Sony X505/SP Notebook Review

John Gaule writes "Earlier it was mentioned on Slashdot that Sony has introduced the worlds thinnest laptop, the Sony X505 which weighs just under 2lbs. Designtechnica has reviewed this system and compares it to the JVC Interlink 7310, Panasonic W2 and Sony TR1A laptops. Apparently Sony had to have a custom motherboard configured to get the CPU and hard drive in the right position for cooling. There is also no integrated WiFi but it uses an 802.11g WiFi PC Card."

Comments

Better link and more info on this laptop

[W32.Klez.A]

The full review on one page is available here.

Also, I must say, that is quite the small laptop. And you can see the fingerprints all over it in one of the photos on the main article. :-)

There are other images available here as well.

Re:Better link and more info on this laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

FREE NELSON MANDELA!!!!

Re:Better link and more info on this laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

Notebooks. What is it all about... is it good, or is it whack?

Re:Better link and more info on this laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

in SOVIET RUSSIA, good is what notebooks are all about.

Re:Better link and more info on this laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

FREE NELSON... umm, who?

Re:Better link and more info on this laptop

[utexaspunk]

those aren't fingerprints- that's the plastic peel-off anti-scratch sheeting that protects it during transport. they just haven't removed it in those pictures.

first

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah

GNAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Is teh winz.

it breaks easily

[Tirel]

What they don't mention in the review is how easily these things break, I got the new Sony for christmas and it fell on the floor (from 1 meter), and almost broke in half. I mean wtf? I think I'll just be sticking with Apple powerbooks from now on as they make the most durable and stable laptops on the market. I just love their 17" G4, it's such a beast ;-)

I would seriously suggest you try it out live before you buy it (but dropping it on the floor at the store might not be the best idea.) Or better yet, choose ppc,
for superior architecture and design.

Re:it breaks easily

[dattaway]

"Almost" broke in half? Usually, smaller and lighter devices don't hit the ground as hard. It would be unusual to have a featherweight laptop to break due to its light weight. Do you have pictures of the damage?

Re:it breaks easily

[cb8100]

Damn, dude. Be more careful with your stuff. I wouldn't expect any brand of laptop (except for those OLD 286 "mobile computers" that were about 6 inches thick when closed) to survive a 3 foot drop.

Re:it breaks easily

[gnushell]

Hell, even my iBook has taken many a tumble and survived. One corner is chipped, and the LCD frame is slightly cracked in four places, but the structural integrity has not been compromised. It works as if it's never been dropped.

I've had to use Compaqs, and Toshibas at work, and none have been as well constructed.

Re:it breaks easily

[Anonymous Coward]

A fellow I know at college had a W2, and almost the same happened to him. He put his notebook in his backpack, which rolled from one step down to another, barely a one foot drop, and the panasonic dropped out of the side a few inches onto the concrete.

The result? a smashed screen and it wouldn't close properly. I'd ribbed him about how weak the thing looked, but didn't expect it to be so insanely fragile.

These things are notebooks, but I don't think they're meant to be portable, they're more like your grandmother's finest china tea set. So impeccably made, so fine, so well crafted... and not something you'd want to use for their supposed purpose.

(I bought myself a 12" powerbook btw. It's not as elegant as the W2, but stunning in its own right)

Re:it breaks easily

[davidstrauss]

Usually, smaller and lighter devices don't hit the ground as hard.

Basic physics tells us all objects, when air resistance is neglected, hit the ground at the same velocity when dropped from the same height, and for a one-meter fall, I don't think air resistance is the issue.

Re:it breaks easily

[jsahol]

Same velocity, different momentum, though, right?

Re:it breaks easily

[e-matt]

Lets Give Credit where Credit is do IBM makes some of the best laptop, for stability and performance.

Only caveat is the IBM (corporate level machines T and A Series) tend to more exepnsive than Dell but they also last much longer.

Re:it breaks easily

[Strog]

That's true if you want to talk about the speed at which they hit. You neglected inertia which tells us that the heavier object will have much more energy.

Hold a 2x4 in front of you and I'll shoot a 22 pistol and a 45 auto at the board. I bet the board will stop the 22 but do you want to find out if it can stop the 45 at roughly the same velocity?

Re:it breaks easily

[BJZQ8]

Yes...nothing like shattering screens or malfunctioning latches to make you think that Apple has a quality product. The most recent iBooks are abysmal in my opinion, certainly no better than the run-of-the-mill HP's and Compaq's you see in Best Buy or Circuit City.

Re:it breaks easily

[Anonymous Coward]

"I think I'll just be sticking with Apple powerbooks from now on as they make the most durable and stable laptops on the market."

You want durability and stability? Try Tadpole. Used by the US military. Runs Solaris and Linux. I've found Thinkpads pretty solid as well. YMMV.

Re:it breaks easily

[Mochatsubo]

When a mouse falls down a well, it's stunned but survives. When a man falls down the well, it breaks. When a horse falls down a well, it splashes.

-- a crude rememberance of a quote with attribution that has been long forgotten

Re:it breaks easily

[PhotoBoy]

I've had 3 VAIOs none of which have broken or are in any way flimsy.

I can understand some people want laptops with lots of drives etc, but personally I find once I've got everything I need installed on the machine I rarely need a CD drive for anything since new software gets transferred via the network. Different strokes and all that of course.

Re:it breaks easily

[technomancerX]

Having used a wide variety of laptops (IBM, Sony, Toshiba, and Apple) I have to say Apples are not bad for durability, but IBM laptops are the ultimate. I still have a Thinkpad 570 (5 years old) that's functional with no structural damage that's been dropped several times from heights up to 5 feet.

The thing got yanked off a desktop when somebody tripped over the power cord during a reboot. It hit the floor on it's side on battery power after dropping 3 feet and never even hickuped while rebooting. I picked it up, plugged it back in, and went back to work. This was when the laptop was ~1 month old.

The only thing I've ever had to do to it as far as service was have the display hinge replaced when it was roughly 2 and a half years old. It was still under normal warranty. Service went like this:

1. Day 1 - flickering display, called IBM, they said they'd send an Airborn Express box
2. Day 2 - received box, packed laptop, called Airborn Express and they came and picked it up
3. Day 3 - laptop at ibm
4. Day 4 - got laptop back from IBM working fine mid morning

I've had the same problem with my iBook, which I'm typing this on, which was 8 months old at the time. For starters I was seriously pissed to be having problems with a system less that a year old. Service went like this:

1. Day 1 - had problem, called Apple, was informed Store XYZ had authorized Mac techs and I should take it to them
2. Day 2 - drove laptop to Store XYZ, they looked at it, told me the display hinge (and thus the display connector) was bad (which I already knew) and it would need to be shipped to Apple for repair, left laptop with them after being told it would be 7 to 14 days before they'd have it back and that they'd call for me to come pick it up when it was in... grumbled while driving home
3. Day 7 - no laptop
4. Day 9 - decided to call Store XYZ, laptop was in that morning, drove to Store XYZ and picked up laptop

I have to say IBM's service makes Apple's look like a bad joke. IBM picked up and returned my laptop in a period of three days. Apple's service for the same problem involved two car trips and a nine day wait. I was also upset that a problem that's taken around 2 to 2 and a half years to develop on the two Thinkpads I've owned occured on my iBook in less than a year... and seems to be starting again at a year and a half... not to mention the battery which died at 13 months (which is not covered by an Apple Care extended warranty, so I had to replace it out of pocket). Now if only IBM would license OS X and build some Power PC laptops... sigh.

Re:it breaks easily

[skidoo2]

This should have been modded down as a troll. Or maybe even spam. "I dropped it and it broke?" That's interesting. Come on.

Re:it breaks easily

[jabberjaw]

Perhaps you should consider a Panasonic Toughbook. I have no experience with them personally, however I only hear good things about their durability. They are a bit pricey though.

Re:it breaks easily

[Phrogz]

I got the new Sony for christmas and it fell on the floor (from 1 meter), and almost broke in half. I mean wtf? I think I'll just be sticking with Apple powerbooks from now on as they make the most durable and stable laptops on the market.

I can attest to the strength of the PowerBook firsthand. My 17" PBG4 fell off the top of my suitcase (~2.5') inside it's minimal-padding sleeve, and landed head first, right on the corner, onto concrete.

The result is that the case in that corner became slightly flattened. No damage to the screen. No change in functionality.

Yay for quality engineering. My wife just bought a Sony PCG-8N1L, and while not purporting to be thin (it's a fricking thick huge beast) it's all plastic. Having been used to Apple's solid designs, it seems so cheesy and cheap :)

Re:it breaks easily

[ejr]

On the flip side, I recently sent in my Thinkpad T21 for service. The keyboard bevel broke within two weeks of receiving the laptop originally, but that wasn't why I sent it in. The screen has been accumulating dead pixels, the connector between the screen and the unit is loose, and the laptop won't boot unless it's squeezed the right way.

IBM's first-line folks were fine. They sent out a box for my laptop immediately. But then the tech folks declared it to be "liquid spillage" and not under warrantee. I was told they would send me the photos proving it later that afternoon. Calling back a few days later, I was told they would send me the photos that afternoon. A week later, they would send me the photos that afternoon. A few days later... Finally I gave in (after many escalations) and had them return the laptop. This all took about a month.

Since it was no longer under warrantee (the "liquid spillage" excuse), I took it apart myself. There was a nice glob of thermal grease in the keyboard connector that was not there when I sent it in. (I sometimes removed the keyboard to dust it. The manual detailing how is available on-line.) I had different memory modules installed. Same capacity, but now they had "certified used" stickers on them. I also found thermal grease on the motherboard in a few places, and some interesting fingerprints etched in the metal around the screw holes.

I tightened some connectors, cleaned the board as best I could, and reassembled. The dead pixels are still there, but it boots reliably now and the screen connector doesn't go dead.

And they'll still be sending me the images showing that it's liquid damage this afternoon. I no longer trust IBM's thinkpad support. If this were a commercial account, I would have gone through the sales rep, and they would have dealt with everything. But the personal support I encountered was definitely not trustworthy.

End-user service is always a crap shoot. You may get great service, you may get lousy service, all from the same company. That's why businesses will pay more to go through sales reps. The sales rep will deal with it. Oh well.

Jason

Re:it breaks easily

[goofballs]

not that it matters, but i have a sony fxa-36, which has an all plastic casing. it's been dropped multiple times from 2-3 feet, while not in a case, and it still works fine. the plastic on the right hand side of the keyboard cracked the last time, but it's still fully funtional.

Re:it breaks easily

[cynicalmoose]

The carbon fibre they use is the 'space age' carbon fibre used on the space shuttle. So it shouldn't break.

