A must buy for the road-gamer
Written: May 13 '02
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Quality of Tech Support: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Packed with features, huge screen, has no problems doing anything you want
Cons: Heavy, awkward to handle, very expensive accessories
The Bottom Line: I unhestitatingly recommend this laptop to anyone requiring above-average performance from a laptop, being it for gaming, multimedia, or graphics.
|
|
|
| dragoman's Full Review: Sony VAIO GRX550 PC Notebook |
This is without a doubt the best laptop I have owned yet. As an avid computer gamer, I have often wanted to play games on the road but was unable because the performance of my laptop could not match that of my desktop.
This is no longer a problem, with the trio of true "Desktop replacement" laptops of the GRX series.
The 550 is the bottom of the pyramid, but that does not mean it lacks in features. The ultra-fast 1.6 Ghz P4 is only .1 Ghz slower than the fastest available laptop processor...not too shabby.
512 MB DDRAM and 32MB DDRAM Video card make it an incredible gaming machine, with graphics performance that rivals/surpasses desktops with the ATI Radeon 7500 Mobile Graphics card.
Down to details:
The computer comes with an AC charger and a bundle of software. The software is quite good, and includes Adobe Photoshop, Quicken, Microsoft Office 2002, and over a dozen different Sony software for digital video, photos, and presentations.
Ports included on the laptop are: 3 USB (they are placed strategically for peripherals - one on each side of the case), 1 microphone, 1 headphone, 1 serial, 1 parallel port, a TV-out (be warned, a standard RCA cable will not work, you must have a Sony AV-out cable), a iLink port, a PCMIA slot (for both type II and III), a Smartmedia slot.
A tip: you will probably have to buy a new case for this laptop, as the 15" screen makes this a massive laptop to handle. The weight is close to 9 pds, putting it on the high end of the weight-class for laptops.
This laptop worked very well for me right out of the box, but another tip: buy a good surge protector for it. A surge wiped my first one out and I had to return it for a new one less than a week after I bought it. The OS is Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, but no "activation" is required to start using it.
Upgradeability: Not very much, from what I can see. There is an easy-access port on the bottom to expand the RAM, but as the laptop comes with 512 MB DDRAM very few people will need or want to expand this.
A nice feature is the double battery bay (the second is accessed by removing the DVD/CDRW drive). A second battery extends the total battery life to over 4 hours of full use. I personally find it easy to watch a 2hr DVD with one battery at full charge....
The laptop feels smooth, and looks very nice and ergonomic. A full size keyboard makes typing easier, with the large touchpad allowing easy access to the mouse pointer. One drawback is the laptop has no PS/2 ports, which means most peripherals (i.e. mouse) will have to be a USB type, which are more expensive.
Also a drawback is the lack of a 3.5 in floppy drive. Sony is apparently trying to use their Memory Stick format to replace floppies....and the adapter to use a Memory Stick in a floppy drive is expensive as well ($80).
All in all I am very happy with this laptop. The 15" screen makes watching movies/playing games a veritable pleasure, and the TV-out makes a nice feature because movies in such formats as VCD and DivX can easily be played back on any TV with RCA inputs. The battery life is good, and the ability to use two batteries at once (a feature unique to Sony Vaio's at this moment) is an added bonus (beware though - a second battery will run you 250 bucks).
Rich
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 2200.00
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Other
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: Greater than 15
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 31-40
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
dragoman
|
|
Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.