Very nice, lightweight laptop
Written: Oct 05 '03 (Updated Oct 08 '03)
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Pros: Display, size, design, power consumption.
Cons: Price
The Bottom Line: For those who want light weight, good battery life and an incredible display--and don't mind paying for it--then this is an excellent selection.
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| colemanr7's Full Review: Sony VAIO Z1RA PC Notebook |
I've read a number of reviews for the Sony Z1 laptop and felt that, after using one for a few weeks now, I should chime in with my two cents. First, the size and shape are excellent. I've carried it on a long trip (where I had to walk a lot) and had no complaints. The power consumption and heat generation are also very good. I am writing this using the laptop sitting on my (bare) thighs and it is only slightly warm to the touch.
The screen is gorgeous. The keyboard has a smooth, tactile feel that I find easy to the touch. The placement of ports and jacks is nice and the lighted power input and on/off switch are nice designs. I've used a number of laptops but have never actually liked any of them. Sony has done a good job of making a computer with something of a personality all its own that I actually enjoy using.
Some folks have complained about the 16 Mb video card but I personally see this as a good thing since I'm not a gamer. Larger, faster video systems run hot and consume a lot of power. This is not something that I desire in a laptop since my primary reason for having it is battery-powered, portable computing. The DVD plays very smooth (no glitches) and the CD burner works well. If you are an avid gamer and play complex, 3D games with lots of texture graphics then a 16 MB low power video system will not do what you want. For the rest of us... it more than does the trick. I use AutoCad, Photoshop and other rather demanding packages and it works fine.
Before buying this machine I read on multiple forums that the mouse pad had a problem. When I first started using it I thought that it was true... until I found the configuration utility. It has all kinds of things "turned on" by default that I didn't particularly care for. There were options on the pad setting that would switch windows and close things automatically if you touched the pad in the right place and in the right sequence. Not being that familiar with the options and not being inclined to learn I just turned everything off except for the "window slider" option. No more weird behavior since. This may not be the same thing other folks have mentioned... but it fixed my particular issue.
I agree with other reviewers that a machine of this price range should probably include more software but I also recognize the very special segment that is being targeted. It has a high-end (expensive) display, low power consumption, firewire, USB 2.0 and CDRW/DVD all in a 4.7 lb package that deserves some type of "designers" award for beauty. I looked around a lot and no other computer with these characteristics comes with a large selection of software at this price either. This, to me, means that it probably cannot be done profitably.
As for negatives? I would prefer that the keyboard have two full size "shift" keys (rather than one small and one large) and that there be a dedicated "home" and "end" key. I use these far more than some of the other dedicated keys that were included--e.g., the Prt Scr and Num Lock keys. Then again, who am I to second-guess the engineers who lost many nights of sleep trying to fit all of this into such a small space while trying to meet everybody's personal preferences.
All in all, I really like this computer and look forward to using it over the next few years.
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Update 10/08/2003: Sony has just announced the upcoming replacements for the Z1R series (ship date is late October). It is the Z1V series and now includes integrated blue tooth and a 1.6 Ghz processor (as opposed to the 1.5 Ghz used in the R series). More importantly, the price appears to be dropping about $200 for WinXP Pro version (model Z1VAP1).
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 2300
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Other
Processor speed: over 1000
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Epinions.com ID:
colemanr7
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Reviews written: 1
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