However, if you do break it, do not try to re-enter the earth's atmosphere with is as your heatshield - this may cause what NASA calls LOV/C (Loss Of Vehicle or Crew). And NASA said that the Columbia's RCC should not have broken in the circumstances.

Re:it breaks easily

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Drop a drinking glass from that height and see how well it does.

Re:it breaks easily

[Anonymous Coward]

OT, but a .22 short caliber bullet can usually go through about 2-4 cm of pine. a single 2x4 might not stop it.

Re:it breaks easily

[metal_priest]

Why do people say sony sux and then don't mention the model that they broke. Fact is that sony has a lot of cheap feeling plastic laptops with big megaherz, ram, hd and no quality. Perhaps you had the p4 vr505 or whatever they call it?
Anyways, I hate it how people say that macs are better. Everybody made fun of me for buying a vaio sr19(10" & 2.9lb) instead of a "portable"(5lb?) ibook. Well, since then at least 2 of my people had to RMA their laptops due to mobo failure and screen issues.
Don't believe me? Check nice ibook stories here.
So to each his own. Sony can make good laptops and apple might too. Know what you are buying instead of just betting your buck on brandnames. But for god's sake, stop this whole "Apple is holy, ppc is better bullshit".

Oh yah recently my laptop experienced a big weight dropped on it from over a meter. As a result there is a crack on both sides of it, but it still functions(except for the bent memory stick slot).

Re:it breaks easily

[Anonymous Coward]

But is this a one or three button mouse now?

Oh sorry, wrong thread.

Re:it breaks easily

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh.. heh... heh... You said T and A...

Re:it breaks easily

[gnu-generation-one]

"Same velocity, different momentum, though, right?"

African or European laptop?

Re:it breaks easily

[Espen]

You should have called Apple back on Day 2. They would have sent you a box just like IBM and you would probably had it back on Day 4.

Re:it breaks easily

[xenoandroid]

The G3 Dual USB iBooks were no doubt had some huge faults in the logic board design (which usually causes the video failure). However my experiences with Apple's support were exactly like your IBM support, you should have said you wanted it sent in to Apple directly rather than deal with stores. Unless going there isn't out of your way, insist that it be shipped to their debugging center.

I'm surprised that you had to pay for the battery, Apple replaced my power adapter after I tripped on it and yanked the wire out of the plug. I'd think something like that would be pretty obvious when it was sent in (Apple Care Protection Plan). It sometimes has to do with whatever tech person you get on the phone (or how you talk to them), one of the ones I've delt with simply said they were going to have it brought in after I described the problem. Another technician seemed to be amused by what was blatantly my fault but decided to have it exchanged anyway (adapter).

But I really wish Apple would design their more recent products so that these kinds of things don't happen in the first place. My old 1994 Mac still works great, but these past 2 years churned out computers (iBook mainly) that should be recalled to replace the logic boards with a different revision.

Re:it breaks easily

[Myself]

It's too bad the Panasonic W2 isn't technically part of the Toughbook line. Yes it's a little more durable than the average craptop but it's not going to stop bullets like the more rugged machines.

I don't understand why people pay a bunch of money for a delicate little machine, then act surprised when it breaks. You wouldn't buy a wristwatch that wasn't built to take a little abuse, would you? You wouldn't drive a car that couldn't handle rain, would you? So why buy a portable computer that isn't durable enough to leave the house?

I'm more than willing to sacrifice a bit of power for a lot of durability. I don't do anything on my laptop that would need a gigahertz chip anyway. Now if they could just improve the battery life a little, I'd gladly carry a few extra pounds if the thing would run as long between charges as my cell phone. Most laptops are junk.

Re:it breaks easily

[Anonymous Coward]

except for the T20 which sucks for some reason.

Re:it breaks easily

[Anonymous Coward]

The most recent iBooks are abysmal in my opinion, certainly no better than the run-of-the-mill HP's and Compaq's you see in Best Buy or Circuit City.

I disagree. My iBook has been fantastic except for needing a logic board replacement and a new power brick (both replaced under warranty at no cost). True, they definitely seem to have some issue with the logic board, but otherwise it's a great little machine. Just get the AppleCare warranty on it and expect to send it in 2 or 3 times over it's lifetime before you junk it in 3 years. Well, I guess now that I write that it doesn't sound so great, but they are nice little machines anyway. Much nicer than my Dell Inspiron 4000... even though I guess I've never had any problems with that. Hmm.

Re:it breaks easily

[Anonymous Coward]

Think you just got a bum machine. I've been using a T21 for close to 3 years now and it is the most solid machine I have ever used. The only machine that I restart less is my slack server.

Re:it breaks easily

[BJZQ8]

I will agree that the concept and basic execution are great...it's a wonderful idea in the perfect form factor (the 12" is the one I'm talking about...) I'm just dismayed to see Apple falling from its previous pinnacle of quality to a level no better than "the other guys." There was a time when Apple meant buying the absolute best; but it seems that is no longer the case. I have been told many times by Apple salesmen to "buy Applecare!" but it is no substitute for cheap construction.

Re:it breaks easily

[Anonymous Coward]

Stick to the Panasonic W2 then. Panasonic Toughbooks are known for their ruggedability.

Re:it breaks easily

[rekkanoryo]

I saw a demonstration by one of Panasonic's sales reps in October of 2002 (Pittsburgh ITEC event). The man dropped their then largest and most expensive Toughbook from a 6 foot height, climbed down the ladder, picked it back up, and it was still in perfect working order. I wish they weren't so featureless and expensive, though.

Thinner and thinner.

[ActionPlant]

Looks like Apple will be going back to the drawing board. The iBooks look pretty thick in comparison.

Damon,

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[kertong]

But you have to consider - the iBook comes with a combodrive that can burn CDs, as well as read DVDs. The powerbooks that are even thinner, come with a superdrive that'll read/write DVDs and read/write CDs. Slot loading, too!

On top of that, you get DVI output, firewire ports, and usb ports too. I couldn't see what this new Sony laptop had (site is slashdotted), but looking at the images, it seems pretty bare-boned. Does it even come with a mouse/trackpad, or do you have to use the external USB mouse they provide?

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like Apple will be going back to the drawing board. The iBooks look pretty thick in comparison.

Nah, with this example at 3500 to 4000 bucks depending on case materials, I'm not seeing it in the same league w/ Apple PBs.

No CD drive. No built-in wifi. A 10 inch screen. And Windows?

You can have it.

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[ActionPlant]

I didn't notice the first time around, and now I can't get to it. Guess we'll have to wait to find out.

That's okay, I'll stick with my iBook. It's cuter anyway.

Damon,

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[ActionPlant]

Nah, with this example at 3500 to 4000 bucks depending on case materials, I'm not seeing it in the same league w/ Apple PBs.

No CD drive. No built-in wifi. A 10 inch screen. And Windows?

You can have it.

That's okay, I really don't want it.

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[kertong]

[i]That's okay, I really don't want it.[/i]

Give it to me! I'll whore it on ebay for $3500 and buy 2 12" Powerbooks for the price. :)

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[31415926535897]

Looks like Apple will be going back to the drawing board. The iBooks look pretty thick in comparison.

Man, talk about groupthink (or whatever you all call it these days); I cannot believe the parent got moderated +3 Interesting for that comment.

I am not trying to troll, etc., but this is a non-comment. It should be rated +0 No Duh.

Apple was at, and has been at the drawing board long before this laptop came out, and they will continue to be at the drawing baord even after they release a product that's better. I would even bet that every laptop manufacturer is at (and has been at) the drawing board.

Anyway, my personal opinion is that the iBook and the PowerBook(s) are great thickness/size(s). They are at a very comfortable size. If you go too small, it's hard to use the laptop, and many features of a standard computer will be missing.

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[skidoo2]

But you have to consider, the Sony Z1A (which has been out for what, nearly a year now?) is thinner than any Powerbook, has waaay longer battery life, a built-in CDRW/DVD drive, two USB ports, firewire, headphone and mic ports, Memory Stick port, built-in 802.11b, built-in RJ45 ethernet port, and a PCMCIA slot. Oh, and a touchpad, beautiful screen (1400x1050 native), and an excellent keyboard. I think I paid like $2200 for it, maybe six or seven months ago?

As far as it being flimsy or whatever--PSHAW! I abuse the hell out of this thing. So does airport security.

The 1.5 GHz low-power Centrino processor drives Windows XP significantly faster than Powerbooks drive OSX.

Powerbooks certainly have their good points. They don't seem as durable as they used to be, but they're still pretty solid. But price/feature comparison? No comparison, as far as I'm concerned.

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[Grandmaster Mort]

Actually, none of the iBooks have the option of using the SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW). iBooks only have a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive. That being said, if the only way I can get Ethernet is via USB, Sony can go suck my left nut.

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[Grandmaster Mort]

There's nothing to consider. PowerBook vs Z1A: FireWire 800 > FireWire 400 Gigabit Ethernet > Fast Eithernet 802.11g > 802.11b back-lit keyboard > standard keyboard Now you do have a point about OS X not being responsive in some GUI tasks as Windows XP is on comparable Wintel systems; however, many people who use OS X tend to overlook that anyway.

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[Anonymous Coward]

The iBook is thick because it was designed to survive being thrown across the room by a 4th grader. This Sony (or any sony really) was not.

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[ActionPlant]

Well for what it's worth, I certainly wasn't posting to troll for a +5 mod. I merely find it amusing that laptop companies continually try to get thinner and thinner. The laptop industry is almost as vain as fashion. I'll laugh when the day comes that you can't even see your portable if it's turned on its side.

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[Anonymous Coward]

Compared to the faster processor and higher-resolution screen of the Sony, the advantages of the Powerbook that you list are absolutely laughable. Hardly anyone has Gigabit ethernet or 802.11g hookups at their office, and most people don't own any Firewire devices whatsoever, let alone 800 Mb ones. Give me a break, Apple zealot.

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[metal_priest]

Sony TR2 has a much better screen(but smaller). It's MUCH lighter and thinnier than any apple shit.

In fact compared to the panasonic r, t,w series or sony tr, vr, x series, fujitsu, jvc, etc apple isn't even in the same class. All of the above PC manufactures have laptops that have AT LEAST the same features, but generally more & often for less money. I repeat, apple doesn't have anything to compete with in ultraportable market except marketing and hordes zealots.

And don't give me that slot loading crap. PC laptops like panasonic w2 got way more innovative cdrom designs.

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[raodin]

Those are all features that look nice on a spec sheet, but the only truely USEFUL one, for most people, is backlit keyboard. I've had firewire (400) on my old Powermac for a good 3 years, and I've used it once or twice. Gigabit is nice to have around, I suppose, but be honest.. Do you have it at home? Or even at work? Same goes for the wireless, especially when most people only use wifi to hop on the internet from the living room or whatever. 11mbps is still a lot faster than any internet connection I've ever seen.

