|
Opinion Summary
|
typical sony...
by xlugxmiop | Oct 29 '00
Pros: lightweight, good display, nice features, size, metal case on screen
Cons: not mechanically solid, keyboard blows monkey chow, short warranty with no real out-of-warranty support
Return to opinion
OVERALL RATING
|
|
|
|
|
Comment |
Sorted by
Date Written |
Re: good keyboards (Reply to this comment)
by xlugxmiop
Well, I've had about 10 laptops over the last 10 years (one a year...doesn't bode well for the current one, eh? :-) . I have a larger Dell XPsomething-or-other provided by work that I don't use often, but when I do I'm satisfied with its keyboard. (But it's practically a real full-sized keyboard and the laptop is huge, plus it weighs 10lbs or something ridiculous.) I also rather liked the keyboard on my old Toshiba Satellite, but that was a long time ago; I also thought the keyboard on my very old TI notebook was pretty good.
The Sony keyboard is particularly cheezy, but it's very thin which is the whole point. Its *design* is nothing short of amazing (all praise to the Sony engineers who designed it!), and given its basic implementation (it's essentially a membrane keyboard) it's astounding that it feels as good as it does (that's not to say it feels *good*, just that it's vraiment incroyable that it feels anywhere near usable).
However, it has several practical problems that need solving; I haven't seen any worse keboards on the market, due to the problems with even a slight amount of crud interfering with its operation.
Each key has a tiny lever composed of two extremely fragile plastic parts. This keeps the key centered on its membrane and allows it to move up-and-down; the spring is the plastic membrane itself, which is formed out of a small hollow silicone bubble for each key.
So it's easy to see why dirt interferes with the keyboard--hair and other crud gets jammed into the little lever, and it stops working. Since each key is almost flat, that means the keyboard is particularly susceptible to getting dirt/crumbs/gunk in the keyboard.
If you push too hard on the key with something jammed in the lever, you can break the lever. Not to mention that the newer keyboards make it much harder to remove the keys, meaning it's even more difficult to clean it out (and more likely that you'll break the little lever removing the key). Fortunately it has spare key levers (who uses the Windoze and printer keys anyway? :-)
If you're willing to blow it out with compressed air once a week, and be very careful about not slamming on the keys if they get stuck, it's livable.
I admit that I really abuse the heck out of this thing (some of the keys have obvious worn spots) so maybe this isn't the fairest thing to comment on, but the one complaint I've always heard about the VAIO notebooks is the keyboard.
|
Oct 30 '00
12:09 am PST
|
|
this is... (Reply to this comment)
by pambo
...good info. have you ever found a laptop with a good keyboard? i've never seen one, though i haven't explored every make and model, by any means.
|
Oct 29 '00
11:05 pm PST
|
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.