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Review of the Sony Vaio PCG-X9
Big Steve pointed us to a review of the Sony Vaio X9. It looks quite impressive... I've been using my PCG-Z505SX for like eight months now. Its a great portable, but definitely not a 'Desktop Replacement'. I'm actually posting this because I'm curious what people like these days as a desktop replacement type laptop (preferably with some sort of 3D accelerator so I can play Quake3 on it).
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I have an XG9, and am actually pretty happy with it though I could've waited a month and picked up a better spec'ed F390 instead...
My DVD drive appears to have died on my XG9 too, though its probably a driver problem, I haven't had a chance to fix it.
Dunno about Linux compatability though...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
My i3700 is working like a charm with 128MB of ram and a 12GB drive. For more disk space, you can pull out the dvd/cdrom and plug in another drive(aka mp3 space) which is what I usually do. It's worth the price just to have a portable music jukebox. Just fire up xmms, load the playlist, punch the shuffle/random and walk away, the music will play all day. The sound over headphones or plugged into the aux of a stereo is wonderful.
With just the 12G drive I have stuffed 70+ CDs in there with 4G left over for work. The extra drive gets plugged in when I'm heading over to a friends' for a party or whatever...
I'm starting to get tired of booting back and forth between w98 and RH depending on which project I have to deal with, but vmware is looking better all the time. As soon as I have a chance to wipe my drives, repartition and re-install, it's going to be there to run the w98 stuff.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
How come laptops don't have trackerballs any more? IMHO the scratch-pad is pretty much the worst pointing device you could devise. I heard that trackerballs were too expensive, but that can't be a reason on a 3.5k pound machine like this.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
I'd like to strongly say the exact opposite. The trackpoint "eraser head" pointers are the worst pointers I've ever used. I love the trackpad on my Sharp Ultralight - it even emulates a wheel if you move your finger up and down the right hand side...
If I want smooth, detailed 3D stuff I have a Sony Playstation on top of my TV (with a pair of IR remote controls).
As it happens, I'm probably going to be considering a Sony sub-notebook or a Toshiba Libretto for my next primary PC. We'll see how my TRGpro performs when it arrives next month...
For portable gaming I have a GameBoy - decked out with rechargable battery packs, a FlashRAM cartridge - means I can load multiple games on the one cart - and a (worm) light. Perfect for the accidental tourist.
You left out this /. story obout the Sony Music Clip MP3 player that doesn't play MP3s.
SteveM
Just another reason that you can't trust everything you read on /.
I don't have one and was basing my comment on the linked thread, in which a Music Clip owner directly contradicts your statement, claiming that he did have to convert his MP3s. I guess he didn't read the manual.
How come you didn't write anything in the Music Clip thread?
Steve M
Sony won't release an MP3 player because that could conceivably hurt it's music division.
Sony has released a digital music player, the Music Clip, which apparently can play MP3s, according to this post.
Sony's Playstation division has released in Japan and will release in the US this year a game console that plays DVDs, which will take sales from their video division.
This shows how Sony's interest is not the consumer's interest.
The only time that the consumer's interests and any corporation's interests overlap is when it is profitable for the corporation. This is as true for Sony as it is for any corporation.
SteveM
I've used/supported/configured/etc many of the ultra light (~1 inch thick, ~3pounds) Dell laptops at work and otherwise (e.g. Lattitude LS, Lattitude LT, etc.), and they're all very nice. While I doubt any of them have 3d acceleration as of yet, most people who buy those kind of laptops don't use them for 3d video games. Though I'd love to see a gfx card in an ultra light machine that can at least par, say, Voodoo2. =)
Sony anymore, not because of media fiascos like the DVD crap but because the VAIO I owned caused me nothing but trouble. It was a VAIo desktop, not notebook but they's the same company. The specs could be a desktop replacement but I'd like to see it work for a few hours first. The Sonys I do think are cool are the subnotebooks which are pretty decently priced at 1499$ IMHO.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Realize though that where I work I was informed that they woudl not support a windows machine that was not rebooted daily, nor do they support any applications that were not installed on the machine by them. Unfortuanately where I work I sometimes need to install software like Exceeed to connect to all or UNIX systems, and often other software to make my life easier. I'd install Linux if I di dnot have to use IE 5 at times.
send flames > /dev/null
Only 'flamers' flame!