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[e r i k 0]

The iBooks aren't supposed to be (very) thin. It's Apple's PowerBook line which has typically been the thickest. The iBooks are a budget laptop - around $1000 in some configurations - and you can't expect them to be the thinnest (or lightest) notebooks on the planet.

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[Sunnan]

Backlit keyboards are useless, distracting trinkets, they're yet another thing that can break, and I make a point of avoiding computers with them.

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[RustyTaco]

Minor correction. Sony doesn't use "Firewire", that's an Apple for IEEE1394 with the 6-pin powered connector. Sony uses "i.Link", which is a smaller, 4-pin, unpowered connection. Fine for plugging a DV cam with it's own battery, but completely useless for running an external harddrive or webcam without having to carry and plug in another power brick.

- RustyTaco

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn to read, nitwit. The guy you're responding to said nothing about SuperDrives on iBooks.

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just got my PB with a backlit keyboard. Now I can't imagine not having it. Try it, you'll like it!

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[skidoo2]

Yeah, I have to concur that backlit keyboards are nice. My Sony Z1A doesn't have one. It'd be nice if it did. My Treo 600 does have a backlit keyboard. It's a necessity on a handheld. I've got a little Targus USB-powered clip-on light for my Z1A.

Re:Thinner and thinner.

[Sunnan]

Really? I just don't see any advantage except that it looks cool.

we will be right back

[Anonymous Coward]

after this commercial break

I won't give up my Powerbook.

[Bubba]

Especially since I didn't pay for it.

sit down fanboy

[Anonymous Coward]

if i sat on any laptop it will fail, having an Apple logo on the front of my taiwanese laptop makes no difference

Apple manufacture nothing, its all outsourced to the same people that make laptops for Del,Sony et al

FUCK YOU GOD DAMN PIECE OF SHIT

[Anonymous Coward]

what the fuck is with all this crap about gay niggers? you guys need to be stuck in IRAQ and let the SAND NIGGERS have their way with your puny little nigger asses! fuck you all you motherfucking faggots!

I'm an idiot.

[Upaut]

I, Upaut, am too stupid to log out of slashdot before walking away from a public computer.

Re:I'm an idiot.

[aminorex]

You may be an idiot, but I'm the confused one:
Should this be -1 Troll, or +1 Insightful?

No onboard RJ45 connection

[Delirium Tremens]

Yeah, I really missed those dangling network adapters.

Getting connected is a must. X505 gives you the
option to connect to your network through USB to
LAN adapter or Wireless (WIFI card is included)

I guess it should have actually read: Getting connected is a must. But we forgot about it during design.

Re:No onboard RJ45 connection

[Kenja]

An RJ45 plug is thicker then the notebook. Since it has built in WiFi I dont realy think the loss of a 10/100 port is that much of an isse. Whats more the USB->Ethernet adaptors are not much thinker then the ethernet cable itself.

Re:No onboard RJ45 connection

[KirkH]

There is no built-in WiFi. You have to use a PC Card.

Re:No onboard RJ45 connection

[Kenja]

Your right, my bad. Still dont think its much of an issue. Most if not all the Sony slim notebooks have been sans ethernet.

Re:No onboard RJ45 connection

[Tom7]

Missing the builtin wifi is quite lame, but not having an RJ45 jack on-board is forgivable, seeing that the laptop is too small to even accomodate one. (Though, I must admit, the tininess of the RJ11 jack on my N505VE astounded me the first time I saw it!) Maybe if they moved the power switch and used that swivel point for the jack?

Re:No onboard RJ45 connection

[metal_priest]

Very funny. I belive their design goal was to squish the laptop into ridiculous dimentions. Hence the carbon fibre frame, weird kb placement, etc.

This laptop isn't meant to be a everything-for-everyone model. It's a marvel of engeneering exploring new ways of achieving portability in laptops to come. It's common that first generations of skinny laptops miss non-essensial hw.

I personally like my Toshiba

[pogle]

After 6 years of tech support, Toshiba is the most problem free of the laptops I've dealt with, and IBM/Dell tied for the worst. Apple laptops are also sweet, but I've had more limited dealings with those.

Just got a Toshiba Satellite M35-S359. Something like 1.4" thick, 15.4" screen, ~7lbs. *Very* sweet laptop, and heat is no issue with the Centrino proc in there. Forget IBM's fragile creation, get something with some panache :)

Re:I personally like my Toshiba

[e-matt]

I'd like to which ThinkPad's you were using?

I agree Toshibia has made good machine in the past put there recent efforts are severly lacking.

Opionion's are like A-holes, eveyone's got them

Re:I personally like my Toshiba

[pogle]

"I'd like to which ThinkPad's you were using?"

Too many to list. Been dealing with them for years, a lot of professors at my university had them.

"I agree Toshibia has made good machine in the past put there recent efforts are severly lacking."

Aside from getting a defective power plug out of the box, this Satellite has offered no trouble at all. YMMV of course.

"Opionion's are like A-holes, eveyone's got them"

Well, yeah. This is /. after all :)

Merely offering my insight from doing generalized tech support.

Re:I personally like my Toshiba

[planetmn]

The toshiba I'm using here at work right now sucks. Thing is heavy as hell. Sure it has a 15" screen, but the size of the case I need to lug this thing around makes it more like a moveable desktop than a laptop. Give me a 1" thin (or thinner) sub-5lb notebook with a 12" screen anyday over this giant. And for the price paid for the Toshiba, we could have easily bought a nice IBM T-series. Note, this Toshiba is not a centrino. -dave

Re:I personally like my Toshiba

[Chibi Merrow]

I've had just about the exact opposite experience... Well, except for Dell. Their laptops are just awful for the price. We had one die recently and it took about two days of us trying to repair it followed by two tech visits and mailing it back to the manufacturer for it to start working again. Meanwhile we loaned the guy who it belonged to one of our presentation Thinkpads... He's repeatedly begged to keep the Thinkpad instead of his Latitude.
In our case, we can't kill the Thinkpads in service with us. They're solid sturdy functional little machines. They're also fast, as well.
Toshiba I probably haven't given a fair shake, as the police department got a bunch of refurb Toshibas and they were some of the worst trash I've ever dealt with. I saw in another post you said the Thinkpads you had problems with were used mainly by professors... What sort of problems did you experience? I begin to wonder if it was PEBKAC...

Re:I personally like my Toshiba

[Anonymous Coward]

The consensus amoung, well, pretty much everyone (especially those knowledgeable) is that IBM makes the best, sturdiest, most reliable laptops hands down. Just read comp.sys.laptops or talk to virtually any software engineer. IBM also offers the best support of any laptop manufacturer. This is why people pay a premium for thinkpads.

Toshiba on the other hand has serious quality issues, especially with their lower cost laptops, as evidenced by fairly regular class action suits against them for knowingly replacing faulty components with the same part.

Re:I personally like my Toshiba

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta love AC veiled insult posts. "especially the knowledgeable", very good :-p Talk to any software engineer? Talk to the people who support said engineers and you might hear a different story. Everyone has different experiences, and mine have been anti-IBM when it comes to both their desktop systems and laptops. But then I'm anti-any prebuilt desktop, and I'd build my own laptop if I could.

Well, you take your 'consensus' knowledge and I'll take my years of hands on work, and I'll trust my own experiences before an AC. Hows that?

Personally, I think paying a 'premium' for any hardware is sheer idiocy. Unless you're talking huge server equipment, which a Thinkpad is not.

Re:I personally like my Toshiba

[Anonymous Coward]

I inherited several old Toshibas - Tecra 8100, Portege 3100, 3400 when i took a position after a Win2K rollout. I hated those machines. All thos darn Toshiba drivers needed to be installed, and installed in a particular order to work right. Junk.

Next time we ordered laptops...T20's for everyone. They aren't perfect (none are), but problems have been minimal.

Unfortunately, thanks to corporate we won't get to upgrade to the T30 or T40.

<crosses fingers>
I just ordered 5 HP Evo N610C.
</crosses fingers>

Re:I personally like my Toshiba

[dendogg]

Well, I remeber a lawsuit against them a few years back when I had one of their computers with a built in defective disk-controller chip (or something like that, I don't remeber the details) anyway I took mine into service as it there was a problem and the service reps at ComputerCity (remeber that place?) Didn't know how to fix it, and gave me a run around for three or four months without giving me the computer back. Needless to say after some wrangling I got a new model sent direct, but that one still didn't work right. The only Toshiba that really worked well was my 386sx model with the black and red screen. Oh, wolfenstien 3d in Red and black. Makes my eyes bleed just thinking about it.

Point: They seem no more reliable than any other name brand. Especially their new tablet PC version which is flimsy as all get-out.

Re:I personally like my Toshiba

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh, don't software engineers typically provide their own support for their machines?

Just about every PC Mag reliability study rates IBM on top, and frankly, I'd rather believe them then your "years of hands on work."

Re:I personally like my Toshiba

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, a Thinkpad is used as a service/control module or something like that in some IBM mainframes.

RIAA, Bad luck

[jrockway]

I know slashdotters (like myself) love Sony's offerings... they're cool and neat looking, but remember that Sony is supporting the RIAA in all of the lawsuits. Also, the MemoryStick media that they back (and surely put in this laptop) is much more expensive than CF or SD or anything else.

Also, I just plain haven't had good luck with Sony products:

My NX60 stopped working one day for no reason (didn't drop or crush it), my stereo shocks me when i touch the case (so that's gone), my brother's PS2 died for no reason, my coworker's sony laptop's keys [letters on the keyboard] have all rubbed off ("how can I type now!?" "remember where the keys are" "what!!???"), etc, etc, etc.

My Multiscan200sf monitor is holding up quite nicely; that's a well-made piece of machinery :) Then again, maybe they didn't suck in 1997.

Note that I'm not flaming or trolling, I just think that most people on slashdot would be better-served by choosing a more open vendor than Sony.

Re:RIAA, Bad luck

[pogle]

The only bit of Sony hardware I own is a nice 19" Trinitron CRT. I learned to stay away from most of their other stuff after tech supporting some of it. A lot of people share your luck in dealing with their products, in my experience.

Although I do enjoy the PS2, I waited till it was cheap-ish (relatively speaking).

Re:RIAA, Bad luck

[Whispers_in_the_dark]

I don't know about the other denizens here, but I have to say I have *never* had any luck with any computer device made by Sony that had mechanical components (so I'm supporting the parent posting in a way). I previously owned a VAIO -- a large one, not the little tiny ones -- so I expect the device to be at least a little durable. Instead, the keyboard failed within a year. A year later, the hinge on the screen broke. The device is still operable, but it is *extremely* fragile.

