Sony-Notebook Reviews

This is the first time i bought something online that is so costly.So you can imagine i have done a good deal of research. Sony VAIO K23, indeed was THE BEST pick of them all, (I simply dont like DELL notebooks, all of them have a monotonous look). I got it in 2 days. I am very much impressed with its look and the screen ranks it above all laptops available till date. you also get a bunch of useful softwares with it. I was concerned about the weight, but its really not that heavy.So it was a good deal at least for me.

In my review, I initially complained about the error in making recovery discs. I mentioned that I found out the problem had already been mentioned online. After calling Sony customer service, they decided to mail me the recovery DVD free of charge even though it would normally cost money if bought online. The expedient and hassle free response to my problem proves how Sony excellent Sony support has been.

No other complaints!

Except one thing, if this laptop is too heavy for you, go to the gym and work out.

I ordered this laptop not even 4 days ago and I didn't even pay for the shipping, as I checked their Super Saver shipping method. I received it, along with a few other things, within 4 days total!

The XBrite screen is great. It makes the colors SO vibrant and it makes my older laptop, also from sony, look pretty weak!

If you're not a super freak about wanting to burn DVD's, having the max processor and what not, then this laptop is definitely better than the K27, which is $400 more.

You could call this a 'longevity test' review. I've owned the Vaio GRX 520 since Summer of 2001 and I've been extremely pleased with its performance. Don't let the stats fool you... 1.6 Pentium 4, 256 MB Ram and 30 GB Hard Drive are plenty of "go" for most of us. Being in Graphics Design, I have many heavy hitting software programs loaded and still maintain almost 2/3 of my hard drive space empty. And let's face it, any processor over 1.6-1.8 is so fast that you won't notice the difference... waste of money to go higher. I originally purchased the Vaio because of its great 15" screen that's impressive, especially with the complimenting graphics chip. There's never been any problem with the computer hardware or accompanying software. The different port options accept many external devices i.e. memory sticks and 10/100 Ethernet connection. Let's hear it for USB's! Dependable, quality product, and does it all. One drawback... the weight, but didn't I tell you? It's a "portable desktop."

I can tell you this machine (GRX520) is a joy to work with for web and desktop apps. first i bought GRX550, but i returned that and went for GRX520. although both are same but i feel performance wise this is better. i cross my fingures. i got 256 RAM extra free of cost, so it is 512 now.
Watching DVDs is great, for the best in sound quality though be sure and get a SONY SRS-T77 speaker set to plug into the notebook, this little set of 4 watt speakers will rock the room and are small enough to fit into your bag and port along.
As for validating other comments I've read I'd suggest:
Size, yes the dimensions are a bit larger and I too bought a new bag - happily. I think this size of unit is best suited for a backpack versus an over-the-shoulder bag Batteries, seem to last me about 2 hours, I'm ordering an extra one Hard drive noise, havent really been bothered by it Screen quality - stunning. I've used Toshiba, IBM, and Dell's - The screen quality is really outstanding with the GRX Size of the charger unit. Yes, it is larger and bulkier than any others I have used recently. SONY should be able to do better than this.

This is laptop show many state-of-art technology of Sony. It uses P4 1.6GHz processor and therefore run very fast. It is provided with a amazing 15" TFT screen and can be used for entertainment purpose such for DVD player. Its fasionable design is very attractive for younth.

Since December 2002, I have expanded my hobby list with PHOTOGRAPHY. I have to admit, that the manual IS very USEFUL, because of all the options the camera has to offer. After we mastered all the features with my husband, we were absolutely amazed with the ability of our camera. (All kind of settings are possible!)4 megapixels are ENOUGH to achieve a crispy clear pictures of any size. And frankly, there is still more to master! ENJOY!

This is a nice leather case that fits my Sony DSC-S75 camera perfect. What is really nice is you can use the strap and carry the case over your shoulder or use the belt clip. It has a seperate pocket for the memory sticks and any other small items you may want to carry. The only limitation is that if you have extra lens for your camera there is no place to carry them.

To bring home the first notebook of my life, I have looked at Dell I 8200, IBM thinkpads A31, Compaqs and Gateways and I ended up getting VAIO GRX 670. ... after rebates there are not too many notebooks out there with a 16.1 inch display and DVD RW drive. The VAIO looks cool and display is awesome for watching movies or playing games. For running applications as a programmer there is plenty of oomph provided with P4-M 2G processor and 512 MB ram. Another important thing is we can upgrade this to 1GB RAM if it is not good enough for running a memory intensive application such as an Application Server for example. The only negative point is the video card is not the latest ATI 9000 but it has the older leader ATI 7500 with 32 MB which should meet all the video demands unless you are a real intensive gamer who plays games that are written using the features enhanced by the ATI 9000 card which costs another 140 dollars more.

I have heard that SONY's warranty does not cover the screen so to be on the safe side I have bought the extended warranty. By the way Sony has provided a lot of cool software for buring DVD's and making movies and the memory stick is a plus if you own other SONY products. The performance has been great when watching a movie or running multiple applications simultaneously. I do not see any need to ugprade the memory to 1GB.