Agreed - for those who can't be bothered to work it out, $3300 ~ £2060. This is for the X[G]9 - for the X[G]19, an even nicer laptop from Sony with CD-RW drive as standard, priced at $4000 on the US website, the equivalent price is about £2500, significantly less than the cost of the X[G]9 in the UK. The X[G]18 and X[G]19 are not even avaliable in the UK, or the rest of Europe for that matter according Sony Europe's website.
Given V.A.T. (Europe-wide sales tax) at 17.5%, the money the seller of a £3600 machine would get would be £3060. This means that this Sony laptop costs £1000 ~ $1600 to ship the machine from the US to the UK; to 'ship' an adult person here and back by air costs about half this.
Extortionate? Certainly. Why? Because Sony, and the computer market generally, is allowed. Or rather, the US authorities have the sense to encourage competition, not excessive pricing.
James F.
I'm writing this on a VAIO laptio I bought in Japan last year; however, I will never buy another product from Sony.
;-) I'm serious though, consider how your money is being spent!
Just a few days ago, we had news on Slashdot about Sony's attempts to squash Connectix. A while back, there was the story about Sony's dirty tricks in it's suit against Bleem - including trying to retrieve a list of all Bleem's customers.
And, please don't forget the whole mess with the DVDCCA and MPAA suits against DeCSS. Sony is one of, perhaps the most, powerful of the Hollywood studios - and their plans for the future are not something you want to be a part of.
On the business practice side, Sony acts like a yakuza company - they make Microsoft look good. And in spite of the fact that the PS2 uses Linux as is development environment, the PS platform is so closed it makes Windows look like Open Source Software. (To publish a game on the PS, Sony must approve your software, you must pay a per/sale royalty, and those profits are used by Sony to fund your competitors - Sony's inhouse game developers)
There was a time, when Morita was running the place and Sony was fighting for consumer choice and the right to own a VCR, that Sony was an upstanding corporate citizen. That is not the case now. Sony makes some fine consumer electronics, but realize who you are giving your money to. Your cash is your vote - take it to another company.
Besides, there's no 3d accelerator on any Sony laptops.
The photos were horrific. Total bush-league.
Ignore Alien Orders
I realize that the primary purchase factor when buying any computer is whether it will adequately support Quake. One must have one's priorities.
If you have to make a living in order to support your Quake-playing habits you can indeed use a notebook as a desktop replacement. I've used notebooks exclusively since 1994--first in a high-end Compaq docking station, but lately I've just used a port replicator to simplify making connections in my office. If I'm at a client's or on a plane I have everything I need right in my hands. I don't have to mess with reconciling two systems, I don't have to keep track of what files are where--wherever I am, my computer is there.
It is new notebook time, and I'm intrigued by the VAIO. They look good--very good. But looks don't matter--I make my living with my notebook (I run a small software development firm) and I want the best possible tool. My big disappointment with my present notebook is that it does not support multiple monitors--once you have programmed with source code on one (or more!) monitor(s) and the running application on another, you simply don't want to go back to doing it any other way. I am told that Dell notebooks support multiple monitors, and I'm intrigued. I'm a bit disappointed that this review doesn't touch on the question.
Writing the review while in-flight is a nice touch--but I wish the writer had mentioned whether the VAIO came with the necessaries for connecting to the onboard power supplies now common on many airlines. You simply cannot board the plane with enough batteries for the flight from Chicago to Tokyo--so any reasonable notebook has to be able to simply connect to the onboard systems.
And, perhaps most importantly of all, I wish he'd written about the tactile feel of the keyboard. My most recent notebook has been a WinBook--a very nice notebook, but the keyboard is a bit soft. I like it--but I don't have the love I still feel for original 14-lb. IBM 101 key keyboards. Big, heavy, clunky--but absolutely splendid keyboards. I wish more reviews gave more information about that--it would help so much in making a purchase decision.
What I use for my desktop/laptop is a Powerbook G3. It has, according to Apple, an ATI RAGE LT Pro video controller for 2d/3d support. I like it as both a desktop and laptop machine, and wouldn't get anything else. If you're a Mac person, this is the thing to get.