Customer Reviews

Sony VAIO VGN-S360 13.3" Laptop (Intel Pentium M Processor 735, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Drive)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I recently bought this notebook 1 month prior and absolutely love it. There are no dead pixels and the screen is great for movies. So far I haven't been bothered by any glare from the screen. The notebook is very light and portable. The screen can seem a little small especially compared with a nonwide screen 14 or 15 inch laptop but it is very sharp and you get used to it. There are no other notebooks in its weight and size class with the ATI 9700 video card which will let you play most of the recent games. Even if you don't play games, subcompact notebooks that use the old Intel integrated graphics won't be able to use the future version of windows as it will require direct x support. The new Intel 900 graphics card does but is not as fast as the ATI 9700. Battery life is great depending on the settings. Routing surfing will give you around 4-5 hours depending on the screen, volume, wifi, and processor settings. The other 15inch screen thin and light notebooks feel heavy afterwhile especially with all the accessories. Some people have had fan noise issues but I don't notice it, it may be per system.

Cons- All the software is preinstalled which is useless. There is no windows OS cd, you can make a set of windows recovery cds from a hidden partition on the harddrive which will reinstall the system to its factory state. There is no S-video out. Only 2 USB ports. The harddrive is not an easy upgrade but some people may notice a difference going from a 4200rpm to a 7200 rpm drive but I didn't notice much. Also to use Page up and down you need to use the FN key which is a little annoying for fast scrolling. It's possible to upgrade the CPU and harddrive but I'm not sure how the heat will affect the system in this small form factor. Also this baby uses the sony memory slot which very few people use. An SD slot would be more useful. You can see dust accumulate on the screen easily. sony support is also poorly rated though I haven't used it. It also uses micro dimms which are expensive. 512 mbs will run you around 120 dollars.

If you get this system-These are some things you must do and have.

1-Make a recovery set of CDs and buy windows xp to do a clean install which you cant with the recovery cds. Windows home is fine unless you are going to use this for a university or corporate network. All the drivers can be installed with the recovery cd without installing all the other crappy applications that was included.

2-Downloading tune xp to optimize windows. Also check out black viper's web site(you can google it) to disable certain windows xp services that slow down memory. Delete unused fonts to make windows load faster.

3-Get an optical mouse. The two best are the microsoft notebook optical mouse and the Logitech V500 Cordless Notebook Mouse USB

4-The belkin LCD cleaning kit which contains a 2 sided brush, 1 for dust and the other for applying the isopropyl alcohol solution to clean the screen.

5-At least 1 gig of memory.

6-Open office which is a freeware office utility sweet which is smaller then ms office and has most of the essential features. Version 2 is still in beta but is about to be released which has improved functions. Only con is powerpoint is not as beefier as microsofts.

7-DVD shrink, which lets you store dvds on the harddrive to save battery

8-antivirus

9-adaware, spybot, spywareblaster, post it notes lite

With the 250 rebate, this baby is worth it. Fujitsu is another alternative with a great screen as well but their small notebooks don't have the good video card. You probably don't need this much power if you are just going to do internet, word processing, or powerpoint but dont skimp on screen quality as you will regret it.

I read the comment about the fan noise this computer has, but I didn't care and bought this computer anyway. I just got this laptop today and the first thing I noticed is how ridiculously loud the fan is. I have a Dell laptop, but I can't hear the fan on my Dell's even when I press my ear against it. I called Sony's Service Center, they told me that alot of customers have called them complaining about the fan problem and a investigation is underway, but I am so pissed off right now because this product has a blatantly defective fan and Sony has failed to pull it out of the market.
Honestly, the fan makes so MUCH noise that this computer is not even worth buying.

