Customer Reviews

Sony VAIO VGN-S260 13.3" Laptop (Intel Pentium M Processor 735 (Centrino), 512 MB RAM, 60 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Drive)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Let me get this out first, this is a great laptop. Its speedy, it runs FOREVER (five hours plus measured) on the extended battery and it is comfortable to type on. Further the nominal 4.2 lbs of weight is very light considering how feature rich (built in DVD drive & 60GB hard drive) this machine can be.

Sony has been hit or miss in the laptop game recently. A spate of quality problems and spinning a generation without WiFi really cramped their style. The laptop is one of their completely revamped line. First the positives...

The 13" wide screen (WXGA resolution of 1280 x 800) is brite and readable in lots of environments. Don't sit directly in bright sun but even a small amount of cover will give good results. Further, battery life doesn't depend on the display running extremely dimly. There are a number of web sites that don't look "right" when in full screen mode, but that will change. Other things like Acrobat reader that like to put things on the side of the documents (contents, helpful links) actually look better because decent margins are maintained. Email is especially nice as folders on the left, full size email message on the right works very nicely. Its also a great "wide screen" DVD player on the airplane, although the sound system is somewhat 'tinny' (not uncommon on laptops).

The extra screen width also means that the keyboard can be more "normal" sized than your typical ultralight machine. The center of the 'a' key to the center of the "enter" double wide key is 8.75 on my full size Microsoft keyboard and 8.375 on the VAIO. I had no trouble at all touch typing on the VAIO after using my full size keyboard. The ctrl key is in the right place too, as is backspace and delete. The compromises came on the keypad keys (more on that in a minute). Arrow keys are an inverted T just below the right shift.

Battery life is great, with the regular battery getting a solid 3 - 3.5 and the extended battery getting 5.5 - 6. Using the extended battery does NOT require removing the DVD/CD-RW drive. All very good. Battery life is enhanced by using the built in on/off switch for the WiFi chip.

The software bundle is unremarkable, evaluation versions of Office and apparently a bundled version of Works. My system came with WinXP/SP2 already installed. It also comes with Norton Internet Security suite which is a pain to remove (corporate standard was Macafee). There is a memory stick slot, and the full sized RJ45 connection for wired networks. The docking station adds a parallel port. (no serial port though).

Now the things that can be improved...

First the extended battery is $299 list. That's a huge chunk of change for a battery. I look forward to the third party batteries being available here. The second was the keypad keys. Most of the "other" keypad keys (Home, End, Insert, Delete, etc) are bound as 'function' modified variations. So to press 'Home' you need to hit Fn-left arrow. Since FN is a small key between CTRL and the windows key you can easily miss it. That makes many otherwise quick moves, less quick. The worst offenders are that PgUp and PgDn are tied to Fn-up arrow, and Fn-down arrow. That makes flipping through documents single handedly while sipping coffee VERY tough. (You can still use a scroll mouse but its a pain). Personally I would have liked them to extend the keyboard south into the wrist area to accomodate that but they didn't. The external VGA (video) connector comes out of the left side (sort of like the Thinkpad X series) and that can be difficult if you're putting your mouse over there. No composite video out either so you can't use this as a DVD player in your hotel room.

Finally there is performance. The VAIO turns is a strong performance here with the 1.7G Pentium-M and 512MB of RAM. Even on batteries when the CPU has lowered its speed to conserve energy its peppy enough to watch DVDs or play games with respectable performance. This is unlike the Sharp MM20 which sacrifices speed for long battery life, or the X505 which costs two arms and two legs.

If Sony can address the keyboard issues this would be the perfect laptop for all my mobile needs.

After a 2 week whirlwind trip to Europe and back I have to say that I am over-the-moon with the Sony VAIO VGN-S260.

Firstly, this is the lightest laptop I have ever owned (by far) and it has been tremendous. I trecked miles and miles with the notebook in my backpack, and really didn't notice it. It was great to give my feet a break at a coffee shop and jump online with the WiFi which is everywhere now.

Secondly, the battery life is also superb. I just have the standard battery and it lasted as long as I needed it to on the long plane trips. It easily lasts 4+ hours without even trying to conserve the battery.

Thirdly, the screen is great. I have always had bigger screens on notebooks but I feel the 13" is of such a great quality I do not mind in the slightest.

Finally, the speed is great. I am a fairly demanding computer user and have always opted for the "desktop replacement"-style notebook. Well the 1.7GHz Centrino takes care of this and this laptop is at least as fast as my previous Pentium 2.4GHz laptop. An upgrade to 1GB of RAM should make this all I ever want. For now.

Well done! A superb product. I am never going back to so-called 'desktop replacement' notebooks.

(the only negative is the Pg Up/Pg Dwn keys requiring the function key. I am sure I will learn to get over it though.)

