Sony VAIO VPC-W121AX/W 10.1-Inch White Netbook - Up to 7 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter)

by Sony

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 10.5 x 1.3 inches ; 2.6 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B002PHM0TA
• Item model number: VPC-W121AX/W
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,089 in Computers & Accessories (See Top 100 in Computers & Accessories)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 18, 2009

Product Description

Color: White

Sony VAIO VPC-W121AX/W Notebook Intel Atom Processor N280 (1.66GHz) Microsoft Windows 7 Starter 32-bit 250 GB HDD 1 GB of RAM

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

85 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Buzz Kill!, October 29, 2009

By 

Pamela Van Beekum "PVB" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sony VAIO VPC-W121AX/P 10.1-Inch Pink Netbook - Up to 7 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter) (Personal Computers)

Sony has made a big mistake in how they have represented this net book or mini Vaio. Sony evidently can't produce a netbook style computer with competitive battery life and ship it with the monster high capacity battery that is competitive and lasts 7 hours but ruins the sleek look of the computer. Even on Sony's Web site as well as Amazon's they present this laptop in every photo with a sleek profile and a small battery that they claim lasts 7 hours.

Big untruth. Or shall we cut to the chase and say that it is a lie and deceptive. The computer arrives with the large capacity battery which is the only one that can last 7 hours and the reason it is not pictured is because this darling mini vaio looks like it has a tumor growing from it. The profile is NOTHING like pictured in all the images on both the Sony and Amazon's site.

I do love the computer itself - it is amazing and unlike some netbooks it will run more than just surfing programs and has an awesome 250gb.

This put me in a conundrum as I love the pc but hate the battery and certainly didn't want to buy another $89 battery with only 2.5 hours capacity.

Amazon in all their greatness made this good for me and are sending me the real standard battery at no cost while allowing me to keep the tumor battery for the times I need the longer battery life. It doesn't make me real happy to only have a 2.5 battery life but for those times I want the sleekness it will be perfect.

Without Amazon and their high integrity, I would have sent this back and been pretty disappointed at my time being wasted.

Thank you Amazon. And Sony - this is really a regrettable sales practice - and actually not legal.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quality Netbook, January 5, 2010

By 

Mark "Diamondmind" (Indiana) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sony VAIO VPC-W121AX/W 10.1-Inch White Netbook - Up to 7 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter) (Personal Computers)

I am very satisfied with my W Series netbook. I was aware of the criticisms posted by some other reviewers. The netbook works fine for me. The profile photo on Amazon clearly shows the battery unlike some other sites. It doesn't bother me at all. It tilts the netbook at a nice angle, and it keeps the netbook cooler. The fan is not that loud. The display is great! The high resolution images are superb. If you are far-sighted, you might want something else. I like the clarity of the images. The right shift key is small, but I have adjusted. The keyboard feels nice and I can type fairly rapidly. I bought it for reading email, surfing the web, and working on basic Office documents. It does all of these things well. There are cheaper products, but I like the Sony quality and reliability. I recommend this netbook.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Superficially attractive design, but beware of functional issues, December 13, 2009

By 

Robert L. Estes (Nashville, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sony VAIO VPC-W121AX/W 10.1-Inch White Netbook - Up to 7 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter) (Personal Computers)

I have been using one of these (brown finish) for about 6 weeks, and I must say that it is a mixed-bag, ultimately disappointing for the premium price level. The physical appearance is quite nice, consistent with other VAIO designs, and the screen resolution is excellent. The extended-life battery helps to tilt the keyboard when sitting on a desk, so the bulge doesn't bother me; but the small chicklet keys and layout will bother many potential users, particularly since there are plenty of netbooks with side-to-side keyboards and larger, easier to stroke keys. The small "shift" key is particularly annoying - I frequently hit the adjacent "up" key, positioning text where I don't want it to be. The memory-stick slot can be dedicated to ReadyBoost use while keeping the SD slot open; but there are only 2 USB connectors - many less expensive units have three. Upgrading the memory to 2 GB ($40 extra, advisable for a netbook running Windows 7) is a chore, requiring the keyboard to be removed for access to the slot. I broke a small plastic retainer when doing this, so the right side of the keyboard would not stay flat when re-positioned until I fixed the break with Gorilla Glue - and probably voided the warranty in the process. Another early problem: unless a separate "lock" tab for the battery is engaged, moving the unit or maximally tilting the screen back can move the contacts just enough to shut down the unit, requiring a cold re-boot (and losing any unsaved data). It does perform well once configured with 2 GB of memory and a 2 GB ReadyBoost drive.

If you are a Sony addict like me, this one is a better buy than the originally released W111AX models; but if I had looked at these units more critically, I would probably have purchased one of the less expensive, full-width keyboard models by Toshiba, HP, or other manufacturers.

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