Good things come in small packages, or so we’re told. Sony would certainly seem to think so, if its latest stylish notebook is anything to go by.

Looks are always a matter of taste, but it’s hard not to appreciate the Sony Vaio VGN-TX3HP’s slim design.

Some people may feel that the pale grey colouring is something of a step back from the sleek, black beauties that Sony has been producing of late. But with dimensions of 272 x 21 x 195mm and weighing in just over 1.2kg even with the battery pack attached, the new Vaio is clearly the ultimate in portable computing.

The screen is incredibly thin [http://www.vaiopro.sony-europe.com/product_gallery/index.php?s=tx& c=gb] – so thin that it feels like it might actually bend when the lid is opened up. We should point out, however, that the notebook’s durable carbon fibre body is likely to be more than capable of taking the rough with the smooth.

Sony has managed to squeeze an amazing amount of technology into the tiny little box, too. The TX3HP comes with an 80Gb hard disk, built-in wireless networking, Bluetooth, MemoryStick and SD card slots and – somehow – a multi format DVD writer.

The latter can be used not only for watching movies, but also for burning to a wide variety of blank disc formats, including dual-layer DVDs.

With a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels and a widescreen aspect ratio, the 11.1in screen is sharp, colourful and has very good contrast levels that are particularly good for watching DVDs.

The sleek design isn’t without its flaws, however. The left and right touchpad buttons, for example, are far too shallow and far too close to the edge of the notebook’s case for comfortable use.

Perhaps more of an issue, though, is the TX3HP’s relatively weak performance. Its 1.06GHz Intel Core Solo processor and 512Mb of memory (which is shared with the PC’s onboard graphics) conspire to put it very much at the lower end of the scale, power-wise.

This Achilles heel made itself evident not only in our labs tests, where it got extremely low results across the board, but also in our real-world assessment.

We found programs and files were quite slow to launch compared to other computers. What this means is that the TX3HP is best suited to very light work. It’ll be fine for working on documents, surfing the web, sending emails and watching DVDs, for example, but playing the latest 3D games is pretty much out of the question.

This is a shame, as the PC comes with a lot of very good creative software, such as Adobe Premiere Elements for video editing as well as a FireWire socket for connecting a digital camcorder. Heavy-duty digital video work will, however, be frustratingly slow on this machine compared to other PCs.

One positive consequence of the TX3HP’s low power is its superb battery life. We managed to keep our test unit going for well over seven hours of standard use (office, web surfing and the like) on a single charge.

If you’re looking for a very small, very light notebook PC and you’re not too worried about the ‘oomph’ factor, then the Sony Vaio VGN-TX3HP should definitely be among the models to consider.

At a whopping £1,500, however, it’s likely to be among the first to get itself dropped from many shoppers’ shortlists.

Related reviews 
Lenovo Thinkpad X60
Verdict: A solid, reliable notebook with superb battery life and light enough to carry all day
Rating: 4
Price: £1360