Intro
If you're buying this laptop, it's undoubtedly for the design, style and lightweight features of the TX series. You can get cheaper, better performing options that way just a little more, but it won't have the "wow" factor of this VGN-TXN27N. I have the brash sienna color but those who are more tame have options in black and silver as well.
That being said let's get right into the pros and cons.
Miscellaneous Info
As a side note, if you're wondering about differences between the TX25,TX27, and TX29 models, it's pretty straightforward. The 25 has 1GB RAM and 80GB hard drive, the 27 has 2GB RAM, 100 GB hard drive, the 29 is the same as the 27 except it comes with a carrying case and the exterior has a sleek special shiny coating. IMO, the 27 is the best value among the 3 when you look at the price points. I wouldn't recommend less than 2GB of RAM to run Vista anyway.
Pros:
* Style and design - By far the prettiest, lightest laptop on the market regardless of the color casing you get. Razor thin all around, especially the display.
* Separate AV mode - I love that you can watch DVDs without loading the OS.
* Separate mute, volume and wireless buttons - Seems like it should be standard but my last 2 laptops did not have this.
* Biometrics sensor - Capability to scan all 10 fingers. Love this feature, don't have to type my password anymore.
* SD slot - Sony finally caved and allowed a non-proprietary media format to play in the TX series.
* Display - Crisp, bright, detailed with high native resolution. 2nd best screen I've seen (besides Dell 700m).
* Large Keyboard - For an ultraportable, all keys are full-sized. Rare.
* Large touchpad - Again, for an ultraportable, the touchpad is surprisingly large.
* Battery life - Standard battery got me about 6.5 hours on one run with standard tasks like internet browsing, MS Office tasks. That's excellent for this size and weight.
Cons:
* Price - Get ready to pay up for the name.
* Startup slow - With Vista Business and all the preloaded bundled software it comes with, the boot time for Vista is about 90 seconds. In my previous laptops it's never been more than 60 so this is something I need to look at. With the core solo processor and mediocre graphics card, I'm not sure there's much I can do except disable some of the start up tasks.
* Doesn't handle transparent Aero well - the computer gets choppy when handling this cosmetic feature of Vista so probably need a Core Duo Processor to run Vista to maximum ability. This really doesn't matter if you don't care about gaming and graphics.You can actually disable this feature in the "Personalize" section.
* Too much pre-bundled software that's useless - get rid of it.
Conclusion
All in all, this is an excellent laptop. The single processor keeps keep it from a top of the line rating. This would be a perfect laptop if Sony can build a TX with a dual processor... but we all have to aspire to something.
