Sony VGNA115B

If there's one thing you can rely on Sony for, it's stylish design and its new notebook, the A115B, is no exception. With its black and grey colours and sleek, sweeping curves it looks like a notebook to contend with.

Inside, a 1.5GHz Pentium 4 M processor sits alongside 512MB of Ram. The Sysmark 2004 score of 107 is above average and certainly good for working on the move.

You should be able to play some games thanks to the ATI Radeon 9200. Using dedicated memory, it's a lot better than standard onboard graphics. Returning a score of 1,103 in 3Dmark03 it shows that it's good enough to run some older games at low detail levels. However, it's likely to struggle with the latest first-person games.

The VGNA115B uses a 15in TFT, which is a good size for a notebook. It's a reflective display, so blacks are pure black. However, due to the way the screen is made, large areas of black act like mirrors, which may put some people off. It's also a shame that the screen has a native resolution of 1,024 x 768. We're used to seeing the higher 1,440 x 1,050 resolution that is a lot easier to work on.

Storage is catered for by a 60GB hard disk, which is ample for a notebook. The disk comes packed with copies of Adobe Photoshop Elements, Microsoft Works 7 and a range of other utilities. There's a DVD+RW drive installed, so you can always archive old files.

Contact: Sony 08705 424 424
www.sony.co.uk

Specifications:

• 1.5GHz Intel Pentium 4 M
• 512MB of Ram
• 60GB hard disk
• DVD+RW drive
• Wifi
• 15in TFT (1,024 x 768 resolution)
• ATI Radeon 9200
• Memory Stick Pro slot
• 3kg
• 342.5 x 276.5 x 43.5mm (w x d x h)