Digital Trends

Sony VAIO NR160E/T

February 1st, 2008 | by Josh Norem

Battery Life

We tested the NR’s battery life by playing a DVD movie with the screen brightness set to its middle level. We also had WiFi enabled and an internet connection established. With these settings we were able to squeeze two hours and 20 minutes out of the NR, which is very respectable.

AV Mode and S1

The two extra keys at the top of the keyboard are the only “special” keys on the NR, and both are quick-launch keys.

The oddly-named S1 key does whatever you tell it to, and you can either select from a list of actions or customize it to open a program. The pre-installed list includes things like muting, sleep, maximum brightness, etc. You can also customize it to launch any application you like. Overall it worked as expected and we had no issues with it. 

The AV mode button, however, is largely useless. When you press the button, you hear a little ditty that sounds like a typical VAIO ringtone. Then, after a few seconds, a transparent taskbar pops up on the top of the screen with two buttons – DVD and Internet. That’s it. Clicking the first button opens up the DVD software and clicking the second one opens up Internet Explorer. Why is this even necessary? We can just click the actual shortcut icons to the programs and they open. Our guess as to why this feature was included was that given this notebook’s low price tag, it’s for newbies who might need a helping hand getting on the Internets or watching movies. But for someone with even the most basic understanding of how computers work, it’s a useless feature.

Press this button and a taskbar launches to let you get to the Net or watch a DVD.

Other stuff

We liked the keyboard on the VAIO a lot, as its low, flat keys felt very good to our fingers. We also loved the display, which is very bright and surprisingly sharp. The onboard speakers also got very loud; much louder than we’ve heard from most notebooks. The presence of four USB ports is also a handy.

Conclusion

The NR series from Sony is a mixed bag. We don’t really expect tremendous performance from a notebook with this type of price tag, but this notebook is sluggish, needs more RAM, and also has more unnecessary software than any notebook we’ve ever reviewed. All these things lead us to one conclusion: this is a notebook for the family, not enthusiasts or business travelers. It’s not for anyone who does anything but surf the Net and email. For those types of basic tasks, however, it’s more than enough and looks good while doing it. 


Pros:

• Several color options
• Decent battery life
• Affordable

Cons:

• Lots of bloatware
• Only 1GB of RAM
• Sluggish performance