Sony Vaio VGN-TZ17GN (Core 2 Duo U7600 Processor 1.2GHz, 1GB RAM)

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Here Sony wins many brownie points, almost making up for the dull industrial design. An excellent touchpad has been crammed in, with a fingerprint scanner nestled between the two mouse buttons to boot. This is always significantly better than the little tracksticks that certain brands tend to include, and allows for infinitely greater accuracy.

It maybe small, but there is an optical drive under the hood.
(click for larger image)

Surprisingly an optical drive is included, which can be turned off completely to save battery power--although the eject button is far, far too small for human fingers to comfortably find. An ExpressCard/34 slot makes sure the most recent pluggables can be used.

Only two USB ports are included, and a VGA port sits behind the optical drive--which is disappointing, as we'd have at least hoped for some sort of digital output.

Sony continue to separate the Memory Stick card reader from the SD card reader at the front of the notebook, taking up more space than a multi-card reader would for the sake of glorifying its own brand. To be fair though, this separated slot supports Sony's MagicGate DRM--so if you're unlucky enough to be using the technology, at least your options are open here. Next to this is the requisite headphone and microphone jack.

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