The new L630, wow!
Written: Mar 27 '00 (Updated Oct 10 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: UPDATE as of 10/00 - Fast, beautiful, monitor is superb
Cons: cheap mouse and keyboard, high price
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| jpinnyc's Full Review: Sony VAIO PCV-L620 PC Desktop |
The Sony PCV L630 is a very nice upgrade to the L620/L600. This 'refresh' of the machine has several significant enhancements including a 600mhz Pentium III which screams, 128K ram, 17Gig hard drive, a DVD rom drive, the 15" TFT monitor with the built-in speakers, memory stick, usb's front and back, iEEE link front and back.
The CPU is very compact and can be situated on its side or flat. The extremely small 'footprint' makes it easy to move it around as needed. This is a cool machine. Sure it wasn't cheap, but whatever. The purple and grey case is subtle in daylight and appears to blend into the room in evening/low light.
My list of criticisms isn't painful...
The supplied mouse and keyboard have a funny, plastic-y feel that I didn't like. So the mouse was replaced with a rollerball (which the operating software recognized immediately and changed the operations seamlessly to maximize the rollerball's design. Cool.) And I am still deciding on the keyboard - the key 'touch' is just too weird, more like a toy rather than a sophisticated machine which it is.
The supplied softwares were just ok. The editting stuff is cool, but if you're not into heavy video editting, its a waste. The PictureGear software is fun and a very good 'viewer' for jpegs etc. But to get max functionality out of the machine I had to add MS Office Professional. The L630 ate it for breakfast - the HD is so large that it will take ALOT to slow it down. However, Office should be standard equipment for a machine in this price range.
What I love about my L630...The nice things.
*Its fast, really fast.
*It has Windows 98 which is a pleasure
*If your browser is IE, there is a shortcut button ready to go
*If your email is Outlook Express, there is a shortcut as well
*Every major ISP is pre-loaded and set to get you (back) online quick
*The monitor and sound are STUNNING! Did I get across what I really mean? S T U N N I N G...Just beautiful. Its a wow. The move from the 14.1" screen to the 15" was a VERY SMART thing to do. That 0.9" increase in the veiwable area now makes for a REAL DESKTOP feel.
But - make sure the monitor is EXACTLY in front of you. I'm not sure if its all TFTs or just desktop versions (versus laptops) but picture resolution at an angle is heavily distorted.
Speakers can handle a hefty amount of volume and have a 'real fidelity' sound to them. Nice.
The memory stick (I thought at first) was just a gimmick but having used it a number of times now (flash memory drive = drive S removable media) its amazing. It is tiny, again, FAST and is super portable. Great!
The flexibility of the front and back USB/iEEE inputs is SMART. It makes things SO easy - webcams, zip drives, digital video/cameras, scanners etc.
Quiet. I can barely hear it - and its sitting right next to me.
And, well, this is a great LOOKING machine. It is VERY sleek. Ice cool. Tuck the keyboard and CPU away and just leave the monitor out. Way cool.
So I say, buy one. I did and I'm not sorry in the least.
HELLO AGAIN yes I have returned with a 6 MONTH OWNER REVIEW. It is very favorable. I have now had the slimtop for over 6 months and have had little to complain about and everything to rave about. However there are a couple of 'little' things and I wanted you all to know about them just in case.
If I had to ask myself the question - would I do it again? Definitely yes. It has also forced me to love the Sony brand and forced me to become - a memory stick junkie. Yes, I admit it. I got hooked. (More of this obsession later - back to the 630).
OK six months have pasted and do I still believe everything I wrote way back when? - yes.
It's still fast (even though there are faster available - and the new refresh of the slimtop now has a 700 chip). It is still cool (looks great - a definite trophy computer for the friends to admire)and it works superbly almost all the time.
So, would you change anything you said? Well to be honest, yes, my opinion about the software being just ok...I revised my opinion to be that the software works really well and I more accurately felt jipped - because I wanted a fuller suite of MS software to come bundled at that price point (which I still believe to be the right thing for Sony to do but...). The software that DID come with the 630 is a real plus if you keep going down the Sony product path which I did - I also purchased the DSC S70 digital camera and use a PCG-Z505JS at the office - so the memory stick became a hot topic for me and has proved to be one of the single most useful creations I can think of in the recent past. The mere transfer of files (graphics and data) are blisteringly fast. BIG JPEGS transfer in a snap. Once you go memory stick - you'll never go back to anything else. Bravo Sony.
OK, last, any complaints after 6 months? Well, ok, yes, but minor.
1)The defrag program is a bit of a joke and runs endlessly - and because the drives are so large these days, the poor program just chases its data tail endlessly attempting to map 17 gigs of space over an endless course of time - which always gets interrupted by your return the next time you get on the machine.
2) The shut down function gets huge up sometimes and you have to literally pull the plug on the machine - however I did have tech support tell me that this was an issue with some type of software glitch and not really the machine's fault so...
3) And finally what I call "THE VIDEO ACID TRIP VISUAL EFFECTS." On several occasions I have come home after a weekend or equavilent timeframe to find the display once woken up from power down mode to look like it has 'melted'. The first time it happened I thought the system fried. But after a reboot it was fine - a bad trip ALLLL gone. Well this effect has happened a handful of times over the six months - and revived instantly every time. Weird - yes. Damaging? No. Worth telling you about - Sure.
Memory stick is a sickness - and you will get hooked. Yes, I'm a junkie over memory stick. To the earlier comments - I have bought the DSC S70, use the Z505JS at the office and have ordered a SONY DVD and A/V RECIEVER. Please check out my order opinions on these purchases.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
jpinnyc
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Member: Jeff Perlman
Location: Little Falls, NJ, USA
Reviews written: 10
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
New York Commuter into gadgets, dining & the Arts tells it like it is
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