Excellent quality machine
Written: Jan 08 '04
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Pros: Excellent little machine, fast, bright display, quality built.
Cons: None. After 4 months of daily use I have no complaints.
The Bottom Line: I have used mine for 4 months and highly recommend it. Excellent little machine. Quality made, fast, bright screen, easy to carry around, built in restore feature.
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| scharo's Full Review: Sony VAIO V505BX PC Notebook |
I purchased my V-505 at Best Buys in Sept '03 for $995. I was reluctant to get a Celeron processor, but after 4 months of use I find little difference with it compared to my Sony desktop P-4 for everyday normal usage eg: web surfing, Excel, Word, etc. It's not for hi speed video games or video editing, but I don't play games on it and use the desktop for video so its a moot issue. It will run Photoshop very nicely though with minimal difference in speed, and streaming media is no problem either. All in all, I'm very glad I didn't fork over the extra $$ for a Pentium in a small laptop.
I've read about issues with the touchpad, I found that with the proper settings and an understanding of how it works that it is very good. It does take a little getting used to as the touchpad can be set to do many more things than just move the curser, just take a little time to learn it & you'll get to like it as I did. I also have a USB mouse, but seldom use it as I have become proficient with the touchpad.
Overall, all buttons and ports are located fine, bright screen. I also bought the $20 sony soft case, fits like a glove & handy for the briefcase. Battery life playing a DVD movie with sound up is 1 1/2 hrs. I bought a Sony wi-fi card for it, these are neat as it fits almost flush with the case and looks like part of the machine. It does not stick out as other pc cards do, a little pricey at $100, but far less apt to break in handeling and much better looking.
I have used this machine daily for 4 months and love it. Speed, performance, overall quality is tops. Battery life is about par for a non centrino cpu, but I am never far from a power outlet anyways so that is not an issue for me. I almost bought an Averatec, they also make a small 12" machine with more features, but the Sony is far better built using a magnesium frame, better ports & case and I find I'm not lacking for anything.
The restore files are on a hard drive partition, this is a VERY nice feature as you will always have complete restore capability inside the machine. I really like this and had to use it once when a bad software install caused problems. Very easy to restore to complete factory settings while still preserving all of my data files. Great idea. You can also burn a restore copy on CD's for extra redundency, it takes a little time but is simple to do, just feed CD's as it asks for them.
I keep backups of my work on DVD with my desktop, I was pleased to find that although it only writes to CD's, the DVD reader on the laptop does in fact read DVD-RW's so I can read these files and file xfer is easy. Also, the built in Memory Stick reader is very handy, it can be used as a mini hard drive and makes for a quick and easy way to save, swap, files. It works just as good as those small USB memory devices do, except this is built right in the machine and nothing protrudes from the case. I like that in crowded places like airplanes. It will of course also read/write digital photos too.
I called Sony tech support with a question on the wi fi card, these guys were great and called me back in a few days to be sure all was well. Very pleased with this machine and Sony in all ways.
Frank
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 995.00
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Celeron
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 12 inches
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 31-40
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Epinions.com ID:
scharo
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Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 1 member
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