I ended up getting a Dell Inspiron next since I take my machine to/from work daily. In some ways it has worked better but the CD-RW's slide mechanism is all screwed up. After closer examination -- you know it's coming -- the stupid thing's made by Sony.

I'm the first to admit that I'm not the easiest on portable electronics. But of the things I own that have had mechanical failures, it's the Sony label that's on most of them.

This is just my experience, YMMV.

Re:RIAA, Bad luck

[I_M_Noman]

Also, I just plain haven't had good luck with Sony products: My NX60 stopped working one day for no reason (didn't drop or crush it), my stereo shocks me when i touch the case (so that's gone), my brother's PS2 died for no reason, my coworker's sony laptop's keys [letters on the keyboard] have all rubbed off

Your experience is completely different than mine. I've had a Vaio PCG505F since it came out (going on 5 years now) and haven't had a lick of trouble with it. Despite the small screen and slooooooooow processor (P233 -- fast enough then, deadly now) it just works. And my Clie N610c is still great two years into its life.

I guess that's why they created the phrase "your mileage may vary."

Re:RIAA, Bad luck

[dial0g]

I share your experience with recent Sony products. My VAIO R505 has had numerous issues (LCD latch has broken 2 times for no apparant reason, docking station has had issues, and the battery has problems and is costly to replace).

I also have a dead PS2 (my newer PS2 works perfectly though, seems they fixed the DRE problems) and it seems any discman I've bought int the past few years has died in 6 months.

Interestingly, I had a discman from early-mid 90's that lasted a good 6 years as well as a bookshelf stereo system from '94 that still runs great. I also have a Sony Trinitron-FD monitor that is 3 years old and runs perfectly.

Interestingly, Sony gives 3 year warranties on their monitors (compared to much shorter warranties on the products mentioned above) - so if you are looking at any Sony products check the warranty. If they only expect it to last 90 days you probably shouldn't expect it to last much longer...

Re:RIAA, Bad luck

[somethinghollow]

A great formulat for +5 Insightful...

1) A blanket term that will be contradicted a'la Mark Antony's speach for Caesar. I know slashdotters (like myself) love Sony's offerings

2) Use RIAA in a negative sense. remember that Sony is supporting the RIAA in all of the lawsuits

3) Bring up solid state memory comparisons. much more expensive than CF or SD or anything else

4) Use the word "open" in reference to slashdotters to gain trust, even if it doesn't exactly make sense. , I just think that most people on slashdot would be better-served by choosing a more open vendor than Sony

5) Get modded up.

Re:RIAA, Bad luck

[FreshFunk510]

Perhaps they've gone the way of HP (and many other consumer electronic companies for that matter) who moved their product to other countries that have worse quality controls and make for cheaper products (both in price and quality).

That's why you see this odd paradox where old products (10 years old) that were made in Japan still work great but new products made elsewhere (Indonesia, Mexico, Phillipines?) have a shelf-life of 2 years.

Re:RIAA, Bad luck

[pavon]

Also, the MemoryStick media that they back (and surely put in this laptop) is much more expensive than CF or SD or anything else.

Also remember that one of the main reasons that MemorySticks are more expensive is that it they are proprietary, while the CompactFlash interface (form factor / pinout / comunication protocol) is an open standard. I don't know if SD is proprietary or not.

Also, since CF has the contoller on the chip not the reader, it allows a lot of flexability in terms of the actual technology used to implement it, providing more opportunity to adapt for the future than both Sony MemorySticks or SD.

Re:RIAA, Bad luck

[skidoo2]

SD doesn't have a controller on the card? Well how do they make SD wi-fi cards and whatnot?

Re:RIAA, Bad luck

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I would laugh, but take Sony and substitute Apple, HPaq, Dell or Toshiba, and you could describe any product made.

Maybe I'm just innured because I HAVE the sony handycam, the digital camera, work buys me a new Sony Vaio every couple of years, I love my PS/2, and I've managed to tweak the 2.6 kernel so my new Clie syncs correctly... and ...

Alright, I'm a Sony Zealot, deal.

But our CEO is hooked on them too. He only destroys them half as often as the Dells we used to buy him.

Re:RIAA, Bad luck

[SneakyNinja]

Things must be a bit different over this side of the pond (UK). I've been using a Z600 LEK laptop (european variant of the 505 series) for a couple of years now. It's been stood on by my 2yr old daughter, stuffed into overhead lockers twice a week as I flew around for a month or two, and generally used and abused. So far, no problems at all. The battery still lasts for an hour and a half (not much worse than it was when I first got it) But then I do *love* Sony stuff.... :-) Come to think of it, my 25" Sony TV has been going strong for 9 years without a problem too.

Re:RIAA, Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know scratching the casing of a sony laptop voids the warranty? google it if you dont believe

2Thin 2Furious

[ThePretender]

No direct quote as the article is now Slashdotted... However, they ask about inspiration for the carbon fiber. Oh come on, we all know carbon fiber is rad on your tricked out import racer, so why wouldn't it look just as cool on your laptop?

Re:2Thin 2Furious

[Anonymous Coward]

Carbon fiber is light and strong, retard!

Re:2Thin 2Furious

[ThePretender]

I'm sorry to have left out the indication that it was obviously a joke, asshat.

looks like they're testing it as their webserver..

[mrgreenfur]

it's toasted... and only 8 comments!

Can a laptop be too thin? Too small?

[in_ur_face]

I dont know but IMO a smaller/thinner notebook is a very specialized product for a small market. I personally have a Dell Inspiron 4150 and I think it weighs in around 5-7lbs, but I think it is a perfect weight/size. When you go smaller you start to lose drives (ie, cdrom, etc..), I/O connections, and also the laptop is so light that if you *accidentally* snag your power cord then its to the floor w/ the laptop. I hate the devices that are too small... PDA/phones that try to be laptops (or laptops that try to be palm/small sized) are less user friendly.

Alt link for info

[KirkH]

The page seems to be dead, Jim, but here's another source of info on the X505.

LOLOMGWTF! YOU MAD# TEH FUNNAY W3BSRVR JOK# +5 LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

LOLOLOLOLOROFL

$4000? HolySheeeee-it.

[gelfling]

My God. $4,000 who is going to buy this? P-Diddy? Martha Stewart?

Re:$4000? HolySheeeee-it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait a few years. Not too long ago, I bought a VAIO that originally sold for $3800 for only $300. Couldn't run a modern windows installation, but it runs linux just fine.

Re:$4000? HolySheeeee-it.

[NanoGator]

"My God. $4,000 who is going to buy this? P-Diddy? Martha Stewart?"

A sales manager who travels a lot with an expense account...

Re:$4000? HolySheeeee-it.

[technomancerX]

I'm assuming they reviewed a system from Dynamism.com, which mean it's not actually being offered in the US yet. This also typically means that Dynamism is charging a $1000+ markup on it for importing it and installing a US OS and providing support.

I would guess that if Sony releases this in the US it will probably sell for around $2000.

Re:$4000? HolySheeeee-it.

[Anonymous Coward]

" I would guess that if Sony releases this in the US it will probably sell for around $2000. "

In your dreams !!!!
It wouldn't be any less than $2500 for sure.

Re:$4000? HolySheeeee-it.

[skidoo2]

> It wouldn't be any less than $2500 for sure.

I would have to concur. The Z1s (which are the next size up; still pretty small though) are at $2199, MSRP.

But they definitely won't be $4000, assuming they're making a decent quantity of them.

Re:$4000? HolySheeeee-it.

[WillAdams]

My first laptop was a GRiDCase III Plus which I bought back in 1985.

$8,150

For my part, it looks like a _really_ nice machine, but it makes me sad that Sony recently got burned on the pen computing thing, so won't be doing a pen slate or convertible --- oh well, there's always the NEC or the Fujitsu or even the Electrovaya Scribbler...

William

Re:FREE MANDELA

[Anonymous Coward]

In every box of Corn Flakes. Details inside!

/.'ed

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, someone must be RTFA. Site is gone.

Sony had to have a custom motherboard configured?

[odyrithm]

Sony had to have a custom motherboard configured to get the CPU and hard drive in the right position for cooling

I know Im no expert at language, but isnt that a contradiction? ;)

MOD HIM DOWN.. WELL KNOWN TROLL....

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent is a well know troll and his signature is a goatse link.Look at his history. Please mod him down.

are you kidding?

[therealcaf]

There aren't many electronics I would expect to survive a 3+ foot fall. You dropped it on the floor, it broke, and you're suprised about it? I mean...wtf.

Re:LOLOMGWTF! YOU MAD# TEH FUNNAY W3BSRVR JOK# +5

[Anonymous Coward]

I Agree With This Post

keyboard position

[planetsphinx]

ok, with the keyboard slammed against the outside edge of the deck, how the heck am I supposed to use this in my *LAP*?
Come on Sony.. move the keyboard back so I can rest my palms on the deck, and hold the laptop on my lap at the same time...

Re:keyboard position

[Anonymous Coward]

I Agree With This Post

Re:keyboard position

[Anonymous Coward]

you are SOOOOOOO right.. jebus... cant believe they still make laptops like this.

Re:keyboard position

[gantrep]

They stopped calling them laptops when the things became too hot to use on the lap without risk of burns. They're notbooks now. I guess just put it on a desk and use one of these

Re:keyboard position

[Bazman]

Looking at the pics, it seems the motherboard occupies the blank space between keyboard and screen, which means they can make the keyboard thin and not have to worry about cables etc under the keyboard.

Suggest you stick strips of velcro underneath the unit and on your lap-covering garments :)

Baz

Re:keyboard position

[Anonymous Coward]

i'd actually be curious to see what its like to type on this sort of layout. ergonomically speaking your wrists should not be resting on something anyways... I have a toshiba 3440ct which has the kb in the back, but since the hard drive and other stuff is in the front part, it gets kind of hot... my hands get too warm from being over it (sweaty palms... ;). in this respect I think the kb in front design is probably better.

Re:keyboard position

[Mignon]

Suggest you stick strips of velcro underneath the unit and on your lap-covering garments

That's a nifty idea. And with a light enough laptop and strong enough velcro, you could probably stand up and not drop the laptop. You could even think of it as a sort of wearable computer that way. You might want to rig up a cord from the cover to your belt so that when you stand up, the lid would automatically close, too.

Re:keyboard position

[zorcon]

get a bigger LAP

Re:Can a laptop be too thin? Too small?

[tds67]

Ironic...the size of laptops decreases while the average weight of Americans increases.

Hmmmm...a new theorum is born:

The size of laptops is inversely proportional to the size of the American consumer.

Custom configured motherboard?

[swanky]

Don't all laptops pretty much have custom configured motherboards anyway?

Re:Custom configured motherboard?

[Kenja]

Nope. Most have a 1 from colum A, 2 from colum B setup by your freindly Tiwanese mfg.