I just bought this laptop in june. In just five days after loading software and briefly using it the screen went bad. So I called sony and explained the problem and the man at sony said it is a hardware problem and he would send a box to return it in for repair.I returned it in his box and waited. After not hearing anything I called sony to find out the status. He said the LCD inside the computer was broken and then he said it would cost me $783.00 to have it fixed. I explained to him about how careful I had handled it and it was either a manufacture flaw or either Best Buy and poor handling by them.I explained to him that after paying $2,400 with extended warranty I was extra careful.He kept on pointing the finger at me.
So the bottom line is I have to pay $783.00 for poor workmanship by sony. I will never buy anything with a higher price tag from sony or Best Buy again as they do not value customers and take care of them.

Pro: Fabulous screen, great form factor

Con: Unbelievably annoying fan, unreliable, mediocre build quality

(note: I have the VGN-S260P - same notebook w/smaller HD)

Sony is the closest thing the Windows world has to Apple level product design. Unfortunately they always seem to screw it up with a few major flaws. This is the second slim VAIO notebook I have purchased (1st was a Z505) and it certainly will be the last.

The screen is truly awesome, brilliant and high contrast (although skin tones are not very natural for digital photo editing). As a side note, small bright letterbox format screens are surprisingly great for those of us with post 40 year old eyes that need bifocals - you get a lot of real estate yet you don't have to tilt your head back so far to read it. The overall size and weight are great and I find the keyboard and touchpad to be excellent - although I really wish it had an IBM style pointing device.

Unfortunately the quality leaves a lot to be desired. The plastic surrounding the keyboard bows up around the power button. I would have returned it for that but every one I looked at had the same problem and one look at the design makes it obvious that warping will occur. Mine also has a bad pixel (red one always on). Worse is the fact that after only a few uses I was on a business trip and needed to get some work done in the hotel - just as I was plugging a USB cable in it clicked off and went completely, totally dead. Sony service told me that they have had a lot of problems with motherboards dying on these. They also told me they had to wipe my disk clean losing all my data - why a dead motherboard requires that is beyond me. To add insult to injury, despite packing it very carefully and inserting a note to please be careful, it returned with a big scratch on the lid.

All of that would be forgivable if it wasn't for the most unbelievably annoying fan I have ever experienced. If it is on AC power there is NOTHING you can do to make the fan shut up (short of a bat). Even with the most aggressive power saving settings the fan will run - even when the machine is sitting doing nothing with the screen off! And it is not just that it runs - it is variable speed and yet it cycles on and off at ~10 second intervals, you can't imagine how annoying that is, it would be better if it just would pick a middling speed and stay on. But that is not all, the fan noise is not just the air moving, it is obviously a very cheap motor because the noise is predominantly motor/bearing noise of a character that after a few minutes drives you nuts and makes you want to go out and do something very antisocial. I have a new mini tower desktop (dual core Pentium) that sits 2 feet from me yet I can hear this laptop over it even though it is on a docking station at least 6 feet away.

The only redeeming aspect is the fact that if you set it to max power saving mode and run it on the battery the fan will actually shut off - as long as you don't do anything more than simple word processing. Unfortunately the performance goes down dramatically but at least you get pretty good battery life.

So if you're going to buy one of these get the big battery and a set of earplugs.

I bought this laptop a little over 2 years ago. One has to be skeptical in finding too much value in customer comments who have only owned this or other computers for just a few months. I was initially drawn to the crisp picture, sleek design, size/weight and power w/ this small laptop. It started shutting down after about 8 months, slowing down and just running very poorly. Sony took back the laptop and replaced the motherboard for free as it was under warranty. This happened again about a year later.
After discussions with my computer repairman I learned that the S model regularly has this problem, as it's a poor design. Other techy friends have confirmed this.
After owning this a little over 2 years, I have a laptop that often crashes, won't boot up properly, runs slowly and is just junk for the $1700 I spent on it.. I STRONGLY ADVISE NOT BUYING THIS COMPUTER. I explained my findings to Sony and pleaded for a replacement w/ another model. They alluded to knowing about problems with the S model, but wouldn't make the swap. I'm buying a mac power book shortly. Enough is enough.

