Hot property
Written: Jan 13 '03
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Pros: Cute and compact laptop that performs flawlessly and fast.
Cons: Price
The Bottom Line: A great, compact laptop that is well designed and performs as well as it looks. A little expensive, but worth the money.
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| za9ra22's Full Review: Sony VAIO R505EL PC Notebook |
I never thought I'd be writing a review on any Sony laptop, let alone this one. In comparison to Dells, Gateways, Compaqs and almost any other manufacturer, Sony laptops are expensive - almost prohibitively so.
Or so I thought.
Then I used one and discovered that it's not just a rather cute, slim, lightweight and well featured little system, but astonishingly fast and stable too.
At a time when laptop manufacturers seem headed towards making ever bigger machines with screens suitable for personal theater use and batteries that can jump-start a Ford, it takes a certain amount of courage to be going the other way. Sony are doing just that. There's a whole range of Vaio models that feature a smaller footprint and lighter design, and this is one of the best of them.
Featuring a decent amount of memory, a hard disk that is sizable enough to cope with almost anything, a P3 processor that isn't lightning fast but optimised for mobile use has a versatile range of speed/battery life settings that satisfy almost any situation, and a 'big system' array of connectivity, it's difficult to fault this machine on any basis other than it's price - and even then, on closer examination the build quality and materials make it clear why it commands a king's ransom.
The Vaio is almost ready for use right out of the box. Setup is a simple matter of the obligatory handful of XP 'first startup' questions and then it's ready.
It has a robust and solid feel that gives an immediate and satisfying sense of quality and reliability and while it's accepted wisdom that laptops deliver lower performance standards than an equivalent desktop system, this Vaio is remarkable. While running on battery and set for optimum battery life, it lags noticeably, but not seriously, behind a similar P3 desktop, but when on mains or set for maximum performance, there's barely any perceptible difference and in fact the Vaio starts up faster and is not really any slower in common tasks like wordprocessing or even basic photo editing. Indeed, it was only when doing disc-intensivre tasks that I found the Vaio suffered to any degree in comparisons with desktop machines that in some cases where theoretically much faster.
The keyboard feels of good quality and is pleasant to use. It suffers the traditional failing of laptop keyboards in having short travel, light action and no raking, but it's easy to get used to even so, and the expanse of casing at the front makes it comfortable to use. The trackpad is accurate and can be set to use the top and right edge as a surrogate for the scroll-wheel by dragging a finger across or down. That's neat. There's also a small roller wheel that can be configured to use as a scroll-wheel or to select applications etc, and which works well, though I didn't find wholly useful.
There are stereo speakers above the keyboard at each end of the casing, and they work suffieicntly well for DVD playback on the move, though of course are not hi-fi quality by any means. The screen is beutifully clear and easy to work with, though as LCD technology has improved dramatically in the last couple of years, this screen is a little limited in viewing angle and washes out if you move much left or right. The range of contrast and brightness settings is more than adequate and I found it excellent to work with for lengthy periods in almost any application other than watching DVDs. In the latter respect it seems to me the screen is a little slow - not untypical of laptops until the faster displays become cheaper and less power hungry. That it seemed less suited to this task is really more a testament to how good it was on every other than any serious failing.
Battery life is quoted as a good, but not exceptional 4.5 hours and I found that my unit was slightly worse, providing at best around 4 hours, and with the docking station attached and saving files from the hard drive to CD-R, battery life was down to slightly under 2 hours. For my use that's more than sufficient, but it means that taking a Vaio on a lengthy flight and hoping to make productive use of it would almost certainly require a second battery.
One thing that was noticable within a few moments of use is that the underside of the casing gets very warm indeed - more than enough to keep your knees warm on a cold winter evening! This is clearly wasteful of battery power and is perhaps worse than many other laptops. It's not a problem or a fault, nor is it greatly unusual, but for a laptop as cleverly deisnged as this, the wasted heat is a sign of wasted battery power - something Sony should focus on to improve battery life.
However, this is an excellent choice for a compact, fully featured and tremendously well designed laptop that can go almost anywhere and deliver credible performance on all but highly demanding tasks. It's light, rugged and very cute. If you're in the market for a laptop, and don't mind paying that little bit extra, give one of these a look. The quality will be apparent immediately and the reasons for spending your money on one will become more apparent as you use it!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1450
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 12 inches
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW
Hard Drive (GB): 21-30
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Epinions.com ID:
za9ra22
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Member: Andy
Location: Virginia USA
Reviews written: 40
Trusted by: 2 members
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