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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."
http://www.dell.com/us/en/bsd/products/model_latit _latit_x200.htm. it's pretty nice, although i prefer the c400 myself. the x200 is just too small.
vodka, straight up, thank you!
I don't see how it can be when it costs more. I purchased a 12 inch powerbook with a superdrive (DVR-R/CD-RW), 802.11g, firewire, 2 usb ports, 32mb nVivida gforce 4 and a bunch of other stuff for the same price as this thing, and the prices for the 12 inch pb have since gone down. I hardly see how its a "killer." Plus, I love how everyone plays catchup to apple. For such a small market share they sure do seem to set a lot of standards.
-1 (Troll) is antihammer
Interesting that Apple's notebooks (and mp3 player) are now the standard others are compared against. A big shift since the 90s...
A 900 MHZ Centrino really doesn't compare that well to a 987MHZ G4.
That's a pretty wide range...
4.6 lbs.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Or can ya just stick an Apple sticker on it and then attract lots of friends?
CD-RW/DVD combo drive
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.
Hard to believe. It's going to be hard to be a PowerBook killer without it.
Hmm... you obviously haven't looked very hard.
Seems Slashdotted--Here are some pics from Sony.com
Not so much a comment as a question...
What has really set the Vaio apart from ye olde everyday laptop was the interesting addition of the integrated still/video camera. Are there any other manufacturers out who do this? Also...is it really usable as an integrated camera?
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.
I recently sold my Vaio after owning it for less than a year. Memory had problems, seemed slow and just did not live up to expectations. I recently bought a Mac PowerBook G4, my first Mac laptop and I am extremely pleased with it. Airport Extreme 802.11G works flawlessly with my Linksys router using the G standard, I have Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, PhP and host of other apps installed all working flawlessly. If you're looking for a great UI with unix under the hood look no further.
Looks like Designtechnica's new ad campaign is working out well for them.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
How can this thing be better, when the screen is 1.4" smaller? Heck I think 12" is too small, but 10.6"? Geez can anyone even read /. on that? :)
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.
While this may be cool (wouldn't know can't read the article), let's face it people will sacrifice weight, size, and battery life for a cheaper model that does the same thing. UNLESS they are walking around with the thing, or travel a lot, or have a particular breifcase they'd like this to fit it. Believe it or not I've seen someone buy a new laptop because it was the right "size" of the breif case they had grown quite accustomed to.
12" is hard to read at a res bigger than 1024x768 as well. I really don't see this thing killing anything as there are so many laptops on the market now that no one can decide on one "ultimate" laptop.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
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. :^)
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Does it play ogg ?
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
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.
Um, if I remember the benches for everyday use, there already was a 12" powerbook killer. Not much less performance, with the exception on altivec, and cheaper too.
yeah and on my 12 in PB, I get a DVD-RW/CD-RW
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Not sure if this one runs Linux but anyone else running Linux on Sony Laptops should check out the linux-sony mailing list.
Honestly, PC's at one point had Apple begging for scraps at the dinner table like a dog. However biased you are, Apple will not just disappear into the good night. First off, 900 MHz Centrino isn't going to beat the 867 G4 considering that the G4 competes quite well with the intel mobile market. DVD-R? No. Up to 1152 MB memory? Think again. 60 GB hard drive? HA. Any OS besides windows... Dream On. So what about this Powerbook Killer? I would look at it and say... "oh it's a Sony" and then look at something else.
1. They must have been running their web server on one of these! 2. Imagine a beowolf cluster of these babies!
This VAIO costs $700 more than a 12" Powerbook. Show me a Mac user who actually wants a Windows machine, or better yet, wants to pay *more* for one?
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.
And I hope that all meta-moderators examine all redundant moderations in context.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Now in order to figure out it weighed 3 pounds, you had to read the sentence that says it comes with a built in DVD/CD-RW, so I really don't understand your point. And how did this get modded up? That many people don't even read the posting?
I haven't seen the pictures of this one, but my former boss (hey Bill, if you're still reading /.), had an older generation of Picturebook. They are much smaller than a Picturebook, or indeed anything else with a (sorta) full-size keyboard. Depending on what you intend to do with a notebook computer, the extra portability (you can shove one in a backpack and still have plenty of room for other stuff) makes them an alternative worth looking at.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
How much is a pound, or whatever the arcane measuring unit Lbs signifies, in royal dutch kilograms?
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Sony laptops use ACPI instead of APM. This makes lif very difficult for loading non MS OS's. Though there is some great work being done for linux it is still not at a usable and stable level. This may change come the 2.6 kernel but I doubt it.
What could possibly go wrong?
This all depends on your font size, no? I just got a laptop that offers 1400x1050 on a 14.1" screen, and it's beautiful. Yes, I had to increase the default font sizes, and yes, ads on web sites are smaller, but the text is easier to read than on the lower resolution screens. Given this experience, I now want to see the Dells that have even higher resolution (1600? 1900?).
- Amit
I've been carrying a Vaio Z505 for about three years now, and have never once been in a situation where I was away from home and needed the optical drive. I just don't install software when I'm working or surfing at a coffee shop.
