Sony is well known for producing a whole host of stylish VAIO notebooks for home users, but maybe not so well known is its range of business notebooks, the BZ-11MN being the latest. Whereas the consumer VAIOs are generally stylish, the BZ-11MN's only relief from its austere charcoal grey finish is the reflective silver VAIO logo on the lid.
Looks apart, the BZ-11MN feels solid and well built and its magnesium alloy chassis will help it survive life on the road, but it's no lightweight at a smidgen under 3kg.
The BZ-11MN is a full-blown Centrino 2 model. Powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 CPU (2.26GHz), it uses Intel's GM45 / ICH9-M chipset combination and has the cheaper of the two WiFi options, the WiLink 5100. Backing up the processor is 2GB of PC2-6400, 800MHz DDR2 memory which is just about right to keep the installed Vista Business operating system and any standard business application happy, as confirmed by its overall PCMark05 score of 4,245.
