| Ease of use: | | | Service & Support: : | | | Quality & Durability: | | | Design/Looks: : | | | Value for Money: | |
Good: Wonderful, Light, Good display, Good resolution, Poweerful, Huge HDD, HDMI out, DD3 4 Gb ram, good keyboard, Good battery life.
Bad: Flash HDD not available, No HSDPA, Speakers, Software, Keyboard not back lit.
Recommend: Yes
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Review By:
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Sony-VAIO VGN-Z13GN/B Review
Well this is my second Vaio. I started with laptops having one assembled one, moving on to Compaq, the HP - got impressed - HP again and then Vaio. The last Vaio - VGN-FE48G is now on sale in eBay. I got impressed by the quality of display that I got. Bright and wonderful. I do not travel much but still found it hard to lug around a 15" laptop. It was then as I was searching for a replacement that I came across the Sony launch of Z series laptop in US. I started hunting for one in India and found that there was no launch planned here yet. At this point I stared contacting one person on eBay (US) to buy it. I found the specs wonderful - and the technically inclined person I am - I was salivating at the prospect of owning one.
It is at this point that this laptop was launched in India. I rushed to a nearby Vaio store and held one in my hands. It felt wonderful. There are two models that have been launched in India. VGN-Z13GN and VGN-Z12GN. The one available in the shop was Z12 and I was sure that I wanted the better of the two. So again I was waiting for my choice to be ferried in from Mumbai.
So much for my purchasing it. Well the specs are that you can read almost anywhere on the net or the Sony homepage. So I will discuss my impressions along with the specs where they do fit in.
It is a wonderful feeling to hold the laptop in your hands. The weight makes you feel that earlier you have been lugging around bricks - called laptops. As I opened the lid the wonderfully layout keyboard greets you. The keyboard is very convenient to use. As you switch it on. The screen is clear, bright and supports 1600X900 resolution - a tad lower than my 22" desktop monitor. It is bright and clear - I say it again because that is exactly I want to convey and rub in.
The processor is Core2 Duo P9500 running at 2.53 GHz and believe me it is fast - fast as it is coupled with DDR3 4Gb Ram and has 6 mb cache. So the bottle neck is not here to say the least. I run fairly processor intensive tasks and they do not show wee bit of doubt that the processor is good. Just for your info - I run Dragon Naturally Speaking 10, Photoshop and video editing software - Adobe Premiere - not professionally - but quite often. The US launch includes the option to go in for 128 Gb SSD hard disk that is missing here. Though the hard disk here is 320 Gb - but we do not have the latest 7200 rmp HDD - but the older sibling running at 5400 rpm. This is the slowest of the components - even if we do classify the laptop as overall as fast.
This supports dual graphics card - native intel onboard graphics card and second is Nividia GeForce 9300M GS with 256 mb onboard memory. So to accommodate both the cards it has a switch with two positions - Stamina (when the on-board graphics card is active) and Speed (where in the dedicated Nvidia card kicks in and takes charge). The stamina ensures a good battery life and Speed ensures that we can see play all the next gen games at a descent settings. The switching between the two takes a while - I clocked it at about 5 seconds - but then it is worth the wait both ways. Another good thing is the HDMI output port. All LCD TVs will support it over a period of time. Already quite a few support HDMI input.
There is most of the connectivity options that you will get including - WiFi, Blue tooth, modem, and lan port etc They are sufficient as far as I am concerned. Only grudge is that in US they have coupled the HSDPA option - we do not have it here I wonder if it can be activated after HSDPA is launched. This is one think that I will have a grudge - as I want the facility with me when I pay through my nose.
The battery life is what I was bothered about and it is good to say the least - on nominal workload with stamina button to stamina - the battery lasted about 5 hours. But that is with light workload (working on word document) and brightness set to least. (I prefer full brightness) With heavy load too (stamina still to stamina) I got a descent 3 hours. No grubs whatsoever.
Okay now - summary of the good points
1. Wonderful to start with.
2. Light Weight.
3. Wonderful display.
4. Good resolution.
5. Powerful.
6. Huge Hard Disk.
7. HDMI.
8. DDR3 Ram.
9. Well spaced out easy to use keyboard.
10. Good battery life.
What I do not like
1. No option of Flash HDD.
2. No HSDPA in 12/13 series.
3. Speakers are loud but hiss (may be a problem on mine only)
4. Bloated with software.
5. Keyboard is not back-lit. (I really really wanted this one)
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