Sony VAIO VGN-CR290
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Review Date: 12th Dec' 07

The VAIO VGN-CR290 is among Sony's latest entries into the budget laptop market. This new notebook's greatest appeal is its aesthetics. Its case is slim and sleek and is available in five different colors: Indigo Blue, Champagne Gold, Cosmopolitan Pink, Sangria Red, and Dove white.

Including a variety of fancy multimedia functions, the VAIO VGN-CR290 is aimed at those who want a great looking laptop that will fulfill all their personal computing needs.

While the pre-built, ready to be shipped and fully featured VAIO CR models start from $1319, we have selected the base $899 customized configuration for our review. You still get plenty of stylish and usability features of the CR series at a price that is comparable with other sub $1000 notebook pc's.

The CR290 weighs in at 5.5 pounds making it convenient for personal transport. As previously mentioned, the case is quite elegant with rounded edges and a flashy veneer. There are plenty of ports to make the CR290 a great choice for entertainment purposes. There are three USB ports, a firewire port, an ExpressCard slot, a Memory Stick reader, a secure digital slot, as well as VGA and S-Video outputs.

The keyboard is one of the CR290's many strengths. Typing is made easy with generously spaced keys. The dedicated media playback buttons are quite nice. They allow for DVD playback to be controlled as if it were being done on a DVD player with play/pause, fast forward, rewind, and stop buttons that are. These buttons are placed on the base of the notebook, so they can be utilized when the CR290's lid is closed.

A 1.3 megapixel webcam is built in the top of the display and there is also a built in microphone included with the CR290, making it convenient for instant messaging use. The monitor itself is quite bright with an attractive 1280 x 800 pixel resolution. The CR290's only noticeable weakness in terms of hardware is its unimpressive speakers' poor sound quality.

The base model of the Sony VAIO VGN-CR290 features a 1.5GHz Core 2 Duo processor that is normal for notebooks in its price range. The RAM is one gigabyte. Where the CR290 falls short when compared to the competition is its hard disk capacity. 80 gigabytes comes standard with the CR290 when most of the competition is offering substantially larger hard drives. The preinstalled graphics card is an Intel GMA X3100 which is good enough for multimedia.

The Sony VAIO VGN-CR290 has more to offer than just good looks. With its host of multimedia features and array of ports it is an ideal notebook for those that want fashion and functionality in a single package. With style to rival Apple's MacBook, Sony's CR290 is sure to turn some heads.