Business Minded? – Sony VAIO BX

Sony-one of the best-known global electronics giants-is finally throwing its hat into the business laptop ring. Surprised? It’s true: Sony has never launched a line of corporate notebooks, that is, until now. The Sony VAIO BX line of laptops feature the mobility, security, and technology that professionals on the move want and need.

Perhaps for business folks, the most crucial of those characteristics is security. Whether you’re managing a million-dollar investment fund, or selling a million of your company’s widgets, as a business person, you must make sure that those transactions and your company data are protected. Before the BX line, Sony had been notoriously behind the security curve compared to other manufacturers.

With the BXs, however, you can rely on both a built-in Trusted Platform module, or TPM, and a biometric solution. Together, these features can guard passwords and files, and ensure that nobody uncovers the secret recipe for your widget.

As for mobility, as in wireless mobility, the BX series will have an integrated Cingular Edge WAN antenna. Sony first threw this wireless technology into the VAIO VGN-T350P, and now they offer it to corporate types in the 14-inch (and only the 14-inch BX model). Wherever there’s a Cingular EDGE hotspot, the service will beam in wireless through the WAN antenna (not out of the bottom of their hearts, of course; at $79 per month).

Add that wireless to the 0.3-megapixel camera and a GoPoint video-over-IP service, and you have a portable teleconferencing machine. You can add on the former option, or get it standard on the 17-incher. And you can download the latter from GoPoint through a Sony partnership.

Then throw in your choice of screen size-14, 15.4, or 17 inches-and all the docks and ports you need for extra batteries, hard drives, optical drives, etc., and you have a laptop that can handle any business trip, and corporate campaign. Not to mention, these Sonys are the first with dual pointing devices-pointing sticks and touchpads-and they look gorgeous.

By Matthew Brodsky

Monday, September 05, 2005