Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Hot (literally) Laptop, January 14, 2006
I've had this for about four or five monts. Let's start with the pros...
1) The screen is BEAUTIFUL. Everything is crisp and clear and realllly bright. Pop in a dvd and you'll see what i'm talking about.
2) I heart the graphics card. It can handle all the games I've installed so far. And how often do you find a card this nice in such a lightweight computer?
3) Uber-Light. People say that there's no difference between this and a 5-lb computer, but trust me, there is. It feels like an actual notebook when you carry it around.
The in-betweens...
1) Battery life - Actually I can't complain. I usually get about 2.5 hrs on this, but that is when I'm using full brightness, running Photoshop, listening to music, and doing a virus scan. So, i guess this isnt bad at all for a 4lb. computer.
2)Card Reader - I like it, and it works since I have a Sony camera, but I'd like to see a 6-in-1. But then again, I'm not surprised that SOny has a reader that only supports Sony cards.
3) Hard Drive - 80GB. I want more, but I'm being picky. This is more than enough for most people.
And the cons...
My only complaint is the heat. It's pretty hot, and I'm not exaggerating. After 1/2 hour on my lap, i have to find a desk, because my legs are burning. I mean, this thing is literally hot to the touch. I didn't think it would be such a problem when I first bought it, but now its just annoying me that I have to put a book under it so my legs don't burn.
Overall: Definitely earns the Vaio logo in terms of power and functionality, but the heat it produces would definitely make me consider other laptops...
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My Experience, July 30, 2005
I got my Vaio S460 10 days ago, I've been playing around with it a lot and am very satisfied with it. About the heat issue, I kind of expected it to be hot after reading some reviews in this site, but to my surprise I found out that it is not that hot. Ok, it gets warm, but not being able to place it on your lap is an exaggeration. I have spent many hours with this laptop on my lap without any discomfort. I've read that most heat is produced by the video card GPU, and there is an option available for reducing heat production and fan noise by decreasing the GPU speed, but I bought this laptop because of the dedicated video card so I don't see myself using that option.
About the fan issue, it is not even an issue; it is not at all noisy. It gets on and off repeatedly but is not by any means annoying. The DVD drive does get noisy when reading some data DVDs but then again, it is not annoying.
The keyboard is just perfect sized, you wont have any trouble using it, the computer is really fast and the screen is awesome, very bright, I usually use it in brightness 6 when on AC power and in 3 when on battery to extend battery life. The laptop size is very convenient; I just get it in my backpack and I'm gone. It weights less than the books I used to carry around and it looks really sleek and fancy. I'm getting around 3 hours 30 min of battery life, maybe not the best around, but it is ok for my needs. The only thing that bothered me was to create my own recovery kit, sony should include recovery discs with the laptop.
So, it is a very fast, sleek and eye catching little machine, and I would definitely buy it again if I had to buy another laptop.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Sent it back. Read why...., August 14, 2005
Unlike this particular model, I got the customizable VGN-S480 with 1GB stick of RAM, the Pentium M 770 processor (2.13 GHz) as well as the nVIDIA GeoForce graphics card and an 80GB hard drive.
It's true that it does get pretty warm, probably more so than those with the 740, 750 or 760 processors. So much so that it started to bother me after placing my right hand on it after a half an hour or so. Very disconcerting, especially when you have your right hand placed next to the machine because it's too hot to keep it on the rest panel, only to have the heat-sink (on the right hand side of the machine) blow hot air over your hand as it rests on the table. It reminds me of an engine exhaust.
Another thing I didn't like about it is there is no Home, Page Up, Page Down or End keys on the right side of the keyboard. I use those keys a lot!! You have to use the cumbersome right, left, up and down arrow keys to navigate if you're in a place where you can't use an external mouse.
The last straw was when I put the desktop in classic Windows mode (instead of the default XP mode with silver tray and Sony desktop background) only to find dark shadow streaks appear over the Start button on the bottom left, and over the Clock over the bottom right. It's almost as if the LCD was pinched in the lower corners during the manufacturing process. When I spoke to a tech over the phone, he said all the S-Series do this and to avoid looking at it, I should go and switch back into XP mode using the silver colored service tray (instead of XP blue or the Win2000-looking, classic grey) and it would mask this defect.
Needless to say, it went back to Sony after I heard this.
I'm not giving up on Sony, yet. I've had a PCG-F580 for the last six years and it's a great little workhorse that I can no longer upgrade.
I think I'll try their A-Series next. Yeah I know it's twice the size of the S480, but I don't care...
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