Customer Reviews

Sony VAIO VGN-C140G/B 13.3" Laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5500, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, DVD+/-R Dbl Layer Drive)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've had this laptop for 1 week and am very pleased. It weights just 5 pounds (which it very important for me). Key pros: large hard drive (120GB), good performance (Core 2 Duo at 1.66GHz), Full Keyboard (dedicated page up/down, Home/End keys), excellent screen (for watching movies), clean look (black with copper trim). One con: a built in mic would be nice for Skype calls. Works well with a plug in mic but one more item to schlep. As to battery life, my key test is weather I can view a full length movie on a battery charge. I tend to run these from a thumb drive and I ran a 2 hour, 18 minute movie this way with 8% battery life remaining (wireless off). On a flight I wouldn't watch anything longer.

I share other readers' comments that it comes with way too much "buy this, buy that" stuff preloaded with shortcuts on the desktop. But that's a minor annoyance. It's not hard to get rid of that stuff, though it took me a few minutes to check out what was useful and what was just crap. I can also quibble about battery life. I don't get anything like what's advertized. I'd also like a screen that's a little bit less reflective. But those things being said, I love it. It's easy. It works beautifully for everything I want to do. Controls are clear, intuitive, and accessible. (I borrowed a friend's laptop a couple of months ago, and the controls were dozens of tiny buttons, poorly marked and not particularly intuitive. This is just the opposite.) The built in speakers are fine, but you get knock-your-socks-off sound through headphones, It lets you choose from available wireless connections very easily. All in all, I haven't wanted to do anything at all on this machine that I've found difficult. Very intuitive. And also, even though I don't give a rat's behind about style over performance, I actually do like the style. Black coffee, copper and silver. It's a nice combo.

I've had this notebook for a few weeks now and I'm SOOOOOOOOO satisfied with it. It's obviously not meant for gaming, but it works great as far as multimedia goes with EXTRAORDINARY sound quality from a laptop and wow. The only thing more I could ask for is longer battery life. Although... I've managed to squeeze out about 4 1/2 hours with the right settings while using wireless networking, some light web browsing, and chatting using Trillian Pro. It's definitely worth the money. I would've paid more for it if I had to. It's more than worth it.

Brian

I bought this laptop for my technically challenged better half and consider the purchase a success. The pro's are that my wife can use it without much of my intervention and that makes both of us happy. The cons are the preloaded Nortons anti-virus software, seems to annoy her and we'll probably unload it in due course.

The best part is the small form factor and great display. The juries out on the battery life. I highly recommend this laptop for the technically challenged! Enjoy!!!

When working, this is a sweet little laptop for the money. Mine will reboot itself on startup repeatedly until it warms up. 4, 5, 6 reboots before it will load windows. Sony support sent the laptop back unfixed. On hold now for 45min. Guess i'm the only one with a lemon though. Fast enough, small, cheap and nice looking. I agree, it has waaaaaay to much crap software. Linux works well, all hardware recognized.

Its really a great machine with all great features of "Vaio". i haven't felt any problem in it and now i cant wotk on any other notebook:)

I have been using the C140G for a few weeks now.

The biggest pain out of the box was all the additional
trialware and other Sony proprietary programs.

The laptop is running much better after a clean up and install of common
open source stuff- (firefox, thunderbird, vlc, audacity, etc)

A good bonus was that I had an old extra capacity battery
from an old Vaio that was compatible with the C140G.

The laptop does not come with Gigabit Ethernet (1000mps)-
which was surprising considering it is positioned as a
multimedia laptop.

Gigabit Ethernet *is* available on the docking station- but
that will set you back another $200.00

For the CPU- it is a great 64 bit core 2 CPU (I have a full 64 bit
linux distro running on another partition) - BUT I wish I would
have checked the processor version more closely.

The 5500 Core 2 CPU does not support virtualization (VT)- so I can't run
some of my 64 bit VMWARE virtual machines while booted in XP.

The 5600 Core 2 and the 7XXX series do support the VT feature so
I miss this feature.

Overall - the laptop has a nice form factor and good value for the money.

I have had my sony vgn c140g for almost 5 years now. I have taken decent care of it, reformatted its drive and it has never crashed on me. I have dropped it, jostled it, carried it everywhere and it has never let me down. Only now is it starting to show its age. I don't have enough good things to say about the sony vaio computers because of this little beauty.

I purchased this laptop in FEB 2007 because I thought my first Vaio was awesome. It died one week later just shy of being two years old. Now here I am nearly two years later and this model has stopped working as well. Considering the price one would expect it to last longer than two years or at least make it to the two year mark. There is a lawsuit against sony involving their laptops. Buyers be wary, and if you do buy make sure you buy the extended warranty with it as well. Taken Twice, Sony Loses customer!

I have had this laptop for one year and 3 months, and the battery is now dead after recommended usage. With such an expensive Sony battery, and a lot of problems with other brand batteries, it may be worthwhile in obtaining an extended warranty to cover a replacement battery.