And flimsy? What, do you mean it's flexible or something? Sony shipped laptops with metal (magnesium alloy) frames long before the "tibook" came out.
That said, I'll be picking up an iBook soon... but I sure wish they would shave a few pounds off it by leaving out the optical drive.
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
I remember Apple laptop (the toilet seat model) owners drooled over my Sony Vaio (one of the super slim models) for years till the Powerbooks finally caught up. Apple has fantastic design aesthetics, but Sony's got it too.
Perhaps the pound unit should be measured as a fraction of the total weight of a US Tank ripping through the cobblestones of your quaint European village street.
How's the screen and keyboard? I drooled over the Actius MM10 for months, but when I went to Micro Center I immediately hated it. The 10" screen tries to pack in a resolution of 1024 x 768, and the keyboard is tiny. Heck, the thing is even missing one of the shift keys... Since most of what I do on a subnote is typing (since, given their power, they aren't decent for gaming), screen size and keyboard usability (and battery life) are some of the largest factors for me. My iBook has a great keyboard (the one on the 12" PB G4 is even better), an amazing screen, and a battery life of over four hours. The only thing I don't like about it is the lack of a PCMCIA slot and the fact that Apple tech repair keeps sending it back with problems (the thing is making this really annoying ticking noise, and the ethernet port is shot). The ethernet port wouldn't be such a big deal, except that it has no PCMCIA slot for me to plug an adapter into, there are no Mac drivers for any USB adapters, and they want 600ish bucks to get the motherboard replaced... Conclusion: Macs make great lightweight notebooks, but have a few design flaws. All in all, they're probably better than the new Sony laptop.
About 1/14th of a stone.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The powerbook is more expensive! Macs have to be more expensive, or what would the trolls complain about (Greater ease of use? Longer battery life?)?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
No, no OS X for this machine. Guess it's not a Powerbook killer.
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
Nah, I think it's closer to a very large multiple of the weight of all the Weapons Of Mass Destruction the US has uncovered in Iraq.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
yeah, and you also get ripped off. a dvd-r that burns at 1x. 1x? 4.something gigs at 1x? the cd-r burns at 24x, which is perfectly reasonable. but in my opinion, paying some hundred dollars for a 1x dvd burner is sort of silly. you may be better off buying something external now or later on, which i see as a better investment than paying for the super drive.
The x in 1x for a DVD-R stands for something different than the x in 24x. Jesus, do you really think that anybody would take eight hours to burn a DVD? Think before you post, please.
Come on. It was a serious question. They stopped printing stoners to kilogram conversion tables here when we swapped stones for royal dutch kilograms back in, oh, 1740.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Intel on board graphics with 64 mg Shared memory vs a 32 MB Geforce 4. You can forget about games with that Intel crap. Just work. work, work.
Processors are about even. I won't bother arguing this.
Battery Life: 2-7 hours. This is a wide range. lets just average it. 2+7/2=4.5 Hours. What do you know? This is what apple quotes.
Price: starts at 2199 vs 1599 for powerbook.
Is slower graphics, microscopic screen, $600 (lets not forget the biggest handicap: the ubiquitous Windows XP) worth a pound of weight? Powerbook Killer? Yuk Yuk Yuk, silly grasshopper. Keep practicing though, you are bound to get it right one of these days.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
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.
so then 1x would put it just under one hour? that's not too bad i suppose.
Now I could be wrong, but this doesn't seem to have all that much 3d graphics support? Now, the laptop is probably targetted towards a different audience, but I got one of the Sony PCG-GRV 670(?).
;)
:D
I'm loving its 3d abilities, even though it's extremely heavy and goes through a full battery in about an hour. Of course, few laptops can handle 3d games and rendering like this one
But it looks like the PCG-TR1A is going to retail for $2000. Sure, it's light, but for a few extra bucks you could get a lot more bang
Oh wait, there isn't any other news..
/.?
Who else is tired of these lame commercials on
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
Sounds like a sony (or maybe any PC) is not a powerbook killer for the reasons listed in the parent comment. I have never had to worry about installing any other Apple OS on any supported machine and I have never had to jump throught these kind of hoops (installing drivers in the right order? for christ's sake!).
Now, even though I am a long time mac user/proponent, I use PCs at work and the pure usablity gap is decreasing. But when it comes to polish, fit and finish, and total cost of ownership - I just can't see the pc as a good choice for most people. It's too bad that the price sticker at best buy doesn't have to include a breakdown of how much the unit will cost over its lifetime and how much hair you will pull out (sort of like energy costs on appliances).
Everytime I think of adding an ultralight PC laptop to my home network to run the odd pc app, I read these posts and remember that it ain't worth it.
And the things cost way more than a 12" PB!
-matt
Anyone know of something with this or similar formfactor (light/thin/10"-12"), and a decent, linux-supported 3D chip?
I think there's DRI drivers for the 855 in this sony, but I doubt the chip is a good performer (can anyone shed some light on it?)
I love this one, or the Toshiba R100 form factor, but I really want some proper 3D in my next laptop.
I won't buy any workstation or laptop unless it has complete linux support.
