems to be really well built and the magnesium alloy chassis feels pretty good to the touch.
The keyboard is also a strong point of the S-series, and its white backlighting should make it pretty easy to use even in environments with little to no light available.
Pricing for Sony's Vaio S-series notebooks starts at $970 and the optional extended battery will set you back another $150.
