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[k_nitin_r]

Last week, I was provided with the challenge of finding a notebook for INR.30,000 (INR is the abbreviation for Indian Rupee) in India. Of course, there's a list of 'desirable' features and 'must haves' that were handed to me. A Core i3 processor was one of the key features requested and was the one I found hardest to meet. 2GB of RAM was pretty much the standard must-have and a 15" screen was quite high on the desirable list.

I began my search with all of the value-for-money brands that I was familiar with in UAE, searching for the product offerings from Lenovo, Acer, and Dell. Lenovo did have something that fit pretty close to the price range. For about INR.34,000 there is a pretty decent Lenovo Thinkpad Edge E420. It has a Core i3 processor too. During my search, I found many notebook PCs sold with FreeDOS instead of Windows and it did reduce the price by about INR.2,000. I might as well stick Ubuntu Linux on it if I don't get Windows, was my reaction. Pretty much every Core i3 processor notebook I found was over INR.30,000 and just when I was about to settle for an AMD processor or even an Intel Atom, I found one that seemed just right.

After much searching among the value brands, I decided to take a peek at Sony's offerings. Sony usually charges a high premium for the design and brand name but this time, it seemed to surprise with its Core i3 notebook that had a lower price tag that either Lenovo or Dell. The Sony Vaio VPCEH15EN/W offers a second generation Intel Core i3 2310M processor, 15.5" WXGA display, Microsoft Windows 7 Home Basic 64-bit, 2GB RAM, 320GB hard drive, DVD-RW drive, HDMI output, SD and Memory Card reader, VGA camera, and even a numeric keypad for INR.29,990 (yes, that's inclusive of taxes).

Sony is even tossing in Microsoft Office 2010 Starter edition with the Vaio VPCEH15EN/W. Most people hardly ever use anything other than Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel so it's good to know you can edit documents instead of just viewing them with the free Word and Excel viewers. Officer Starter, however, does not include Powerpoint so you'll have to still get a Powerpoint viewer for making presentations or looking up some reference slides. Microsoft did intend to include advertising as a means of additional revenue from the users of the Office Starter edition, as is included in their license agreement. When you do use Microsoft Word in the Office Starter edition, you would notice that the track changes feature for multiple authors, comments, and the automatic table of contents feature are missing. Microsoft Excel too is limited by the no-comments, no pivot tables, and no external sources limitations. A feature of Office Starter is that you can create a portable version of it using the Office Starter To-Go onto a USB disk drive letting you use Office Starter on guest PCs.

Sony Vaio's offering certainly changes its image from the vendor of overpriced notebooks as we have come to think of it. It's entry-level notebook certainly delivers value for money and they have managed to undercut their rivals who seem to have turned a blind eye to their aggressive pricing.