The Pentium4 M is faster than the Pentium4 because it focuses on battery life rather than a larger clockspeed. My 4mhz HP49g is faster than my 12mhz TI89. Intel focuses on increasing clockspeed in its desktops, where people pay attention.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
but sony has an even smaller one out in Japan. Although the specs aren't comparable...I just happen to be biased toward smaller machines myself
Why anyone would buy a laptop with an integrated camera is beyond me. Aside from it being proprietary, the camera only serves as a webcam or a quick in-front-of-the-computer shot. I can't imagine anyone toting a computer to take pictures of the Grand Canyon or other scenic places. I doubt this camera will allow you to adjust the shutter speed, aperature, or other settings. Another point worth mentioning is that the camera (from http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity /eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-S tart;sid=LDp-rnTJAr5-kkvVW110pTvGOpFAyy8seS8=?Cata logCategoryID=7gwKC0%2eNOosAAAD2WYTZ7HTA&Dept=cpu& TemplateName=item%2fsy_item_b&ProductID=FAQKC0%2eN LzUAAAD2CJfZ7HTD&ContentItemPage=)
is only a "CMOS 370,000 pixels (VGA 640x480)". Even a mediocre digital camera will outperform the integrated one.
$cat
"Two-and-a-quarter pounds of jam weigh about a kilogram."
Repeat. In a sing-song style.
I'm on a whisky diet. I've lost three days already.
True, I've never watched a DVD in a coffee shop or on a plane on my iBook. But it comes in handy when I go to a friend's place and we can hook it up to the TV to watch some DVDs. Of course now all my friends have DVD players themselves so....
-- thinkyhead software and media
Knowing Sony, they're probably going to be those crippled (as in no power supply wires) iLink ports. I can't tell from the linked pictures. If so, you can forget about using Firewire to charge an iPod, or using a bus-powered hard drive.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
(holding pinky to corner of mouth) Two THOUSAND Dollars !!!
Seriously though: I'll pass.
Wtf? Sony has had a 10 inch (not 12 inch) entry in the laptop market for years. I've owned mine for almost two years! True there was a gap between the SRX and this thing, but still. It's ridiculous to say that Sony if "following" apple because they released a laptop that's "small" I mean come on. There have been much smaller laptops through history, like the Toshiba Libretto.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
"Sony has a _hot_ new subnote on its hand" and a possible lawsuit for product safety.
Yeah great a Mac user says that Sony is "following" apple, and someone refutes him and gets modded down as a "troll". Mac Zealots are the most annoying people on the planet.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
a powerbook killer ??
Sorry, but even if I'm being redundant, I don't see the point of buying a powerbook just to run linux. it's plain expensive, even for a great looking machine.
If you buy a Powerbook, that's also for the ease of use and friendliness of OS X. That's why I bought mine, and while I sometimes dual-boot with gentoo-linux on it, most of my time I'm working on OS X.
If the Sony subnotebook doesn't run OSX, it's not a powerbook 12" killer.
Music is the language of the heart, the sound of the soul. -Joe Satriani
Has anyone noticed that it lacks PCMCIA slots? Sure its cool and I'd like one but I sure find it easier to move my digital photos off my compact flash cards with a PCMCIA adapter. Memory sticks don't work in a Nikon CoolPix 5000.
So long as the machine is running Windows, no PC laptop will *ever* be a "Powerbook Killer". The only company capable of making a "Powerbook Killer" is Apple.
Seems you forgot the last sentence of your comment... perhaps I can help?
.
I'm __________________ and I'm a __________________
(fill the blanks)
Karma: Chameleon (mostly affected when you come and go, you come and go)
Sure, the specs on the Sony are nice. But the Powerbook runs an OS that Doesn't Suck. What'ya going to run on the Sony? Windows? Or worse yet, Linux?? See my point?
When Apple releases a machine with these specs I'll buy it. Sony can release a 20" platinum notebook weighing 1.2 lbs with FW800 and optical and god-knows-what for $699 and I still ain't buying on if I gotta run Windows (or Linux) on the damn thing. No way.
with story titles like 'powerbook killer' we dont need to defend ourselves
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
At just 2.9 lbs, the $799 Lindows Mobile PC is a featherweight, but it weighs in with such features as LindowsOS, a 933mhz VIA processor, 256MB RAM, USB 2.0, Firewire, Ethernet, and a crisp 12.1" TFT display, plus a PCMCIA slot to add even more functionality such as wireless networking. No other computer is as ideally suited for carry-around mobility as the affordable, under 3lb, Lindows Mobile PC. You'll find yourself taking it with you everywhere!
that'd be a VIA processor, there... and $300 more than the $500 price point that was ostensibly being discussed...
Too bad taste isn't one of those standards.
Pay attention to the laptops in TV/magazine/newspaper ads, not to mention TV shows, music videos...and of course movies...by far, Apple Powerbooks are the laptop of choice, and when a movie features a pseudo-screen-graphic, it usually bears a play-skool resemblence to the older MacOS. Oh, and the sounds you hear while Joe Movie Star is working at the computer...is usually either an ancient seagate MFM drive(wee wee...wee wooo weee) or a Macintosh 3.5" drive(Boop boop boop boop boop brrrrp booop boop). The MFM drive sound not surprisingly is more popular in the low-budg films(just kidding :-)
You have to kind of look closely since they almost always black out the Apple logo(esp on the powerbooks that have glowing apple logos :-), but the case is very distinctive on the G3 powerbooks(the Lombard was code-named after Lombard Street in CA- the curviest street in the world..because almost every surface of the case is curved.)
