Posted on July 16th, 2008 by Tim Danton

First look: Sony VAIO SR-Series

To create a fully featured sub-1.5kg laptop takes a fair dollop of money: the lowest-specced Z-Series costs £1,404 exc VAT. But Sony wanted to have a sub-£1,000 offering that also weighed less than 2kg – which is where the SR-Series fits in.

Two models will be available in the UK, the SR19XN and the SR19VN, and they cost a very reasonable £849 and £999 respectively (both prices exc VAT).

And, at 1.9kg, the SR VAIOs still feel pretty light in the hand. There’s no carbon fibre chassis, of course, just plastic – but Sony has added a thin layer of magnesium to help (it claims) give a bit more protection.

I’m not completely convinced by this: applying a bit of pressure to the palmrest caused a notable impression and the hard-disk protection system whirred into action.

There are lots of nice features to appeal to both end users and businesses though. For the former, there’s the Mode button. Press this and the Windows background changes instantly to something different, so you could have one set up for home, one for business and one for someone else who uses the laptop.

Although the icons on the Desktop don’t change, the five customisable shortcut buttons above the keyboard are tied into each mode. So, in work mode they could launch Outlook, Excel etc, and in home mode they could launch entertainment applications.

As with all the new VAIOs, the screen looks fantastic – bright, sharp and vibrant. It’s a 13.3in display with a 1,280 x 800 resolution, with the only downside being its reflectivity.

The whole laptop looks attractive too, and the “isolated” Scrabble-style keyboard contributes to the VAIO’s stylish aura. From our brief typing session on the SR-Series, it proved to be perfectly pleasant to use too.

Sony claims five hours of battery life for the SR-Series, and if that’s borne out in our tests then this laptop has a strong claim on the wallets of business users – and indeed anyone – who want a highly portable laptop that doesn’t cost a fortune.

Keep a lookout for our full review by signing up to our reviews RSS feed.

The specs:

Sony VAIO VGN-SR19VN: £999 exc VAT