Sony Vaio VGN-NR160E

Notebook Specifications

Reviews for the Sony Vaio VGN-NR160E

77% Sony VAIO VGN-NR160E / T
Source: PC World
Tepid performance and a somewhat dull screen are the flies in the ointment for this inexpensive all-purpose laptop. All in all, this is a nice unit for undemanding consumers who need to buy a portable companion to supplement a desktop PC without spending a lot of money.
(von 100): 77, Leistung 60, Ausstattung 73, Preis/Leistung sehr gut, Display mangelhaft, Mobilität gut
Single Review, online available, Short, Date: 02/07/2008
Rating: Total score: 77% price: 90% performance: 60% features: 73% display: 50% mobility: 80%

70% Sony VAIO VGN-NR160E
Source: Laptop Mag
The NR160 offers a stylish exterior, but average performance. Representing Sony in the budget notebook arena, the VAIO VGN-NR160E may not be as flashy as its more expensive VAIO siblings, but it's attractive nonetheless. You don't get a lot of extras with this system, and performance is merely average, but we love the big keyboard keys and spacious hard drive. The Sony VAIO VGN-NR160E falls somewhere in the middle in terms of performance, but its cool textured styling, decent battery life, and brilliant display make this notebook a pretty good value.
3.5 von 5, Leistung mäßig, Mobilität gut, Display gut, Preis/Leistung gut
Single Review, online available, Short, Date: 12/17/2007
Rating: Total score: 70% price: 80% performance: 60% display: 80% mobility: 80%

70% Sony VAIO VGN-NR160
Source: PC Mag
When buying a laptop these days, $800 can carry you a long way. You're guaranteed a dual-core processor, an ample hard drive, and a full version of Windows Vista. The Sony VAIO VGN-NR160 gives you that much for $830 (direct), along with a range of features that'll satisfy many general-purpose users. It's easy on the eyes, as it does a better job with its brown color scheme than, say, Microsoft's brown Zune media player. Still, you'll need to add an extra 1GB of RAM to handle Vista and all the bloatware Sony piles on.
This particular version of the NR160 is called Wenge brown for its color scheme, named after a tropical African timber. Sony added some textures that give it a synthetic, leathery look and feel—a very effective look. The textured surface extends all the way into the keyboard and palm rests area, which adds to the uniformity.
3.5 von 5, Preis/Leistung gut, Ausstattung gut, Leistung gut
Single Review, online available, Medium, Date: 11/16/2007
Rating: Total score: 70% price: 80% performance: 80% features: 80%

Sony VAIO NR Review
Source: Notebookreview.com
The Sony VAIO NR is the latest family of stylish, colorful, consumer friendly notebooks from Sony. What makes the NR series genuinely unique for Sony is that the starting price is less than $800 ... making the NR the lowest-priced notebook the company has ever produced. You can configure a VAIO NR online at SonyStyle.com in a variety of colors or buy a stock configuration from various retailers.
The VAIO NR is available in three colors (brown, white, and silver) with a full range of Intel processors (from the 1.46GHz Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor T2310 to the 1.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5450) starting at $799. The only screen offering is the 15.4" WXGA but the notebook can take up to 4GB of RAM. Built-in wireless 802.11 a/b/g is standard.
Leistung gut, Display mäßig, Verarbeitung gut, Emissionen sehr gut, Mobilität schlecht
User Review, online available, Long, Date: 11/08/2007
Rating: performance: 80% display: 60% mobility: 40% workmanship: 80% emissions: 90%

80% Sony VAIO VGN-NR160E/S Budget Laptop Computer System
Source: Comp Reviews
Sony's new VAIO NR160 is a very surprising entry from a company that makes primarily expensive systems. On a whole, they did a very good job with this new system. While the exterior has a bit too much of a plastic feel that isn't as nice as some other budget systems or even Sony's other models, it does offer a solid computing experience for the price. The NR160 is based around the Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 dual core mobile processor. This provides it with a good level of performance without using too much power and is definitely a step up from older Intel or AMD's current mobile processors in terms of performance. It is matched up with a full gigabyte of PC2-5300 DDR2 memory that lets it run the Vista Home Premium operating system alright, but with some slowdown with multiple applications. The storage is one of the real bright spots on the Sony VAIO NR160. Most budget notebooks still feature a fairly small 80GB hard drive.
4 von 5, Verarbeitung mangelhaft
Single Review, online available, Very Short, Date: 10/17/2007
Rating: Total score: 80% workmanship: 50%

