This new Vaio really impressed us, and not just because of its tiny footprint and powerful specifications. It's much more dazzling than the slow, incremental advances in miniaturization and power we are used to seeing.

It comes equipped with two graphics chips, which can be selected at boot for battery -efficient 2D or -intensive 3D graphics. As far as we know, this is a laptop industry first. One chip is an integrated Intel 945 and the other a GeForce Go 7400, and the choice of chip helps you to manage your battery life depending on your whether you’re working or playing. They are controlled by a small switch next to the wireless switch, but you’ll have to decide which one to use before you turn the laptop on.

Connectivity options are limited due to its diminutive size, but even though there is only a Memory Stick Duo reader built into the chassis, it’s not as discriminatory as you may think. An included PC card adaptor will accept SD, XD and MMC cards in addition to the inbuilt Memory Stick Duo reader.

A Type II PCMCIA slot for additional hard-core laptop expansion is included. Mini-Firewire is present, as are two USB ports and side mounted headphone and microphone ports. Networking covers all the usual bases, namely 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth 2.0 (with a Toshiba stack that supports the A2DP profile natively) and a modem, which is either useful or nostalgic depending on how you look at it.

Sony has included a fingerprint scanner that has been coupled with proprietary software to let you do more than impress friends by logging onto Windows with a finger. You can set each finger to launch a specific program, or by using the scroll lock key (for what we’re assuming will be the first time), you can defeat fingerprint recognition and use the scanner as a scroll wheel. This and more tools are a part of Sony's standard, yet somewhat intrusive, additional applications.

The only flaw we could find is that the laptop's a little too thin for its own good. If a disc is spinning and you grab the laptop to move it, you get an awful flex-induced scratching noise as the disc spins against the veneer of plastic that doubles as the tray. The beautiful, half centimeter thick screen is bright and reflective but the hinging mechanism feels dainty. This just means you should be careful with it, which is something you should be with all laptops.

For the full review, along with many more ultraportable laptops check out issue 106 of PC Authority.