Sony has carried the “fashion electronics” concept that rocketed phones like the Razr and iPhone to success and applied it to its latest line of laptops, the NR series. No groundbreaking electronics wizardry here, just trendy colors, an appealing form factor and, oh yea – a price that makes them the lowest price notebooks Sony has ever introduced.
You could start by saying that the NR notebooks are available in brown, white, and silver, but that would drive the folks at Sony’s industrial design department nuts. No, they’re available in wenge, silk, and granite. (Wenge, by the way, is a wood, not a name pulled out of the Sherman Williams catalog. In case you were wondering.) Sony is advertising not just the look of these new laptops but also the way they feel: According to the company, they have a textured, fabric-like feel that makes them cool to the touch. Sounds like they might make good pillows, too.
If you were wondering what’s underneath that spiffed-up exterior, it’s pretty ordinary stuff. Each is powered by an Intel dual core processor running from 1.46GHz to 1.6GHz depending on model, and gets 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive. A built-in DVD-burner, 802.11 a/b/g wireless support and 15.4-inch LCD screen round out each laptop’s set of average features.
Now for that price: the NR series laptops will start at $750 when they go on sale next month. Sony hasn’t announced individual prices for the line’s four separate model numbers, but specs don’t vary much on them, so we wouldn’t expect even the top-of-the-line model to hit a grand.
