The good: Least expensive VAIO laptop yet; keeps Sony's excellent laptop keyboard, plus extras such as an Express Card slot.

The bad: Looks and feels noticeably cheaper than more expensive VAIOs, loaded down with performance-killing bloatware.

The bottom line: Kudos to Sony for releasing the budget VAIO VGN-NR17G. It's a perfectly functional, budget 15-inch laptop--we just wish it didn't stray so far from the excellent industrial design of the company's more expensive systems.

Read full review of the Sony Vaio VGN-N17G »

By Dan Ackerman, CNET.com
Oct 15, 2007

Sony's Vaio family of laptops has traditionally been known for its high style and high prices, making these sleek machines (second only to Apple in design chops) popular with upscale buyers. With the new NR series, Sony is making its first real stab at a lower-priced laptop. With a low starting price, the system is a decent value based on the components you get, but the Sony design aesthetic apparently doesn't translate well to cheaper parts. The 15-inch Vaio VGN-NR17G feels cheap and plasticky when compared to Sony's more expensive laptops, and even similarly priced mainstream systems from Dell, but at least the VGN-NR17G rigorously maintains Sony's traditionally thin profile. There's still much to like about this inexpensive Vaio, but Sony's penchant for weighing systems down with excessive bloatware and adware tips the scale away from a full-fledged recommendation.

Editors' note : This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.com. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published. References made to some of other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia. Please check directly with your local distributor for details. The Vaio VGN-NR17G is known as the Vaio NR160 in the US.

Design

Like the rest of the Sony Vaio laptop family, the VGN-NR17G has a large Vaio logo embossed on the back of the lid, clearly advertising your brand preference to anyone sitting nearby. The biggest difference between this and other Vaios is the textured plastic that covers everything except the screen bezel and bottom surface. It's not the worst look in the world, but it feels cheap compared to the design-oriented mix of metal and plastic materials found on other Vaio laptops.

At only 33mm thick, it's slightly slimmer than Sony's 15-inch home theater laptop, the Vaio VGN-FZ18G, but heavier, by nearly 220g.

Sony's flat-key keyboard is one of the Vaio trademarks that made the leap to this budget system intact. It's among our favorite laptop keyboards, but we wish the touchpad mouse buttons were a little more substantial. The keyboard tray is sparse, with only a power button and two quick-launch buttons (one launches Windows Media Center, the other is a programmable shortcut key) above the keyboard.

Features

The 15.4-inch widescreen LCD display offers a 1,280 x 800 native resolution, which is acceptable for a screen this size. The screen looks excellent--on par with more expensive Sony laptops, and budget buyers likely won't miss having a higher resolution.

As a budget laptop, we don't expect much in the way of extras from the VGN-NR17G, but the extras we did get weren't exactly the kind you'd want. At a time when other vendors such as Dell and HP are making conscious efforts to declutter their systems, removing desktop come-ons for Internet access and music subscription services, Sony is one of the most egregious offenders we've seen in recent memory. The default desktop background image is an advertisement for Sony's Spider-Man 3 movie, and launch buttons for shovelware come built right into the desktop, featuring pitches for various casual games and apps such as Napster. Desktop links included links to Xdrive, AOL, and Office Live.

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