In fact, at one point, one of the major fashion magazines many years back said the most fashionable item you could have on you while walking down Wall St. was a Powerbook under your arm(probably where the Wallstreet codename came from). The TiBook continues the trend- they're downright gorgeous machines, at least before the paint starts chipping from the case(which is why Apple is, on new models, using unpainted aluminum external surfaces- the painted exterior of the 15" Tibook did NOT go over very well).
Please help metamoderate.
Samsung has been offering ultra-portable notebooks in the UK for sometime now. Take at look at the offerings here.
Samsung Q20 TLC 1200 (1.3kgs, 2.86 pounds)
Intel Pentium M Low Voltage processor at 1.2GHz
Intel 855GM core logic chipset
12.1 XGA (1024 x 768) TFT display
Intel Extreme Graphics 2 technology with up to 64MB
512MB PC-2100 memory
60GB UDMA hard disk
16bit SoundBlaster compatible audio
DVD/CDRW 8xDVD,24xCD-R 10xCD-RW 24xCD (In SliceDock II)
1.44Mb floppy disk drive (in SliceDock II)
SliceDock II docking station with removable drives
Li-Ion Battery with up to 3 hours life
2 X USB 2.0 ports (+ 2 USB 1.1 ports on SliceDock II)
1 X Powered 6 pin 1394 port (+ 1 mini 4 pin 1394 port on SliceDock II)
1 x VGA port (+ 1 on SliceDock)
Internal 10/100 Ethernet (+ port on SliceDock)
Internal 56k V.92 modem
Internal 11Mbit Intel Pro/wireless 2100 LAN (802.11b)
Integrated 3-in-1 card reader (MMC, SD & Memory Stick)
Integrated IRDA/FIR
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Symantec Norton Anti-Virus
MGI videoStudio, photoSuite
1.299Kg weight
W273xL234.3xH19.3(min) H23.9(max)
Note that the DVD/CDRW drive is on the SlickDock.
Price is ~ 2100 $.
I can't possibly imagine using one of these.
I am certainly not against Sony, I bought a Vaio for my fiancee. But I personally have no idea how anyone can use one of these things on a daily basis.
If you have a monitor and a keyboard and a mouse to plug into it so that it is essentially a mobile station that you move about, then that makes sense.
Of if you have that setup at work for all your uses, but if you travel to a client site you can then bring the little thing with you and use it to do a presentation - you can woo them with the little shiny thing that you brought with you to do it all.
But I just can't imagine using it, sitting there typing on it and the screen... ugh.
It would drive me absolutely nuts.
I have my 15" screen at 1400Xwhatever and a nearly full keyboard on mine and it still is a bit confining for my tastes, but is at least usable.
I use this at work and at home (at work I have a desktop that I do most of my work on, the laptop is for work that goes with me all the time).
When I get a new one, I will either get one of the Dells that can do 1600x1200 and has a brighter screen, or I will go to powernotebooks.com and see what I can setup there.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around why someone would seek out a smaller laptop.
Easy to carry, lighter, less screen to drive means longer battery life to some extent... but to actually use the damn thing...
Shows I'm narrow minded I guess.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Okay, so the original poster's point was that he already warezed those programs for Windows, and the Mac versions are really hard to find on Kazaa.
Seriously. If Apple went out of their way to create a vibrant warez scene for all the third-party OS X apps, they would sell much more hardware. I've seen worse business strategies.
-Graham
This looks just like my old Compaq aero contura 4/25. Very svelte and a fine performer, at least until Win95 came along. It even runs linux. See the resemblance? http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~hp6y-isym/Aero4_33C.jp g
The 12" PowerBook does not have a PCMCIA slot or other expansion slot at all (must be expanded via USB or FireWire, except for the one entirely-internal CompactPCI slot that can only be used for an AirPort Extreme card).
Does this thing have an expansion slot other than memory stick? Even if it's memory stick only, that's more than the 12" PowerBook, but if it has PCMCIA as well, that's nifty.
I bought two nearly ideantical Sony Vaios (PCG-Z505LS and PCG-R505TS), hoping that ,if one breaks, the other one will be working. No, wrong!
In two years, in the Z505LS internal power board had to be replaced, modem jack fell off, and Win 2000 "had bad interplay with VAIO hardware" (this is a quotation from MSFT Customer support).
In R505LS, hard drive broke, and firewire jack broke.
First computer has been sent to Sony Repair Center 3 times, second- two times. In all 5 cases, the turnover time was very long, and once the notebook arrived unrepaired, so it had to be re-sent.
Never again!
Powerbook killer? At $200 US more? (The site up there says it will be "$2000")
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
You can pick up a used Vaio or other small notebook for cheap.
You'll have to upgrade the hard drive to get the specs you want, but otherwise, take a look around. They're out there in great profusion.
