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New Sony VAIO Laptop w/ 16.1" Screen
calc writes "Sony Japan has announced a new VAIO laptop that comes with a DVD-R/RW CD-R/RW drive along with a Radeon 7500 Mobility and 16.1" UXGA LCD." The spacebar on my thinkpad has been
dying... maybe its time for a change. Sony? You listening? *grin*
Sony already has laptops with 16.1" screens the point of the post was the new DVD-R/RW drive included. I am not sure why cmdrtaco changed the title to miss the point. ;)
The screen is beatiful. But the keyboard is a nightmare, just for that reason I though of giving it back. Also, the BIOS doesn't support APM properly so you have to use the ACPI stuff if you need power management, and swsusp to suspend to RAM as it's no longer built in to the BIOS. It's also a nightmare to carry around, like the lunchbox computers of yesteryear -- this is kind of my first VAIO I've been disappointed in.
Depends on your definition of portable. If your definition is "desktop in a briefcase", then the GRX line is for you. This GRX91G/P will do quite nicely as a Powerbook Ti crusher. If your definition is "as small as practical", try the SR, R505, or C1. In Japan, Sony has even smaller models, like the GT (think C1 with a much larger camera attachment) and the U (recently nicknamed "My First Sony" by the /. crowd). Of course, this is all based on Sony's Japanese and American lineups. Toshiba, Dell, IBM, Apple, HPQ... quite a diverse marketplace.
As for the GRX91G/P itself, it looks like the only major differences from the US-spec GRX500 are the DVD burner, the remote control, and the software bundle. Otherwise, it's the GRX500 with the core specs (CPU speed, memory, storage) turned up one notch.
I wonder if they are going to sell that USB remote in the States? I could use something like that.
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I bought my sister an FXA47 for her birthday, with WinXP pre-installed. WinXP on a Vaio doesn't seem to like DirectX 8.1, so I reimaged it with Win2K. The only things it didn't recognize immediately were the sound card and the modem (which was a WinModem anyway). I used the XP drivers that came with the machine, even though it warned me that the drivers were not signed/trusted; I got both working just fine.
The only problem was getting the original applications back onto the machine, complete with registry settings. The Application Restoration Disk keeps telling me that the installer can only run on Sony Vaios... Hah! (Along these lines, I'm trying to actually write a program/script to analyze a Registry Image for such settings... a Key Copier, if you will).
Anyway, I just want you all to know that OpenGL and Direct3D run *much* faster under Win2k than the default OS crap called XP that came installed on the system.
Solomon
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
I get my computers from ASL, and so do my employers, so I've dealt with a number of their machines. They do Linux laptops, and will not charge you for Windows on a Linux-only system.
I have a Vaio PCG-F430 (older model) here that shipped with Win98. It's running Windows 200 Pro right now, and at one point it was also running Win2K Advanced server. I got it through a company-sponsored purchase program. I figured Vaio was better than no laptop, although I probably wouldn't have bought one if I was spending my own money. Still, I've had absolutely no problems other than an intermittent green ghost stripe in the LCD that appears when the thing is left in the car in 110F heat for too long. It disappears after the screen has cooled.
About four months ago I replaced the 2.5 inch hard drive. Not a single problem. I also upgraded the memory to 256MB. Not a problem.
Sony makes drivers and utilities (such as those that control the touch pad and so on) available from their web site, on a per model basis. That means that you can find your model and download replacements for every single piece of software that shipped with the laptop originally, from the sound card to the video card. If you haven't already, I'd recommend you visit Sony's web site. Bring some crow for muching.
Now, when I installed W2KAS I didn't even bother installing the utilities. Everything worked perfectly fine. And then with W2kPRO, I installed all of them. Guess what? Everything works fine.
I can say the same thing for late model Vaios since I helped a friend get rid of WinME and install W2K Pro on his. He didn't even bother installing the updated drivers, because everything was working fine, with the exception of the SD thing, which he wasn't using anyway. USB, FireWire, video, sound, NIC, PCMCIA, etc. Everything worked flawlessly the first time W2K booted up.
Perhaps you want to provide a link or two backing up your claims?
This is simply untrue.
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No, it certainly is true of the 16.1" (GRX) series models I was writing about.You have a different, earlier model that was sold before this policy went into effect.
Not only that, it is impossible to get upgrades to the bundled software should you want such.
Here are some links from Google groups that describe user experiences with Sony's policies in this area.
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=sony+laptop+O
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=GRX-500&hl=en
The fact is I would not touch one of these machines with a ten foot pole because of this policy.