Sony VAIO VGN-CS230J/Q 14.1-inch Thin and Light Laptop PC

May 23 2009 - Sony's VAIO CS series laptops have the advantage of being more portable over most of their competitors thanks to the use of the 14.1-inch LCD panel. While performance is quite strong in the CS230J models and it has a decent price around $1000, it is possible to get better equipped 15-inch laptops for roughly the same price. This makes the laptops only real selling point its portability and the Sony name.

May 23 2009 - The Sony VAIO VGN-CS230J/Q is simply an updated version of their 14.1-inch CS laptop computer series. It upgrades features such as the processor and hard drive but it leaves the rest of the system the same. This is where the biggest flaw comes into play. The chassis design is somewhat dated and lacks many of the newer peripheral ports such as eSATA or HDMI. This puts the system at a big disadvantage for use with high speed external storage or digital displays such as an HDTV.

Performance is pretty good on the VGN-CS230J/Q thanks to the Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 processor. This does a very good job of balancing performance and power consumption. The 4GB of DDR2 memory allow it to run Vista and applications without any memory issues. This does put the system at a slight disadvantage compared to newer models that use DDR3 memory.

Storage was upgrade from the previous 250GB sized hard drives to 320GB. This is a good amount of storage on a laptop, but it is now average compared to other laptops in the same price range. The dual layer DVD burner handles all playback and recording of CDs and DVDs. Rather than a single multifuntion card reader, Sony uses two separate slots for Memory Stick and SD flash cards.

Those hoping to have some decent graphics performance will be sad to learn that Sony only equips the VGN-CS230J/Q with an integrated Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics processor. This is alright for dealing with standard Windows graphics and 720p video sources, but it does not have the performance for handle any 3D graphics applications such as games.

With a price tag of less than $1000, the VGN-CS230J/Q is certainly quite affordable for a Sony laptop. The problem is that for the same price, one can get a better equipped 15-inch laptop for the same price.