It’s black, very black. The back is satin black but the area in front of the keyboard is a glossy black fingerprint magnet, especially the touchpad buttons. The touchpad is textured and I haven’t decided whether I like it or not yet.
On the left-hand side, from front to back, are an Express Card slot; ESATA/USB, HDMI & VGA connectors; a large vent and the LAN & power sockets. Along the front, on the left, are slots for Memory Stick & SD cards; wireless on/off switch; indicators for wireless, battery & HDD. On the right are jacks for headphones & microphone. On the right-hand side are three USB sockets and the optical drive (a Blu-ray writer in this case). I would have preferred these to be the other way round as I’ve found things plugged into the USB sockets are a bit close to where I have the mouse and the optical drive would be more accessible if it were nearer the front. There are no connectors at the back.
The keyboard is a ‘Scrabble tile’ type which I don’t like the look of but it has good ‘feel’ for typing which is much more important for me. There’s also very little flex even in the middle.
The screen’s lovely if a little reflective. This is my first LED backlight screen and I’m very impressed. Obviously, at 1920 x 1080 pixels, it seems sharp. As usual, the standard settings are way too bright and I used the ATI CCC to turn it down. I’ll calibrate it with my Spyder before I do any serious photo editing but it looks reasonable as standard. I haven’t any Blu-ray discs to try (yet) but I played a normal film DVD plus something recorded at the highest quality my DVD recorder can manage and both ran without problems, as you’d expect with an HD5650 driving the screen.
The CPU is an i5-520M so everyday tasks are no effort at all. The highest constant load I’ve managed is 50% while making a disk image with Acronis True Image. Idle temps are 35C; 50% temps were 52C. Don’t ask about gaming performance as I’m not a gamer. For what it’s worth, its Windows Performance Index is 5.9 – everything is 6.3 except the HDD which drags it down a bit.
I’ve been using it on mains with the battery removed most of the time but a quick test showed the battery life is about two hours. Not great but it’s only a 39WH battery compared with 56WH for the Dell Studio 17.
The wireless performance seems good. I’m getting three out of five signal strength bars where my Acer struggled to get a signal at all.
There’s a load of bloatware installed as standard. I instantly binned the Norton trial and severely cut down on the Sony apps that were running. This reduced the RAM used from 1.5GB to 1GB. A few more of the Sony apps will probably go once I find out what they do.
The complete spec is:
Core i5-520M CPU
6GB 1066MHz DDR3 RAM
17.3" 1920x1080 pixel screen
Seagate 500GB 7200RPM HDD
ATI HD5650 1GB GPU
Blu-ray writer
Wireless N plus Bluetooth
0.3 MP web cam
In the box there’s just the laptop, battery, PSU, mains cable and documentation. I purchased through Sony Style to get exactly what I wanted and it took two weeks and one day to arrive. I paid extra for a two year warranty extension and to upgrade Office 10 to Home & Business as I wanted Outlook.
Overall, despite the minor grumbles at the start of this review, I’m very pleased with it. It was a toss-up between this and a Dell Studio 17 which would have been roughly the same price for the same spec but without the Blu-ray reader or writer. I’d love to have tried them side-by-side before choosing but that’s not easy these days. In the end, it was the better keyboard, the free Blu-ray writer plus someone’s Dell Studio arriving with a bunch of stuck pixels that made me choose the Sony. If it lasts the three years without problems that my old Acer 5633 has, I’ll be more than happy.
Late addition: if you want two HDDs you must buy it with two fitted at Sony's extortionate price. If you don't you'll only get cabling for one and Sony won't sell you the dual-port cable. A bad case of "Sony knows best".
On the left-hand side, from front to back, are an Express Card slot; ESATA/USB, HDMI & VGA connectors; a large vent and the LAN & power sockets. Along the front, on the left, are slots for Memory Stick & SD cards; wireless on/off switch; indicators for wireless, battery & HDD. On the right are jacks for headphones & microphone. On the right-hand side are three USB sockets and the optical drive (a Blu-ray writer in this case). I would have preferred these to be the other way round as I’ve found things plugged into the USB sockets are a bit close to where I have the mouse and the optical drive would be more accessible if it were nearer the front. There are no connectors at the back.
The keyboard is a ‘Scrabble tile’ type which I don’t like the look of but it has good ‘feel’ for typing which is much more important for me. There’s also very little flex even in the middle.
The screen’s lovely if a little reflective. This is my first LED backlight screen and I’m very impressed. Obviously, at 1920 x 1080 pixels, it seems sharp. As usual, the standard settings are way too bright and I used the ATI CCC to turn it down. I’ll calibrate it with my Spyder before I do any serious photo editing but it looks reasonable as standard. I haven’t any Blu-ray discs to try (yet) but I played a normal film DVD plus something recorded at the highest quality my DVD recorder can manage and both ran without problems, as you’d expect with an HD5650 driving the screen.
The CPU is an i5-520M so everyday tasks are no effort at all. The highest constant load I’ve managed is 50% while making a disk image with Acronis True Image. Idle temps are 35C; 50% temps were 52C. Don’t ask about gaming performance as I’m not a gamer. For what it’s worth, its Windows Performance Index is 5.9 – everything is 6.3 except the HDD which drags it down a bit.
I’ve been using it on mains with the battery removed most of the time but a quick test showed the battery life is about two hours. Not great but it’s only a 39WH battery compared with 56WH for the Dell Studio 17.
The wireless performance seems good. I’m getting three out of five signal strength bars where my Acer struggled to get a signal at all.
There’s a load of bloatware installed as standard. I instantly binned the Norton trial and severely cut down on the Sony apps that were running. This reduced the RAM used from 1.5GB to 1GB. A few more of the Sony apps will probably go once I find out what they do.
The complete spec is:
Core i5-520M CPU
6GB 1066MHz DDR3 RAM
17.3" 1920x1080 pixel screen
Seagate 500GB 7200RPM HDD
ATI HD5650 1GB GPU
Blu-ray writer
Wireless N plus Bluetooth
0.3 MP web cam
In the box there’s just the laptop, battery, PSU, mains cable and documentation. I purchased through Sony Style to get exactly what I wanted and it took two weeks and one day to arrive. I paid extra for a two year warranty extension and to upgrade Office 10 to Home & Business as I wanted Outlook.
Overall, despite the minor grumbles at the start of this review, I’m very pleased with it. It was a toss-up between this and a Dell Studio 17 which would have been roughly the same price for the same spec but without the Blu-ray reader or writer. I’d love to have tried them side-by-side before choosing but that’s not easy these days. In the end, it was the better keyboard, the free Blu-ray writer plus someone’s Dell Studio arriving with a bunch of stuck pixels that made me choose the Sony. If it lasts the three years without problems that my old Acer 5633 has, I’ll be more than happy.
Late addition: if you want two HDDs you must buy it with two fitted at Sony's extortionate price. If you don't you'll only get cabling for one and Sony won't sell you the dual-port cable. A bad case of "Sony knows best".
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