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• General Goods

It won't be the lightest laptop on campus this fall, and it may not fit into every knapsack or laptop bag, but if you're willing and able to tote around a little extra weight, the Sony Vaio VGN-NW125J/T holds great appeal for its big, cinematic display and roomy keyboard. The software bundle is a winner, too, with a full version of Microsoft Office and 12 months of Norton Internet Security. ( ... Expand full review

It won't be the lightest laptop on campus this fall, and it may not fit into every knapsack or laptop bag, but if you're willing and able to tote around a little extra weight, the Sony Vaio VGN-NW125J/T holds great appeal for its big, cinematic display and roomy keyboard. The software bundle is a winner, too, with a full version of Microsoft Office and 12 months of Norton Internet Security. (Make sure you get the discs at purchase; on our test system, only the trials of Office and Norton were preinstalled and no CDs were in the box. We've heard various customers report similar occurrences.)

We greatly prefer the Vaio NW125 to the similarly sized but single-core Asus UX50V-RX-05 that's also on store shelves this summer. Not only does the Sony offer superior performance, thanks to its Intel Core 2 Duo processor, but we like its overall design better. In the end, a laptop with an extra-wide 15.5-inch display isn't the best choice for everyone, but the Vaio VGN-NW125J/T brings enough to the table to justify the added heft for many mainstream laptop users.

As a member of Best Buy's Next Class program, the Sony Vaio VGN-NW125J/T (a configuration exclusive to the retail store) goes beyond just software trials and actually offers a useful software bundle. Or so claims Best Buy on its Web site. Next Class systems we recently reviewed--the Dell Studio S1440-022B and the HP Pavilion dv4-1465dx--included CDs (with activation codes) of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 and Norton Internet Security 2009. Our Vaio NS125 test system included neither. We would have chalked this up to us receiving an early production system, but multiple customer comments on Best Buy's Web site report missing CDs. Be sure to look in the box for both Office and Norton CDs should you decide to purchase the Vaio NW125J/T.