RSSSony to Debut More Affordable VAIO NR Notebooks
By Tim Conneally | Published September 25, 2007, 3:27 PM
Today Sony announced its newest addition to the VAIO line of notebooks: the NR, its cheapest model to date.
Historically, Sony's VAIO line has been heavy on style while remaining light in your backpack. Though at times some entries in the line do look conspicuously similar to MacBook Pros, they have a design ethic that appeals to many.
The price tag VAIOs typically carry is quite large as well, with some retailing for over $3,000 USD. Today, however, Sony announced its lowest-priced VAIO notebooks to date. They're still stylish: slim with rounded corners, in a textured chassis that looks and feels - though isn't - upholstered.
Dubbed the NR series, these entry-level notebooks will include Intel Core 2 Duo processors pre-installed with Vista Home Premium. Standard features include 802.11 a/b/g wireless LAN, 4 USB ports, CD/DVD burning capability, and slots for Expresscards, SD cards and PROTM memory sticks.
The full line of VAIO notebooks and options is available at Sony Style, though the NR will be added in October with a base price of $750 USD.
By adding another series of notebooks to its line, Sony could be diluting the VAIO brand name even further, even beyond "VAIO Professional." Where a more affordable option is welcome, the VAIO name tag has been placed on everything from UMPCs with its UX series to its flash memory-based TZ series. With the inclusion of the NR, there are 10 vastly different series present, each with their own subset of models. It will have no problem standing out at that price, but Sony may discover it still needs to separate its student market from its enthusiast and business markets if it wants to put VAIO on top.
That would still be an expensive battery fire. :) I'm curious how portable it is. Thing I like about the Sony line is the ultra portables. If you don't need ultra portable, I'd go for Lenovo, given the quality price ratio. As for Toshiba: haven't made a decent machine since the 80's really. I've had two over the years and they're total junk regardless of their current warranty deal. Anyhow, I didn't get what the author meant by "Sony may discover it still needs to separate its student market from its enthusiast and business markets if it wants to put VAIO on top". What is that supposed to mean? Should they have different web sites or put the cheap ones in uglier form factors? Puzzling speak.
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|Wow is it just me or did BetaNews actually put images in their article for once?
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|Vaio's for poor people..
Forget it, let them have their usual crap, HP, Toshibas Dells etc.
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|Toshiba's, I'll have you know, are pretty damn good.
Recently they had a 'If it breaks down in the first year you'll get your money back and keep the laptop' warranty.
Now that is a proper warranty.
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|Wow...$750 base price? If the specs on these base models aren't so bad we could see a lot of VAIO's being sold.
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|Instead of "more affordable", the headline should probably read simply "affordable".
It's about time, because they are quite nice. The 'sticker shock' has typically always turned me off immediately to them in the past.
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|agreed
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