Customer Reviews

Sony VAIO PCG-K13 Laptop (2.8GHz Pentium 4, 512MB RAM, 40 GB Hard Drive, CD-RW/DVD combo)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I think the VAIO PCG-K13 is a great product from SONY. More importantly, its affordable. Here are some of the positives and negatives that I noticed:

POSITIVES:
Fast 2.8 Ghz processor
512MB DDR RAM
533Mhz system bus.
All these make it a pretty high end laptop.

NEGATIVES: (These may be applicable to all K-series laptops)

1. 7.3lbs heavy

2. The AC power adapter is exteremly big and bulky. To make the laptop lighter and more attractive, SONY probably transferred some power supply components to the AC adapter.

3. 1024x768 is the maximum available screen resolution (I really wanted to be able to get 1280x1024 after paying $1350)

4. The XBRITE technology makes things worse in fluorescent/white light (like in the libraries) because the screen is very glossy. There's a huge amount of reflection from the LCD screen which reduces screen visibility.

5. NO PS/2 or SERIAL port. (only 3 USB ports. I would love to have a PS/2 port for an external mouse/keybd)

6. NO Floppy drive (I personally care less about this though)

I have found the Sony Vaio PCG-K13 to be an excellent compromise between a desktop replacement and a laptop. Weighing in at 7.3 pounds, it is fairly portable, and sports an excellent 15" screen. Sony engineers developed the X-Brite LCD technology which allows for a very sharp, bright display that rivals other displays employing SXGA technology. The 64 Mb. ATI Radeon 1GP video adapter provides the graphics quality. On display at a national computer store, the PCG-K13 stood out among the other laptops for brightness and clarity.

The PCG-K13 employs the Fujitsu MHT2040AT 40 Gb. hard drive which is whisper quiet. I have to press my ear to the computer to hear any rotational or seek activity. Likewise for the system fan, which is equally whisper quiet and keeps the computer case cooled nicely. These two factors help provide a very calming computing experience.

Ergonomically, the keyboard and electrostatic touch pad couldn't be better. The large keyboard incorporates full size Enter, Shift, Control (2), Tab and Backspace keys. Keytouch is quiet with good tactile feedback. The touchpad requires very minimal pressure to operate, and the left and right control buttons are large and well placed.

Three USB ports, one Firewire port, a parallel port, external monitor port, PCMCIA slots (2), and standard audio ports are provided. No serial port - USB replaces that.

The negatives? One is short battery life, understandable when feeding a 2.8 Ghz. Pentium 4 processor. Squeezing two hours from the battery would be the most you can expect from this unit. For me, however, this is not a problem - I am rarely away from an AC outlet, and having Pentium 2.8 Ghz. speed makes up for the battery life.

Secondly, nearly 5 Gb. of hard drive space is used by the recovery partition. Rather that supply a recovery CD-Rom, Sony forces you to burn nine disks to provide the recovery set, or purchase a DVD recovery disk from them. You can then recover the 5 Gb. partition for your own use.

Lastly, the 512 Mb. Ram is shared with the ATI adapter, leaving 448 Mb. for system use. Still, system performance is more than adequate.

I would highly recommend this computer for someone wanting an above average mainstream laptop for general computing and perhaps some moderate graphics (Photoshop) work. For gaming or highly detailed design work, you would need to look elsewhere.

At $1399.00 US, with promotions occasionally offering it at $1249.00, this is one laptop well worth considering.

I own this laptop for around 2 years. Though I was happy during first few months, this laptop started giving me lot of problems...Here are the pros and cons of it:

Pros:

1) Awesome screen clarity (Xbrite technology)
2) Keyboard and Touchpad are really nice.
3) Good Performance...no need to wonder as it's pentium 4 2.8 ghz, 512 MB RAM.
4) It has memorystick slot, nice to have if you have a sony digital camera.

