New Laptop Arrived

Tommy B · 13 Jul 2007 at 12:54

Really impressed with HL2 Episode one. Extremely smooth gameplay with:

1280 x 720 (16:9)
8XMSAA (is smooth on 16XCSAA but lags a bit during action sequences)
Full HDR
Anistrophic 16XX
All settings high and "reflect all" on water.

So doesn't do a bad job with HL2.

GuruJockStrap · 13 Jul 2007 at 15:10

You paid £1299 and Sony include a 4200 rpm HD? That is utterly criminal. For that price/spec I'd expect a 5400RPM as minimum.

Tommy B · 13 Jul 2007 at 15:17

Yeah but the design of the laptop won me over, and other things like the Blu-Ray drive.

It honestly is not slow at all. It loads everything far quicker than my old PC did (Athlon 64 3500+/ 1GB Corsair Ram/ 80GB 7,200rpm HD etc.)

As long as loading times are fast I don't care. I'm not too bothered that it takes slightly longer to, say, copy a group of large files than it would otherwise.

I've also bought a 7,200rpm external HD to shove all my videos/music on.

RS123 · 13 Jul 2007 at 15:23

Don't mean to rain on your parade, but for that money and size, wouldn't an Asus G1S be a lot better? I figure if you're going to get a 15'' you might as well get a lappy with an 8600GT in it.

Sony laptops, to me, seem like you spend half the money on the actual laptop, and half the money on the Sony logo on the front. Sure, their ultra portable, carbon fibre chassis' are next to none, but is it really worth the sacrifice in components to get a laptop that weighs a few pounds less?

Personally I say "bring on the weight", it's good for the shoulder muscles

Tommy B · 13 Jul 2007 at 15:26

Some more pics for those who were interested:

Tommy B · 13 Jul 2007 at 15:28

RS123 said:
Don't mean to rain on your parade, but for that money and size, wouldn't an Asus G1S be a lot better? I figure if you're going to get a 15'' you might as well get a lappy with an 8600GT in it.

Sony laptops, to me, seem like you spend half the money on the actual laptop, and half the money on the Sony logo on the front. Sure, their ultra portable, carbon fibre chassis' are next to none, but is it really worth the sacrifice in components to get a laptop that weighs a few pounds less?

Personally I say "bring on the weight", it's good for the shoulder muscles

The thing is I don't really need all the extra power. I get far more satisfaction from having something visually pleasing and solid in front of me. I was looking at Evesham laptops as they are awesome value for money. I could have got one far better than this for less, but at the end of the day they do absolutely nothing for me in terms of looks. It's a tought choice, but I'd rather have beauty than the beast! And anyway, this laptop still isn't exactly slow either! And if you consider the price of individual Blu-Ray players and drives, the high prices doesn't seem as bad as you thought it was.

I was going to get the Sony AR series £2000 but I decided to save the money and put it towards my car instead.

# Intel® Centrino® Duo processor technology with Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T7500 (2.20 GHz and 800 MHz FSB) and Intel® PRO/Wireless 802.11a/b/g
# Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium (English version)
# 320 GB Serial ATA 5400rpm hard disk drive (2 x 160 GB, RAID 0 and 1 supported)
# 2 GB DDR2-667 SDRAM (2 x 1024 MB), maximum 2 GB DDR2-667 SDRAM
# 17" WUXGA (1920 x 1200) widescreen X-black LCD with double lamp technology
# NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT notebook graphics processing unit with Total Available Graphics Memory of 1023 MB and dedicated Video Memory of 256 MB
# Blu-ray Disc™ Drive (up to 50 GB of storage)
# Hybrid TV Tuner & remote control

That is a much more awseome spec, but I didn't think it was worth the money and the laptop is absolutely enormous.

Energize · 13 Jul 2007 at 15:44

There's also the Zoostorm 4-6621 £728

Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2Ghz (Santa Rosa)
2GB DDR2 RAM
250GB Sata Hard Drive
15.4 inch TFT WXGA (1280 x 800)
nVidia 8600GS 256MB Dedicated
8x DVD+RW
Built in Wireless LAN 802.11g 54Mbps

Tommy B · 13 Jul 2007 at 16:15

Energize said:
There's also the Zoostorm 4-6621 £728

Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2Ghz (Santa Rosa)
2GB DDR2 RAM
250GB Sata Hard Drive
15.4 inch TFT WXGA (1280 x 800)
nVidia 8600GS 256MB Dedicated
8x DVD+RW
Built in Wireless LAN 802.11g 54Mbps

Which with the Blu Ray drive would be the same price I paid.

I think people keep forgetting that was one of the main features I was after. I either wanted a Blu-Ray or an HD-DVD drive, and both drive the price of the laptop up significantly.

NickM · 13 Jul 2007 at 16:26

Hows the battery life on it?
An 8600GS and a 5400rpm drive and I would definitely buy it. Hmm.

Energize · 13 Jul 2007 at 16:39

Tommy B said:
Which with the Blu Ray drive would be the same price I paid.

I think people keep forgetting that was one of the main features I was after. I either wanted a Blu-Ray or an HD-DVD drive, and both drive the price of the laptop up significantly.

I don't know about that, pc blu-ray drives are £150 and 4x writers £350. I can't imagine laptop ones being ~£700.

