Everything _I_ Need
Written: Sep 04 '01
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Pros: Size/weight; Decent size keyboard; Everything included; Style
Cons: Price; Smallish screen; Fan location
The Bottom Line: A compact machine with an excellent feature set; portability without alot of sacrifice. Adequate performance, but look elsewhere for blazing speed. Satisfies all of my needs, but YMMV.
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| palindrome's Full Review: Sony VAIO R505TL PC Notebook |
When I went looking for a laptop, I had a very specific kind of laptop in mind. I wanted one that traveled well. In other words, it had to be small and light, yet still usable. It didn't have to be some powerhouse notebook, it just had to have a decent screen, usable keyboard, and no need for those annoying little dongles that we all hate. The one I found that met all of _my_ needs just happened to be the VAIO R505TL/D. Oh, and it just so happens that it also looks good... *grin*
Going over the features that I was looking for in order of importance, I started with the size/weight factor. I knew that if I was going to buy a laptop I wanted one that I would be able to comfortably carry with me. I've met too many laptops that felt like cement bricks rather than a piece of portable computing. So the first requirement was the sub-5lb. category - the R505TL meets this handily weighing in at 3.75lbs. Going along with the weight is the size, and so the keyboard. In order to get the sub-5lb. weight, the size of a notebook must drop, and along with the overall size, so must the keyboard size shrink. The R505TL retains an 18mm key pitch, which is certainly usable (IIRC 20mm is standard key pitch).
Once the size/weight requirement was met, I went on to look at the screen. While I wasn't so concerned about the diagonal size of the screen, I knew that I wanted a screen that held a resolution of at least XGA quality. The R505TL provides this, and has a screen of excellent quality to boot. The screen shows no evidence of the "rogue" pixels that are a constant nuisance on LCD panels, and the images are crisp with bright colors. Just for fun, I was watching a DVD on the screen and felt that the picture was clear, with excellent colors, and no lag in the picture refresh.
Two major requirements down, only one left to go. No dongles. The R505TL includes both RJ45 and RJ11 connectors for the integrated 10/100 Ethernet and v.90 modem. So no dongles there. The "/D" model which I purchased included the DVD SlimDock, which meant that the floppy drive and DVD-ROM drive are included in a ~1lb. docking station that can be carried with the laptop itself. So no external cables for the CD/DVD or floppy drives.
With all three major requirements satisfied, the R505TL was looking like it had everything I needed. The last thing to check was the rest of the specs sheet. The Celeron 650MHz processor was enough processing power for me. With web development and minor programming set to be the primary tasks for the laptop, I didn't need an all powerful CPU. To some, the use of a Celeron CPU might be considered blasphemy in this day and age, but when lighter non-processor intensive tasks are going to be par for the course, the cost savings of using a Celeron can be justified. The 128MB of RAM was enough to run the bundled Windows ME and allow for minor multitasking. Also, in the case that I ever feel the need to upgrade to Win2k or XP, the 128MB will be enough to keep me running. The 15GB hard-drive provides for room to grow, and with a desktop at home, there just wasn't a need for huge amounts of storage on the road. And lastly, the 2 USB ports, 1 iLink port(IEEE 1394/FireWire), 1 MemoryStick slot, 1 PCMCIA slot, and VGA out on the laptop itself satisfied any connectivity needs. As if that wasn't enough, the SlimDock adds another USB port, a second iLink port, a parallel port, and a serial port (I only mention 1 USB port even though the dock has 2 because the dock will block one of the USB ports on the laptop when it is in use). And lastly, with a stated battery life of 3-4.5 hours, I figured I could realistically get around 2.5-3 hours of real use out of the battery.
About the only down side I've found is the price. At $1600 the R505TL/D ($1400 without the SlimDock) is somewhat pricey, but after $300 in rebates, $1300 didn't seem like a horrible price.
All around, the R505TL isn't going to outperform your desktop, or any of the high powered desktop replacement laptops. But if portability is what you're looking for, the R505TL will satisfy your needs. And if you need more power than the R505TL provides, look up a step to the R505TE or R505TS models with PIII class processors. And as an added bonus you get the distinctive VAIO look with the lavender/gray look casing.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1600
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Celeron
Processor speed: 601-700
Screen Size: 12
RAM: 128
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20
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Epinions.com ID:
palindrome
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Reviews written: 19
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