Sony VAIO FXA53 Laptop (1.3 GHz Athlon XP1500+, 256 MB SDRAM, 30 GB hard drive)

by Sony

Product Details

Product Manual [1.12mb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 13 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000067NO1
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 1, 2002

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Sporting fewer amenities than Sony's high-end mobile computers, yet easily robust enough to run most professional and entertainment software, the Vaio FXA53 notebook strikes a good balance between price and performance. Its convenient all-in-one design also makes it a great choice for those who appreciate true portability.

At 1.9 by 12.8 by 10.5 inches and 6.7 pounds (with battery) or 7.1 pounds (with battery and removable 3.5-inch floppy disk drive), the FXA53 is not an overly large notebook. Yet unlike some Sony portables, it is completely self-contained. A combination CD-RW/DVD drive (24x/8x/8x, 8x DVD) is built right into the unit, as is a spacious 30 GB hard drive. Furthermore, the floppy disk drive may be swapped at any time for an optional second battery.

The system is powered by a 1.3 GHz AMD Athlon XP 1500+ processor, a fast yet cost-effective chip featuring AMD's new QuantiSpeed architecture for improved performance and PowerNow technology for extended battery life. Sony has paired this processor with 256 MB of SDRAM memory (expandable to 512 MB) and an 8 MB ATI Rage Mobility graphics chip. While its graphics processing speed isn't fast enough for the latest 3-D games, the FXA35 will capably handle anything from standard business applications to DVD movies, transmitting video signals to its large 1,024 x 768 14.1-inch XGA TFT display and audio to its integrated stereo speakers.

The FXA53 is outfitted with more external connections than most notebook users will ever need, including an i.Link IEEE 1394 jack for fast data uploads from devices such as digital camcorders, two USB ports for plug-and-play peripherals, NTSC video-out and external monitor-out, parallel and serial "printer" ports, a microphone-in, and headphone jack. An internal V.90 modem delivers low-speed Web and e-mail access, and a 10Base-T/100Base-TX Ethernet interface supports high-speed surfing and LAN connectivity.

The system's keyboard section features a standard 86-key layout and an electrostatic touch pad. Sony has not included the handy Jog Dial control or Memory Stick media slot found on other models. Pre-installed software includes Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, Quicken 2002 New User Edition, Corel WordPerfect Office 2002, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and a broad range of audio, video, and still-image tools and utilities.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Laptop, July 15, 2002

By 

John Kocijanski (Monticello, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sony VAIO FXA53 Laptop (1.3 GHz Athlon XP1500+, 256 MB SDRAM, 30 GB hard drive) (Personal Computers)

So far I really love this machine. It has a beautiful display. The software bundle is very good. I would have liked to have MS Word instead of the Word Perfect suite though. I had to send it in for warranty work for the keyboard and got it back in a week. Sony made it easy to keep track of the progress of the repair online. Their support was great. As a long time Apple user I almost bought an iBook but the Sony gave more for the amount of money I could spend such as legacy ports (so I could use my printer) and a floppy drive. Apple's recent ads promote the switch of PC users to Apple. After alot of thought I did the opposite. I just couldn't go with Apple again. I would recommend this machine to anyone.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great laptop, but poor battery life, August 7, 2002

By 

Khalil Crumpler (philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sony VAIO FXA53 Laptop (1.3 GHz Athlon XP1500+, 256 MB SDRAM, 30 GB hard drive) (Personal Computers)

After doing some research on laptops for a few weeks I had decided to purchase a Dell Inspiron 2600. However, I decided to do a little more searching and came across the FXA53 for a very good price. ($1380 before $100 rebate) This laptop only takes about 40 seconds to boot up which is pretty good in my opinion. It runs amazingly quiet and is very cool unlike some laptops that can get very hot, thus making it uncomfortable to have on your lap. I mainly have two gripes with the laptop. I wish it had came with a better video card. Watching dvd's is ok, but in some parts in can become grainy. This laptop would be perfect if it came with an nvidia card. My second gripe is the horrible battery life. I can only watch a dvd for about 1hour and 20 minutes before I get a warning that the battery is very low. Sony charges $250 for an additional battery which I think is outrageous for a battery that can't even last two hours. If you decide to buy this laptop, buy an additional battery off of ebay for around $100. I like this laptop, but I wish Sony would learn how to make better batteries. My next laptop will probably be a Dell, because their batteries last nearly 3 hours and are much cheaper. If you plan to have your laptop plugged in the majority of the time, then this is a good buy, but if you're like me and want to be able to use your laptop on the road then look elsewhere. I don't know how the other review managed to get his battery to last over 2 hours. Well, that's all, hope this review was helpful.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Keep looking, over priced and out of date, December 28, 2002

By 

Dave (Portland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Sony VAIO FXA53 Laptop (1.3 GHz Athlon XP1500+, 256 MB SDRAM, 30 GB hard drive) (Personal Computers)

This notebook is out of date and is way out classed by rivals in the same price range.

What I don't like:
SDRAM? Most notebooks in this price range offer DDR-SDRAM. DDR transmits twice the data with each clock, making it much faster. SDRAM has been abandoned.

1.3 GHz Athlons: They run hot and lack SSE-2. SSE-2 is a feature built into current Intel and future AMD CPUs. If you don't have it, software that uses it will run slower. This includes major products like Windows, Adobe, and many games.

ATI RAGE MOILITY graphics chipset? Very old news with almost no 3D features. Notebooks that cost 30% less are at least offering the ATI Radeon M6-P or even ATI 7500 chipsets.

If this notebook was half the price I could endorse it. At this price it is highway robbery. Either look at Toshiba, HP, Gateway or Dell, or move up the Sony price range into one of their newer P4 based notebooks. I'm sure this left over is about to be discontinued.