Review: Sony Vaio TT laptop

With an envy-inducing style that embraces gentle curves and sharp cambers, and a snug 28cm screen, Sony's Vaio TT ultraportable is go-anywhere geek chic for the cafe crowd.

It barely nudges the scales at 1.3kg and measures a slim 2.3cm at the waist - not bad for a laptop that packs a DVD drive and a battery slab that'll last for a full day without a recharge.

Design like this doesn't come cheap, of course, and nor does the technology crammed under the TT's black or champagne-gold chassis. This is no pared-back netbook: it's a fully fledged laptop powered by Intel's Centrino 2 notebook chips, built around a carbon-fibre shell for lightness and strength and boasting a vivid HD panel for the display.

Hence the starting price of NZ$3699 for the base model. An extra $1000 gets you a Blu-ray drive matched to a beefier set of specs but that's a harder call to justify.

The TT's keys are smaller than you might expect but there's generous spacing between them and a first-rate trackpad with elongated mouse buttons. It's a dream to type on.

Battery life is one of the TT's knockout traits. Under maximum rundown it hit four hours, more than twice most comparable notebooks, and loped along to almost eight hours in real-world use.

All that said, there are also some letdowns. The lid is a mere 4mm thin and exhibited a disconcerting amount of flex, which makes us wonder if the TT can take a few of life's unexpected scrapes.

And like most Windows laptops, the TT's top panel is adorned with more stickers than a schoolgirl's scrapbook - an unjustifiable blight on such elegant design.

If you've got the dosh, it's hard to go past the Vaio TT. It's a stunner, has plenty of pep in its step and is very portable.

- © Fairfax NZ News