Sony unveils Flash-based Vaio

Sony's flagship TZ18GN

With the price of flash memory plummeting, Sony has released its first flash-based solid-state disk Vaio called the TZ18GN. The benefits of the included 32GB flash based hard drive, according to Sony are fourfold: faster boot time, reduced weight, increased battery life, and better durability due to the lack of moving parts. In reality though, all the laptops across the TZ range weigh around 1.2kg and have about 11 hours of battery life (The TZ18GN has 11.5 hours).

After playing with the TZ18HN for a few minutes I have to admit it's one sexy notebook. It's incredibly light and small (227 x 22.5 x 198mm) and is built around a carbon fibre frame. The only problem is the price - at $4299 you can easily find more powerful, higherspec'd computers on the market. But doing so won't get you bragging rights about having the first flash-based notebook on your block.

The TZ18HN, like the whole TZ Vaio range, sports a crisp little 11.1" display with a resolution of 1366 x 768, which is probably all you'd want on a screen so small. Unfortunately, the TZ18HN doesn't ship with a built in Blu-ray burner like its bigger cousin the VGNFZ18G but still has a built-in 8x DVD DL drive. It comes with a 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and ships with a standard 1GB of main memory (expandable to 2GB) and Windows Vista Business . It's also got all the standard ports, networking adaptors, and includes a fingerprint scanner and a Motion Eyeweb-cam.

The model below the TZ18 is the TZ17 and has all the same specifications, except it comes with a larger (100GB) hard disk. Same size, same weight, same chassis, great battery life but costs $700 less. $700 less for 68GB more storage and no bragging rights. That sounds like a deal a Mac fanboy might even consider.