Overall there are so many choices out there but I could not find one that has everything I am looking for in the price range. In the end after looking at this VAIO I I have fallen for it :-) I think this is a good long term desktop replacement.

I've had this machine since Saturday and I can't keep my hands off of it. This is a truly amazing laptop with the combination of beautiful screen, 2 gigahertz P4 processor and writable DVD drive. I have had various Sony desktops in the past, but this is my first laptop. The screen is beautiful, very bright and sharp. I was looking for a machine to play around with making DVDs of MPEGs from my digital camera and analog VHS tapes that I have all over the place. The new Sony Click-to-DVD software is very easy and reliable. My only negative comment on it is that it hides some of the statistics and error results from you. If there is a problem, it doesn't tell you much, although I realize that it is meant to be very consumer friendly and part of this depends on NOT telling the user all the technical details of codec used etc. The new Toshiba DVD-RW drive is a bit slower than other DVD writers out there (only 1x write speed for DVD compared to 2.4 for most others and 4x for the newest ones), but, it is the only game in town for a laptop machine. It too, is very reliable. I have sucessfully burned data and DVD-video onto Memorex DVD-RW, Memorex DVD-R and Panasonic DVD-R media over the weekend. I am very happy with the 2 gigahertz P4. High processor speed is almost essential for video processing where it can take hours to encode a DVD. Last night I was writing to a DVD-RW (data), surfing and encoding another DVD with Adobe Premiere LE (included with the machine) and still performance was workable, given that the CPU was working over 90%. I was thinking about upgrading from the included 512 meg ram to a full gig, but I don't even think I need to do that. Sony's new Drag'n Drop cd/dvd writing software works very well for writing data to DVD-R and DVD-RW disks (works for CD-R and CD-RW, although I haven't tried that yet.)

I purchased my Memory Stick Pro Duo 256 for my Sony Clie SJ-25. It works great! It is super fast and has more than enough space. Just don't mistake it for a stick of gum! The best part was that it was the same price as older model Memory Sticks such as memory stick select, and Memory Stick Pro! For devices that do not take Memory Stick Duo, but take Memory Stick, a Memory Stick Duo adapter is included in the package. I would highly recommed this to anyone who is looking for a fast, lower cost Memory Stick.

My PEG-SJ22 came with one cord that has two different attachments, one for battery charges and the other for hot-sync to a USB port. It's clumsy and it would be easy to lose the SMALL connecting parts. I couldn't leave it hooked up in one place, because I would soon need it for the other.
Now I can have the UC60K cradle plugged in to an outlet on my surge protector and to a USB port on the back of my PC tower. I simply set the SJ22 in the cradle (which takes up about two inches of desktop space) and it's instantly charging up. I push one button, and I'm getting my hot-sync instantaneously. It's terrrrrific!!

I have been using this keyboard and its great! infact i am ordering another one now.

I love the design and sleekness of this mouse. I am not a lover of the mouse pads that are built into the notebooks, so having a mouse provides for more accurancy and speed for me. I love it.

The GRX690 is the deal, it is above all notebooks.It is strong fast and dependable it will replace your desktop. 2.0 pentium 4-m,60gb hard drive,and dont forget 512 Mb of ram it will not be beat for the price Sony is the leader and the ethers will follow but they will never catch up.Thanks Sony

My V505AX is from the first batch released from Sony that had a defective touchpad. After some lengthy investigation, I finally called Sony. They verified my warranty, and arranged for a local tech to perform an on-site repair. The tech person told me that some of the first V505AX's had been built with touchpad parts sourced from India. He showed me that the back of the touchpad membrane had been made with a metalized foil. This foil was grounding itself to the metal shielding that surrounds the parts beneath.
After a 10 minute replacement, I was back in action!

I applaud Sony for owning up to its mistake and fixing the problem on-site.

The best notebook tha I ever had!!

So you want to buy a notebook, and you want one that is fast, small and packed with feats? If you're like me and did your homework, you'll find that this one is hard to beat. While the reviews at other places online may complain enthusiastically about a faulty mousepad and a poor graphics card, let me point out a couple things: 1) the touchpad works like a charm on my pc, and on several other people's so I think the problem is with a certain batch ( my condolences to those with that batch ) 2) on a 12.1 inch screen, the resolution boost of a snazzy 128MB Radeon 9000 mobility aint gonna do a whole lot of jack. 3d Gaming is the only place this laptop wouldnt shine - so use your desktop. If you are looking for a fast, reliable machine capable of some hard core number crunching (burns through tons of MATLAB code)or waveform editing (Cool Edit runs like butta) this babys got what you need. The Keyboard is nice and solid as well as well laid out. Sony has improved over its earlier 505 models in adding the dvd/cdrw on board as well as better caps for the modem and ethernet ports. also, the power cable stays in. The price of this machine is lower than it shud be because of sony's entrance into centrinoland. For under 2k, theres nothin like it (nless u go for the mac, which is always an option, if you like to be softwareless). The design of the machine is also "legacy free" meaning that there are no old clunky interfaces to bog you down. 2 usb 2.0, 1 firewire. nice nice nice. Oh and the sound card sounds really good too, very surprised about that. all three thumbs up.