These are the things that sold me on this particular VAIO:Under $1000
Huge resolution (1600x900)
Blu-Ray
Wireless N
Amazing dolby sound
Keyboard has independently isolated keys
The fact that it is relatively light weight and looks amazing was just a bonus.
Some impressions after several days of use:
The touchpad is superior to those on dell laptops I've owned.
The speaker is huge, it spans almost the width of the entire laptop.
The media buttons, especially av mode, are slick.
Blu-ray playback is flawless.
Battery life out of the box was about 3 hours, but using heavily optimized settings (in vaio control center) I've achieved upwards of 5 hours.
Webcam+Mic+Speakers = very high quality skype calls, better than my bluetooth headset.
The location of the power button and charging plug-in is really, really slick.
Only frustration:
I have not been able to output via HDMI at 1080p, despite being hooked up to a 42" 1080P LCD. 720P works fine, but for some unknown reason 1080P is grayed out in the settings.
First it's important to know that the laptop arrives with the default set at 720p and must be manually changed to 1080p when utilizing the HDMI connection.
Next is you must change the viewing to only external monitor otherwise you cannot watch a Bluray dvd. You will recieve a security problem issue which will not allow you to proceed watching the movie if both the laptop monitor and the TV are viewable at the same time.
I guess someone feels you're attempting to make a illegal copy?
Next is really important especially to all Disney Bluray DVD owners.
When you watch the previews of coming attractions everything looks and sounds great on your Sony TV from the laptop HDMI connection.
However, when the movie plays you will lose the sound. NO SOUND!
Even the Sony technitions were baffled.
Here's the reason....
The Disney soundtrack is automatically default set for 7.1 surround sound.
You cannot hear the sound at this default setting.
You must access the DVD setup menu and change the audio to ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK.
This happened with "Sleeping Beauty", "Pinochio" & Wall-E.
I only own these 3 Bluray DVD's so no one could figure out why I wasn't hearing the sound when the movie played.
Also, I might add that the movies play great on the laptop no matter which audio track you utilize.
This problem only happens with the HDMI connection to a TV such as my new Sony KDL-46XBR6.
The only other item I will mention is the volume on the laptop is really low when watching a movie so plan to use headphones or an external powered speaker when a little noise is in your enviroment.
I plan to keep this laptop because overall it performs great even with Windows Vista installed.
UPDATE:
I contacted tech support at Sony again and this time talked to someone who knew what the problem was and changed a setting on my laptop.
The result is that all Bluray DVD's will play okay with 7.1 surround sound thru the HDMI port.My old Sony died unexpectedly, so I needed a system that was ready to go, not one to order customized, as it shipped faster. I looked at other brands, but knowing how great the Sonys are for graphics I decided to stick with what I love.
This laptop is terrific as far as brightness and clarity of display. I've never seen brighter, and I work on friends laptops all the time. I couldn't ask for better. The 4GB of RAM and Windows 64 bit Vista are very responsive. My only complaint with the 64 bit version is I've already found a couple of common software programs that are not 64-bit compatible.
I'd highly recommend this laptop for out-of-the-box readiness to go.I was pretty happy with it until I checked the hard drive space: only 287 GB out of 320 GB AND no other partition! Where did the remaining 33 GB go? There usually is a partition that adds up to the total number of GB.
I like the color (gray) and it's a pretty good deal for the price. Bluetooth and wireless N!!I purchased this product in February and after 4 months I can state that this is a great value purchase. It's hard to find a comparable product with Blu-Ray etc. from a name that is known for great products and great customer service (Sony).
Pro's: Beautiful display, Blu-Ray drive, light-weight (for the screen size), price
Con's: Limited battery life, When upgrading to Windows 7 (Evaluation Copy) the shortcut keys become disabled with no patch/fix out from Sony yet, relatively low speaker volume.
This is a dream machine for the basic PC user, just open it up, plug it in and you are good to go. Out of the box it takes about 10-15 minutes to enter your information and register the product with Sony. Once you get to getting you feel for it you will notice that the display is amazing (especially when playing a blu-ray player). If you are using this as a desktop replacement you should definitely have external speakers to use with it due to the limited volume output from the built-ins.
My only issue is if you are like me and feel the urge to upgrade to Windows 7, beware that the "short-cut/quick keys" for media playing (pause, volume up & down and the s1 button etc.) will be disabled with no fix yet from Sony.
Hope this helps!
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