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
(sorry if I sound like a commercial in this post)
:)
If you're looking for laptops with 12" screens, take a look at the Sharp Acticus MV series. It has all the features of the other 12" notebooks without the $2000 entry price. (Though its a P3 1.13Ghz machine, not a Centrino)
I picked up an MV 12 a few months ago and I love it. I would've been disapointed if i went with the Viao r505 and I'm not sure I would've liked the ibm x series over this.
1" thick, 3.6lbs, built in DVD/CDRW (one of the few 12" machines that doesnt need an external drive), built-in 802.11b (with two black antennas on the sides of the display), 40Gig drive... 256M ram standard.
Dual boots of linux / XP work flawlessly... No wireless problems, etc...
After picking up a 2nd mem-module (for a total of 512M ram) it cost $1300
If you want something even smaller, (and about $150 cheaper) check out the MV10. It's basicly the same machine but the DVD/CDRW is moved to an external adapter
Try the 2.84 lb. Panasonic W-2, that is a real subnote... Or buy a Mac which is better, don't buy poorly built junk from Sony who also don't even know what customer service is.
Polymorphism -- It's what you make of it.
It is still too expensive. Why cant a PC maker manufacture a decent Sub Notebook for the price of an Ibook. In australia it comes in at 4200 compared to 1800 for an almost exactly configued ibook. the 12" powerbook is cheaper too. come on dell sony acer etal make an affordable sub notebook.
I've been carrying a Vaio Z505 for about three years now, and have never once been in a situation where I was away from home and needed the optical drive. I just don't install software when I'm working or surfing at a coffee shop.
I've needed to burn CDs or DVDs when I've been out before...not that I'm saying that making it optional would be entirely a bad idea or anything, but I pretty much spend all of my time one one of two powerbooks these days, and I find it nice to have everything inside.
-- The world is watching America, and America is watching TV.
Just wanted to share that I got my X31 the other week. Definitely one of the most kick ass laptops I have owned. It may not look as stylish and sexy as the sony or powerbook, but it rocks in useability, functionality, and (surprisingly) affordability.
e rvlet/C ategoryDisplay?catalogId=-840&storeId=1&categoryId =2072542&langId=-1&dualCurrId=73
:)
1 80 9
:D
I used to feel that if I had to spend my own money on a laptop, I'd get a dell. Toshibas crashed/died after a few years (I supported a dozen or so at work). Sony laptops had driver availability and overall stability problems (maybe better today). But my dell 486dx4 100mhz laptop from 96? is still running, after tons of abuse. Amazing. (My experience has been positive with the latitudes)
However, I would get an IBM if the company were paying. But to my surprise I found the X31 starting at around $1600. (I remember overpriced Thinkpads that started at 3 grand and up.)
The keyboard is surprisingly comfortable, the LED keyboard light is useful, and the construction feels SOLID. 4 and 1/2 hour battery life, 1.3ghz, great screen, built in wireless, etc. (only wish it had 802.11g support)
Some may criticize it's lack of internal CDRW, floppy, etc. But I prefer to keep those power hungry excess weights separate. And to save some money, I'll buy portable external usb/firewire versions from 3rd party companies.
There is no other notebook for me. I highly recommend it.
A link to IBM's site.
http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/s
Here's a great review at Anandtech. (I never even saw this review until after I got it
http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.html?i=
On a different note, I just have to share that I'm typing this on a 105" WXGA (1360x768) screen. (yes, one hundred and five) Downloaded a bunch of assembly demos over the past few years, and they looked amazing.
Technology is a wonderful thing.
I only hope that Doom3 and Half life will support 16:9 resolutions natively!
I see your point -- warez is one of the reasons Windows lock-in is so strong -- but if everything developed for the Mac got warezed, nobody would develop for the Mac. And then you wouldn't have a platform.
Because, kids, you need to always remember the secret to computing dominance... repeat after me...
"Developers! Developers! Developers!"
1 pound = 453.59 g. Ergo, 3.11 pounds = 1.41 kg.
My boss just got one. In a lot of ways I think it is overkill on a 15-ish inch screen, since you can't readily alter the size of things like menus, buttons, etc, but text does look damn sharp.
I only wish someone would bring a 1900x1200 external LCD flat panel to market, for less than the cost of the Dell...although honestly, if it was only a 15" I probably wouldn't buy it. I have no idea how much harder it is to make a [physically] larger screen with the same resolution, so I'll stop short of idle speculation...
No? Then it's no "Powerbook killer" from where I stand.
-- http://frobnosticate.com
i just wanted to comment that i hate the title of this post.
p.l.u.r.
I just heard some sad news on the Screen Savers - PPC superstar Apple 12" Powerbook was found dead in its Cupertino home this morning. A new Sony laptop that costs more and is less supported by the Linux community is suspected. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss it - even if you didn't enjoy its parallel cpu work, there's no denying its contributions to popular culture, lickable UIs, battery life and one mouse button. Truly an international/dvorak icon.
(I really can't be the first to post this, can I?)
For the record, the Adobe apps on my Windows box are all paid for.