Re:Can a laptop be too thin? Too small?

[d^2b]

Depends why you have a laptop. If you travel, then no, as long as the keyboard is usable, then no,
there is no such thing as too small and light.

Personally, I can live without any drives when
I travel: compact flash makes a reasonable backup choice.

yiv jfopew fdsf flibble

[gantrep]

The mouse doesn't look very ergonomic.

Re:Can a laptop be too thin? Too small?

[be-fan]

Hmmmm...a new theorum is born:

Slashdotters can't spell theorem.

Touchpad?

[loteck]

Does anyone know if Sony has addressed the widespread touchpad issues that have plauged the Vaio laptops, specifically the 505 series?

I have a thin v505 that is less than 6 months old, has been treated extremely gently, and is already in need of touchpad replacement/repair (the cursor just skips all over and simply does not accurately track finger movement). This is an annoying and widespread enough problem to warrant those considering purchase of a 505 to perhaps think twice. And if you do, definitely get that extended warranty (but that may just go without saying in laptop purchasing).

Re:Touchpad?

[BigBir3d]

For this model, yes. It has a trackpoint instead.

Re:Touchpad?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know.

Re:Touchpad?

[skidoo2]

It seems to be fixed on the Z1 series. I have a first-generation Z1A that I got new about 6 or 7 months ago. Touchpad works fine. Gets used a ton.

Now, I did (as mentioned in an earlier post) have an issue with the default configuration of the touchpad. But I found the setting and disabled the "feature" in question (it would close the current window if you dragged your finger back-and-forth in the upper-left corner).

Re:Touchpad?

[macshit]

Does anyone know if Sony has addressed the widespread touchpad issues that have plauged the Vaio laptops, specifically the 505 series?

Well, obviously, by getting rid of it. :-)

I'm quite glad myself, as I really hate touchpads... Eraserheads are not much better for fine movement, but their location is far superior for occasional large-scale movement -- which as a mostly-emacs/xterm-in-X user, is what I care about the most (to switch windows, etc). I'd guess that space issues were the main the reason Sony switched though.

To tell the truth the best laptop pointing device I ever tried was one of those little mini-trackballs that I think panasonic used to put on their notebooks. It lacks the great placement of the eraserhead, but both fine and gross movements were much easier and more accurate than with a touchpad or eraserhead. I suppose that sort of thing is not very workable for an ultra-thin laptop though... (not to mention more mechanical stuff to go wrong)

Too small to be useful

[KirkH]

It's pretty cool, I'll give it that. But at $3500 or $4000 (depending on which case material you go with) it's just too expensive and too feature limited to be something I would go for.

No trackpad (have to use trackpoint or external mouse).
No built-in floppy or optical drive.
Have to use dongles for LAN and VGA out.
Have to use PC Card for 802.11.
Only a 20GB hard drive.
Max of 512MB RAM.
1 GHz Centrino CPU.

All your paying for is thinness and lightness. That may be enough for some, but not me. Get rid of all the dongles, include a CD drive, beef up the specs a bit and then we can talk. I don't care if you have to make it a little thicker and heavier -- it needs to be useful!

I suspect they're going for the mobile professional market. Marketing guys that will pay out the nose for the smallest, hippest item. Good luck to 'em.

Re:Too small to be useful

[Anonymous Coward]

Yikes. I didn't look at the specs but after seeing those pathetic features for that super high price, I personally would be much more inclined to spend that much money on a powerbook 15 or 17 inch. My question is the quality of the LCD. From experience the quality of the 17 inch powerbook display is amazing.

Re:Too small to be useful

[BigBir3d]

They do make something like what you want. It's called the TR series.

Unlike Apple, Sony makes more than 2 different laptop ranges.

Re:Too small to be useful

[NanoGator]

"All your paying for is thinness and lightness. That may be enough for some, but not me."

It's not meant for you. It's a niche product. It's meant for business travellers.

I saw a few laptops sorta like this (very small, no externals to speak of) being used by journalists and business peeps at Siggraph a couple of years ago. Whereas I have an Inspiron. I love this machine but I'd be nervous as hell trying to navigate around the show floor with it tucked under my arm.

Re:Too small to be useful

[radish]

No trackpad (have to use trackpoint or external mouse).


That's a disadvantage?? I HATE trackpads with all my soul. The only reason I haven't bought a laptop is that the only ones with trackpoints these days are (a) huge toshibas (b) super expensive sonys and (c) ugly thinkpads. I'd buy a powerbook with a trackpoint in a shot...

Re:Too small to be useful

[killmeplease]

Sounds like this is the wrong damn computer for you. So shut up and enjoy the fricken laptop for what it is. SMALL.

Re:Too small to be useful

[daviddennis]

Amen, brother.

The only thing I don't like about my conversion from ThinkPads to PowerBooks is the loss of the TrackPoint and the gain of the touchpad, which seems to send my cursor just about everywhere but the right place :-(.

Would love Apple to see the trackpoint light.

D

Re:Too small to be useful

[macshit]

Would love Apple to see the trackpoint light.

Me too, but I wonder if there are patent issues involved.

Whenever I see a particular unique solution used heavily by one manufacturer, and only sparsely used by others (and in the case of eraserheads, it's usually for notebooks which are physically too small to use anything else), I start to suspect patents...

Re:Too small to be useful

[daviddennis]

IBM does have a patent on it, but it's appeared on Toshibas and others, so I don't think the terms are prohibitive.

I suspect the real reason we don't see more trackpoints is that the rubber eraser tip self-destructs after 6 months to a year of heavy use. Manufacturers probably don't want to explain the need for that kind of maintenance to irate customers who just see their mouse cursors start drifting bizarrely.

I know the first time I saw that happened, I thought there was something really expensive wrong with the system ...

(The eraser points cost something like $0.50 each, but how was I to know then?)

D

Sharp Actius MM-10

[kindbud]

I got one of these. It weighs slightly more than the Sony, but has a Transmeta 933Mhz CPU, integrated 100baseT and 802.11b, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 10.1" TFT, and a touchpad. It runs Linux with no problem, except that the ALi sound chip doesn't support SPDIF, yet the sound driver expects this chip to support SPDIF and tries to initialize those ports with colorful results. :) A few minutes' hacking on the driver source, and that problem was solved.

With the bigger battery, its weight goes up to a whole 2.9 lbs, but it runs for 9 hours.

Re:Sharp Actius MM-10

[kindbud]

Oh, I suppose I ought to post the point I was trying to make. First point is that tiny notebooks don't have to give up important features like network connectivity and touchpads. The second point is that because my Sharp is so lightweight, I use it and carry it with me much more often than the full-size notebooks I have owned previously.

Re:Sharp Actius MM-10

[metal_priest]

This is a kickass laptop. Also very innovating with their act-as-a-usb2-harddrive-for-your-desktop mode :)

The shoving laptop into docking thing to charge is cool too.

I might snag one of these babies once they stick the new transmeta cpu into them. The one in it is getting kinda dated. I heard sharp has nice screens too. Do you find that the screen on that laptop blows away most other laptops of the same generation?

Re:Sharp Actius MM-10

[macshit]

First point is that tiny notebooks don't have to give up important features like network connectivity and touchpads.

Of course in many people's view, the touchpad is a drawback, not an `important feature.' It's good there's a laptop for everybody's taste, though -- in fact, Sony's use of an eraserhead is a hopeful sign, given the lemming-like movement of the industry towards touchpads lately.

Oh, and according to the review, the Sony does have an ethernet adapter.

Laptop too thin.. too small.

[jangell]

I dont know but IMO a smaller/thinner notebook is a very specialized product for a small market. I personally have a Dell Inspiron 4150 and I think it weighs in around 5-7lbs, but I think it is a perfect weight/size. When you go smaller you start to lose drives (ie, cdrom, etc..), I/O connections, and also the laptop is so light that if you *accidentally* snag your power cord then its to the floor w/ the laptop. I hate the devices that are too small... PDA/phones that try to be laptops (or laptops that try to be palm/small sized) are less user friendly.

Re:Laptop too thin.. too small.

[Trashman]

I dont know but IMO a smaller/thinner notebook is a very specialized product for a small market. I personally have a Dell Inspiron 4150 and I think it weighs in around 5-7lbs, but I think it is a perfect weight/size

To each his own. The notion of the perfect size/weight is subjective. I personally think the IBM T30/T40 is the perfect wieght at less than 5-lbs and it is still very functional.

Re:Laptop too thin.. too small.

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont know but IMO a smaller/thinner notebook is a very specialized product for a small market. I personally have a Dell Inspiron 4150 and I think it weighs in around 5-7lbs, but I think it is a perfect weight/size

To each his own. The notion of the perfect size/weight is subjective. I personally think the IBM T30/T40 is the perfect wieght at less than 5-lbs and it is still very functional.

Heathens! The only valid weights are: 4.6, 5.6 and 6.9! :)

Re:Laptop too thin.. too small.

[solarcardork]

(browsing on my T40) I agree, the T40 is quite portable and still has lots of features. My only complaint is that it doesn't have a serial port, but does have a parallel port for some reason.

It's impressive the amount of processing power it has, combined with the long battery life (I get about 5 hours, with the wifi on) and it hardly warms my lap at all.

Re:Laptop too thin.. too small.

[Trashman]

You know, I toyed with the idea of picking up a 15" TiBook.

1. I think the 12 " is too damn small. The 17" is just absurdly large. The 15" just feels right (for me at least).

2. The one-button mouse thing. Yeah, I know it's a lame excuse, but I just find it rather detracting in a Special Ed kind of way. I wish apple would change that. And no, I don't want lug around an external mouse.

Re:Laptop too thin.. too small.

[InodoroPereyra]

To each his own. The notion of the perfect size/weight is subjective.

The same goes for pricing and OS. I would much rather get this 1.3 kg subnotebook, loaded with Lindows, no MS tax, for less than a US$900 (as compared to $4000 for the X505/XP). BTW, there are other options in Lindows.com. And yes, I would wipe it and put Mandrake on it :-)

Re:Laptop too thin.. too small.

[leifm]

Mine is like 8 pounds(Inspiron 5100), and I can't wait to have the money to replace it. I had an iBook for a while, I think it was 5 pounds or so. That was my ideal, fairly light but still had a drive, just wish it had been able to do a resolution higher than 1024x768, but that seems to be what you get with all of the smaller laptops. You're right about the really small ones though, I don't understand how anyone can use something like a Picturebook.

Re:Laptop too thin.. too small.

[Anonymous Coward]

The same goes for pricing and OS. I would much rather get this 1.3 kg subnotebook, loaded with Lindows, no MS tax, for less than a US$900 (as compared to $4000 for the X505/XP).

