Sony VAIO VGN-NR240E/W Budget Laptop PC

Sony has come a long ways in producing lower cost notebook systems. The VAIO VGN-NR240E/W is still one of the more expensive budget notebooks available on the market but it does provide more storage space than the competition and in a very stylish case design. It is too bad that Sony cut a few corners in order to reduce the price otherwise this would definitely be one of the best on the market.

4/14/08 – Sony is not a name that many think of for a budget system, which makes the VAIO NR240 such a surprising laptop. It still is a bit more expensive than many other budget notebook offerings, but Sony does try to make up for this a bit.

The VAIO NR240 uses the Intel Pentium Dual-Core T2330 is a fairly common processor for a budget laptop system. It is certainly fine for most computing applications particularly productivity and internet usage. Performance is held back though by Sony's use of slower PC2-4200 DDR2 memory instead of the more common PC2-5300. This was likely done to cut costs but the price differences are minimal and it is really a bad choice from Sony.

The area where the VAIO NR240 stands apart from other budget laptops is the storage. Many budget notebooks have switched up to 160GB hard drives. Sony has elected to use a larger 200GB hard drive providing it with 25% more storage than the average notebook. This is certainly great for those looking to store large amounts of digital media.

The stylish white case design is very sleek and a departure from the very busy layouts of many PC notebooks these days. This design also includes the choice of peripheral connectors for the system. It features a total of four USB 2.0 ports but uses the smaller ExpressCard/34 slot instead of the larger ExpressCard/54 that allows for the user of most card types. Sony continues the use of just Memory Stick media card readers rather than a more universal card reader design.

All in all, the Sony VAIO NR240 is a very strong system that could have been better if Sony had only changed a few items. Those that can live with these shortcomings though will be well served by this laptop.

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