Sony VAIO VGN-S460P/B 13.3" Laptop (Intel Pentium M Processor 740, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD+R Dbl Layer/DVD+/-RW Drive)

by Sony

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 12.3 x 8.8 x 1.4 inches ; 4.3 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 7.6 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00092DVT6
• Item model number: VGN-S460P/B
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 15, 2005

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The VAIO S Notebook is highly-mobile with a slim, lightweight design, integrated wireless LAN3, cutting-edge notebook technologies, and a durable magnesium casing. The impressive 13.3" widescreen display with Sony's original XBRITE LCD technology delivers brilliant colors, sharp contrasts and crisp images, giving new life to your movies and digital photos. The Smart Display Sensor enables worry-free set-up of compatible displays and projectors, starting your presentations off with an effortless air of professionalism. And, with the advanced DVD+R Double Layer/DVD±RW drive4 and a suite of Sony's original multimedia software, you have the tools you need for work and entertainment on-the-go.

Features

• Remarkably slim and lightweight tool for the mobile user: The VAIO S Series Notebook PC employs cutting-edge notebook technologies and a highly mobile design. It offers integrated Wireless LAN3, an exceptional 13.3" widescreen Display with XBRITE LCD technology, and a generous keyboard in a 4.3 lb. Form Factor. The VAIO S Notebook is the portrait of sleek, contemporary style.
• Exceptional Display technologies: The VAIO S Notebook features a 13.3" widescreen Display with Sony's original XBRITE LCD technology for higher Brightness levels than standard displays. The result: deeper blacks, brighter whites, true-to-life color and razor-sharp detail. Smart Display Sensor makes connecting to a compatible external projector or Display easy and worry-free. It automatically senses and selects the appropriate input for your external device and adjusts optimized Resolution.
• Utilize cutting-edge notebook technologies.: The VAIO S Notebook has a 5400 rpm Serial ATA hard drive, advanced DDR2 memory, 533MHz Front Side Bus, Intel Pentium M processor and 915 chipset work together to provide impressive Application performance and processor speed. The nVIDIA GeForce Go 6200 graphics chip with Turbo Cache technology delivers turbo-charged graphics performance, excptional DVD viewing and optimized use of the latest multimedia applications.
• Enjoy mobile multimedia entertainment: The VAIO S Notebook allows you to create dynamic presentations, view movies with stunning clarity and create and manage your multimedia files with ease. With DVD+R Double Layer/ DVD±RW4 drive and Click to DVD software you can easily create high-quality, customized DVDs. Manage your music files and make audio CDs using SonicStage software. And PictureGear Studio software simplifies Digital photo management and sharing.

Product Description

Includes: AC adapter, lithium-ion battery, Microsoft Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 2, WinDVD, Intuit Quicken 2005 New User Edition, Works 8.0, Office 2003 Student/Teacher (60-day trial), Sonic Record Now! 7, Norton Internet Security (90-day subscription), & more. Sony VGN-S460P/B VAIO(R) S Series Notebook PC - Featuring cutting-edge technology, this notebook provides a powerful mobile computing solution. It features the latest in RAM technology, with 512MB of PC3200 DDR2 SDRAM. It has a Double Layer DVD writer, which lets you backup gigabytes of data, burn your very own DVD movies, & much more! The NVIDIA GeForce Go 6200 is also included for superior graphics, and support for some of the latest video games. 13.3 WXGA LCD with XBRITE(TM) Technology Native Resolution - 1280x800 Built-in 802.11b/g Wi-Fi Wireless Networking 80GB 5400RPM SATA HDD NVIDIA GeForce Go 6200 graphics with TurboCache and up to 128MB of memory (32MB dedicated + 96MB taken from system memory) Double Layer DVD Writer - (write speeds) up to 2.4x Double Layer DVD+R, 4x DVD+R, 2.4x DVD+RW, 4x DVD-R, 2x DVD-RW, 24x CD-R, & 10x CD-RW Double Layer DVD Writer - (read speeds) up to 8x DVD-ROM & 24x CD-ROM Integrated 56k Fax Modem Memory Stick Media Slot - supports optional Memory Stick(R) & Memory Stick(R) PRO PCMCIA PC Card Slot - Type I/II with CardBus support Ports - 10/100 Ethernet, 1 4-pin FireWire, 2 USB 2.0, VGA Out, Microphone, & Headphone

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great, but a few problems, May 27, 2006

By 

Patrick Lu "plu" (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sony VAIO VGN-S460P/B 13.3" Laptop (Intel Pentium M Processor 740, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD+R Dbl Layer/DVD+/-RW Drive) (Personal Computers)

I have used this laptop for 6 months, it has great performance definitly, i can play many high end games on this laptop and they look GREAT on the bright vibrant screen.

There is one problem though, the motherboard on these are very faulty, it seems at random my system will be dead. The mouse is dead, the screen is on but, you know the system isnt working.

It seems to do this randomly.. somes times a week without it, or maybe 3 in a day, i also encounter the blue screen of death a lot...(the microsoft crash) which SHOULD be very rare on an XP machine.

the keyboard layout is nice, when you get it it takes alittle time to get used to, but i type just as fast on this as a normal keyboard.

there are 2 usb ports, they are on the right side of the laptop so it makes using a mouse very akward.

This laptop is SO powerful and small, so its only natural that it would get hot, and when it gets hot the fan goes on...

overall its average... but for the price i'd go withsomething else

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gets Heated but a slim and elegant laptop, September 3, 2005

By 

Samee Ullah Naeem "samee" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sony VAIO VGN-S460P/B 13.3" Laptop (Intel Pentium M Processor 740, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD+R Dbl Layer/DVD+/-RW Drive) (Personal Computers)

Every thing is great about this laptop except the heating problem. It gets heated from the front right side. I dont know why is it so. My friend has this one and that gets heated too. Otherwise, this is a marvellous state of art and fashionable Laptop.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars don't buy unless you are deaf or work in a very loud place!, September 8, 2005

By 

Gary Stoll "garys" (Campbell, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sony VAIO VGN-S460P/B 13.3" Laptop (Intel Pentium M Processor 740, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD+R Dbl Layer/DVD+/-RW Drive) (Personal Computers)

Pro: Fabulous screen, great form factor

Con: Unbelievably annoying fan, unreliable, mediocre build quality

(note: I have the VGN-S260P - same notebook w/Pentium 735, smaller HD and only DVD-ROM)

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.