Cons:

1) It's heavy, heavy, too heavy for a laptop.
2) It comes with a large size brick i.e) the power adaptor...aweful even a B grade brands are giving very small adaptors...
3) The sound quality is terrible.
4) No external control of volume/brightness etc. You need to have the Sony special software to enable the special keys to do that. Once you format and reinstall your windows, you are lost. You need to purchase those software/windows xp home CD seperately. Sony doesn't give them for you along with the laptop.
5) Known Problem with the Wireless connection. It goes disconnected every 5 or 10 minutes.
6) A very known problem with this model. There are several forums yelling at Sony for this issue. There are websites trying to form a group to legally fight with Sony on this. It's a manufacturing defect. The Ram Slot is poorly manufactured so the Ram easily breaks out of the slot over the time. It freezes the system completely. Only if you have some idea of hardware or if you have gone through all crying forums, you are safe. Otherwise see the next Con.
7) It will cost around half of the laptop price to do a service on the laptop. You need to send it to some place via post (all postal cost will be yours)
8) After my warrenty period, I was asked to pay 19.99 $ to talk to a Custumer Support Rep to discuss about the same RAM issue I got with my laptop (See previous Con). Luckily, I saw those forums and fixed it by myself.
9) Aweful battery life. Initially it gave me around 1.5 hr and now it's giving around 35 minutes...
10) It's too costly...You may save around 500 $ if you buy a better laptop (like Dell).

I bought this only for the brand name Sony. But I am sure I won't buy a sony laptop again. I would recommend Dell or HP.

I've owned this machine for three weeks now, and I have some mixed feelings.
I need this for work, but for my personal use, give me my Powerbook any day of the week.

I like the computer screen. Very bright indeed, and very clear. The sound is terrific, plenty of USB ports, and an iLink port (Firewire) are available, as well as a monitor output and a parallel port.

At 512 MB of RAM, memory is a little on the small side, especially in light of the fact that the VGA card uses some of it.

Now, Sony support is easily the most disappointing ever.
I cleared the hard drive in order to upgrade to Windows XP professional (it came with Home edition), and realized too late that there were no drivers included. Even hours of surfing as well as ordering the backup DVD (they sent me the wrong one) did not provide me with a driver for the ATI video card. It was simply unavailable, even the Sony driver site didn't have many drivers. (for that matter, I couldn't find support for this specific laptop, even amongst hundreds of other models).

Eventually I wound up using an unsupported third party, but nevertheless excellent driver (Radeon Omega, for those of you desperately looking for a VGA driver)

One other complaint, well two. The wireless-g card stops working intermittently. I called Sony tech support (my only recourse in spite of buying considerable extra protection), and they had no clue. They walked me through an install of the card, and simply said 'well, can you get on the Internet?' When I said, yes I can for now, they treated the problem as solved.

My other problem was frequent Blue Screens of Death, to which tech support simply replied 'can't help you there!' When I asked if I could read the minidumps (MS's way of documenting the error), they simply said 'you can't read those.' -- I'll take that with a grain of salt. However, they did recommend I upgrade my memory. After all, I was using Excel and Internet Explorer at the same time.

So I am left with a nasty taste in my mouth about tech support. Unsolved mysteries, blue screens, missing drivers, and wrong DVD's in the wrong language being sent to me. Oh, and being fobbed off by technical support after sinking some hard-earned cash into a rather dear protection plan.

Being both a Mac user as well as a PC user, I can see how the much more expensive Powerbook pays for itself in some ways.

On the whole, the Vaio is decent, but it sure isn't great, and the support is atrocious. A final word on support: Sony's web site is a nightmare to wade through, an endless, frustrating jungle that makes one want to bang one's head against a wall, screaming 'why, why!!'

Simply put:
Have used this thing for now two years, not as great as I thought it would be when I purchased it. The review would have been more favorable earlier, but you got to consider in terms of today's technology, would people want to get this laptop, so that is what I based my review on.