I needed a light and reliable notebook for travel and research and this has filled the bill admirably. It withstood plenty of knocking around, and did the tasks I required (word processing, accessing net with ethernet and wireless connections, downloading and organizing digital photos)quickly and effectively. Did have to initially set it up as described in first review. Don't know why people are complaining about the fan noise, I worked in a quiet library and it was never a problem.

I'm a college student and I've been using this laptop since the beginning of this semster and its just great. Its fast. The keyboard size is perfect. The WiFi wireless is a great plus and gets connection pretty much everywhere. The screen is really clear and I haven't had problems with glare. Plus, I always get comments from friends about how pretty the laptop is. Its a great laptop.

I just read other's reviews about the fan and I have to say I had the same problem... until I uninstalled the Sony energy saving software. Since I started to use Windows XP default energy manager fan works very little and only when I'm runing high demanding programs. So I really recomend you to do the same.
As I said, I bought a Win XP Pro and installed it over the clean, formatted HDD. After that I installed the drivers what I could find in the net (many forums deal with that topic, try google), and used Windows defaults for the rest... and the result is much better than the crappy Sony software!!!

I recently bought this notebook and its lived up to all my expectations. One of the key factors in a sony note book is for sure its display. The 13 " XBRITE display is class apart and allows you to enjoy even movies,websites with flash or makes even a plain vanilla word/excel document look better compared to other displays.

The notebook is also really light and its "THE" choice for road warriors. The battery too is really powerful and allows you to compute for say >3 hours without a problem.

This notebook lacks a DVD writer which really depends on if you are looking for it. Atleast in my case its rare that I would need to burn DVD`s. Also, Notebook is not great for installed software for e.g it comes with XP Home and Trial versions of Office etc. The key thing these do not affect your working in a very big way.

If you are looking for a great notebook then Vaio is defintely the one!

For the past month I had been deciding between the IBM T43, Fujitsu P7010 and the Sony S460. After finally seeing in store models of all three I had ruled out the IBM T43 since it was bigger than what I need (I already have a dedicated alienware desktop for large tasks) and the P7010's screen hinges had worn out and seemed like they were ready to break after all the use it had been through at the store. I almost went for the s460 until I felt how hot it was on the right side. This wasnt just a mild warmness, it was unusually hot and uncomfortable to touch for too long. There was an s360 right next to it and I looked felt it to compare and I was surprised that it was only slightly warm. Later I checked reviews and user comments about the s460 since the one at the store could have been defective, but no it seems to be a problem in the 460 and many people are returning them. I was now dead set on a s360 which recieved great reviews all around, but sadly it is a disconitnued model so it is hard to locate and there are many big rebates like there were in may. Compusa had it and I basically paid fully price after the tax, but this notebook was well worth it!!!! It doesn't get hot and the battery life is long. The screen is super crisp, which is why it stood out at the store. For most people the ATI 9700 is more than they'll ever need and it would have been nice to have a dvd-rw like the 460 but as I said before I have a dedicated desktop that does all of that.

Addressing any complaints, the partition with the recovery files is easily removed and is a given step after recieving the notebook and making the recovery disks. If you think this is is difficult, troublesome, or have no idea how to do it, this compuer is too much for you, sorry you should go buy a dell. The fan is a little noisy, but then again all the other notebooks my friends have are even louder! Its only the pitch that's a little annoying but something that people would get used to. This model doesnt have the heat problems of the s460 so that's a plus. The bundled software is horrible but then again that's not why we buy notebooks.

I'd recommend anyone to look for a s360 while they're still around, they're just that good. Stay away from the s460 and wait for the next model if you don't want the 360 or lower, Compusa just threw in a $150 rebate and sony added $100 more in rebates to try to get rid of these....THERE'RE LESS EXPENSIVE THAN THE LOWER S SERIES STILL AROUND NOW!!!! There's a reason they're trying to get rid of them....the 460 is flawed.