Sony VAIO S Series SVS1512ACXS 15.5-Inch Laptop (Silver)

I was looking for a machine to replace a MacBook Pro that was horrible at running Linux (see notes on Linux below if you are buying this and considering putting Linux on it). I was considering going with a Lenovo, but if you want a quad-core processor you have to bump up to a machine that is over an inch thick and weights over 5 lbs. As a grad student who is constantly on the move, both around campus and in the lab, I wanted to find something slimmer but just as powerful. I found it in this machine.

Pros:

Display Amazing 1080p display, with IPS so that other viewing angles still work well. It rivals the quality of a Retina MBP, and looks much, much better than my lab mate's Lenovo T430.

Discrete graphics card With an NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M LE, with 1GB of memory, it can handle what I throw at it. I work in computer vision, and it handles 3 simultaneous Kinect inputs in real-time, and CUDA works well on it. On the gaming side, I tried my old Guild Wars 2 account, and got ~40fps on medium settings.

Full size keyboard with numberpad I love having my numberpad, and I use it often. Not many laptops tout this but for someone like me it is a godsend. The backlit keyboard is nice as well, and the keys are visible well in the dark even without it due to the fact that the keys aren't black (I'm looking at you, old MacBook Pro).

The "assist" button As I set up my machine to dual-boot Windows 8 and Linux, this button is much. much better than waiting to hit the proper key to change boot sequences/enter BIOS.

Design The machine is gorgeous and has a great aesthetic value.

NOTHING IS PROPRIETARY! A big reason I moved away from Apple. The machine is not locked down in any way, and everything is accessible if you know where to find it.

Cons:

Bezel flimsiness The bezel and screen are rather flimsy, but this is handled well if you use two hands on each side when moving it, or one had at the top center. Grabbing it from the sides tends to bend the screen a bit, which is a little concerning.

Battery life I can get roughly 4 hours out of the machine in Windows 8, and 3 in Linux. A little more would be nice but I always have my adapter with me.

Notes on Linux:

If anyone is considering getting this machine to run a distro of Linux, it works very well. I dual-boot Windows 8 with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Everything works well in Linux with a fresh install, and it only needed a few tweaks any laptop would need. There are two ways to dual-boot this machine: the first is to simply switch between legacy and UEFI boot in the BIOS, UEFI sending you to Windows and legacy to Linux. However, with some tinkering you can leave it on Legacy and use an EFI booting tool to be able to boot from GRUB, which I am doing now.

Overall, I'm very happy with this machine, and am currently writing this review from it. It has a fast boot time, good speed, great performance, and a little bit of a wow factor with the design. If the battery life was a bit better, it would be perfect. However, better battery life would equate to more weight so I'd rather stay with a lighter machine.

My criteria for the laptop I wanted involved a conflicting set of specifications, which resulted in few options. Till this very day, I have yet to find another laptop being sold which comes as closely to matching my criteria as this one. Basically, I wanted a powerful machine I could be productive on, which was simultaneously light enough to carry around (and pretty enough to look at). After first buying a Dell XPS15 (L521x), and later deciding to return it, I have been very pleased with this laptop, especially after installing a SSD (Crucial M4 256GB, btw).

Pros:

Display quality At 1080p, of the IPS sort, there's almost nothing negative that can be said about this display. Some users have noted that the reds appear orangish, but for me it wasn't noticeable. I may have been either lucky or this just wasn't high on my priority list. The colors are vivid and the viewing angles are spectacular comparable to my Thinkpad X61 Tablet, which also had a high resolution IPS display. 1080p set the real bargains apart from the phonies (aka most ultrabooks and their pathetic weaksauce resolutions).

Dedicated graphics GeForce GT 640m 1GB. While it uses the slower VDDR3, but gaming on this laptop (I play SC2) has been no problem for me. In addition, there is a bios mod floating around which doubles the speed of the GPU (from 500MHz to 900MHz, with no increase in temps or voltage), though the actual performance difference was not noticeable to me.

