Introduction

With the upcoming school year season, manufacturers are coming out with a boat load of notebooks for the students and business individuals alike. Ranging from the main players at HP, Toshiba, and Dell to unknown companies like Avaretec (California?) and German based Medion. A leading but rather expensive manufacturer of notebooks is Sony. Better know. The PCG-FR130 is Sony’s soon to be replaced cheap notebook for the mainstream market. Mainstream also is defined as desktop replacements.

Athlon Xp 2000+ chip
The PCG-FR130 contains AMD’s Pentium 4 killer, Athlon Xp 2000+ with Quantispeed (1.67Mhz) processor chip. The Athlon’s performance is comparable to Intel’s P4. Using the Athlon Xp chip also cuts cost in your wallet. Typically most desktop’s and notebooks not using Intel’s chips are relatively cheaper.

Battery Life

This chip also contains AMD’s“QuantiSpeed” architecture and “AMD PowerNow!” technology for optimized battery life. Manufacturer states roughly 3.5 hours in battery life. Real world use typically is less, so you must use it while running on battery, be prepared to shell out ~$300 for another battery. Or spend thousands more on notebooks that contain “Centrino” technology. I always have this plugged in to the outlet. Charging doesn’t take that long as long as it’s not fully drained. The battery will be trickle charged after 100% is reach while the PC is on.

Display

The FR130 contains a 14.1” XGA (max 1024 X 768) monitor TFT display powered by a non-integrated 16MB NVIDIA GeForce 4 420Go-V DDR SDRAM chip. The 14.1” display is plenty for any user, especially as a desktop replacement. The bigger the display, the more power it needs to power it. Also the use of a non-integrated graphics chip is better because it won’t eat up your system’s RAM and virtual memory reserves. It is bright, too bright, but just adjusts the angle of the LCD. Overtime however, all non-CRT monitors will fade in brightness some fade more than others. Fade in is cause due to the life of the “bulbs” use. Sony is not an exception but is better than other manufacturers

Ports:

3 - USB 2.0 for super fast transfers with compatible USB 2.0 devices. Even beats the speed of “iLink” / “Firewire.”

2- PC Card Slots for Type I/II or 1 for Type III PC Cards

1- V90 modem for dial up users

1- Ethernet RJ-45 Ethernet for DSL/ Cable users

1- VGA connector for external monitors or presentation systems

1- Parallel Port for non-USB compatible printers

1- Headphone (stereo)

1- Mic. (in)

1- AV minijack (out)

1- S400 “iLink” port for IEEE 1394 compatible devices (may not work on computers with such connectors) that uses 4-pin connectors.

Memory:

Contains only 256MB but is enough for most applications (Internet, Office Apps, some gaming). However, the motherboard can take up to 1024MB of DDR SDRAM.

Hard Drive:

Comes with a total of 40GB’s dual portioned drives. One drive (C:/) for programs installations, the other for files, like MP3’s, documents, compressed video. This is plenty for a desktop replacement. Higher hard drive space should only be reserved for always mobile Audio/Video type people in a notebook or reserved for desktop computers.

Other drives:

It actually contains an internal USB floppy disk drive in 3.5” flavor. Old technology, but you can move files around in 1.44MB disk from many computers world wide.

Also a 16XWrite 10XReWrite 24XRead CDR/RW coupled with 8XRead DVD-Read drive. This is fast enough for any users. Higher speed writing CDR/RW disc are a bit expensive so this should fit the bill. The DVD is nice and pictures are close to perfect. The included InterVideo Win DVD 4 is highly recommended for use compared to Windows Media Player 8 for DVD viewing.

Weight:

As stated this notebooks weight roughly 7.2 lbs, slightly weighs less compared to a normal child’s weight after birth. Thus this is more suited to be placed not on the lap, but on a stable surface like a desk. It can be easily carried but a protective heavily padded shoulder carrying case is preferred.

Software

It contains Corel Word Perfect Office 2002 and Quicken 2002 New User Edition for productivity apps and Adobe elements for pictures. Also Sony’s own brand of pic/vid editors. Also security apps like PCcillin

Pros:

Plenty of power and performance as a desktop replacement and then some. Only the weight and battery are the major reasons why regular travelers shouldn’t really consider this for such a use. Again excellent replacement for that desktop you want to get rid off or for occasional use. Or a big storage for your digital camera pictures when you can carry your monitor and desktop computer with you. Just bring your own memory reader because no such slot is found, not even memory stick. Although memory stick is typically used in Sony only products. The fan is not loud and is slightly louder when it needs too. Entire notebook is built well although one shouldn’t sit on it.

Cons:

Too bright of a monitor for my taste and I would prefer a brightness knob and not the Fn+F5 key 4- brightness level control. Odd ringing noise, probably from the hard drive which is normal, but sometimes it can be annoying. The bottom gets hot to the touch. A normal occurrence of all notebooks. Would have love a 6-1 card reader and CDRW/DVDRW (all flavors) with it but that isn’t profitable at the moment and also jacks the price up considerably.

Overall, this is my first notebook, and like it. Although it won’t be around anymore and will be replaced hopefully with another Athlon base system to keep price low. Unless P4 chips in notebooks are a lot cheaper than Athlon’s. Bought at bestbuy.com for $999.99 and comes with a $150 rebate. This sale is not available and actually right now (21 Aug 03) is on sale for $949.99 with $100 rebate and factoring free shipping and taxes, the recent sale is actually cheaper by $3 dollars for me. :-(

Never used tech support, but have in the past with Sony, and they are knowledgeable.


Recommended:
Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 999.99
Operating System: Windows
Processor: AMD Athlon (K7)
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 14 inches
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 31-40