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Sony's New Vaio PCG-TR1A: 12" Powerbook Killer?
Anonymous Howard writes "Sony has a hot new subnote on it's hand: the Vaio PCG-TR1A. This subnote is packed full of features: integrated camera (still and video), 10.6 inch bright wide-format screen, 900MHz Centrino, CD-RW/DVD Combo drive, 30GB drive, 802.11b, two usb ports, firewire, 3.11 pounds and a magnesium alloy case. The thing looks really cool. For me, it's the first subnote that actually gives me a viable option for purchase instead of a the Apple Powerbook 12". Read a article about it over at Designtechnica. Check out this forum thread that has good pics, other then the stock pics, next to a VPR Matrix 200A5."
Interesting that Apple's notebooks (and mp3 player) are now the standard others are compared against. A big shift since the 90s...
That's a pretty wide range...
Sony used to use Transmeta chips in their subnotebooks. This can't be good news for TMTA. It's good that Linus could read the writing on the wall, but I feel bad for their other employees... facing unemployment in this economy. And, let's be honest, even if they do find work elsewhere, few companies have as much potential as Transmeta had.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Have you *EVER* tried to load a different OS (as in what did not come originally on the system) nto a Sony Notebook?? You will tear your hair and generally feel like throwing out the notebook... ou will find no drivers or support on their site or it, and contacting Sony will give you a response of "It did not come with that OS so we do ot support it"
... just a Win2k or something.
I am not talking about putting Linux/BSD or Solaris (what I am thinking??)
Plus their position/membership/stance on DMCA,RIAA et. all makes me want to spend my money elsewhere...
-- everyones not everybody and neither is everybody like everyone.
12" Powerbook killer... err except that all Apple hardware is very well supported by linux... whereas the Centrino 802.11b isn't supported at all. So your fancy subnotebook is going to have an 802.11b card sticking out the side.
:)
Unless you want to run Windows that is, in which case you have bigger problems.
Apple's 12" Powerbook costs $1,600 ($1,400 for students), while the new Sony Vaio is expected to cost around $2,000. Even with the cheaper price, the Apple laptop gives you 10GB more hard drive space, and a larger screen, and OS X as well. The only advantage I see is the weight difference, as the Sony weighs 32% less than the Apple. As long as you don't have trouble lifting 4.6 pounds, go for the Apple. :^)
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It seems to me there is a largely untapped market for notebooks. As I shop for one I am looking for a small, lightweight system with a long lasting battery. What I am NOT looking for is a 1Ghz+ system. I do not want a laptop that replaces my desktop but instead one that accompanies it. 500MHz is plenty for something that I would use for word processing, listening to music, and browsing the web. As processor technology improves you'd thing the long battery life and other features would make a great combination with older processors but I never see that. The only choice is to buy an old laptop but it's big and bulky and usually used. On top of that the cost savings isn't enough to warrent such a device. Why don't I ever see something like this: Pentium III 500MHz 20GB Harddrive 128MB RAM 12 inch screen 4lbs or less And some crappy 4MB video for $500 I'd buy one in a heartbeat. I just want something portable yet more capable than a PDA. I don't want to replace my desktop.
Have you ever tried to call Sony's support desk? I have a pretty sweet little sony R505-ELK. It has been a really great machine, until I started loosing sectors. So I called them up to get a warentee replacement. They told me... and I quote... "That's only a couple megs! You have a 30 gig drive. That doesn't come close to meeting our criteria for failure." They went on to explain that they would not replace the drive until it was completely nonfunctional.
So. Please keep this in mind before you make the leap. Dell and Apple have high support ratings for a reason. Your laptop WILL fail at some point. Make sure you pick a company that honors thier warentees. Although as of late, Dell has been getting pretty bad too.
Actually, for lots of us, (one could say 'for the rest of us') OSX is the Powerbook killer. It might be a cool OS platform, but since all our Adobe apps, etc. are the Windows versions, etc. etc. the fact that the Powerbook only runs OSX kills it as an option. Where binary OS lockin is concerned, why switch from one lockin (Windows) to another (OSX)?
I have to wonder why so much perfectly good equipment goes to waste, while people lust after new machines, so that their CPU idle time can go from 99% to 99.5%. Especially among the ./ geeks, who probably have top end machines already.
