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Sony Vaio VGN-FZ180EB laptop PC

Around £1,100 inc VAT

Manufacturer: Sony

Our Rating: We rate this 4 out of 5

By | 01 August 07

The Sony Vaio VGN-FZ180EB is a mid-size laptop PC with a nice screen.

The Sony Vaio VGN-FZ180EB is a mid-size laptop PC with a nice screen.

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And in the PC Advisor Test Centre, the Sony Vaio VGN-FZ180EB turned in great performance and long battery life.

In fact, if you can adapt to the Sony Vaio VGN-FZ180EB's slippery keyboard, you'll like this peppy laptop. It offers a big, bright screen, weighs very little, and has great battery life.

The Sony Vaio VGN-FZ180EB is certainly well equipped, with plenty of connections and a huge 200GB hard drive. The Blu-ray Disc drive and HDMI (high definition multimedia interface) output port are nice extras, to be sure. The Sony Vaio VGN-FZ180EB's sound quality is dismal, however, and its A/V button does nothing more than launch Windows Media Player.

But the Sony Vaio VGN-FZ180EB's 15.4in screen is superb. Based on Sony's proprietary Xbrite HiColor high-contrast technology, it is extremely bright and really makes colors pop. At 2.6kg, the Sony Vaio VGN-FZ180EB is light enough that you can easily carry this delectable screen almost anywhere, and the laptop held out for 4 hours, 28 minutes of battery life in our tests.

Equipped with a powerful 2GHz Core 2 Duo T7300 processor and 2GB of RAM, the Sony Vaio VGN-FZ180EB turned in a WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 75, which is excellent. But the Sony Vaio VGN-FZ180EB couldn't even launch - much less smoothly run - games such as Far Cry or Doom 3 in our tests.

The Sony Vaio VGN-FZ180EB's keyboard feels a little cheaply made, maybe because the keys are so flat and polished, but the layout is fine. With practice, we got used to the slippery feel.

Sony Vaio VGN-FZ180EB Expert Verdict »
Post Review
2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300
4MB L2 Cache
2GB PC2-5300
200GB SATA HD
Blu-Ray DVD R DL
15.4in WXGA Display
Memory Stick/SD Media card reader
NIC
802.11a/b/g/n
Windows Vista Home Premium
  • Build Quality: We give this item 9 of 10 for build quality
  • Features: We give this item 8 of 10 for features
  • Value for Money: We give this item 8 of 10 for value for money
  • Overall: We give this item 8 of 10 overall

If you want a top-notch multimedia laptop, look to a Dell Inspiron or a Toshiba Satellite. For a nice work laptop with a great 15.4in screen, though, this Vaio VGN-FZ180EB fills the bill.

There are currently no price comparisons for this product.
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