I am extrememly happy with this new Sony laptop which had all the bells and whistles I was looking for. The only con is only two USB ports which are on opposites side of the the laptop--a design improvement Sony should make would be a third one with power) along side one of the other ones.
However, what I most want to review is Amazon's handling of a minor problem I had. While the details of a minor problem with the initial computer was worked out, Amazon immediately sent me, without charge, another identical computer. I have since returned the "extra" computer, but Amazon's swift action at no cost to me has made me a happy and loyal customer.
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I have owned a thinkpad X41 for 5 years. I loved it because it was small, light, and relatively powerful. After all that time of constant usage and unintended abuse, I went into the market for a replacement. That was/is a sturdy laptop that just refused to die.
I looked at the Lenovo X200 and X300 at the store. The x200 is small and fast, but my eyes really needed a bigger screen than a 12". Especially if you do graphics and design work. Plus it still lacked a dvd drive. The X300 is just over priced and still looks like my 5 year old laptop just wider. When I went to the store and saw all three I immediatly went online and bought the Sony VAIO VGN-Z570N.
It is a great laptop! The battery litereally lasts 5 hours on Vista! Imagine downgrading to XP (included) or using linux. I also got the deal where you get a free bag and battery if you buy by the end of December (check out pc nation). The keyboard is smooth and responsive. I love the toggle switch between performance (when using photoshop) and stamina (when just surfing the net). The screen is pretty wide and the resolution is incredible. It boots really fast (I am windows user). It has an HDMI slot and now I am watching movies on my HD screen dowloaded on this laptop. I do wish the screen was taller but that's not such a big deal. I highly recommend this laptop for people looking for performance, portability, and style!
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Initial experience was mixed. The set up files for Microsoft One Care were corrupted (and on the restore partion also). I tried Norton 360 trial for security. Wireless sped seems to be slower than previous Centrino N setups. Sony support went on the system and nearly trashed it. I suspect the excellent but very tight security of Norton, may have added to my problems. After initial frustration, I tied to restore it to factory settings and used a disc for Microsoft One care. With his new instalation, what a difference. This is now the computer I was looking for. While the WiFi is still at 65 Mpbs, video from other computers comes in smooth I am using a D-Link dir 655 N router). The Sprint wireless works very well. The unit has builtin GPS and works easlilly with Microsoft Streets and Trips 2009. Battery life is good, with wireless on I would estimate 3-4 hours of usefull battery life (with the standard battery).I have been using now for 4 days since my reinstall and a so far no further glitches. The unit is a pleasure to use.
Honest reviews on Sony VAIO VGN-Z520N/B 13.1" Laptop (2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8400
I have been through my share of laptops in the past year. I am the I.T Manager for my company so I have a bit of experience in this department. Typically I go with DELL on just about everything, but honestly I believe they have captured most of the market and by doing so they have really started slacking on their products which led me to SONY. I'm not even going to touch a HP, Gateway or Toshiba and I had previously owned a SONY a few years ago and had relatively little to no problems so i figured i would try again.
So far I have been more than impressed! Out of the box this little guy fired right up without any problems. After about 45 minutes of removing the pre installed Sony software (not sure why it took some people hours?) and a few Windows updates this machine was flying.
The display is incredible, much better than any laptop display i have ever seen, this is partially due to the higher end Nvidia video card and the onboard 3GB of RAM.
The hard drive is more than enough for me at 320GB.
The unit only weighs 3.3lbs, to me this is nothing coming from a 14.1" DELL Precision M2400 which weighed about 2x that!
Some of my gripes:
Internal Broadband card is set to Sprint! (come on, who uses Sprint anymore?)
BIOS is very very limited, I'm a bit spoiled with all the options you can set in a DELL's BIOS
It's still a bit hard to find accessories for this laptop since it's so new. I'm trying really hard to find a extra power adapter since the one i bought at the Sony store is a "travel" adapter and it's basically a brick.
All in all I'm VERY happy with my purchase, I will be travelling to Germany in a couple weeks so i guess that will be the ultimate test.
Keep in mind, there is a big brother to this laptop that was not in stock at the time when i bought my laptop but i think it is called the VGN-Z590N which comes with a more powerful graphics card, a BluRay player and 4GB of RAM, had I seen that one i would have bought it but either way, I'm happy with what I got and would HIGHLY recommend it.
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Review after using this since September. My model is slightly different and I use high resolution version.
There are some positives and negative.
Positives
Light but powerful
This PC is very light, but it does not sacrifice its processing power. Intel's latest 45nm P9500 works great. Even somewhat heavy graphic applications or encoding-decoding of files can work fast. Heat is also well controlled probably due to the benefit of the P9500 and the combination of internal system design and the air flow structure inside, which is typically the strong part of Sony that is very good at designing smaller consumer electronics. I never felt the annoying heat from the system on the keyboard and/or the areas around the mouse touch panel.
Long Life and Graphics
The switch above the keyboard that lets you choose between the nVidia chipset ("Speed") and the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD ("Stamina"). On a stamina mode, my experience is that the regular battery can keep the system running for around 6 hours, which is remarkable compared with its light weight. I set the brightness lower in addition to the stamina setting. Graphics resolutions and other features are automatically set at lower level on stamina mode. Performance, particularly with games and 3D applications, is better with the nVidia chipset, while the integrated graphics card favors battery life. A reboot is no longer required after a switch, either, due to the Intel Centrino 2's support for switchable graphics.
I use 1600x900 resolution for the display, which is beautiful due to its LED backlit and very high resolution compared with other laptops. Its benefit is that you can have more workspace when using multiple applications at the same time, for example, a few excel sheets and excel VBA at the same time.
Negatives
Software for 3G connection, using the embedded Sprint modem does have some issues with compatibility in some cases. In my case, some Excel Add-In that uses an internet network connection crushes Excel itself every time I use it. Vaio Support desk which is as you image very slow to response due to inappropriate advice and long waiting time spent 6-8 hours in total and finally gave up to solve the issue and admitted that the original SmartWi software that manages network connection cannot be removed from the system when you use the Sprint modem is making trouble with other Excel Add-in. I suspect that the usage through Sprint is monitored by the software and both Sony and Sprint have some agreement on the revenue sharing of wireless data fees. Anyway, this is not at all positive for users and I had to buy other modems for use mobile data connections. Sony needs to focus on hardware only or otherwise improve its software quality. The frustrating experience with the support desk tends to remain in the memory of users for very long period of time.
Otherwise, I feel the keyboard quality needs to be a bit improved to the extent that some key generates creaking noise sometimes. And the mouse pad area is just a bit too close to the keyboard and I sometimes touch it and make an error in typing.
Net-net, this is the best ultramobile notebook that has strong processing power, real mobility, and beautiful design that I ever seen. It outperforms many competitions like Mac Air and X series from Lenovo. This is expensive notebook but if you need the best one right now, this is it. SmartWi is annoying in some cases but the support desk should have learned something from the trouble that I had already.
