The Sony VAIO R505DL Super Slim Pro Notebook!
Written: Aug 31 '02 (Updated Jan 20 '03)
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Pros: A very nice looking Notebook with a lot of features!
Cons: They should have included the Double-Capacity Battery.
The Bottom Line: Looking for a dependable and easy Notebook then this maybe what you are looking for!
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| surferdude7's Full Review: Sony VAIO R505DL PC Notebook |
The Sony VAIO R505DL is one of the sleekest in small designs that I have used so far and it is loaded with lots of software, hardware and add-ons if needed.
The Notebook is small at 11 inches across, 9 inches from top to bottom and 1.33 inches thick without the docking station. It comes with a high-capacity, eight-cell lithium-ion battery that gives you 2.5 to 3.5 hours of usage weighing in the Notebook at about 4.37 pounds and if you add the docking station it will weigh in at about 6.75 pounds. You can buy an optional Double-Capacity Battery that will give you 5.5 to 7.5 hours of use.
The VAIO R505DL uses a Mobile Intel Pentium III processor 1 GHz-M that supports Intel Enhanced SpeedStep technology. It comes with their SlimDock docking station that includes a 1.44MB floppy drive plus a CD-RW/DVD combo drive. It also has 256MB SDRAM, which is expandable to 384 MB and a 30 GB hard drive.
The LCD is a 12.1 inch XGA TFT 1024 x 768 screen with Intel 830MG integrated graphics chip with Intel D.V.M. technology. The graphics chip uses up to 32MB of RAM that is shared with from the 256MB SDRAM.
It has a i.LINK (IEEE 1394) digital interface and a integrated 10/100 Ethernet interface plus a V.90 modem.
Retail price for the Notebook with the SlimDock docking station is $1599 and the warranty is for one year if you register and only 90 days if you don’t register. Please remember to register to get the full one year warranty.
Other Specifications
512 KB Cache Memory integrated on-die level 2
Bus Speed is 133 MHz
Bus Architecture PCI/AGP
Microsoft sound system compatible
ENERGY STAR compliant
Advanced power management - ACPI compatible
Keyboard has 83 keys
Built-in stereo speakers
External Microphone
What you get
The Sony VAIO R505DL Notebook
SlimDock docking station
Standard Lithium-Ion battery
AC adapter and Power cable
Software
Manual
The Software
Sony provides the VAIO R505DL with Microsoft Windows Home Edition and plenty of software made to run great with it.
Provided is Adobe Acrobat Reader, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Apple QuickTime, Arcsoft PhotoPrinter 2000 Pro, InterVideo WinDVD 2000, Intuit Quicken 2002 Basic, Microsoft Word 2002, plus RealNetworks Real Entertainment Suite.
Sony includes plenty of their own stuff with Sony Digital Print, DVgate, MovieShaker, PicoPlayer, PictureGear, SonicStage for VAIO, Smart Capture and Sony VisualFlow.
Also included is SPDE Everquest, Screenblast Sound Forge and Screenblast ACID.
Trend Micro PC-Cillin 2000 is included but you have to subscribe to them to use it.
Overall
It is a nice sleek looking Notebook with plenty of features, I like that this model includes the CD-RW/DVD combo, this is a nice value added feature. They included so much but they got skimpy on the battery, they should have included the Double-Capacity Battery.
This is the first Notebook that I have used that I did not have to add a mouse to it to use it. The Electro-Static touch pad took a few minute to get the feeling of but, I could maneuver it better than on any Notebooks that I have tried.
Copying a CD was easy, it uses the hard drive to copy the original one to and then copies it to your CDR disc. The DVD part played the movies in beautiful color making this Notebook a great take along on trips so the kids can watch movies while you drive. Though the stereo sound is fair for the movies, I do miss the Dolby 5.1 sound.
Games are very impressive as far as appearance and action, though I miss my 19 inch Trinitron screen for size. I loaded up WarCraft III and Command & Conquer Red Alert and both games played smoothly without any problems.
Digital photos from my camera looked great making the Notebook great for traveling to view the photos you have taken. A digital camera LCD is just too small to get a good view of your photos where the Sony VAIO R505DL gives you a great way to photo edit on the go!
Overall it is a great and easy to use Notebook!
Thank You for reading my Review!
Here are some of my other Computer reviews!
Dell Dimension 8250 Series
Dell SmartStep 200 Series Notebook Computers
HP Omnibook XE3 PIII Notebook Computers
emachines T2080
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1489
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 12
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 21-30
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surferdude7
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Location: Elizabethtown, Ky.
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