My god... Why would you get that generic POS with a 1 GHz *VIA* processor (shudder) when brand new dell, toshiba, HP, etc. notebooks regularly go on sale for much less (and they even include XP home in case you want it). Granted it's just 1.3 kg (2.9 pounds), but many times the brand-name ultralights are priced that low too. Hell, if you want an ultralight, get an older toshiba portege or gateway 200 series off ebay for $500, it's still got better specs for half the price.

Re:Laptop too thin.. too small.

[Mod Me God]

hmmm...

Specifications:
Modem 56k*
*The onboard modem is a Winmodem, and does not work with Lindows or Linux. It does work with Windows XP



Great computer to sell pre-installed with Linux then. For a Linux-based ultra-light, I recommend these.

Re:Laptop too thin.. too small.

[JavaLord]

I dont know but IMO a smaller/thinner notebook is a very specialized product for a small market.

Anyone who commutes into a large city and uses mass transit and wants to carry a laptop to work in the mornings, this sort of thing is great for. Also, anyone who has to travel for their jobs. It's not that small of a market.

Drop a powerbook...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and little angel wings spring out to levitate it just above the floor. Now that's superior design!

If we save just one person from buying a Sony

[Dasein]

All these comments saying "What do you expect from a 3+ foot-drop" Valid point but it doesn't change the fact that I will never own another Sony. The one that I had (also an ultra-portable or whatever they call it these days) would drop screws like crazy. The battery went kaput very fast. The hard-drive made that terrible "I'm about to fail noise". Bad, bad product.

So, how about the service. Non-existent. I was promised shipping boxes and RMA tags on no less that four occasions and never received a single one.

There is good news though, someone broken into out house a stole this piece of shit. Our insurance paid replacement cost, which allowed me to get a Dell. Been pretty happy with that.

For another thread of unhappy Sony owners check this out.

Japanese

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are the Japanese always designing things around the characteristics of their penises? That hook-nose kike Freud was right afterall!

Fuck your heirarchy of moderation! Bring down the house trollaxor, GNAA, and troll priest!

So drop your mac from 1 meter and see what happens

[FatSean]

Oh...don't want to try that, do yah?

f=m*a

[levl289]

the force of the impact is equal to the mass of the object (a light notebook) multiplied by the acceleration of gravity.

velocity stays the same, but the force of impact is greater or smaller depending on the mass of the object. the original poster was correct if you take hard==force.

Re:f=m*a

[addaon]

Um, no. The force of the impact is equal to the mass of the object times the negative deceleration of the object as it collides and it and the floor compress. The acceleration of gravity has nothing to do with it, except in determining the speed from which the object will decelerate.

Custom Designed Motherboard?

[LamerX]

What do they mean by custom designed motherboard? Is there some sort of standard for notebook motherboards? I thought they were all custom designed. Last time I checked my crappy Dell notebook had a custom motherboard in it too. I think maybe that was some kind of hype statement?

Re:Custom Designed Motherboard?

[StarManta]

I think they mean that the design was specialized for letting heat out.

Vaio Keyboards suck

[elan]

The thing I've found is that if you type extremely quickly, and especially two of the same letter in a row, the Vaios are likely to miss the second keystroke. I thought it was a problem with my laptop, but the other ones in the store suffered from that problem as well.

Anyone else notice this?

Re:Vaio Keyboards suck

[skidoo2]

Weird. I've never seen this. I've had a Z1A for six or seven months now. I type plenty fast.

One annoyance though was that the touchpad is configured by default such that a quick track horizontally back-and-forth in the upper left corner closes the window with the current focus. This made browsing very frustrating. I found the setting pretty quickly and disabled that nonsense.

Re:Vaio Keyboards suck

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Like they don't do that for other laptops?

Come on, that's like advertising water as low-carb.

Re:Vaio Keyboards suck

[Anonymous Coward]

I hve nver nticd tat. As a mttr of fct I am tping tis mssge on a Sny rght nw! No poblm. (ad I tpe qite fst!)

Re:Vaio Keyboards suck

[skidoo2]

I don't understand. Oh, are you saying that's the default setting on other laptops? OK. I hadn't noticed it before I got the VAIO. And don't get me wrong, I love the Z1A. It's a great machine. I would *highly* recommend it for anyone who needs a slimmer, lighter, but powerful laptop.

Re:Sony had to have a custom motherboard configure

[Trillan]

Are custom motherboards a rare thing in the PC laptop world? That seems pretty unlikely to me.

robbIE online dating/won-eyed girl review?

[Anonymous Coward]

when too much is never enough, there's always the stuff that matters slowgun (for sale).

this storIE may never be tolled accurately?

planet/population rescue, gnu millennium edition? (Score:-1, Offtopic)
by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 31, @12:08PM (#7846083)
no need to wrap it, just put it on the kharm(a).

making the case that the won-eyed girl is a phonIE (mynuts won, beating a lame won to debt, & incestuating 100's of thousands of lonely hobbyists/members of robbIE's gnu dating service?)
by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 31, @06:48AM (#7844071)

will corepirate nazi felon ?pr? ?firm? scriptdead execrable (mynuts won, it's ok if you do it for monIE?)
by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 31, @06:44AM (#7844061)
skew/FUDge survey results/EVERYTHING?

you can bet your .asp again on that won. fortunately we have robbIE's 'stuff that matters' slowgun, & his gnu dating service to keep US abreast of reality/prevent softwar gangster hypenosys mindphuking?

&, failing that, we have the:

pateNTdead eyecon0meter used to .controll ?pr? ?firm? crap? (mynuts won, need a date buddIE?)
by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 30, @02:38PM (#7837849)
that's right. this stuff is unbreakable, & wwworks on several (more than 3) dimensions.

morons build vessel that floats on any suBStance? (mynuts won, no need to be suspicious?)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29, @02:53PM (#7829639)
you can bet your .asp on that won?

creators/humankind converge to repel unprecedented evile? (mynuts won, who run our 'banks'?)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29, @02:51PM (#7829610)

& why not? what other options are there for us?

eyecon0meter: survival most sought after feature? (mynuts won, get yOUR freedumb here?)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29, @02:48PM (#7829586)

creators' badtoll over corepirate nazi execrable (mynuts won, many think hangin's way too good for the skalywags?)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29, @02:46PM (#7829567)
disposal?

newclear power dissed/cussed? (mynuts won, no animals killed buy MiStake in newclear power generation)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29, @02:41PM (#7829536)
&, it's free as in free.

newclear powered blips explore corepirate nazi (mynuts won, no lowrating robbIE's sponsors?)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29, @07:53AM (#7826913)
cesspool?

pheWWW.

lookout bullow. the daze of the phonIE payper liesense ?pr? ?firm? hypenosys stock markup FraUD softwar gangster execrable, is WANing into coolapps/the abyss, at the increasing speed of right.

consult with/trust in yOUR creators.... get ready to brighten up?

solar(is) power included?

* mynuts won, stuff that really matters is...? by Anonymous Coward (Score:-1) Wednesday December 31, @12:14PM

* lookout bullow? by Anonymous Coward Friday January 02, @04:19PM

My experience with Sony laptops

[jared_hanson]

A few years ago, I baught a Sony VAIO laptop. It cost about $3000. As was standard with Sony at that time, it came with a one year warranty.

Almost exactly one month out of warranty, I started having problems. The computer would start, stay on for a very short time (usually less than 5 minutes) and then it would shut off.

Thinking some part may be drawing too much power, I tried disconnection every possible part that could be disconnected. However, this did not solve my problem. I finally succumbed to calling the support department, which of course had no clue and recommended I send my laptop in to be serviced.

I sent my laptop in as they said, and got notification that it had been received at the service department. A week passed, and I had not gotten any indication as to the status. I called support, gave them my ticket number, and asked them what was going on. They had no idea, and nothing had been logged. A couple days later I called again, and got the same result.

At this point, I became rather upset, and demanded they call me back by the end of the next day to tell me what was going on. They were kind enough to call me back, but not smart enough to figure out the problem. They said it would cost me $2200 dollars to have the problem "fixed" which I'm sure at that cost meant sending me a refurb unit.

This was 1 month out of a year long warranty, and I was furious and demanded better service. At this point, I could have gotten a computer that was twice as powerful for the same price they were going to charge me for "repairs." Unfortunately I got nowhere in my requests for fair compensation. In fact, I had to pay $60 dollars to cover services rendered and have my unfunctioning laptop shipped back to me.

$3000 dollars got me use of a laptop for one year and one month. This thing had minor wear as it served mainly as a desktop replacement. After dealing with Sony, and being a loyal customer of their other products, I kindly told them to fuck off. I have never spent another dime on Sony products.

Re:My experience with Sony laptops

[Anonymous Coward]

That was a great story. I can only wonder who in the reading audience will wade through your lengthy reparte and out of those how many will then give a shit. Kthx.

Re:My experience with Sony laptops

[JoePyro]

From personal experience, most Sony products (including a laptop) have had quality problems:
My Sony stereo's CD player no longer works (skips)
My Sony Discman's volume control seems to be set on Random and the secret "constant noise" feature is permanently engaged
My Sony television blacks out when trying to play DVDs through my Sony PS2 using S-Video hookups (though Xbox/normal DVD player work fine through the same TV)
My PS2 stopped reading discs 3 months after I got it. I exchanged it, but now that's acting up.
My original Sony Playstation had to be replaced twice due to discs skipping and not reading.
And now, my very expensive Sony laptop is indecisive over how much RAM it has. After some googling, this appears to be the beginning of the end of my laptop.

I found this while researching problems with the laptop.

Re:My experience with Sony laptops

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why you buy the Extended Warranty! I always buy extended warranty on electronics that cost me over $1,000.

Re:My experience with Sony laptops

[jared_hanson]

No extended warranty was available. At that time, the only place to get VAIOs was direct from Sony via phone or website. The year warranty came standard, and no extended option was available (I tried).

Re:My experience with Sony laptops

[jared_hanson]

Yeah, I was a loyal customer of Sony, and had their stereo equipment in both my car and my home. Since the laptop incident, I've had my share of issues with other systems as well. I'm slowly phasing out of my home anything with the Sony name.

I wrecked my car, and promptly sold the stereo equipment that was inside it. (This was not Sony's fault but a good excuse to get something different).

Problems with stereo equipment:
- A VCR that refuses to output on the RF out connector.
- A DVD player that quit reading discs. It quit in the middle of a movie, which I found odd.
- A record player that can't spin at a constant rate.

Re:My experience with Sony laptops

[TechBCEternity]

sony has had two sources for laptops america and asia. The American ones are usually the bigger ones and have had most of the problems. The Asian models have had a better track record, but seriously buy a 3year warranty on laptops so you don't have to treat it like glass. I've had a dell inspiron for 2.5 years and I've had to warranty it for at least 10 different issues over 4 mail outs. anything over 3 years isn't too much since you'll want to sell it after that.