Pros:
-----

-decent speakers for notebook speakers
-decent sound quality on headphones
-fast enough processor
-great feel on keyboard & touchpad
-external monitor support
-PC card expansion slot
-screen is bright and sharp
-decent budget laptop I guess...
-fairly rugged and durable, reliable

Cons:
-----

-glossy screen glare annoying in bright places
-uneven backlighting becomes annoyingly obvious when watching DVD movies in a dark place
-wireless card in the laptop is intermittent, not much of a problem when just surfing the web, but a major issue when using streaming video/audio content, or playing online games, which both require a constant connection
-short battery life even on minimal use
-slow & limited RAM really drasticaly affects performance, lots of page file usage (over 500MB at times!!!) makes things slow when loading or switching applications. So this laptop sucks for multitasking.
-P4 processor does not support hyperthreading
-40gb on the hard drive is a limiting factor nowadays
-would like to see more usb ports, and a stereo line-in port
-slow and featureless video card, so fairly useless for gaming
-included software is almost worthless in my opinion as there is a lot of way better software out there that can even be free, and the recovery thing is frustrating too

and last but not least:

-SONY'S CUSTOMER SUPPORT ABSOLUTELY SUCKS!!! I will not explain the issues I had with their support, since it would take forever, it's a very long and frustrating story.

Conclusion:
-----------
Would not buy a sony laptop again. I'm into custom-building now, and trust me, custom-building ain't that hard to do, and you end up with a way better laptop for your money's worth. Give custom-building (barebones) a try!

This is a great notebook to work with. Power enough to run my games (BF1942, Splinter Cell, Call of Duty, etc). Of course you'll have to tweak but they're manageable.
I did my research before buying the laptop and quickly realized that Tech Support was lacking. As an IT Professional, I don't see myself calling on them a lot, but it did slightly discourage me from purchasing this product.
I was also disappointed with the sparse documentation that comes with your laptop. You get a "Quick Start" guide and your User Manual is stored in your hard drive. Of course you have the option of printing it out so you can have it handy, but who really wants to go through that trouble when it should have been included.
Another disappointment was the lack of any type of recovery software. Of course, you can go online and create your personal recovery disks as Sony recommends but what if your HD craps out before you get a chance to get them online? I guess your SOL.

And finally, a word for the gentleman who says using the upgrade version of WinXP Pro yeilds the same result as a clean HD and a fresh WinXP Pro intall.

NO!

Overall, a GREAT VALUE FOR THE PRICE, if you can live with the sparse documentation and the need to 'download' your recovery CDs.

I have been having intermittent wifi problems. Meaning the connection drops and does not reacquire. This is a known problem with the LAN-Express AS 802.11g component that is used (check a google search for sony laptop intermittent wireless failure) in the machinebut Sony will not acknowledge that there is a problem. They invite me to send in my laptop for a month but I can't do without it for a month. I'm stuck.

I bought Sony Vaio PCG-K13 a few weeks ago. I have been impressed and throughly satisfied for the following reasons:

1) It has a fast processor, P4 2.8 GHz which completely satisfies serious computational needs.
2) Attractive display. The screen has a coating which seems to enchance the color quality thus the webpages look rich. Also, when the screen is viewed from an angle and not right from front, it does not turn negative unlike most of LCD displays.
3) Comes with a 512 MB RAM. This makes the applications fast to open and run.
4) For a Sony quality, a price tag of $1400 is worth it.
5) Has an inbuilt LAN wireless card for wireless connectivity.
6) Sturdy body, can sustain some banging and rough handling.
7) Comes with a Sony memory stick slot. So if you are using a Sony PDA or a digital camera, it's very handy.
8) Comes with many Sony registered softwares and a partitioned hard drive.
9) Has a cool feature, "Sony recovery wizard". If something goes wrong, data can be backed up and the computer can be set to "factory setting".

And.....what's not good...

1) The AC adapter is ENORMOUS!! It's more like a BRICK than something sleek. But a small one can be bought at a Sony store.
2) 7.5 lbs is too heavy to carry especially at the airport.
3) Battery typically lasts only 2Hrs (under normal use) and takes quite a long time to charge.

So, at the end, the pros dominate the cons. It's worth it, IT'S A SONY!!

Some of these reviewers need to educate themselves before taking action.

The reviewer who cleaned their system before upgrading to Windows XP professional: why not use the upgrade version of XP professional instead? The result is the same and costs less.

As far as the drivers for the system, all the orignal drivers are readily available for download on Sony's support website.

Look and learn!!!

I donot like this Note book.

1)It is too slow. It takes atleast 5 mins to open the hotmail page while using a 11Mbps wireless Lan.
2)The system hangs too often. It takes too long to open any application.
3)The customer service is poor. The customer service representatives do not respond to your requests.