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114 of 115 people found the following review helpful.
Best budget 17" laptop available
By Tomgadgets
For those looking for a budget 17" laptop for play or work, look no further. This is perhaps the best laptop that balance performance, cost, battery life and reliability. Purchased this laptop 2 days ago from Frys, couldn't be happier. This is a list of my observations:Pro:1. Wonderful 17.3" Sony screen - one of the best in the industry. Very bright. Lots of space to work. My work machine has a 24" full HD screen and I don't miss it.2. Super fast second generation Core i5 2.4GHz 2430M 2.4GHz with turbo boost to 3GHz, not the much slower Core i3 and one step above the Core i5 2.3GHz 2410M you see on most lower cost sandy bridge i5 laptops3. Very rigit chasis - no flex at all for a 17" laptop, built quality is valut like - should provide many years of reliable protection. It is the BMW/Benz of laptops.4. Extremely low power consumption - the 4000MAH battery will easily last 4-5 hours on light use - web surfing or working on office apps. I am very impressed.5. Lightweight for a 17.3" laptop - it is quite easy to carry it around, especially since the long battery life means you can usually leave the power adapter at home.6. There are TWO battery upgrade options - a 5300MAH battery (VGP-BPS26) which is the same size and weight as the included battery, but will last 7 hours instead of 5 hours, and a 9 cell, slightly heavier battery which is 7950MAH (VGP-BPL26) and 10 hours battery run-time.7. Blu-Ray drive for watching HD movies. Never get a DVD for a 17" laptop. It is just not appropriate. Believe me you will want to watch Blu Ray on this machine.8. 4xUSB ports, HDMI, VGA, Ethernet, SD/MS slots, Wireless on-off switch9. Wondeful multi-touch touchpad with pinch to zoom and other gestures10. Completely resist finger prints - the only place you are going to leave finger prints on this laptop would be on the screen. Sony has always been pretty good in this regard.Cons:1. Screen resolution is 1600x900 and no option to upgrade it, but it is probably one of the best 1600x900 screens out there. The slightly lower resolution is quite acceptable actually.2. Included battery is 4000MAH, not the 5300MAH version which is the same size and weight3. No backlit keyboard4. Numeric pad makes the keyboard slightly off center5. No bluetooth and no Intel Wireless Display6. No USB 3.0 port7. Speakers a bit weak, crackle a bit at full volume.Immediately upon getting this laptop, I ordered another 4GB Samsung RAM that is identical to the one that is in the laptop, and also purchased an Intel Advanced Wireless 6230 mini-PCI WiFi card to replace the original Atheros WiFi card. The WiFi card upgrade allows me to have bluetooth and also Intel Wireless Display capabilities. The 8GB RAM makes this machine run so fast that most programs simply pop open immediately.Just found out that upgrading to 8GB is a MUST!! It improved Windows experience score from 4.4 to 5.9, and significantly sped up the graphics! 3DMark06 went from 3200 to 4600 by simply upgrading the RAM, looks like the Intel HD 3000 is seriously starved for memory bandwidth. It is now a competent laptop even for casual 3D games!The Windows 7 Experience score (8GB Ram):Overall: 5.9Processor: 7.0Memory: 7.4Graphics: 5.9Gaming graphics: 6.2Primary hard disk: 5.9Very impressive score for a budget 17" laptop!Next purchase will probably be either the 5300MAH (VGP-BPS26) or 7950MAH (VGP-BPL26) battery - can't decide which one though. The 5300MAH is small and light, same size as the original battery. The 7950MAH will last 10 hours and lift the laptop a bit for better cooling and typing angles.Can't be happier with the purchase and looking forward to improve it even further!---------EDIT 10/8/2011--------Made up my mind and ordered a 7950MAH battery (VGP-BPL26)- might as well go for broke and get 10 hours battery life. This means that I will never have to bring the adapter out again, as it is truly an all day computing battery life. Can't wait to get the battery!---------EDIT 10/16/2011--------After using it for more than ten days, I can say that this is truly an excellent laptop with no major faults. The 7950MAH battery arrived and indeed provide more than 10 hours of battery life with light use. It lift the back of the laptop slightly for a better viewing and typing angle. Very glad to have the large battery instead of the standard version!---------EDIT 11/9/2011---------Having lots of fun with this powerhouse machine - running multiple VM on it (8G RAM really helps), the OSX Mac VM is running at twice the speed of my other 2.66GHz Core2Duo Sony. Still very happy with the purchase. Have discovered a minor flaw - the green power button is a bit lose and positioned too close to the right speaker - sometimes it will rattle when you play loud music. Seems like it is just my unit and others are ok. Maybe some play-doh could fix this....---------EDIT 11/24/2011--------To get some extra battery life out of any laptop, try downloading Battery Care from batterycare.net, and you should see anywhere between 10-20% increase in battery life. You should check the "Disable Aero theme in battery mode" and "Pause Windows services in battery mode" to get the savings. If you don't mind having the sidebar disabled, check "Disable the Sidebar / Gadgets in battery mode" to get even more battery life. I have been using it on all my laptops and they work great.
