Small and delightful

The nicest thing about the Sony Vaio TZ38 is that the piece Sony sent over ran Windows XP instead of the painfully irritating Vista. But the question is: how is the TZ38 as a computer? Well, though it is an impressive performer—the two gigs of memory are good— and it has a solid state 64 gigabyte disk (or not a disk), which means that the machine is essentially running on an array of flash drives.

This has two major advantages—the machine runs quieter and cooler. The other major advantage is that despite its small form factor—it has an 11.1-inch, bright LCD screen and weighs only 1.2 kg—it manages to fit in an internal optical drive. And this is its biggest advantage over the Apple MacBook Air.

Sony, like Apple, has raised the keyboard buttons. This allows for slightly easier typing, though it does lead to slower typing. This, and the smaller mouse touchpad, makes it slightly difficult to use for people with larger hands. But that is not the point of this laptop; it is not meant for the frantic business executive.

This is a laptop meant for people who like their machines to look good. The little cues, such as the power button on the side of the battery, make this a brilliant little machine. But the TZ38 does not compromise performance or ability for good looks. In fact, it’s biggest downside is that it costs Rs 1,39,900 inclusive of taxes.

—Kushan Mitra