I Review the Sony VAIO VGN-FZ440E/B 15.4" Laptop

As I continue to provide reviews of notebooks, and tablets it is impossible to ignore the popularity of Sony's Vaio line. So with this review I'm taking a look at the Sony VAIO VGN-FZ440E/B 15.4" Laptop. I'll let you know how it's loaded, who will get the most out of it, and if it's worth Sony's often inflated price tag. Let me start with the basics.

Hardware:

Display: 15.4" LCD

Imaging: Integrated Web Cam

Processor: 2.10 GHz "Penryn" Intel Core 2 Duo T8100

RAM: 3 GB (expandable to 4)

Storage Space: 250GB Hard Drive

Optical Drive: a CD R/RW with integrated DVD +/- R RW

Graphics Accelerator: GeForce 8400M GT (shares upto 1535MB of your system's RAM)

Sony's line of Vaios are some of the most striking notebooks on the market today. Their sleek black design (although this one is Silver!) and crisp clear screens are certainly head turners. Sony is a great notebook manufacturer but they so often have inflated prices just like Apple. This is one of their higher end models and it does come through with some nice features. The graphics card is great but it does dip pretty heavily into your system memory. Luckily Sony decided to bundle this notebook with 3GB of RAM as opposed to just 2.

The Hard drive is large enough however if you're considering collecting a bunch of high definition movies than you may find that it fills up rather quickly. Since this notebook could become the backbone of your entertainment center that maybe something that just might happen.

This notebook is perfectly capable of playing graphically intensive games at a moderate level, but don't expect to crank everything up on some of the newer releases. The Penryn isn't the strongest Intel mobile processor but it does offer some help with battery life.

Connectivity:

Wifi

1 Ethernet Port

Integrated Blue Tooth (sync with your bluetooth enabled wireless phone!)

3 2.0 USB ports (these can be used to connect any number of peripherals to your notebook, like printers, iPods, etc.)

1 Firewire port (you can utilize this port to download digital video from you digital camcorder)

1 HDMI (use this to connect to your HD television)

1 VGA (use this to connect to a standard computer monitor)

1 S-Video (use this to connect with a projector in the office)

The connectivity is exceptional. I love the HDMI output it really allows for this notebook to be a versatile multimedia notebook as well as a stay at home entertainment center anchor. The batter life is pretty good and I think that Sony has done a great job balancing entertainment with mobility in this notebook. It is great for just about any user if you can afford it, although at $1300, it really is a good deal especially for a Sony.