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent laptop
By XDR
Very very nice laptop, no complaints.- True desktop replacement.- The design and looks are great, very solid build and light to move around.- The quality of the screen is amazing, blu-rays played flawlessly.- Chiclet keyboard is very comfortable to type on.- Performance is excellent for multimedia family use purposes.- Integrated graphics card is no good for heavy graphics software like gaming but more than enough for everything else.- It came with 4GB (4GB x 1) of ram and I replaced with 8GB (Kingston ValueRAM 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 KIT 4GB x 2) for faster multitasking and increased integrated graphics card sharing.- Windows Experience Scores: Processor: 7.0, Memory (8GB RAM): 7.4, Graphics: 6.3, Game graphics: 6.3, Primary hard disk: 5.8- Battery ran for 3 hours @ 2.40GHz full power no turbo boost and highest screen brightness.- 4 usbs is great to have, we had 3 before and was always 1 short.- 640 GB @ 5400 hard drive is more than enough space and speed.- Speakers are good enough for a laptop. I have external speakers hooked up so I don't really use the internal ones.- No bluetooth, no problem cause we have never used it on other laptops.- Fans are on the quiet side.All in all it was a perfect purchase at an incredible $599. If you don't want to spend much on an excellent family desktop replacement laptop with an amazing 17" screen you have to get this. Enjoy!
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful.
Fantastic price point for a loaded machine
By John Graham
I purchased this about a week ago so I am really just getting fully into the ins and outs. I will add to this review in the next few months when I have really gotten into the nuts and bolts of the machine. I am using this as a desktop replacement, in my bedroom, so portability was never a consideration. It's actually lighter than my Dell Inspiron at about 6.5 pounds and is a snap to set up especially if you use the Windows transfer feature. It will let you use either a flash drive, USB transfer cord or even let you do it over your home network(takes a little more time). I transferred all of my old files and settings to the new machine in about an hour using a portable hard drive.What really drew me to this particular model was the Sony name and the added bonus of an extra Blu-ray player. The Blu-ray drive uses Corel WinDVD BD software to play your discs. I put in The Twilight Zone and it loaded faster than my OPPO player, lol. I will update the review when I start playing some of the newer Java heavy discs and let you know how well it works/looks.The first thing I recommend is upgrading the memory to 8GB from the factory shipped 4GB and here is what I purchased: Samsung MV-3T4G4 4GB DDR3 Laptop SDRAM (1333MHz PC3-10600) The machine absolutely flies and has so far updated most of the Sony shipped software through VAIO update(a nice little feature that compliments Windows update). As I stated earlier in the review, I have this in my bedroom and the network card has worked fine even about 50 feet or so away from my router and up a staircase. I have Verizon FIOS and use their router/modem combo unit which doesn't go below good/very good as far as reception.Pros:1)Price. Below $700(as of 12/22 right around $800 but still well worth the cost) for a Sony VAIO with these specs and a Blu-ray drive is fantastic.2)Intel Core i5-2430M great chip and a big step up from the similar priced i3.3)Keyboard is solid. Hard plastic around each key making it hard to slip a key my mishitting it. Seems like a minor thing but my Dell keyboard already has a key that sticks after only 6 months of use.4)Very easy to setup and transfer your files/settings to. Memory upgrade took me about 3 minutes.5)HDMI port making this a semi portable Blu-ray player.6)Actual hard drive available is about 540GB which is more than enough to get you started.7)Intel HD graphics look great online and playing movies.Cons:1)speakers are not good and are a bit of disappointment considering the other high end features this offers. They hardly go above about a normal level and sound really tinny. Definitely buy some desktop mini speakers to go along with this machine. Especially if you are going to watch movies or videos.2)Weight is fairly light but I think it kind of makes the computer feel kind of "cheap". In other words I would not use this as a portable(yeah, I know who uses a 17" one as a portable anyway, lol). It also slides really easily unless you have it on a solid flat surface.3)No USB 3 port which is also a disappointment but does have that HDMI port along with 4 USB 2 ports.I want to wrap this up by saying how much I recommend this computer and my only caveats being you must invest in the extra memory($28) and do yourself a big favor and buy some nice speakers.Edit 12/3:1)I forgot to mention this comes with the limited versions of Word and Excel which is great for me because most of my business documents are in the Word and Excel formats. With my other laptops, I have had to shell out an extra $100 for the Office upgrade.2)Hooked up a a couple of desktop speakers with a subwoofer and the sound is fantastic listening to music, watching movies, or even viewing YouTube. Please make sure you do the same because the sound is really weak.3)One of the others things I have noticed is how quiet this computer is. My old HP would wake the dead every time the fan came on. This Sony also seems to stay really cool and I even had it on for a couple of days in a row when I was downloading some huge files.4) As I mentioned up top please make sure you keep this on a level surface because if not it will slide all over the place. The plastic shell is real slippery and I almost pushed it off my nightstand trying to open it one morning. I had it on some large books(which has never been a problem with any of my other laptops) to raise it a little higher.Edit 12/23:1)I put in the director's cut of "The Expendables" and it loaded in about 45 seconds and played without a hitch. I have played a lot of DVDs and Blu-rays and this is a better player than the one I use in my family room.2)Again the machine is so quiet I never can tell if it is even on. I sometimes download big files and leave it on next to my bed and it is noise free. The fan is working but you would never know it's even on. The computer seems to stay really cool even after 2 or 3 days without shutting down.3)The only negative, besides the speakers, I have found is the touch pad. Truth be told I use a mouse 90% of the time but I find the touch pad to be a little "clunky". The scroll feature clicks on if you go anywhere near the sides and bottom of the pad. The scroll feature(side to side and up and down) is nice but sometimes works a little too well.Edit 1/10:1)Another minor complaint, someone mentioned in another review, about not being able to open the cover with less than two hands. I know it's kind of a silly point but it's a pain trying to get this open if you are busy doing something else with one of your hands.2)Have not run into any problems and will probably not update again until I do or have something better to add. I have owned Dells, HPs, and a few other laptops/desktop replacements and without a doubt this is the best machine I've had. Really my only serious problem with this computer are the terrible speakers(might be the worst I have listened to). All other complaints are just a heads up to people to help make their decision but really don't bring down the rating in my eyes..
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Not so good if you do a lot of writing on the keyboard.
Thought it was nice..until it crashed. Toshiba service is HORRIBLE.
