Sony's mainstream laptop range cranks up the power
Superlight ultraportables are all very lovely to coo at in stores, but when it comes down to making a purchase most people go with something slightly more finger-friendly (not to mention wallet-friendly). Normal-sized notebooks continue to outsell desktop PCs, making the entry/business level market a hotly contested one. Sony are obviously hoping to bring a little of their top-end halo effect down to Earth, refreshing their professional range with the BX-40 series.
Soberly sexy, the BX-40 might look restrained but inside there's plenty going on. Intel's latest Core 2 Duo T7300 Santa Rosa CPU is backed up with a healthy 2GB of RAM and a dedicated graphics card, ATI's Mobility Radeon HD2300. That should all add it to make it an appealing notebook not only for business but for gamers, too.
A multi-format DVD burner (which can be swapped out for another battery or hard-drive), 1.3-megapixel built-in webcam and X-black 15.4-inch widescreen running at 1280 x 800 are joined by fingerprint biometrics working with the Trusted Platform Module and shock-sensors that park the hard-drive heads on detecting if the notebook is dropped. The whole thing weighs 3kg and ships with Vista Business edition.
Price and availability are yet to be announced.