Its my new baby - to love and to hate
Written: Oct 05 '99
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Great Screen, beautiful keyboard, has a DVD drive and its made by SONY!
Cons: Short battery life, occasionally have problems starting up Windows.
|
|
|
| Ranak's Full Review: VAIO Notebook Series |
The task of buying a laptop is one of the most daunting tasks in all of life. But if you can find out what you want and need before going out to buy something, then it can be that much easier.
This Sony is not the super slim Z505 that has made Sony famous, but the PCG-270. Its approx. 7.1 lbs with everything on it. If you remove the floppy drive it goes down to about 6.8 lbs. So this computer isnt that light. But it is very thin, and compared to other laptops its quite wide in the length and width of it. That allows for the huge beautiful 15" screen. Its the nicest screen I have seen on a laptop. Beyond the screen, the laptop itself is very stylish and the whole design is incredible. The keyboard is large enough that you don't "mash" the keys when you are trying to type. The touchpad is just as good as anyone else's, and its personal preference if you like the touchpad or not.
But as you go behind the beautiful appearance, you find that the Sony starts to falter. I found it quite annoying that Sony has decided on including all these 'add on programs'. The battery life isn't that great compares to other laptops, so be sure to always have an AC supply nearby.
Also I use this laptop to hook into a network so I got a 3COM ethernet card. For my job I have also required many programs be loaded on such as Microsoft C++,Java; Homesite 4.0; Personal Web server, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. Since then I have occasionally had problems with Windows loading. Infact just now, when I first started up my cpu I jammed at my login and I had to restart. Other times it would just jam at the Win 98 start up screen. But then again most laptops are just as finiky. The only way to solve this problem is getting a desktop. Then again it could be Windows 98 that is the problem, that does make sense :)
I decided to get a 64 MB RAM upgrade (from 64 making a total of 128), and with new software always needing more and more RAM it is a wise upgrade.
But don't think that once you buy the Sony Laptop you are done. They have so many accessories that you can spend another $2000 buying them. I bought the port replicator for $299 and I have a monitor, printer, hotsync (for palmpilot, mouse, keyboard, and my AC adapter hooked up to it. When I look back on it, it isn't that important if you don't mind plugging them straight into you laptop everytime since they have all the same ports straight there.
One thing that this laptop has that gives it A BIG advantage over other laptops is that it comes from Sony! Because of this, you can hook a digital camera or anything else made by Sony and use its specially made programs with it. They all connect in a IEEE link slot; I don't use it, but maybe one day I will use it.
Overall the Sony is a laptop that gives you everything you could possible need in a laptop. If you don't mind have a few problems every now and then, its a great buy.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
Ranak
|
|
Member: Rana Kashyap
Location: Rye NY
Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 5 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.