Sony VAIO VGN-G11XN

The G11XN arrived in an impossibly small and light box, which we were convinced didn't contain the notebook we'd been waiting for. But Sony has achieved an amazing feat with its latest ultraportable.

Weighing only 1.13kg and measuring just 24.5mm at its thickest point, the VAIO almost feels like a foam replica. The carbon-fibre chassis naturally helps with the minimal weight, but Sony's engineers left no component untouched, even going to the lengths of thinning the metal backing of the keyboard. Even the power supply is around a third of the size of others on test, leaving you with a travelling weight of 1.37kg.

What's more impressive is that there's an integrated DVD writer and - with light use - the G11XN will easily provide a working day's worth of power from its 5,800mAh battery. In fact, we saw 8hrs 26mins under light use, and 4hrs 2mins with heavy use.

One reason for the long battery life is the Core Solo U1500, an ultra-low-voltage part that consumes only 5.5W. It isn't particularly powerful, scoring only 0.50 in our 2D application benchmarks, but despite this Vista doesn't feel sluggish and, thanks to 1GB of memory, office applications are responsive.

For the mobile professional, there's a fingerprint reader backed up by a TPM 1.2 chip for securely encrypting passwords, but, disappointingly, Vista Business doesn't include the BitLocker feature.

Fit and finish on our pre-production sample wasn't quite up to scratch, but even though the 4mm thick screen was flexible, we never saw any pressure points on the 12.1in XGA TFT. It's bright and has a matte finish, but we noticed unevenness of the backlight along the bottom edge.

The small keyboard is comfortable to type on and the touchpad is also more usable than you might imagine. There are ports aplenty, with a PC Card slot, Gigabit Ethernet, RJ-11, headphone, mic, SD and Memory Stick slots, plus a VGA output.

It's a shame there's only a pair of USB ports, and that the warranty is a pitiful 12-month return-to-base offering, but the G11XN is a superb laptop and perfect for anyone looking for low weight, long battery life and a built-in optical drive.

Author: Jim Martin