As soon as you start running warez, you might as well not have paid for anything on your machine. It's a slippery slope thing, and it opens you to having your whole machine confiscated.
The first thing I did w/my PCG-FR130 was blow the installation and install my own copy of WinXP Pro. No problems at all, other than the fact that there was no way to load all of the software that came with the laptop as it detected that it wasn't an "official install".
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
The Vaios I have seen had what amounted their own version of Windows. They seem to have funky BIOS, hardware, and drivers. In my opinion, Windows Update slowly destroys the machine as these goofball drivers become less and less compatible with the new DLLs you get from Microsoft. I wonder if the word "Vaio" is perhaps Japanese for "disaster"? Sony makes alot of great products, but the Vaio is not one of them. Check Usenet; see just how satisfied the customers really are. Then buy some other brand, any other brand. You really can't do much worse.
Vaios look cool, and we have a few PHBs who fell in love with the style and (lack of) weight, but they are a total nuisance for the support staff. Our travelling people occasionally gripe about the weight of their IBM Thinkpads, but at least they aren't calling headquarters with show-stopper events in the field.
The screen was very, very good, readable at 1280x768 and the whole thing was astonishingly light (I have a sub 5 lb Dell with a 12" 800x600 and no optical disc)
However the lousy chicklet keyboard is a dealkiller for me.
Cheers,
Bill
bamph
However when compared to a comparable 12" PowerBook, the VAIO is about $100 cheaper. For the $100 price difference you get 148MB more memory (Apple doesn't offer 512MB, closest is 640MB) and 10GB more HD.
The Sony is lighter than both models: iBook(4.9 lbs) PowerBook(4.6 lbs) The VAIO has a built-in camera.
So the VAIO is comparable. But what makes it a PowerBook killer? Well, what attracts a person to buy a PowerBook. 1) Looks. 2) Ease of use. 3) Snob appeal.
1) It has a decent look. Clean, simple lines. Personally, I like Apple's PowerBook and iBook better, but that's personal taste.
2) Here's where it gets tricker. Windows XP is far more stable than its predecessors but it still can't beat an Apple when it comes to out of the box usage.
3) I don't think Sony has the snob appeal that Apple have. Imagine saying this to someone: "I have a VAIO." It sounds like you a disease. Of course, if you meet anybody who is impressed by a laptop, tackle them and don't let go until the police arrive.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Asus has this offering which is intriguing although it is a 13.3". What makes it so intriguing is that it is dirt cheap in comparison the Dell/IBM/Mac/Sony...It's priced at $699 and has nice specs:
-4.8 hours
-1.9 Kg in weight, 22mm in thickness (if i were smart i would translate that to inches/lbs for your lazy ass)
-4X USB2.0
-Centrino
-It's not ugly like most HP's/Toshibas
If anyone has experience with this laptop, do tell. Sounds too good to be true.
If you think
Point being, don't worry about running the same OS on both. A laptop's function is being portable, not replacing a desktop.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I could see carrying one of these around as a spare laptop, y'know, in case shit. But I can't imagine that many people would want to use a 10" laptop on a regular basis.
Cool product, but dear god slashdot, you've outdumbed yourselves.
The only difference between a Sony notebook and a Sony PC is that the notebook will go further when you get so pissed at their quirks you through them out the window Windows and all! (-::-) smilin' Siamese twins. 0-::-) one bought Apple the other bought Sony! Guess which is which?
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
the new sony:
900MHz Centrino
512MB Memory
30GB Hard drive
802.11b
10.6" TFT
3.11 Pounds
~$2000
867MHz PowerPC G4
640MB DDR266 (128MB built-in & 512MB SO-DIMM)
40GB Ultra ATA drive
SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
AirPort Extreme Card
Keyboard/Mac OS for SuperDrive - U.S. English
12.1-inch TFT Display
$2048
128MB more memory, 10GB more hard drive, faster processor (almost even on bare clock speed, even!) and has OS X with UNIX goodness out of the box, and a larger display by more than an inch. for about $48 more.
and this is a powerbook killer how?
sure, the apple is a bit heavier, but 4.6 pounds is still damn light. Also, do you think the sony really is going to last 7 hours on a battery? i know my 14" ibook has lasted more than 6.
You like your new Mac more than you like me, don't you, Dave? Dave? I asked...She said Yes.
You ever do any work in a media lab? This is not all that uncommon a load of programs to need to use. If anything its on the lower end of the spectrum. If you are doing 3D modeling there is Maya Unlimited which is quite expensive, then you have specialized apps like Apple's Shake 3.0, discreets Combustion is pretty damn affordable nowadays but as short as 2-3 years ago some of the more esoteric higher end applications cost people as much as 20-50k for a piece of software that is now $500-4k in cost.
However the cost of the software usually pales in comparison to what good DVCAM and DVCPRO50 decks and other various shooting gear will cost you.
My friend has a tibook, and when his power adapter thingie somehow got a hole in the cord, they were apparently very nice about replacing it, esp when he mentioned he had apple care.
