Sony Vaio

The Sony VAIO VGN A690 has won wide praise in PC circles for its unique sleek design, hard finish, and portability. With a strong Intel IV processor, longer than average battery life, and a number of ports, the VGN A690 is one of the best in its class. Moreover, it comes equipped with excellent software, including a Microsoft XP Professional OS and cool database management programs.

As the successor to the Sony VAIO VGN A190, the VGN A690 builds upon the great framework established by its predecessor. Standard programs include Picture It Here Studio, which allows you to morph, resize, and colorize digital images. You can also access the comprehensive Sony VAIO Zone Software. Finally, aspiring film buffs will be happy to learn that the A690 comes with DVD movie editing capacity.

So many laptops these days attempt to cram advanced audio components into their chassis. Most manufacturers haven't learned that great audio technology requires breathing room. Sony smartly decided to buck the trend of crummy in-chassis speakers with the VAIO VGN A690. This economical laptop comes with external speakers, which plug in the back through the USB 2.0 ports.

The VGN A690 also offers VGA connection, a decent Ethernet connection, S-video in and out ports, and even an integrated TV tuner. You may want to buy a memory stick for the A690. Sony markets a number of excellent memory cards, many of which can hold 256 MB of information or more.