Top 10 reasons you should NOT get a SONY VAIO P
- Over-Priced: We fully understand the fact that it is SONY. But, paying so much for a device that performs so poorly does not make any sense
- Super high resolution: What is the point of giving the user super high resolution in an 8-inch screen? Is SONY under some contract of putting so outrageous resolutions in small screens? Looks like they learned nothing from their UX series which squeezed 1024×600 pixels in an 4.3-inch display
- HDD not easily upgradable: Although we do not upgrade the HDD everyday, but it should be easily swappable in case something goes wrong with the HDD or if the user wishes to use SSD
- Non-upgradable RAM
- Poor performance by the entry level model: 1.33GHz simply chokes while running Vista
- Even entry level model costs nearly twice as much as other netbooks in the market
- Making the entry level model bundle with Windows Vista
- Whole device is built around the keyboard and not anything else: I guess the engineers at SONY did not use the device for more than 5 minutes.
- Trackball: Trackpad is the way to go.
- Below-average or just average battery life with the standard battery: Even if the SONY is entering so late in the netbook market, it should have already made out that the people want netbooks with REALLY good battery life. Netbooks with 2-3 hours battery life are things of past now.
Do yourself a favour and get something on which you can really work upon.
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The super resolution of 1600 pixel is what distinguishes the Vaio P from other netbooks and the exact reason why I am using the VAIO P. I need to fit a lot of information on the screen, I don’t like to scroll, but I like a portable machine. I am grateful for normal eyesight and it’s comfortably readable, I now use the Vaio P as my MAIN machine, all day long and I love it!
A small laptop with a high resolution screen (I cant use anything less than 1600 pixels) is what I have been waiting for for a long long time!
Yes the processor is slow but with some tuning even the preinstalled Vista can be used for serious multitasking.
I am typing away happily with explorer, The Bat mail client, Outlook, Several Opera sessions consisting of several tabs each, skype, trillian, PGP, Truecrypt, AVG Antivirus, OpenVPN client, some VAIO tools all open at the same time, all the time. And even if I would open Filezilla, Putty, a password code wallet aplication, calc, notepad and my windows task bar is two to three rows high, I could still do my work even with this processor.
The only thing I am not using it for is video editing, that I would have to leave to another machine.
Oh and I would not have bought the VAIO P if it did not have a Trackpoint, the most ergonimical pointing solition that I have been using for over ten years on IBM and Toshiba laptops. I would never go backto a trackball, touchpad or mouse, why move my entire hand or my finger all over the place if it’s not necessary?
Trackpoints are great, the Vaio P is great.
@good girl: Thanks for sharing your opinion. There is no doubt that one can see a lot of information on a 1600 wide pixel screen, but on a 8-inch screen, it is a totally different scene.
No matter what I look at, I’ve to squint. I’m not a 40+ guy. I’m still in my twenties and have pretty good eyes. What I found by using VAIO P from the past 4 weeks is that no matter what I do on VAIO P, I just cannot stand the screen for more than 10 minutes. Sadly, bumping up the DPI does not do any favors.
But, I appreciate your opinion :)
Well, I agree and disagree with some of your points. I agree on the resolution issue. I don’t know who is the genius at Sony behind this choice, but such a resolution just ruined the device for many, including me. Seriously, do they have 15 year old kids testing these?
On the other hand I don’t agree with you on the form factor issue. The one thing that made P commercially successful (despite the resolution) is that it was designed around the keyboard. They eliminated the trackpad and this was a wise choice – it is for this reason alone that the P is half the size of most other netbooks. Keyboard is the hard constraint on the design of these machines and Sony nailed it.
As far as the battery life goes, I agree with you, but the extended battery is not bad at all. My 2 cents of course…:)
@Kamal – Can’t really agree with any or your opinions presented above.
1. Over-Priced – The price would be caused by the High Quality, High Resolution screen. For the People that find screen real estate valuable, this is not a large premium for that much screen.
2. Super high resolution – Sony generally does go high res when they are able. Personal perference would have to rule here. Windows gives all sorts of tools to let you size things larger and fine grained (small pixel screens). I would rather have the option of changing the size of things in software and having highly capable hardware, than being limited by something that has to be replaced to give more capability.
3. Not-so-easy to upgrade HDD – And??? This is not something a regular consumer is going to need to do. With the options given, the only reason to change HDD yourself is to spend more money on this expensive device. If you can’t get over the price in the first place, why worry about upgrading it. And in the case of wanting to tune the P series, how many times to do expect to upgrade a harddrive?