Re:My experience with Sony laptops

[jared_hanson]

No extended warranty was available. At that time, the only place to get VAIOs was direct from Sony via phone or website. The year warranty came standard, and no extended option was available (I tried).

In any case, I still expect better support from a company, even if I am not covered by warranty. They admitted to not knowing what a problem was, from a product that came from them. The problem was most definately not my fault, but I got stuck in the end. I will pay what is reasonable, but what they did blows my mind.

They have lost me as a customer entirely, and I am more than willing to pay a premium for my devices. I have since switched to Apple computers, plus a couple custom built ones I run Linux on. My stereo, which was purchased during the time when my laptop was working, is all Sony, but will be getting replaced shortly. One of their DVD players quit working, but I am much less bitter over a $200 dollar device.

I'm not sure what the stereo will get replaced with, but I'm leaning towards Pioneer. Sony has done such a fantastic job of alienating me that I don't even consider their products anymore.

Sony, in my view, is somewhat similar to Apple from a computer standpoint. They both sell devices at a premium, and for that you expect asthetics and quality. Now, Apple has had their share of issues crop up, but their support has always been second to none. Sony's support did nothing to encourage repeat sales. Incidentally, I seem to remeber stats that Sony was a leader in laptop sales a few years ago. It seems they have slipped quite a bit since then. No surprise, since few people are willing to buy again from a company that doesn't care after the initial sale.

Re:My experience with Sony laptops

[utahjazz]

My Sony Vaio laptop stopped working entirely after 2 months.

I've spent hours upon hours talking to Indians with american sounding names (Paul, Adam...I think they're all biblical). It's mind numbing, frustrating and entirely useless.

We all know Dell consumer tech support is also in India.

Does anyone know a company that makes laptops and has support in the USA?

(BTW, the problem is it crashes on the Phoenix BIOS splash and just prints L 07 07 07 07 07 infintely, if anyone has any idea what this is...)

Re:My experience with Sony laptops

[zeet]

Yeah, your LILO setup is hosed. It's a software thing, most likely.

Re:My experience with Sony laptops

[utahjazz]

Thanks. I guess that would explaing the L. I didn't mention anything to the tech support about making my laptop a dual-boot with Debian and XP, for obvious reasons.

But, I still think it's hardware. When I try various rescues, the kernel always tells me it's not getting interrupts from the drive. Either way, they're letting me return the thing to them for repair.

Hope they don't find my linux doings. Maybe I'll put the drive in the microwave for a few...

Re:My experience with Sony laptops

[TechBCEternity]

I had the same thing happen with my canon digital camera but it was under warranty still. They wanted more than the price of the camera to repair it for a lens reallignment. When the tech is simpler ie: old palm pilots you see third parties croping up to offer repair services but with laptops it's hard. The best thing is to go through another store that will sell you that third party insurance, it's probably not as good as going through the company but it's something. you're right that for cheap stuff, skip the warranty. But with computers a lot of it is rushed to market. just my 0.02

440Mhz at $3000

[muyuubyou]

So 1996... I wonder if those ultraSparcs are really that good performance/clock-wise.

Mine still works after 3+ years

[Tom7]

I have an N505VE and it's working great after 3+ years. The battery is dead (though I've never seen a battery last this long) but otherwise it runs like day 1.

I've never dropped it, but I think the build is pretty solid. The powerbooks also seem nice to me, I must admit.

But, but, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

But it is so shiny!

I, too, boycott the **AA, like any good slashdotter.

If I don't get this Sony laptop, how am I going to watch my LOTR & Star Wars boxed set DVDs? How am I going to listen to all of the Matrix soundtrack CDs I bought?

Small Laptops ...

[polyp2000]

Small Laptops ...

I've been wanting a really small laptop for sometime now and finding one that looks sexy and has some punch at a reasonable price is not that easy. But when you realise that you can purchase a G4 12in ibook for just over a grand and an 11in G4 powerbook for just over 1.5 grand. This sony laptop starts to look decidedly expensive all for a couple of millimeters here and there.

Aside from the math, Id rather give Apple some of my hard earned dosh , than redmond. I'd bet Yellow Dog Linux would run a beauty on those *book's too. I just need a job... After a while one needs a gadget buying fix, and I've been yearning for the tiny powerbook for too long now!

Re:Small Laptops ...

[metal_priest]

Sony laptops are also lighter & have considerably better screens :)

I think the ibook/powerbooks are about 2x as heavy.

Re:Can a laptop be too thin? Too small?

[FreshFunk510]

Yes, I was about to say that sooner or later laptops will be so light that people will be afraid to use them outdoors lest they be blown away in the wind. Soon we will be needing laptop-weights just to hold them down.

redundant?

[therealcaf]

how can something be redundant if no1 above me said that before?

Non-integrated WiFi is lame

[alispguru]

Actually non-integrated WiFi is lame on all notebooks, but especially so on this one.

When it's ultra-light and ultra-thin, the goal is portability, right? This should mean I can close the machine, dump it into its bag, and run.

But you can't do that safely if you have a WiFI card in the slot with the antenna lump sticking out of the side, just waiting to break off or transfer a bump from the outside into the card socket (munging it and in all likelyhood your machine's motherboard).

Fujitsu P-Series

[tercero]

After having my own Sony woes with my Clie and a friend's Vaio, I went on a search for the perfect (for me of course) sub-notebook.

My search ended at the Fujitsu P-5010. It's the size of a book so it fits in my backpack easily. It's not thin, but at 3.4 lbs it's light. It's 1" thickness prevents it from being fragile (with it in my bag, I've fallen on my bag...no damage). Plus the modular bay battery allows me to use it for about 7 hours of compiling Gentoo before I have to plug it in.

Linux support is good (except for wide-angle resolution, gotta go XiG for that).

My only complaints are: XFree can't do 1280x768 on the i855gm chipset (this may be fixed soon). I like a trackpoint more than a touchpad.

Check out the P-series forums at leog.net

Re:Fujitsu P-Series

[aardwolf204]

How the hell do you people keep touting 7 and 9 hour battery life! Maybe I just made a bad notebook buying decision with my Toshiba Satelite, but I'm lucky if I get a half hour out of the thing, and its only 2 years old. Sure, when it was brand new I could get maybe an hour and a half out of it at high speed. Online is said 3+ hours, but after purchasing it I realized that was in "low" mode (like 300MHz or something ridicilous). I realize I probably cut my batter life in half by leaving it depleated for a week a couple of times, or so I've heard when it comes to LiIon batterys, but really, seriously, someone tell me they actually get 7 hours of battery in full speed mode at 3 LBS!

Re:Fujitsu P-Series

[daraf]

Battery life VERY dependant on usage habits -- what kind of applications you run, how often they need to spin up the HD. My friend and I got the exact same laptop (this was a couple years ago) and I was getting about twice the run time on batteries that he was.

Re:Can a laptop be too thin? Too small?

[skidoo2]

No, as long as it's useful, a laptop can never be too thin or too small. Or too battery-conservinge.

Obviously you don't have to fly regularly with a computer. There are **THOUSANDS** of us who do. 5 to 7 pounds is a nasty backache waiting to happen, especially when compared to something like the Sony Z1A I have. It's got everything (2 USB ports, firewire, sound in and out, PCMCIA, built-in RJ45 Ethernet and 802.11b), sacrifices no drives (built-in CDRW/DVD, USB floppy), great keyboard, great screen, touchpad, it's speedy as hell, and it only cost like $2200.

Oh yeah, and it ways 4 1/2 pounds and is less than 1 inch thick. And has *awesome* battery life (6 1/2 hour regular battery, 8 hour "long-life" accessory battery).

Re:f=m*a - Should be 1/2m * v(2)

[xsbellx]

Close, but no cigar.

Based on your statement, dropping the laptop from a height of 0.5m or 500m will result in the same impact. Acceleration is constant, 9.8m/s(2) and so is the mass (the laptop does not get heavier or lighter on its way down).

The correct way of defining the impact would be:
energy @ impact = one half the mass of the object multiplied by the square of its velocity.

Yes. They got rid of it.

[cve]

It has a trackpoint.

too slim...

[Chuck Bucket]

wow, I think that's just too thin. I love my g3 12" ibook, and I think it's just the right size for everyday use. I know some execs will buy these sony's, but I suspect it'll end up on IT's desk more often than not. we had an issue at an old job of ours, the 'hot-headed' CEO would "drop" his tiny laptop (across the room) and it would break. again, it was sent in for repair more than it was used.

CB

Re:f=m*a - Should be 1/2m * v(2)

[levl289]

christ, you're right. this is at rest.

oh the embarrassment!

(Gratituous Gentoo Plug)

[EvilTwinSkippy]

You know, they have Gentoo for the Mac's too.

What better way to benchmark a new box than by clocking an KDE build in 18 hours instead of my usual 24.

Re:(Gratituous Gentoo Plug)

[polyp2000]

Never tried gentoo on Mac hardware before. In all honesty though i dont see that there is a huge point to it. Macs have very predictable hardware configurations, I doubt that the performance benefits of a custom build would be worth it. Even so there are other benefits to using Gentoo than performance. The ease of updating / upgrading via portage is one.

What hardware are you running your gentoo on? I cant say I've ever had to wait 18hrs to build KDE. (2xAthlon MP 1400).

Re:(Gratituous Gentoo Plug)

[raodin]

I run Gentoo on my g3 powermac, not for the optimizations, but because I just love portage. I haven't tried YDL in a while, but last time I did, I couldn't stand it. It had show stopping bugs in the INSTALLER... sheesh. (I couldn't choose 'custom install' or it would crash, iirc)

Re:(Gratituous Gentoo Plug)

[TeknoHog]

Macs have very predictable hardware configurations, I doubt that the performance benefits of a custom build would be worth it.

In my limited Gentoo experience with Intel hardware, I've noticed that Portage is less about compiler optimizations, and more about compile-time options. Leaving out unnecessary crap is much more important than simply using some gcc -O1337 options. For example, you can build software with or without GNOME bindings. Some binary distros seem to build all possible bindings just in case, which results in unnecessary bloat.

Re:(Gratituous Gentoo Plug)

[polyp2000]

>I run Gentoo on my g3 powermac, not for the >optimizations, but because I just love portage. >I haven't tried YDL in a while, but last time I >did, I couldn't stand it. It had show stopping >bugs in the INSTALLER... sheesh. (I couldn't ?choose 'custom install' or it would crash, iirc)

Fair enough. I used to use YDL on a blue 333mhz g3 at work. The first version I ever tried was a little ropey. But I found V3 and the previous version to be very very stable, and performance wise it seemed so much faster than a colleagues same spec G3 running OS9. Cant say I ever had any gripes with it at all.