The sony LCD screen is not under the notebook warranty. The screen is extremely fragile. I bought a S260 for 3 weeks and then found LCD screen had a crack. It turned out the damage on LCD is not under warranty and I had to pay $726 to replace the screen. When you purchase the notebook, consider to pay some extra money to buy LCD insurance might be a good idea.

I bought a Sony Vaio VGN-S260 November 2004 at Amazon.com. The laptop was doing fine for a while and I loved the screen. Thing went bad 1.5 months ago when I started having problem booting up. I have to keep power on and off for 20 minutes each time I need to start my computer.

Try google for this problem on the web and you will find that mine is not an isolated occurence (the amount of posting related to this issue is amazing). Apparently, the same problem has existed in previous series of Vaio.

I have lost confindence in Sony's product quality (AND after-sale service quality)

No more Sony product for me......

Nights after nights for the researches, I finally decided to go with Sony... The first thing that really attracts me was the xbrite screen, SO bright and very natural. It is true that there is no anti-reflective coating on the screen but as far as I have used it, I have no problem. I think problem will be when you use it with very bright light on your back (like sun light) or when you watch movie or play game with dark color tone shows on screen, that the reflection shows up strongly. Otherwise, for normal Windows users like me, it is hard to say reflection is a problem.

It is lighter and thinner than all the laptops I have ever used. I hardly notice heat after hours of usage. Battery life last for about 4 hours (without using CD) - I tried to set the power management but still can't reach 5 hours as spec.

But one thing that bothers me is a plastic cover on the ports. There is a little lock on two sides of each piece of plastic. I feel like this lock will crack sooner or later if you use USB port all the time (well, you can't avoid this if you use mouse). If it really cracks, the cover plastic won't fit in its lock anymore and it will just keep falling off...

I was in LOVE with this computer until last week when my LCD screen had a small 1/4 in crack along the top edge. I called Sony immediately and was given a work order number and told that for a minimum cost of $790.00 they would fix my screen 2 -3 weeks. When I asked what the worst case scenario was (as if it wasn't bad enough) he told me that it could cost up to $1200 to replace the LCD screen.

I have NO IDEA how the LCD screen cracked and now it is 4 inches long and the ink has bled throughout the left side of the screen. If a computer that costs this much is SO fragile that the screen cracks out of the blue, then I would buy something else. I just got this computer 6 months ago and Sony said that they would not cover it.

There is a good chance that it will be more cost effective for me to buy a Dell than to have Sony fix this problem. By the way, the Sony rep said that these screens are fragile and they crack all the time. I don't know if that is true, but I know that I am frustrated with this piece of **ap computer right now and I don't want anyone else to go through this.

Have had this laptop for just a week, and the machine is more than I could have hoped for. It is light, bright and clean! At just over 4 lbs its light, and 1 lb of that is the battery.

Speaking of the battery, it is a wonder. The machine and I went on a 3 hour plane trip, and the battery lasted the entire trip with power to spare.

With the built-in WiFi, I am able to easily to connect to any, and I mean any, open connection. With a simple slide of a switch on the front, its off. Perfect for airplane travel.

Its a winner!

I LOVED my Vaio until 7 months after I purchased it I shut my laptop one evening like I normally do and when I opened it the next morning it had a small crack at the top of the LCD screen. It was surrounded by blue and bright purple lines going down my screen that have only gotten longer and larger. I took back and was told not only is this common (after doing more research I found many others with the same problem) that it was my fault, or as he put it "customer abuse". Closing my laptop is abuse?? I spoke with Sony and the technician even said they have gotten other calls about this.
They refused to give me a corporate number where I could speak with someone just an address where I could write. They also told me that it would cost me $777.00 to fix, but why fix it if it is going to happen again? One would assume Sony would stand behind their product especially if this is common.

Well I've had this laptop for 3 years. Overall, the fan is loud and it is poorly constructed. Luckily I had purchased a 4 year accidental protection plan that shortly ended in 3 years because of the cost to replace the screen. 2 screen repairs and a couple bad keyboard keys meant that my warranty was fulfilled and buying a 4 year warranty was a stupid idea. It seems any repair whether by defect(3 out of 4) or accidental(1 out of 4) counted towards your accidental warranty work. Because of those 3 manu. defects in workmanship this ended my warranty early which just doesn't sit right with me. Now I have a bad screen that supposedly has a crack that I do not see that and is not covered and they want $762 to fix it. Do not buy this laptop or you will get burned, I guarantee it.

This very expensive less than 2-year old laptop quit powering on after a spell of "automatic-shut offs". I had my IT people look at it just before it quit working altogether. They thought it was running hot. Turns out Sony had a recall for S-series if your computer was still under warranty. I don't trust anything sony anymore. Customer service for such a widespread issue was horrible. It is amazing that "We the People" still purchase junk of this nature. I would strongly suggest any other computer.