Backlit keyboard with numpad I felt that the numpad was one of those infrequently used, but very necessary when needed devices, and this laptop comes with one. It was perhaps the largest factor in weeding out most laptop candidates from my consideration (judge me if you want). The keys are chicklet style, which was a first for me. Adapting to it wasn't that big of a deal.

Size and Weight this is just about the lightest and thinnest laptop that had all three of the previous criteria. It is 4.4lbs and less than an inch thick. Previously, the Dell XPS15 was also less than an inch thick, but was 5.7lbs or more. In addition, the viewing angles on the Dell was quite a bit poorer.

Accessibility and Upgradability the battery, hard drive, and one stick of RAM are easily accessed. This made it very convenient to upgrade to an SSD and to slap more memory in. Same thing can't be said about most ultrabooks. Ultrabooks = 150% marketing 50% quality

Cons:

Battery life this is the biggest deficiency for this laptop. I would have preferred it to be 5+ hours, but at Hardware and Sound > Sounds > Select Realtek High Definition Audio > Configure > Next > Check the box "Front left and right" > Next > Finish. However, even after this they are not that loud.

2 } Webcam. A disappointment, especially since I freaking love the my Sony TX9 camera ... fantastic photos and videos. However, if you want to improve the framerates of the webcam, turning off the "low light compensation" (webcam settings > camera control tab > uncheck the box). I noticed a tremendous improvement in framerate

Buy Sony VAIO S Series SVS1512ACXS 15.5-Inch Laptop (Silver) Now

At the beginning I was very dissapointed because I was not able to virtualize some windows server 2008 R2 in this Sony Vaio because of some SONY restrictions, but after reading some blogs on the internet I came to know that I could update the BIOS and then edit it in order to enable virtualization.

I did so and now work on this laptop very nicely.

It is a great machine, very fast, light in weight and excellent performance.

I just love it.

I reccomend it!

Read Best Reviews of Sony VAIO S Series SVS1512ACXS 15.5-Inch Laptop (Silver) Here

This computer has a great design and feel to it, but the best part about it is its speed. I use an engineering software, and it runs very smoothly on this computer.

Want Sony VAIO S Series SVS1512ACXS 15.5-Inch Laptop (Silver) Discount?

Pros

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1) Very light for the screen size and spec. 4.4lb weighted without charger on my scale.

2) Very good screen. It's not full matte but semi-matte coating meaning it will still reflect light but only around 35% of that of a mirror screen. Otherwise, beautiful screen.

3) Easily upgradeable. Both ram (max 12gb) and 2.5 drive bay is accessible by unlocking a few screws.

4) Pricing is very competitive considering the weight, semi-matte full-hd screen, upgradeable ram/hdd, and generous cpu/gpu specs.

5) Slot dvd drive built-in. Not sure it's a positive or negative since I will never use it and would rather have a lighter laptop though others might love this feature.

6) Very responsive synaptic touchpad. Lots of manufactures are using extremely bad non-synaptic touchpads and I would not touch a new laptop without a synaptic touchpad. Yes, they are that good and yes, the non-synaptics are that bad.

Cons

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1) Horrible webcam in front. Even with plenty of light video is still very dark and grainy.

2) Horrible speakers. Even cranked up full it has the volume of a 2001 cell phone. Yes, your cellphone has a louder speaker than this laptop.

2) Keyboard keys are not arranged well. Spacing is a little too far apart and the keys are very small considering how much space there is.

3) Charger is very bulky and on the larger side.

Summary

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Fortunately the two biggest drawbacks are the speaker and camera which are not the most important part of a laptop. Overall it's a very good laptop at a great value.

UPDATED 3/17/2013: After 2 weeks of usage I can say the keyboard on the laptop is worse than than my initial review indicates. They keys are way too small and it's now making a squeaking notice beneath the space bar. Other than the keyboard, cam, and speakers, this is a good laptop.