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Sony’s Vaios have always been a little more expensive than the competition, but the premium is usually worth it if you care about aesthetics. Where some similarly priced laptops make do with a cheap-looking black plastic case, the attractive EB3E9E appears to be made of metal. It’s plastic, of course, but the effect makes it look more expensive.
Its advantages aren’t merely cosmetic either, as inside you’ll find the latest Intel Core i3-370M running at 2.4GHz. Opening the matt graphite-colour lid reveals a keyboard panel made of sturdy black plastic. The keyboard has separated Chiclet-style keys, and their flat tops mean that your fingertips get little feedback about where they land. While their action is light, they felt a bit spongy. There’s also a numeric keypad to the right, with four columns and a row of page navigation keys.
Despite having room for a double-height Enter key and a wide right Shift key, Sony has squeezed the keys on the left. Thankfully the touchpad is large and, despite its rough surface we found it reasonably responsive, and the two large buttons have a light action.
The EB3E9E’s Core i3-370M helped it to an overall score of 83 in our benchmarks, which is exactly what we’d expect. Like some Samsung laptops, Sony has opted to install 3GB rather than 4GB of RAM. This has little effect on performance unless you’re working with very large files, or with many applications at once. As this model is aimed at business users, it has Windows 7 Professional, which includes all the features of Home Premium, plus extras, such as automatic backup over a network.
There’s no dedicated graphics processor, so the EB3E9E relies on the Core i3’s integrated chip. This can decode HD video content, but it struggles with games, posting a score of only 9.4fps in our Call of Duty 4 benchmark.
HD movies will look great on the 1,366×768 screen. It has a glossy finish, so it’s very reflective and you’ll also have adjust the tilt carefully as vertical viewing angles are fussy. However colours are vibrant and contrast is good: this is one of the better screens we’ve seen. The built-in speakers are loud, but they lack any bass.
There are VGA and HDMI outputs, plus four USB ports, one of which is shared with an eSATA port. Networking support is great, with 802.11n and Bluetooth wireless, as well as Gigabit Ethernet. The 320GB hard disk is the only real disappointment.
With its excellent design and build quality, many will be tempted to pay the extra for the EB3E9E, but MSI’s CX623 is better value at around £50 less. It’s just as fast, has similar expansion ports and a larger hard disk, plus it has an even better display. If you can find it cheaper, the Vaio is a great alternative, though.