If you have a dead pixel, thought, forget about it. Apple doesn't consider pixels defective when they dont do what theyre supposed to, just 'anomolous'. You need a bunch of 'anomolies" before its a defect. I had one on an iBook. No such problem on the armada i had before or the lifebook i have now. I realize it's kinda luck of the draw, but by the time i pay close to $1800 for a laptop (w/ drive, memory, applecare, etc), I want it to work, dammit.
Killer? We haven't seen the tip of the iceberg yet. Come 2004 I'll be posting from my 64 bit notebook. I'm sure I won't take a second look at this Sony after today.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Sounds like a nice thing, but the last few months we've had some serious trouble ordering Sony equipment. A digital videocamera (DCR-TRV33e) took two months before it arrived, and we just cancelled an order for a Vaio Z1-SP because after two months there was still no hope of it ever being delivered. Their supplier only received two of them, ever.
A friend of mine waited for eight months before he cancelled an order for his Sony stereo. My guess is that the mainstream, most profitable items are easy to get, but the fancier stuff is produced only once.
Thank you so much for making us drool, but not delivering, Sony.
't used to be LawnMOWER, really...
I thought Apples were supposed to be more expensive than similarly-capable PCs.
Quick, get Jobs on the phone and have him raise the price!
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Quoting the designtechnica article: the PCG-TR1A screams style and has a great "Wow!" factor.
My take on this is: screaming never got you anywhere.
Frankly, this notebook doesn't measure up to "good style". The proportions are all wrong, the bulbous underside looks odd, and there are small buttons and connectors all over it just shouting "this is a gadget". There are some stylish Vaios in the Sony product portfolio (e.g. the Z1), but this one is clearly targeted towards those who care more about having camcorders in their subnotebooks.
Besides, does this Vaio run Mac OS X? No? Ooooohhh... the viability factor just fell off the cliff... :-)
--Bud
Wouldn't it be cheaper to upgrade an old laptop and buy a webcam for $20?
This is the second post you've made with the same assertions. Unless weight is your primary concern, the Powerbook is the one with the decidedly better hardware.
Yes, its about an hour. And even though I have a 4x, 1x media is so much cheaper right now that that's what I order.
Try these, just to compare:
Sharp UM Series
(runs Linux, http://www.people.virginia.edu/~hz5p/laptop.html)
If you need lighter, try the MM10
No, I don't work for sharp, and at times I think their service sucks (mainly the beef is with aftermarket parts for an older model), but at least I have confirmed that there is existent service, both warranty and non-warranty.
Bah, Sony.
- - - Non Caffeine Drink or Drink Error
Gee- I bought this machine over a year ago when it was called a Fujitsu P2040.
:)
Yesh, there are some minor differences but as the parent linked, the new P5000 series from them is the latest.
I paid $1300 back then, and am typing on it right now...
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
No need for anything external except a flppy drive.
and a paper tape punch/reader while you're at it.
1 pound = $1.60 U.S., Ergo 3.11 pounds = $4.98
Cheapest. Notebook. EVAR.
-- dR.fuZZo
or Linux. I guess if its Linux you're after its great. But the reason people buy Apple machines is because of OS X. Think of it. Full UNIX. Yet a usable GUI. Common applications.
From Investor's Business Daily, July 15:
"Things are brighter in the U.S. consumer notebook PC segment. Apple's unit market share rose from 0.3% to 6.8% in the two years. And its share of the market based on dollars spent rose from 0.2% to 8%."
Apple has a 6.8% share of the laptop computer market. The most recent market share numbers I could find for eveyone else show that nobody has more than 15%, so 6.8% is nothing to sneeze at. Those same numbers show Sony in fifth place, with a 7.1% market share.
I expect Apple's piece of the laptop market pie to keep getting larger. Why?
-People are getting sick of Microsoft licensing, and Windows security holes, and Windows spyware/viruses to the point where they're willing to try something different.
-Apple's laptops have been feature-rich and very price competitive for the last few years, and the more polished OS X becomes, the more heads it turns.
-People who want a UNIX laptop seem to prefer just buying a PowerBook/iBook instead of dicking around trying to get something other than Windows to run well on an Intel-based laptop.
-The "I'd rather build my own using dirt-cheap parts" crowd doesn't count in the laptop market because you can't easily build your own laptop.
-The gamer crowd doesn't count either, because the high-end Wintel laptops their games need are not cheap, and upgrading the video hardware after a while is difficult to impossible.
The playing field is just a lot more level in the laptop market, so eventually the company that makes a functional, innovative, well-supported machine (even if it is a few dollars more) will float close to the top of the market share rankings.
~Philly
What kind of video card does this powerbook killer have in it? My Dell has a 64mb Geforce4, hope this thing has something 'killer' as well.
No OSX? Hardly a powerbook killer.
Yeah, there's a website full of them.
my experiences have been pretty good with apple's support. i've had three issues in the (almost) year i've had my ibook.
/. (and on apple's forums). called and got right through. first tech didn't really listen to what i said, but asked me to do a few things that would take a few hours and call back (run it down, blah blah blah). rather than fight really hard, i just did it and called back. got right through again. next tech promptly agreed to replace it. this was about 4:00pm. had it on my door by 10:00am the next day.