I'd sure like to see gentoo running on one of those lovely new G5's though ! ;)

Re:(Gratituous Gentoo Plug)

[raodin]

Yeah, I heard V3 and later was pretty decent (I think I tried 2.0) but I'd already made my switch, by then. :)

Re:(Gratituous Gentoo Plug)

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Athlon 1700-xp and PIII 866 (dual).

KDE isn't so bad. It's qt that always seems to take forever. Then, if you don't set your flags to forget about gnome you end up compiling that too when some package that hooks to both adds in all of its gtk dependencies.

For laughs run emerhe -ep kde. Note all the gnome entries.

Keep these out of your enterprise!

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with these pretty notebooks is that executives love them. So while the rest of the company is using ibm notebooks the CEO has to have one of these sexy non-standard puppies and what worked on every other machine in your enterprise might not work on the Sony, despite the same OS, etc.

This is back in 99 my first week on the job, I had been installing the Norton client on 20 or 30, machines with out a hitch and its around 4:30. I ask the CEO if he has time for me to do the install, he says sure if will take less than 10 minutes he needs to leave for a flight. So I install the client, reboot and I get "MSDOS.SYS missing" (win98).

Dear god I was sweating bullets, the first time I meet the CEO and I have killed his laptop! A quick trip to symantec.com revealed the solution and it was a problem specific to Sony. All in all he wasn't delayed more than 5 minutes or so and he was very patient. None the less I have a strong distate for Sony laptops to this day.

Not having builtin wireless ...

[thrillseeker]

... and wired ethernet in a notebook is simply unacceptable now.

Re:Not having builtin wireless ...

[bishiraver]

Yet it comes with a wireless PCMCIA card.. and a standard ethernet jack is taller than the notebook.

Re:Can a laptop be too thin? Too small?

[legojenn]

No, as long as it's useful, a laptop can never be too thin or too small. Or too battery-conservinge.

Tell me about it. I am carrying half a course load in addition to my regular job with overtime. I bring my laptop, a Tecra 8000 and try to do my assignments, coursework, etc whenever I get a free moment like lunches. Since I'm studying CS, I "need" the laptop because I do a lot of coding for assignments. I would love a lighter laptop and for text books to be on CD rather than paper. I started to get spasms in my back....

Not quite.

[Inoshiro]

P = M V.

In the case of the laptop, the V would be what it got up to. Using Vf^2 = Vi^2 + 2ad, we find that the V ~= 4.43 m/s.

If I have a 1kg laptop, and have it 1 metre above the ground, the force it will hit the ground with is easily worked out. 1 * 4.43 = 4.43N of force. If you convert it to pounds, that means the laptop struck with a force of about 0.995 pounds. Scientifically we have determined that if it broke from that fall, it was a cheap piece of shit.

Widescreen should work

[metal_priest]

Does the modeline form http://www.vanbuer.net/~darrel/p2040.html help?

Re:Sony had to have a custom motherboard configure

[Fjord]

Yes and no. A motherboard is often shared across two brands, though not that often among two models of the same brand. An IBM may have the same mb as a Sager, but a Sager 5800 wouldn't have the same as a 5802. But it's still not that exciting. Even Dells and Compaq desktops will typically have custom motherboards. It just as common int he desktop world.

I might be missing something about why this custom board is special, though, because I can't get the article up :(

Re:Trackpoints

[Anonymous Coward]

So have you gone the next step and bought desktop keyboards with built-in trackpoint?

(grins)

's very nice...

people will notice this machine...

[bbdd]

from the article: "Using the X505 in a public place such as a coffeehouse or on public transportation, you'll notice a lot of glances."

and then they will beat the crap out of you and take it. not too hard to run away with a machine this small. :-)

Still:Not quite.

[Tmack]

Momentum, not force...

The force of it falling is dependant on how hard the surface it hits is. As you calculated above, the velocity at impact is 4.43M/s, giving the 1Kg laptop a momentum of 4.43 KgM/s.

F=M*A, where A is the acceleration of the laptop going from 4.43 M/s (V)to 0 M/s (assuming its not bouncing) over the collision time (T) or dv/dt.

dv is constant at -4.43M/s
time is unknown, but assumed to be approaching 0 (harder floor=less collision time).
This causes A to approach infinity.
Since our mass is constant at 1kg (neglecting all the peices flying off), this becomes 1*(infinity) for the force.

Now, the force is obviously not going to be infinite (in this post we WILL follow the laws of thermodynamics!). Assuming the impact takes 1/10 sec (dt=.1), force becomes 44.3N, that would be on a relatively soft floor, and is 10x what you said. Thus the harder the floor, the more damage it takes, as the impact time drops towards 0.

But none of it really matters. What does matter is how the laptop is constructed. It should be constructed to support its own weight, and be able to take minor bumps/drops/etc. Larger laptops have the luxury of more space for cushion and support, basically allowing the laptop to absorb the impact without snapping by spreading the impact time out a bit (dt gets bigger). They pay for that in weight. Smaller laptops have to rely on stong materials without much give. The smaller clearances and parts means stuff cant move around inside without bumping into something else, breaking, or shorting out, and theres not much room for support/cushioning (decreases dt).

tm

marketing rots your brain

[bfields]

Using the X505 in a public place such as a coffeehouse or on public transportation, you'll notice a lot of glances. Whether they are looking at the elegant little powerhouse in front of you or the big grin on your face while using it, you will be noticed - it's just that special.

Just reread that a couple times. It speaks for itself.

--Bruce Fields

Re:Can a laptop be too thin? Too small?

[tsaimelv]

All other issues aside, I've found that I can physically handle small/thin laptops with more care than larger 5+ pound laptops. In my padded shoulder-strap case, I never had a problem handling my 3lb toshiba portege. But with my 5 pound IBM T41, it tends to "swing around" more, with more momentum, when I walk. This means that I accidently bang the case into counters and doors a lot more often, swearing as I do it. I don't consider myself clumsey, it's just that a 5-7 pound laptop tends to come with a 1 pound AC adaptor, 1 pound of other junk, and a 1.5-3 pound case (weight it... many cases are heavy!). This is a lot of weight strapped to a shoulder, and it wants to move in other directions than you.

I think this was the cause of my recent hard drive failure -- I left my T41 laptop powered-up in the case and I think I accidently hit the case on something. Bye bye hard drive. This never happened in 6 years with my various ultralights.

The bigger it is, the harder it falls!

I have the JVC 7310

[Anonymous Coward]

quite the machine. i had bit small for my finger but i like it. and yes, linux runs on it (though not the wireless). any questions... just ask

Buy ThinkPad.

[aussersterne]

Except for i-series (I've heard bad things about them).

Over the years I've gone through:

ThinkPad 700
ThinkPad 760cd
ThinkPad 760xd
ThinkPad 770z

...and my current machine is a ThinkPad T22.

All of them ran/run Linux, all of them were desktop replacements, all of them had hundreds if not thousands hours logged logged before they were "retired" and all of them still run (they have been handed down through my family as I have upgraded).

For one brief moment I bought a non-IBM laptop (a Fujitsu), but frankly you can tell just by holding a ThinkPad in one hand and another make in the other that the IBM build quality is far better than the competition and less likely to result in cracked casings, floppy screens, overheating problems, creaky "flexi"ness, and so on... I moved back to ThinkPad within a couple of months and haven't looked back.

A perfect example of the Sony Timer

[pario]

Almost exactly one month out of warranty, I started having problems.

This is what we call the Sony Timer (TM) in Japan. Engineers at Sony are so skilled that they can design their products to break right after the warranty expires so that people will buy their products again. Everybody in this country knows about this. I am very glad as a Japanese to see that Sony is using its famous technology to give themselves a competitive edge in the international market.

Mod Parent Down, Plagiarism

[ATomkins]

I gave up mod points for this, but jangell stole this from here, just 14 minutes after in_ur_face posted it (12:55PM vs 1:09PM).

About powerbooks durability.

[torpor]

I've had a rev A. tibook since the day they went on sale, and this sucker just keeps on ticking.

It has been around the world with me twice, including some rough jaunts into the Aussie desert, and I've replaced the case myself 3 times (ever done that on any other laptop? thank you pbparts.com!) and it just keeps working.

tiBooks are one well-made computer. They have their con's (keys scratching the screen, duh) but their pro's are definitely more substantial, in my opinion ... this thing is a tank.

Re:Can a laptop be too thin? Too small?

[nyseal]

Wow....what DID we do as a society before laptops? How did we survive? Thousands of people wandering the earth searching for the perfect gizmo to fly AND work. None available? How primitive. I'm surprised that we, as a society, made it into the 21st century without people being able to take their gizmos with them everywhere they go. Sheesh.

Re:Can a laptop be too thin? Too small?

[bishiraver]

If I wanted a laptop (And I do, simply because I go lots of places and want to have a laptop with me for simple things like internet and word processing), I'd want the smallest, most comfortable, stylish, and lightest one available. I have a PC at home to play games on. The laptop, for me, would be for things I need to do while mobile: write (I'm an aspiring author), read slashdot, etc. Maybe plug my tablet in and sketch some.

I don't want to carry around a seven pound monster, if that's all I'm going to be doing. It's the same situation if all I was using a computer at home for, was word processing and the like: I wouldn't put a 3ghz processor in, nor would I put a 300 dollar video card; I'd put it together cheap and from high quality - and older - parts. Tricking out a simple word processing and internet machine is akin to ricing a minivan. You could do it, if you really wanted.. but what's the point?

Re:Sony had to have a custom motherboard configure

[odyrithm]

What I was trying to point out was.. if you build a custom motherboard then have to configure it.. you pretty much shoot yourself in the foot, why not have that configuration built in during the customisation of the board??

Re:Can a laptop be too thin? Too small?

[drunkenbatman]

I get what you're saying, I used to say the same thing... but the big thing for me is travel. IE, walking around the city all day. Walking around airports all day. Walking around campus all day. Walking around a conference all day... ...all of a sudden that extra weight really starts adding up on your shoulder. Big time. And smaller starts to look really enticing. First you start throwing anything you can out of your bag... magazines instead of books. You try to find small/light peripherals... and then you pick up a subnotebook and go "wow, this is a lot lighter than my current x" and boom, suddenly you're in the market.

Re:Sony had to have a custom motherboard configure

[Gadget_Guy]

What I was trying to point out was.. if you build a custom motherboard then have to configure it.. you pretty much shoot yourself in the foot, why not have that configuration built in during the customisation of the board??

You got the definition of configure wrong. When you design something, come up with the positions of all the components. In doing so you are designing the configuration of the device.

Just look at the first definition of the word configuration for a perfect match for this discussion.

Re:it breaks easily (kinda like my karma)

[mo^]

Where are mod points when ya need em!!!! some one mod parent up...