Tag : vista premium, silver, core 2, hard drive, ghz intel, 4″ laptop

Company : Sony List Price : $1,399.99 Amazon Price : $1,042.56 Used Price : Average customer review :

Features

• Thin-and-light entertainment notebook with 15.4-inch LCD, embedded A/V controls and a built-in camera with microphone
• 1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5550 processor, 200 GB hard drive, 3 GB RAM (4 GB max), Blu-Ray Disc playback (as well as DVD and CD burning)
• Quad-mode Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n), Bluetooth (with stereo music streaming), 10/100 Ethernet, Nvidia GeForce 8400M GT graphics with up to 1535 MB of shared memory
• Connectivity: 3 USB, 1 FireWire, 1 HDMI, 1 VGA, 1 S-Video, ExpressCard 34, multi-format Memory Stick and Secure Digital slots
• Pre-installed with Windows Vista Home Premium (with Media Center capabilities)

Product Description

The 15.4″ Blu-ray Disc enabled VAIO(R) FZ notebook with XBRITE-ECO LCD technology features Stereo Bluetooth technology for CD-quality audio streaming and embedded A/V controls for one-touch access to music, movies and pictures. Watch Blu-ray Disc HD movies in stunning clarity and record content to CD or DVD. A built-in camera and microphone is seamlessly integrated into the lightweight and durable silver magnesium chassis, so you can video chat with friends, family and co-workers. Backed by Intel Centrino Duo processor technology and Intel Core 2 Duo processor, this lightning-fast, super-powerful PC is slim, lightweight and packed with exciting entertainment features. At this affordable price that offers the latest technology take one home today. 15.4 WXGA (1280 x 800) XBRITE-ECO Display Built-in Webcamera and Microphone NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GT with 256MB Dedicated Video Memory with up to 1535MB shared Blu-Ray Disc BD-R/-RE/-ROM/ DVD+-R/RW Drive with Double Layer Intel PRO/Wireless 4965 802.11A/B/G/N 10/100 Base-TX Ethernet Intergrated Bluetooth Technology Built-in Memory Stick(R) Duo with MagicGate(TM) Card Reader Built-in Secure Digital (SD) memory card slot ExpressCard 34 Slot 3 x USB 2.0, Headphone out; Microphone-in, VGA, S-Video, HDMI, IEEE 1394, RJ-11 (Modem), RJ-45 Approximate Unit Dimensions - 14 (W) x 10.02 (D) x 1.4(H) Approximate Unit Weight - 5.9lbs

Customer reviews

Don’t be fooled
Don’t be fooled by its pretty looks. You will spend more time waiting for it to be returned from being repaired than you do using it. During the warranty period the touch pad failed twice, the display once, the motherboard once and the hard drive once. Want to restore Windows OS after a crash? No recovery disks come with the laptop. You must purchase them separately from Sony. How many ways can they rip you off? Buy one and see.

Great computer for those who need mobility
This is by far my best buy on Amazon. Sony was capable of create a notebook with great performance, design and flexibility. It fullfils all of my needs and expectations.

I recommend it for sure! Go Vaio Go!

Solid machine with few flaws
“I purchased this computer almost a month ago when my $1200 Toshiba (of less than 2 years) crapped out on me and CompUSA’s takeover company lost my records for the replaceable warranty that I paid nearly $600 for. All this happened during my final week of college.

After 2 Toshibas, I was ready to try something else. When I saw this Vaio go on sale for $850, I knew it was a steal for the specs that it offered. Not convinced that Vista was better than XP, I took the chance anyway because of the roomy 3gigs of ram and 250gb HDD. Glad I did, because this machine runs Vista and all my regular apps really, really fast. Bootup time is less than a minute. I’m a heavy music/video user, so the external controls are a must (too bad not all Vaio’s have external controls like other lower end brands). The media iPod-like “wheel” controls are solid. The speakers are a downgrade compared to my Toshiba’s Harmon-Kardon speakers…the sound isn’t that bad, but the volume is way too low. So I use external speakers or headphones.

The screen is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen on any laptop. It truly is amazing, and there’s no flex at all to it. Coming from a 14.1″, the 15.4″ feels a little big but the relative thinness of the case makes up for that. The keyboard is nicely spaced out, however the ‘backspace’ and ‘enter’ keys seem a tad loose. Wish it had 4 USB ports instead of 3, it would’ve been nice to have one located on the back. The powerjack is too close to the DVD-drive. Can’t say too much about the battery life since it’s been plugged in most of the time.

The only thing annoyingly wrong with this laptop, and Sony Vaios in general is the bloatware and AOL software that comes bundled in. You can’t even change the default homepage on IE7 because it’ll revert back to Sony-AOL’s homepage when you reboot. I don’t want to do a clean install so I made the permanent switch to Firefox. Overall, this is a solid machine…well built, fast, silent, and aesthetically pleasing in a minimalist way. Highly recommended!”

Beautifully made, fast, but crashes like there is no tomorrow
I am not going to lie I purchased this computer because of its price. After spending 3 months building and then returning 4 HP computers I have decided on buying a pre-built version with a $1,100 cap max.

This laptop fit, specs are nice and a great video card, I have no problem playing GOW on it. It works extremely fast, it took about full 7 min for past HP laptop to turn on, while it taking this comp less than 2.

One of the lapses in this comp I do not get is why would they have 3Gb RAM if they equip this model with 32bit system that can only recognize up to 2Gb RAM. So 1Gb of RAM is pretty much useless.

The other thing is that apparently majority of people at Sony do not think that you would need a back up CD, so you are not getting ANYTHING. It would be nice even if they at offered one for purchase, but no. So if you crash your system you would have pretty much go and buy yourself a new Windows CD.

And I do not know whats up with this laptop but it crashes at least 2 each week giving me a “blue screen of death”. While it is not really dead, it restarts and works fine, it is really annoying. Moreover, it usually happens when I do something important. For 2 years I had HP I have never ever had anything like that.

So my love for large amount of space (250Gb), fast processor, great video card, and overall looks of the laptop is negated by the lack of support from Sony and constant, incurable so far, crushings. So I neither love nor hate my laptop. But next time I will think twice before buying Vaio again.

almost perfect
I love everything about this laptop except for the battery longevity. It barely lasted 1.5 hours and the additional large capacity battery, which they shamelessly reminded you to buy by placing a sticker on your pristine laptop, is only 1.5 times longer (that’s less than 3 hours) than the original. Could be due to Vista (which has lots of issues).