Detailed Close-up Photos & Review: Sony Vaio Laptop Model: VGN-NW240F/P With Windows 7

I originally wrote this review in November 2009, when the Sony VAIO VGN-NW240F was brand new and running a then-fresh copy of Windows 7. I’ve cleaned up the formatting and added a quick-specs box, but I’ve left the review itself as the honest first-look it was at the time, a little time capsule of what $649 bought you in a laptop back then.

In late October 2009 I started shopping for a new laptop. I’d been using a Gateway that was about four years old. It was still fast enough for most of what I did, but I was having real trouble reading its screen, and some of the keys were getting harder to press from wear.

My goal was simple: a bright, easy-to-read display and a keyboard that was comfortable to type on. I compared a number of machines and settled on the Sony VAIO VGN-NW240F. I deliberately skipped the bigger laptops. I wanted to stick with a standard 15-inch-class size, since the larger units felt far too bulky for my needs. The Vaio is no ultralight at about six pounds, but that’s a comfortable weight for me to carry around.

The VGN-NW240F was released on October 22, 2009 with Microsoft Windows 7 pre-installed. After comparing a lot of laptops, I bought it from Best Buy on sale for $649. I’m extremely impressed with it, both in quality and function. I’m a little less impressed with Windows 7, but that’s a Microsoft issue, not a Sony one. I’ve been using it for over three weeks now, so here’s a closer look at the things that stood out.

Quick specs

The screen

The high-resolution LCD is easy to read, bright and crisp enough that you don’t have to strain to make out small text. It’s a 15.5-inch panel at 1366 × 768, and I find it a comfortable size to work on for many hours at a stretch. Graphics are handled by an Intel GMA 4500MHD. It works well for a laptop, though, as is usually the case, it’s far less powerful than the cards you’d find in a desktop. The vast majority of the time videos play well, screen transitions are smooth, and there’s no noticeable ghosting or refresh trouble. The one hiccup I’ve hit is video stuttering when I have a lot of memory-hungry programs open at once, and since the graphics share system memory, it’s hard to tell whether that’s really the video card or just the system being stretched thin.

The keyboard

The keyboard feels a bit different from most laptop keyboards. The keys are slightly spaced apart, which seems odd at first, but once you adjust to it I actually make fewer errors from accidentally clipping the wrong key. The keys are easier to press than on some other units I’ve tested, though not quite as nice as Apple’s MacBook keyboards.

I compared this unit side by side with several Apple laptops, and I’ll admit I liked the Apple keyboard a little better. It would be my first choice on feel alone. The reason I didn’t seriously consider the Apple was price: a comparable 15-inch MacBook ran about $1,000 more than this Vaio (roughly $1,699 at the time, with a processor one step faster). What I do love about Sony’s design is that, because the keys are spaced out, their edges are smooth and my fingers never catch on them. On a lot of laptop keyboards, if I’m typing fast and drag a finger just wrong moving between keys, I’ll snag the corner of a key. That problem is simply non-existent here.

One nice extra: there’s a row of touch buttons above the keyboard, including a “Web” button Sony built for one-touch web access without fully booting into Windows, handy if you just want to jump online quickly.

The touchpad

The touchpad is different from others I’ve used. It’s an electrostatic pad with a textured surface that feels almost sticky at first; I’ve found a very light touch works best, and it takes a while to get used to. The buttons are good and click easily from anywhere along their length. Personally I still prefer a smooth touchpad to this textured one, so I keep an external mouse connected, which works great. My one gripe is the USB port placement: they’re on the sides toward the front, on either side of the touchpad, which isn’t ideal. There’s no built-in Bluetooth either, so a Bluetooth mouse needs a dongle. The good news is you can get tiny dongles that stick out less than half an inch and enable any compliant Bluetooth device, not just a mouse.

The DVD drive

The laptop has a built-in DVD/CD drive on the right-hand side, shown in the photo. It supports both + and – DVD formats, including rewritable discs. I tested it by burning a couple of system backup discs when I first got the unit, and I verified the discs afterward: they came out error-free.

Sound

The sound quality is fairly decent at a reasonable volume for a quiet room. The built-in speakers aren’t going to blow you away, so if high-end built-in audio is a must-have, this isn’t the laptop for you.

The verdict

Overall, this is a very impressive machine for the money. Despite the lack of Bluetooth and the less-than-ideal touchpad, it’s a great value, an excellent desktop replacement for the average home user who wants a bright screen, a comfortable keyboard, and solid build quality without spending MacBook money. For $649, I have no complaints I’d call serious.

Looking back from 2026

I’m updating this in 2026, and it’s a little staggering to set this review next to the machine I’m typing on now, a Lenovo Yoga 2-in-1 with a Core i7 and 32 GB of RAM. That’s on the order of eight times the memory this Vaio shipped with, in a laptop that folds flat into a tablet, has a touchscreen, weighs less, and doesn’t have a DVD drive anywhere in sight. The whole idea of burning a backup to a disc (something I genuinely praised this Vaio for) has basically gone the way of the dial-up tone; today it’s all SSDs and the cloud.

A few things really stand out looking back. The screen I raved about was 1366×768; that resolution would feel cramped now, when even budget laptops are far sharper. Integrated graphics sharing system memory is still around, but there’s vastly more memory to share. Bluetooth (the thing I had to add with a dongle) is simply assumed to be in everything today. And the VAIO name itself is no longer even a Sony product: Sony sold off its VAIO PC business back in 2014, and the brand now lives on as a separate Japanese company.

And yet, that $649 laptop did exactly what I needed it to do, for years. That’s the part that sticks with me. Specs date fast, but a machine that’s reliable, comfortable to type on, and easy on the eyes earns its keep no matter the year on the calendar. Lining these two computers up side by side is a pretty good measure of how far things move in a decade and a half, which, if you’ve read some of my other posts on where technology is heading, is a theme I keep coming back to.

If you enjoy these hands-on write-ups, I reviewed the HTC Hero smartphone around the same time, another gadget I put through its paces back in late 2009.

I hope you enjoyed the review and the photos.

Regards,
Jamie Dolan