1) the battery was doa. i decided to deal with it through the dealer i bought the computer from. bad idea. dealer was helpful, but apparently, apple doesn't back up their dealers as well as they could, giving themselves and their apple stores priority over their dealers. it did get taken care of, no cost to me, but it took about a month. lesson learned: go to apple direct.
2) at about 5 months, the backlight went out. called apple direct. was a busy day as i was on hold for about 20 min (still better than most of the other pc outfits i've dealt with in the past). after 5 or 6 minutes of troubleshooting, they agreed it needed to be sent in. box was at my door the next morning. i had it back in my hands in less than one week -- can't ask for more when it had to go in. ended up being a power supply problem that quit powering the backlight. odd, but no problems since.
3) a couple months after that, my battery had suddently toasted itself -- was getting less than half the life out of it i was getting just a month earlier. this was widespread enough that it was talked about on macslash and here on
all said, i obviously haven't had perfect experiences, but i really don't have anything to complain about. always deal directly with apple, and if you get the occasional tech that doesn't quickly do what you want, just move along to another one. unlike most outfits, apple appears to have more good ones than bad ones. oh, and i do have applecare.
geek friendly VPS's and free API enabled DNS : zerigo.com
And that was sadly my problem with the VAIO Z 505, it made too many sacrifices with its external floppy, external CD drive (nice to see this one has it included), big power block, port replicator and so on. So instead of carrying a small computer, you lugged round a whole load of extras. But it was a cute machine.
I went off the VAIO when it came to upgrading memory, not only was it extortionately expensive, but Sony had crippled the machine. It could take (and hold on to your seats here) 96Mb of RAM, but thanks to a crappy motherboard, if you installed any more than 64Mb it slowed down!
The final straw came when I couldn't put up with Windows 98 any longer and wanted a more robust OS. Sony's insistance on doing things their way (ie. via a custom install disk that only supported 98) made things far more complicated than they need be.
As a word of warning, beware of Sony's habit of pulling technical support (such as drivers) from their Web sites as soon as a model is replaced. Getting software for older VAIOs can be tricky.
So if you want a PC laptop, this looks very nice, but I won't be joining you this time round.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Interesting. I use mine ALL of the time. Maybe that's because I have one.
keep your machine from being useful at all, and waiting on the phone and for repairs can be agonizing if you are one of those people who cannot be without a computer. The problem is that it is hard to gauge durability and warranty service at purchase time, so flimsy computers with great specs look attractive but turn out to be a massive headache. Unfortunately, such computers sell well unless people know that durability and service are such an important part of a laptop.
On this front, Sony laptops are trouble, based upon my experience with several PCG-Z*** machines. Sony's service model is awful- they do not distribute parts (even the screws on the bottom that continuously fall out) to dealers, so even the most minor repair means a hassle. Specifically, it means waiting on the phone with bozos in Florida, sending it back to Sony in California, calling Texas a few dozen times to check on the status of your repair, and the end result is that you are laptop-less for weeks. It says a great deal about Sony's attitude if they think it is reasonable for someone to be without their computer for six weeks. This wouldn't be such a big deal if the tiny Vaios that are so attractive weren't so flimsy that stuff is breaking on them all the time. It got to be so bad that we would suffer through multiple failures until finally the machines became so unusable that it was worth going through their service to fix the 5 things or so that had broken.
Contrast that with Apple- they have lots of capable places where people can fix your machine while you wait (don't get me started about how amazing the Powerbook triage unit at Tekserve in Manhattan is...) and if you have to send it back, they do a great job turning things around pronto. They know that not having your computer is a big deal and do a lot to minimize the time you are without it.
I've given up on the Sonys, particularly for my graduate students, who are harder on their machines than I am. I switched from the Sonys to iBooks and have found iBooks amazingly durable and Apple's service model far superior.
Since our killer aps are 'vi' and 'gcc', either platform can work fine and the iBooks have been troopers so far.
I have heard that the TiBooks are not as study as iBooks, but I don't have first-hand experience with them. I found the iBooks very good bang for the buck and will stick with them until convinced otherwise...
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
If this is ultra-light weight laptop on the road, how come it doesn't have infrared nor bluetooth?
The expensive part of a laptop computer isn't the process, hard drive, ram, or video card. Those are all pretty cheap standardized components. The most expensive component on the laptop is the LCD screen - and that is the one thing that would remain the same on the "stripper" laptop.
I have blog like everyone else
I own a Sony Vaio Picturebook from 3 years ago, and even with the larger screen and built-in networking advancements they've made since then, I'm still waiting for a new Vaio to beat my old one.
This new Vaio is heaver (3.1 vs 2.2 lbs) and has less battery life than my Picturebook (7 hours on double battery). I also prefer the torque-stick cursor device over the touchpad.
Not good enough.
-mazor
I dual boot Debian unstable and OS X Jaguar on my TiBook 800. The only thing impressive about OS X's graphic capabilities is that I can get playable FPS on Medal of Honor, but then that isn't much of a testament to Aqua. If you really find that XFree86 is slower OS X then there is something grossly misconfigured on your system.
If OS X is worth what so many here seem to think it's worth I'd buy two OS-less Apple laptops...
I'm typing this on an Apple iBook with Debian/Sid. Everything works.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.