Sony VAIO T Series SVT14115CXS 14-Inch Ultrabook (Silver)

I just received the unit today. Sony had(has) a deal going with about half off on the 512GB SSD drive option so I picked one up fully loaded.. i7, 8GB RAM, and the 512GB SSD drive. Everything has met expectations thus far except the screen. I was really expecting a better screen than what I am seeing thus far. Usually Sony has really nice vibrant screens but the screen is average I would say. It is not bad by any means but nothing like a Mac or even some of the other higher end Windows laptops out there. Ok other than that it is awesome. It cold boots in about 5 seconds and that is no exaggeration. Everything is blazing fast and that is mostly due to Windows 8 and the SSD Drive. So far I am very pleased with it other than the screen as I mentioned. There is nothing else to mention as a negative yet.

Pros

Beautiful machine

Very light weight

Nice keyboard

Loaded with all the ports you will need

Blue Ray drive

The only laptop I could find out there that has a 512 SSD option other than a Mac and right now you can get it for a song by comparison

Comes with the excellent Sony Imagination Studio package.

Cons

Screen isn't as bright or as high resolution as it could be

Just a follow up 12/13 After calibrating the screen using the Windows calibration tool and adjusting the color in the Intel control panel I was able to get the screen to look a lot better. Still not retna quality by any means, but much, much better. On another note, I discovered after I brought it into the office that it doesn't have a laptop locking cable port. That kind of sucks but still over all I am very pleased with the purchase. If you can swing it get one with the SSD drive it just screams.

This is a relatively inexpensive Sony product and honestly, there is not an electronics company anywhere that is as consistent as Sony in terms of quality at lower price and intelligent design over a broad range of electronics categories. Enough gushing about Sony, though.

Out of the box, the laptop is sleek, light (4lbs) and pretty. My sister actually called this laptop "sexy".

What's great about this laptop? After the initial setup, inevitable updating of software and full charge of the battery, you get to see just how awesome the 32 GB cache memory is. Booting up, as one reviewer said, "literally takes 5 seconds". That's with a 5400 rpm hard drive. And bringing the computer out of sleep is instantaneous (usually).

Maintenance is easy with the "Sony Vaio Care" built right into the computer. Sony provides 3 buttons called "Assist", "Web" and "Vaio". I haven't messed with "Web" and "Vaio" yet, but the "Assist" button has 2 roles. If you press it when the computer is shutdown, it automatically turns the computer on and brings up a menu of recovery and BIOS options. No more trying to remember "Is it F10 or F2 that gets me to the BIOS? Is F8 Windows Recovery?". Assist takes you right there. When the OS is already loaded "Assist" brings up the Sony Vaio Care menu, allowing you to tweak the basic settings for power management, sound, and a few other things. I really have grown to love this design feature.

There's almost no bloatware on the computer. Just a trial of Kaspersky anti-virus and MS Office. Both are easy to remove.

I've already mentioned speed. I do have to bring up that while power management settings don't seem to affect boot time, they do mess with performance. At "High Performance" settings, the processor and memory handle most of the nonsense I throw at them. Run Photoshop, Excel and Matlab at the same time...while listening to music? Not a problem. Do the same thing with power management on "Power Saving", well, then you experience SOME jumps and lags in performance. I'm not complaining.

What's merely good? I'm not a big fan of the keyboard. I was spoiled on my last device which was a 15.6 inch ASUS lap with chiclet keys and a 10key. This thing doesn't have enough real estate for a ten key, but I find typing to be a little less responsive to what I'm used to.

Speakers are good, but not great. Music IS great through headphones, so the problem is NOT with the HD integrated sound card.

Buy Sony VAIO T Series SVT14115CXS 14-Inch Ultrabook (Silver) Now

Fast, good resolution screen, good battery life, does not get too hot...........However, somehow I wished I had selected amodel / brand with the backlit keyboard. I have heard that some machine can be modified to be that way, but I do not know if this one can.

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The computer is good and very light, so easy to take on business trips. I wanted a DVD player and this was about the lightest, most compact computer I could find that also had a DVD player. Sound quality is good on the speakers and the screen is beautifully clear.

I have had a little problem connecting to a WiFi network at a client's office and from what the tech guy there said, it may be an issue with the NIC card the Sony is using. Also, sometime the keyboard responsiveness is not great, with the keys getting stuck.

Overall, though, a very usable machine that is also attractive. I'm glad I own this.

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Great to use once you get used to Windows 8 -which we now love-very slick.

Computer boots up quickly and is a joy to use.

Love the keyboard.

Sounds nothing to write home about but we don't use it for that except via TV-so makes no difference.