Perfect for the Student, Adult, and Whomever in between
Written: Apr 21 '02
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Pros: Quiet, Light, Small, Stylish, Fast, Great Memory, HDD, Screen!
Cons: Extended Life Batteries are expensive, no built in 802.11b Wireless
The Bottom Line: Excellent for Students, Adults, Everyone. A great Sidekick to a desktop system, Travel buddy, or this is good enough to be used as a regular system for the average user!
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| Skyleth's Full Review: Sony VAIO R505JS PC Notebook |
Some of you may remember my review of the Sony Vaio PCG-SR7K [ http://www.epinions.com/cmd-review-44C8-DEB4BB2-396D1B30-prod3 ] where i suggested getting the Z505 instead, well times have changed, and I have since upgraded from my old Z505 to this R505JS.
There have been excellent improvements from the Z line to this new R line, firstly, the CDROM, floppy, and port-replicator are now combined into a docking station. this saves space, travel weight, and a lot of time spent connecting 500 cables. And this laptop is VERY QUIET! My old Z505LSK sounds like a thunderstorm next to this.
FEATURES
Let's look at what the R505JS gives you:
12.1" TFT XGA Active Matrix Display: The screen is sharp and vibrant, everything that I have come to expect from Sony Laptops. Plus, it has very good contrast, as well as very "Warm" whites.
30.0GB Fixed Hard Disk: For a Laptop (not my main machine) 30Gigabytes of storage is more than enough, and for the average user it will be fine as well.
256MB RAM: excellent, with my old Z505 i bought RAM almost immediately after buying the laptop, now with 256 standard, RAM can wait.
Pentium III 850 MHz w/ Speed Step technology: good speed, my desktop computer is an 800 MHz machine, so i can't really complain.
A roughly 90-95% keyboard: takes some getting used to, especially key layout for things like the Function and Control Keys.
A sub 4LB and 1" thin form factor: can't complain there, especially when i have a bunch of other things to carry around in my bag. My laptop is the last thing i want to be weighing me down.
WindowsXP Home Edition: I personally prefer XP Professional or Windows2000 Professional, but I can deal with it.
Sony MagiGate MemoryStick slot: Good if you have a MemoryStick Walkman, Cyber Shot Camera, Slim Top VAIO, Higher End Sony Digital8/MiniDV camcorder, or Cyber Frame.
Integrated Ethernet: a built in 10/100 network port on both the laptop and the docking station make networking this machine very easy.
Modem: Although i never use this anymore, it is still there, a 56kbps v.90 modem.
Docking Station: This itself almost made the upgrade worth it. The docking station that comes with this particular model is a CDRW/DVD drive, which will be great this summer when I travel for a School Project. The docking station also includes all ports previously featured on the port replicator, Parallel, Serial, USB, FireWire, VGA, etc...
FUNCTIONALITY
All the complaints I had with the old Z505 seem to have been solved with this new model. It is VERY Quiet! There is an included DVD/CDRW (that’s about $500+ saved right there), excellent standard RAM size (with a capacity for another 128 megs), great Hard Disk space, plenty of room for me to move files around as well as keep music and video on my laptop for when I'm on the go. Another benefit that people will love especially if they have to give presentations from their laptops: Sony has added a VGA port onto the body of the laptop. So no longer do you have to carry around a port replicator, its right there. And if you're just giving a single presentation or even if you're giving multiple presentations, it makes setup much easier. The only thing I would have liked was built in 802.11b Wireless Networking, but that is now offered in the even newer versions.
SOFTWARE
Once again Sony Loads on the software, thankfully, that makes life easier during those times when you need to do "that thing" and oh look, the software happens to be preinstalled! But, unfortunately if you do not have a lot of Sony gadgets on the side, a lot of this software won't do you much good (memory stick management software, openMG jukebox, etc...). But some software that will do the common person good includes: Adobe Photoshop Elements (a "watered down" version of Adobe Photoshop, but it still lets you do all the key things with your photos), Microsoft Word, etc... Some nice things that are preinstalled that save a lot of time in "breaking in" the computer to how it works with your style: QuickTime, Adobe Acrobat Reader, and Many Scanner/Mouse/Other Device drivers are preinstalled, so the plug and play ability is really there for you. But before any real heavy usage, I will still be reformatting the computer and only loading that which I need.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This laptop really has become the my Digital Hub, I use it to transfer songs to my MiniDisc player, I use it to download video I just shot using a Digital8 or MiniDV camcorder, I use it to manage files on Memory Stick for Sony PDAs, I use it to download images off of my Digital Camera straight through the Memorystick Port. It is light and fast, so I have no problems carrying it around campus, and booting it up quickly to get some work done. It is quiet, so if I leave it on at night, it won't keep me up. It has all the memory and hard disk space I’m looking for. It has the CDRW/DVD drive! Basically, this laptop is well suited for my computing needs, and I can not really imagine many laptop users out there of whom this laptop would not suit their needs perfectly. 850MHz runs things like Photoshop, Microsoft Office, MapInfo, and even some games without a problem. Although more would be nice, but its not necessary. This product is only getting an "above average" because its lacking integrated Wireless Networking capability and because the extended batteries and other accessories are too expensive. But right out of the box, you do have everything you need to get going, unlike the SR7K from a year or two back.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1600.00
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: 801-900
RAM: 256
Hard Drive (GB): 21-30
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Epinions.com ID:
Skyleth
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Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 4 members
About Me:
Technology developer at a small dot com.
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