66% Sony VAIO NR160E/W - Core 2 Duo T5250 1.5 GHz - 15.4" TFT
Source: CNet
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. Starting at $829, 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 NR160 feels cheap and plasticky when compared to Sony's more expensive laptops, and even similarly priced mainstream systems from Dell, but at least the NR160 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.
(von 10): 6.6, Ausstattung 7, Leistung 7, Mobilität 7, Preis/Leistung mäßig
Single Review, online available, Medium, Date: 10/04/2007
Rating: Total score: 66% price: 60% performance: 70% features: 70% mobility: 70%

90% Sony VAIO VGN-NR160E
Source: Laptop Mag
Sony makes a big splash with the one of the best notebooks you can buy for under $900.
"Sony" and "budget" are two words you typically don't find in the same sentence, but the company has taken the sub-$900 plunge with its new NR Series and surprised us with very good performance. At $829, the VGN-NR160E/S targets consumers who need Core 2 Duo power on a budget. Sony still has some notable issues with crapware, but there's a lot to like about this notebook. It has everything users need for everyday productivity and light multimedia use and offers plenty of style to boot. The NR Series comes in three colors: Granite, Wenge, and Silk. The 6.2-pound chassis is nicely textured on the lid and keyboard deck and has rounded edges and clean lines. Compared with the 5.4-pound Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch (which the NR resembles, thanks to the white and silver color options), the VGN-NR160E/S seems a little bulky.
4.5 von 5, Leistung gut, Display gut
Single Review, online available, Medium, Date: 09/25/2007
Rating: Total score: 90% performance: 80% display: 80%

Foreign Reviews

70% Sony VAIO NR160E/T
Source: Digital Trends
online available, Medium, Date: 02/01/2008
Rating: Total score: 70% price: 80% performance: 40% mobility: 80%

Comment

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) X3100: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) X3100 is an integrated (onboard) graphic chip on a Mobile Intel 965GM chipset. It is the successor of GMA 950 and features a fully programmable pipeline (supports Aero Glass fully and DirectX 10 with newest drivers). The peformance of the X3100 is clearly better than the GMA 950, still demanding modern games won't run fluently.

Only older games can be played fluently with these graphics chips (if they were not too demanding). Shared memory graphic cores in this category got the advantage of less heat production and longer battery runtimes. For office, internet, image processing, and video editing tasks these graphics chips are still useable without any restrictions.

Intel Core 2 Duo: This is the Core Duo and Core Solo successor with a longer pipeline and 5-20% more speed without more power consumption. As an addition to the Core Duo design there exists a fourth decoder, an amplified SSE-unit and an additional arithmetical logical unit (ALU).

The Core 2 Duo for laptops is identical to the desktop Core 2 Duo processors but the notebook-processors work with lower voltages (0.95 to 1188 Volt) and a lower Frontside bus clock (1066 vs 667 MHz). The performance of equally clocked notebooks is 20-25% lower than Desktop PCs because of the lower Frontside bus clock and the slower hard disks.

T5250:
>> Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.

15.4": 15 inch display-variants are the standard and are used for more than the half of all notebooks.  15.4 inch display with 16:10 are the standard for notebook displays.
The reason why so many people like displays with medium size is, that this size is not exhausting for the eyes, does not need too much current and the laptops can be kept quite compact.
>> To find out how fine a display is, see our DPI List.

3 kg: This weight is average for notebooks. Therefore the numerous mass of laptops with 15 inch display fits in this class of weight.

Sony: Sony is a notebook manufacturer of medium size according international market shares. There exist a lot of reviews about Sony notebooks. The total ratings and price/value ratings are good above average.

74.71%: This rating is bad. Most notebooks are better rated. This is not a recommendation for purchase.

>> Further information can be found in our Notebook Purchase Guide.