Just a few days after Sony introduced its Vaio Mini W netbook, the folks at UK site What Laptop have published the first review of the mini-laptop, or “internet book” as Sony likes to call it.
The Vaio Mini W is expected to sell for $499 in the US, which makes it about $100 more expensive than similar machines from other companies. But the laptop does have one feature that sets it apart: It ships standard with a 10.1 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display while most netbooks have 1024 x 600 pixel screens. While you can get a higher resolution display on a handful of netbooks including the Dell Inspiron Mini 10 and HP Mini 110 or 2140/Mini 5101, you do have to pay extra for those options.
What Laptop says the color and contrast on the screen are also excellent. The reviewer also seems pleased with the netbook’s chiclet-style keyboard, although he apparently prefers the Samsung N120 keyboard.
So what do you think? Would you pay $100 extra for an excellent high resolution display and a pretty decent keyboard? Or would you rather just pay the $25 or $35 it costs to upgrade the screen on lower priced models from competing PC makers?
You can also get a higher resolution on ANY of the netbooks/notebooks with a VIA Nano processor 😉
I think the biggest drawback of this netbook is its battery life! At it’s default battery you can have 2 hrs, and with extended battery (and extended cost) close to 4 hrs…I think there are much better offerings out there.