Sony has always been adept at producing small, stylish products and the VAIO notebook range is testament to this. The VGNS28GP is a lightweight (1.9kg), fully-featured notebook. It has a reassuringly sturdy build and features a jaw-droppingly clear 13.3in widescreen LCD. It’s even readable off-axis, with no discolouration, even at extreme angles. Laptops have made dramatic improvements in this respect, offering comparable image quality to their desktop counterparts. Of course, the Mobility RADEON 9700 certainly helps the Sony along here.

The unit also features a wireless 802.11b/g controller, a DVD+/-RW drive, PC card slot, two USB slots and a FireWire port. The included speakers are also semi-decent for a laptop, too. The only potential negative is the forward facing DVD drive which could make lap usage uncomfortable.

As a performer, it does quite well for itself. It earned a PCMark score of 3212 making this well rounded enough to perform all desktop and even gaming tasks. The battery-life was also very respectable. The MobileMark 2002 productivity test measures the amount of battery life one can expect with a typical load, and the VAIO achieved a total of 225 minutes, or almost four hours.

Of course, as with all Sony products, you get what you pay for. Sony typically asks a little more than their competitors for similar products, but this usually pays off in the quality of workmanship and the reliability associated with most Sony products. The Sony VAIO VGN-S28GP is an extremely well-built notebook and should provide rock-solid performance for years to come.