TechRadar Verdict
A great laptop at the price, with a mighty spec and performance for your money
Pros
- +
Great screen
- +
Blu-ray drive
- +
Competitive price
Cons
- -
Limited power
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With the lid up, you might be forgiven for mistaking Sony's budget-busting Vaio VGN-FW21L for a Macbook.
The slim chassis and recessed keyboard are almost identical, and while the FW21L doesn't have the wonderful multitouch mousepad of the latest Apple machines, it does have one of the best trackpads on any Vista-based notebook that we've seen.
To hit this extraordinary price, for a Blu-ray-equipped notebook, the casing is necessarily plastic, rather than the aluminium of an Apple, but there's really nothing not to like about the VGN-FW21L.
The screen is great, and it has plenty of power for everything apart from gaming – the Radeon HD3470 really isn't up to that, but on the plus side for most users, it does ship with a copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.