Seriously people, if you want to play a game, get a game console. If you want some REAL fun, install Linux with just a floppy drive. :-)
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
Since I've experienced Sony's so called "support" I've decided to never buy a Sony product again. My girl friend had problems with her Sony Vaio FX802, so we sent it in and it came back unrepaired. I had to beg them to pick it up again, btw. the hotline is not free in Austria, even if you still have warranty. This time I added a very detailed description on how to reproduce the error, however, the technician ignored it and called my girl friend to complain in a very harsh tone that the notebook was not defect. I talked to the technician and could convince him that it was in fact defect, and after 3 more weeks we got it back (they exchanged the motherboard). However, when putting it together again, they forgot the screw that fixates the DVD ROM... had to provide one myself. Facit: My girl friend bought a new notbook that was significantly more expensive than others, believing that Sony's support would be better than the support of no-name manufacturers. She ended up waiting 1.5 months for her notebook.. in the meantime, it had of course become significantly cheaper. I'm now thinking about buying an Apple Powerbook. Can anybody tell me about his experiences with Apple's support?
Georg
Yes. Everyone plays catchup with Mac all the time. That's why Mac dominates the desktop market.
Apple dominates the desktop publishing market. Apple and Avid dominate the pro-video editing market (and if you think Macs are overpriced, you won't believe what Avid charges). Apple is the single largest vendor of professional audio editing machines in the music business. The only market Apple doesn't have significant market share is in the low-end desktop market, which is used for word-processing, spreadsheets, and accounting software. Apple makes high-end machines with good margins to fuel their R&D. The low end of the desktop market is a cutthroat, bloody mess! Look at Compaq, Packard Bell, AST, NEC, and many others who lost their shirts. Dell is the only company doing well in it because they don't do the R&D thing.
Not. They are too expensive and proprietary.
Hmmm....I have an old 8500 with a PowerPC 604 CPU. I can upgrade this machine to a G3 or a G4. I also have an old Pentium II machine which can be upgraded to...a faster Pentium II, but not an AMD processor, nor a Pentium III or Pentium IV, because Intel's CPU slots are PROPRIETARY . Apple embraces more open standards than Microsoft or Intel. As far as the price, I think I get my money's worth and more from the various Macs I've owned. If price is the only consideration you have when purchasing, then you should be blasting Intel, praising AMD, blasting Windows, and praising OSS.
Just because they have a few innovative products doesn't mean they are the benchmark.
Apparently they are, since this article was about Sony's new 12" Powerbook Killer. There's quite a few articles that get posted about company X's 17" Powerbook killer or company Y's all-in-one like an iMac but it's Wintel blah blah blah.
I cite the G5 as a neat system, but not innovative in the current market.
Yeah, 'cause everyone is using a 64-bit CPU that's backwards compatible with 32-bit software, 1GHz frontside bus, PCI-X expansion slots, Firewire 800, Gigabit Ethernet, High-speed Wireless, and 16GB/s of bandwidth between the CPU's and the system controller.
I do consider the iPod innovative, as well as most of their laptop's designs.
Might as well mention the iMac, since it won so many design awards for being innovative. So, let's see...that's the laptops, the iPod, the iMac, and maybe, just maybe, the G5 desktop. Which is their entire product line.
Look at processor speeds on desktop systems over the past few years. It's already a rather foggy memory the last time I looked at a Mac's specs and thought 'wow, the PC market really needs to play some catchup!'. The last one I was impressed with were the PowerPC clones, actually. They moved pretty quick compared to PC's of the same price. But that was like '94 or '95..
This is total crap. The G3 kicked the Wintel machines butts. The G4 was where the PC world finally caught up. On launch, the G4 kicked the P3's that were shipping at the time. But Motorola was unable to deliver the speed bumps to keep up, and then the P4 was out and the G4 was left behind. The G4's vector processing engine is still far superior to anything Intel has, which is why it's been used for so many Blast implementations.
In the case of laptops, I agree in this particular case, but as for other configurations forget it. For the price of a new G5 I could have a monster of a PC that would make the G5 look like last year's PC except for the pretty case that matches a cinema display. Is that worth the extra money? Nah, I'll stick with Lian Li cases for now.
Maybe you should do a little more reading. The high end G5 beats the best PC you can build right now with dual Xeon CPU's, and by the time you add all the features the G5 has, the price comes out to within a couple of hundred bucks of the G5. Plus you get OS X. Plus the G5 is much quieter than a dual-CPU PC.
Yeah, you can get a G5 with dual CPU's.. Whoopee. For that