Laptop face off

What do you really want in a laptop? Do you want your laptop to advertise corporate drudgery? That you’re a a slave to the machine? No doubt some of you occupy the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, but is that the message your laptop conveys? You simply can’t have your visiting cards printed on ivory paper and then take out a black monstrosity from your bag that weighs half a ton.

This is where the new Sony Vaio Z-series comes in—incredibly high performance, relatively light and, like all Vaios, very good looking. Whip this out at a meeting and it’ll send all the right messages. Slick, sharp, stylish, superb in bed. (Well, maybe not the last one).

Unlike much of its competition, the Vaio Z-series manages to combine form and function in a very nice package, and for that reason, it is our laptop of the moment. But keep in mind it shares another Vaio trait—it’s expensive. The high-end VGN-Z13GN/B model we tested cost Rs 1,24,990 plus taxes.

But then again…
Consider the MacBook Air from Apple. Yes, it’s a victory of form over functionality, but wow, what form! This makes the petite Vaio look fat. It’s the Kate Moss of laptops. Heck, people have even managed to actually cut a cake using the Air’s knife-like edge. No really, you can check out a video of an ‘Air’ knife online. Sure, it is cheaper than the Vaio but it loses the practicality battle completely. One USB port? Barely any storage even if it is a solid state drive. It is thin, but how can you do without an optical disc player? Just to make the Air functional, you need to carry a massive tote bag of equipment. But it is cheaper at Rs 99,990.

Key specs: Sony Vaio VGN Z13 GN/B Intel Centrino Core2 Duo P9500 2.53 Ghz Nvidia GeForce 9300M Windows Vista Business 13.1 inch Clear-Tough LCD 4GB DDR3 RAM 320GB Hard Disk HDMI-out, Digital Video out, SD-Card input 1.48 kgs Price: Rs 1,24,990 (also available the VGN Z12 GN/B with a bit less for Rs 99,990)