NickM said:
Hows the battery life on it?
An 8600GS and a 5400rpm drive and I would definitely buy it. Hmm.

No idea, says upto 3 hours.

Tommy B · 13 Jul 2007 at 17:17

Energize said:
I don't know about that, pc blu-ray drives are £150 and 4x writers £350. I can't imagine laptop ones being ~£700.

No idea, says upto 3 hours.

Don't forget the laptop versions are significantly smaller, it's also a 4x writer. I can't exactly imagine it being cheap.

Battery life is about 2 hours on mininmal backlight although I didn't let it die completely. I haven't tried a complete full run down yet. I'll see how long it can survive with the backlight on full shortly.

ic1male · 13 Jul 2007 at 23:05

I'm looking at getting a (gaming) laptop for uni. Thanks for your post on this Vaio. At the moment I'm tempted to go for a Macbook Pro though - with the edu discount it comes to £1200 for the lowest model, which I think is what you paid for your Sony.

Tommy B · 14 Jul 2007 at 11:59

ic1male said:
I'm looking at getting a (gaming) laptop for uni. Thanks for your post on this Vaio. At the moment I'm tempted to go for a Macbook Pro though - with the edu discount it comes to £1200 for the lowest model, which I think is what you paid for your Sony.

If you're looking for a gaming laptop I would strongly reccomend ROCK direct laptops. They feature the new Direct X 10 NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT 512MB.

Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 2.0GHz,4MB,800MHz
New Nvidia GeForce 8700M GT 512MB (DX10)
WSXGA+ X-Glass rock logo
1GB DDR2 667MHz RAM (1 Module)
100GB 7200rpm S-ATA
Windows Vista Home Premium
That is £1,199 and with the 2GB memory upgrade is £1,249

That would be a seriousy good gaming laptop for the time being.
http://www.rockdirect.com/viewNotebook.php?pName=XTREME 770

Although they're aren't ugly, they are on the heavy side so if design is your thing (like me) go for the MBP.

Tommy B · 19 Jul 2007 at 12:55

OK, so I've had it for almost 2 weeks now. Final thoughts:

CPU : Extremely quick. In fact I'm absolutely blown away by the CPU performance. It'll convert a 3 minute FLAC song to Apple Lossless in about 3 seconds. It'll render video with extremely advanced video filters (eg magic bullet) practically in real time. HD playback is also absolutely flawless.

HDD: So everyone said 4,200rpm would be awful. I haven't noticed it to be honest, in fact it seems very quick when copying/moving files. I also bought a WD 500GB Mybook to store larger files which works great.

GPU : Unfortunately it has to be said the 8400M GT struggles. Strangely however it manages to render HL2 Episode 1 with max settings and high AA/AF extremely smoothly. Perhaps this is down to extremely good coding by Valve?

Audio : Built in sound quality is pretty good when connected to my NAD amp, but I decided to buy a Terratec Aureon USB sound card and that has improved it quite a bit.

Display : It's only 1280 x 800. However, besides the resolution it uses the same dual lamp technology found in the latest Bravia TVs. To put it simply, the screen on this thing is absolutely and utterly incredible. My dad just bought a £500 Dell Ultra-Sharp 24"" screen and this just laughs at it. The colour reproduction and brightness really are top notch. My friend was extremely jealous when he brought his HP laptop up and side by side, the difference between the screens was ridiculous.

So besides the graphics card, I am absolutely loving this laptop. I'll stick to strategy games and probably get a PS3 for games.

Reload · 19 Jul 2007 at 13:06

Energize said:
There's also the Zoostorm 4-6621 £728

Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2Ghz (Santa Rosa)
2GB DDR2 RAM
250GB Sata Hard Drive
15.4 inch TFT WXGA (1280 x 800)
nVidia 8600GS 256MB Dedicated
8x DVD+RW
Built in Wireless LAN 802.11g 54Mbps

Steer away from Zoostorm. I made the mistake of order a laptop from them. It was DOA. I had a nightmare trying to return it and get my money back. It took a formal threat of legal action to get a refund for a faulty product. Don't be trapped by the bait of low prices with this manufacturer.

Energize · 19 Jul 2007 at 18:33

Reload said:
Steer away from Zoostorm. I made the mistake of order a laptop from them. It was DOA. I had a nightmare trying to return it and get my money back. It took a formal threat of legal action to get a refund for a faulty product. Don't be trapped by the bait of low prices with this manufacturer.

I think pretty much every company has some laptops that arrive doa and has had some bad customer service situations. If your buying from a shop anyway, you won't have anything to do with zoostorm.

sparkster · 20 Jul 2007 at 09:55

Tommy B said:
OK, so I've had it for almost 2 weeks now. Final thoughts:.

Display : It's only 1280 x 800. However, besides the resolution it uses the same dual lamp technology found in the latest Bravia TVs. To put it simply, the screen on this thing is absolutely and utterly incredible. My dad just bought a £500 Dell Ultra-Sharp 24"" screen and this just laughs at it. The colour reproduction and brightness really are top notch. My friend was extremely jealous when he brought his HP laptop up and side by side, the difference between the screens was ridiculous.

Can you comment on the vertical and horizontal viewing angles please?