Product Marketing and Brand Analysis: Core, Actual,

Product Marketing and Brand Analysis: Core, Actual, And Augmented Product Levels Product and Brand: SONY Vaio PCG-R505GL Core Product The core benefit of the Sony Vaio R505GL laptop is that it offers consumers a personal computer that is portable, stylish, and user-friendly. The R505GL model is termed as an "ultra-portable" Vaio notebook because it only weighs approximately 4 lbs. Furthermore, with its lavender-colored magnesium finish, the product is stylish, deviating from the usual color of black or gray laptops/notebooks available from other popular computer brands.

It is also user-friendly because it contains numerous features that maximize the product's capability as a portable computer to make use of its software and hardware features optimally. Actual Product Sony Vaio's core product indeed establishes the actual product. The R505GL model contains numerous features that illustrate the high quality level, new features, stylish packaging and the Sony tradition of providing consumers with quality electronic equipments, gadgets, and devices. High quality level of the product is shown in the line-up of the model's special features.

Sony Vaio R505GL contains software programs that are suitable for consumers interested in multi-media functioning computers -- i.e., video editing and playing, music player, music and video copying programs. Apart from these entertainment programs, the product also contains pre-installed anti-virus, Windows Office, and Special Vaio Support (for online customer service) programs. The product's packaging is stylish, convenient, and user-friendly.

The product's cover is a magnesium finish colored with a shade of lavender, clearly a deviation from the usual gray or black colors of laptops/notebooks sold in the market. It also has a soft-touch keyboard and touch pad for easy navigation when using the product as a notebook (when traveling and without the use of a mouse). The product also has its own lithium ion rechargeable battery, AC adapter, and power cord. The product weighs approximately 4 lbs., has a monitor display of 12.1," and is about 2" thick.

The most important feature of this particular Sony Vaio model is that it contains a docking station, the detachable part of the product (located at the base of the Vaio laptop) where the floppy disk and CD-RW/DVD-ROM drives are located. Apart from the drives, the docking station also contains controls and ports that are available when the product is used as a notebook (without the docking station). The docking station is the special feature that Sony markets.