4. Non-upgradable RAM – Try blaming the company that has limited this. The INTEL chipset for use with the Atom chip is limited to 2GB. Sony is giving the 2GB to try to give a decent experience on their computer, but they can’t give more memory without building around a different and more expensive chip and chipset. (BTW, the 2GB is totally reasonable when you look at the original design ideas of the Atom chip, it was for devices looking for battery life over performance.)
5. Poor performance by the entry level model – This is more likely do to the software load included with Vista. Too many things running will equal bad performance on a single core processor like the Atom.
One other thing about the memory and Windows, Sony wanted 2 GB in this system badly enough to put Vista on the Machine. If Sony wanted to offer Windows XP Home on the P Series, they would have had to limit themselves to 1 GB, per Microsoft’s stipulation that a machine that has 2GB of memory is capable of running Vista and that means Microsoft would not allow Sony to bundle XP with the P Series.
6. Even entry level model …. – Read Sony’s literature again. (Or once, if you haven’t) This is not a netbook. It’s not meant to be one. They designed to a similar formfactor, but by most definitions netbooks are small, inexpensive machines, built to do basic tasks. Sony designed for small and portable, but not inexpensive.
7. Making the entry level …. – The choice is 1GB and XP Home, or 2GB and Vista. Either way everyone loses. Thank you Microsoft, not Sony.
8. Whole device is built …. – Good guess. I guess you don’t realize how much testing goes into OEM computer building. Many people love the form factor, and yes the keyboard is the main reason for the actual size of the machine. Compare this keyboard to any netbook keyboard, and it is arguably the best, due to the almost full size keys.
9. Trackball – Wow, I guess you didn’t realize that many people LOVE Trackpoint/Accupoint mouse devices. This is a personal perference for many people. Having been a laptop user for 10 years, I’ve tried trackpads, trackballs (A ball sticking out of the machine where the trackpad is, think Apple) and trackpoints. I personally find it distastful that you have to look for HOURS to find a consumer level device that has a trackpoint at all.
10. Battery life – Battery life is dependant on usage and weight. Again Sony wasn’t designing a netbook to compete with the $200-$400 market. This is a bit more of a statement mini laptop (Didn’t Sony call it a life style computer?) to be shown off, so having a lighter battery to make the overall package attractive fits the design strategy.
The only reasons to buy or not buy any computer is that the needs are met for the price point given. Most anything else is personal preference.
Myself, I would like the P series, but the performance of any of the machines (Including the 1.86 import from Japan) is not enough for me to justify spending the money. I’ll sit back and wait for 2nd and 3rd generation devices, with decent resolution screens (1024×600 is NOT enough), a better CPU, and the all day battery that everyone wants. Ok, Maybe that is 5th or 6th generation with
The great thing about the Sony Vaio P Series is the small size (yet allowing to type) and the weight (635 g). Even better is the OQO model 2+ (even smaller and pocketable and with only 450 g).
Get it? No? They are NOT to work on them. They are just to save on them the NATIVE Apple Keynote and Microsoft PowerPoint presentations and carry them and only them for full blown presentations from the NATIVE files. Got it now?
The same is that they do not run Mac OS X, which is what we want for our University.
Oops! I mean, “The shame is that they do not run Mac OS X…”.
Well, what can you expect? It is Sony, just like you said.
I agree with Kamal. Vaio P is useless piece of sh**
I can buy two acer aspire ones and will still be able to save some dollars
I totally agree with goodgirl. The device is awesome for what it was build for. And with replacement of only the McAffee Virus suite by something better (Avira), the device is definitely great. With an additional 2 GB fast SD or Memory Stick for ReadyBoost, the device gets ready after hibernate in a few seconds – and in the other card slot you can additionally have another memory card for pictures, music or videos.
And yes, even videos in decent resolutions work well with good players even in HD.
The design around the keyboard is great and the screen resolution is fantastic. If you want to read some longer text, just zoom it to screen width and you’re fine. For other things its great to have 1600×768.
And for the Pointing Stick vs. Touchpad… its a personal preference. For me it was one reason to buy this device.
The price is a bit higher – but look at Dell or Lenovo Laptops with real high-res screens (1920×1200 on 15.4″). They cost you really a lot more also and are actually hard to get (if not ordered online).
The only downpoint of this device is its short battery lifetime. But one can deal with this pretty well when using the device with hibernate mode of Vista and only switching it on when necessary.
If it does not fit your needs – well, than thats another point. There are others out there which find this device great because of its size and usability (E-Mail, Internet (3G), chat, Office work).
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