Customer Reviews

Sony VAIO VGN-FS830/W 15.4" Laptop (Intel Pentium M Processor 740, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD+R Dbl Layer/DVD+/-RW Drive)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My gf brought this laptop when it just came out and paid a hefty price. after several month of use here is my review:

goods:

1. beautiful, realistic, and very clear screen. i own a HP laptop and i have to admit that sony's screen is clearer, more realistic, and easier on the eyes. the light is "natural" and it's simple a wonderful LCD screen.

2. design. the color combination is very pleasing and the silver VAIO logo is modern and elegant. my HP is the typical all black laptop; it's ugly compare to sony.

bads.....

1. HORRIBLE battery life.... this is a 4 cell battary.. which means the laptop needs to be recharged every 2 hours or so. THIS IS SIMPLY UNACCEPTABLE. my HP's battery can last over 6 hours (it's a 6 cell) with this price level, sony should throw in a 6 cell battery. simply put, you can't even finish a movie on airplain with this laptop.

2. replacement battery is very very expensive. it runs around 150 bux.

3. the laptops runs hot. my HP laptop, after using it for a whole day is only warm. on the other hand the sony laptop is burning after about 2 hours of use. i can't even put it on my laps without using a thick book to insolate the heat after about a hour of use.

4. very limited transfer, communication ability. the sony laptop has no infared port, no SD, SC, CM or other flash memory card slots. it only accept MS cards. i found the lack of infared port troubling since i am so used to "beam" files at work. with sony, it's a no no.

5. no S-video output... i simply HATE this. with all my other computers, they all have S-video output. and i love to play some music files i downloaded from internet on tv. but i can't do it on sony coz it doesn't have a S-video port.

6. flaky wireless connection. everytime the computer goes to standby, i will have a hard time turn back the wireless connection back on. this never happened on my HP and my old dell. everything just connected automatically.

bottom line.... it's a pretty laptop to look at.. but i believe the bads out weigh the goods.

The good :
0) very beaufiful, cool screen. Nice ergonomics and cool white keyboard. Rugged, reliable and strong.
The bad :
1) No multimedia keys. Though it initially looks smart, it depends on service exes, they work slow.Worse is they make the system slow and occupy RAM a lot.

2) Heavy. The weight shown excludes battery. The basic battery is more than a pound and would last hardly an hour. Sony will rip you off $150 for a better battery.

3) Poor softwares installed and support. They make system run even slower and if you install better system by yourself, you are screwed. Device drivers, brightness, volume, 802 wirelss, network interfaces all are gone. You must download one by one (but without net connection as it did not work for me).

4) The system won't allow you to create recovery disk. You have to buy from sony.

5) wireless will drop connection every 30 minutes except for very few routers.

6) Slow despite 1 GB ram installed. All programs run slow. DVD writer copied a movie DVD for 5 (278 minutes) hours.

7) No SD/MMC card slot. You are encouraged to buy only sony products with strange memory stick.

this was requested as a graduation gift by my little brother who just finished college thank GOD! He wanted something that closely resembled a Mac but not a Mac! He loved this light weight notebook with all the trimmings. It was a fantastic bargain for the features it offers.

The screen size is nice and is perfect for carrying around. Even works internationally for those voltage differences. Looks incredibly prestigious and slick!

Although it's a nice computer after one month the ? key fell off and won't go back on. Not sure who to call to have this fixed.