codename_romeo
Romeo + Lucifer = ME
Forgive me for any mistakes or ignorance on my part as this is my first take at writing a review on any laptop.
Well let’s begin:
*sp.sony-asia.com/media/150/74697
Manufacturer: Sony
Model: VPCCW26FG
Colour: White
Price: 56000 INR + 5000 (for additional one year warranty, optional)
Detailed Configuration:
Processor: Intel i5 M520 @ 2.4 GHz
Ram: 4 GB of DDR3 (i suppose 1066 MHz)
Hard Disk: 500GB @ 5400rpm
Graphics Unit: Nvidia Geforce GT 330 M
Display Resolution: 1600 x 900
Size: 14 inch
Weight: 2.4 Kg (including the battery)
OS Provided: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit
USB Ports: 3
HDMI: Yes
i.LINK(IEEE 1394) 4 pin (S400) x 1
Display Output Connector Analogue RGB, mini D-sub 15 pin x 1
Wireless LAN Type Integrated Wireless LAN IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n
Bluetooth Bluetooth standard Ver. 2.1+EDR
No recovery disc or installation disc is provided. Sony vaio recovery centre can be used to create recovery discs. It takes 4 single layer DVD or 2 Dual layer DVD. Recovery partition is present.
If someone is interested in fresh start installation they can download the home premium iso from Microsoft website and use the serial key provided at the base of the laptop. Rest all necessary drivers can be downloaded from the Sony vaio support page for the particular model or else can be installed from the recovery discs which we make.
Windows Experience Index
Processor: 6.7
Memory: 5.9
Graphics: Aero 6.3
Gaming Graphics: 6.3
HDD: 5.8
Overall: 5.8
Build Quality and Looks:
At 2.4Kgs I don’t know whether to call it heavy or not, but then at least one thing is for sure it feels real sturdy when held in hands. No flex behind the display or on the keyboard. The only place I felt a bit of flex was below the optical disk drive, in an area of about a square cm. Overall looks excellent in white, more appropriately pearl white and not exactly white. Palm rest are made up of slightly glossy surface but doesn’t attract finger prints.
Rating: 4.5/5
Display:
Well if you ask me I have seen many a laptops, including machines from dell, hp, Acer, Sony, Apple etc. And in case of display till date the best laptop I used to feel was from dell, but after seeing the brilliance of this display I was left spell bound. Its way better than those provided with dell or hp. Acer I would not even compare and Apple all together has a display with different aspect ratio. Some may say that on a 14 inch screen 1600x900 resolutions is meaningless, but I would say it always leaves you with some more of work space on the desktop.
Sometimes I have noticed that while watching certain movies the screen tends to be a bit grainy.
Rating: 4/5
Gaming:
Haven’t really tried a lot of titles on this laptop yet, had modern warfare 2 with me, so was able to try that only. And with the performance I got from it I was pretty much impressed.
With all settings set to high and resolution of 1360x768 and anti aliasing set to 2x, I was getting a constant of 30+ fps outside and when inside a building I used to get 40+ fps. Which I must say is good enough for laptop which isn’t primarily built for gaming. In intense fights I say 30 fps, but never anything lower than that. May be I am just in level two, so I can’t say for sure, but then I don’t expect it to fall much either ways. Anyways there is still an option of turning off the AA setting, which for sure will prevent fps to fall below 30 under any circumstances. And when I pushed the resolution all the way to 1600x900 I got about 18 to 20fps outside in intense fights and 28 fps inside, it was with all settings high and AA set to 2x.
Rating: 5/5
Really couldn’t have asked for anything more than this from a laptop in this price bracket and with such portability.
Daily performance:
For applications like word, spreadsheet and PowerPoint this machine is more than adequately powered. It handles multitasking quite comfortably and hasn’t shown any kind of lag in any of the applications. So for internet browsing or general office applications its more than one can ask for.
Rating: 4/5
People who would want to use this machine for daily word processing or internet browsing should better go in for models which are lower priced than this. Because investing so much on a machine, whose power you would never use would be unwise according to me.
Keyboard:
*sp.sony-asia.com/media/168/83748
This laptop isn’t backlit. And that was one of the main reasons why I bought the white coloured laptop. Even when it’s not backlight the light from screen is more than sufficient to light up the keyboard even in rooms with absolutely no light. I guess the key stroke isn’t more than 2mm and 19mm key pitch. But then this isolated kind of keys (each key is isolated from the other) is a sheer treat to type on. May be it will take some time to get used to typing on this type of keyboard but then I find it really comfortable. This again is subject to person likes and dislikes.
Rating: 4/5
Track pad:
*sp.sony-asia.com/media/150/74701
The track pad is not glossy like the ones present in hp laptops. It has a slight rough texture which according to me helps getting a better feel while using it. Personally no matter how good a track pad gets, it can never beat the ones provided with macbooks or macbook pro. And moreover I find myself more comfortable using a standard mouse than a mouse pad or track pad. Yeah you can zoom in and zoom out of web pages, explorer windows, desktop, documents using the pinch in and pinch out finger movements on the track pad.
Rating: 3/5
Heating Woes:
This is a field in which this laptop really impressed me a lot. I was always worried about laptops heating up a lot, because I have been used to seeing hp and dell laptops more often than Sony vaio. I have used this laptop on stretch for 14 hours and it didn’t seem to show any kind of heating problems. The rear of the laptop was totally cold, keyboard didn’t show any signs of heating and yeah the palm rest (left side) was a bit warm, but nothing that you would notice unless you are intentionally looking for it. There is minimum sound made by the system cooling fan, so no buzzing or hissing sound.
Rating: 5/5
Battery Life:
Not very sure of how much battery life can be drained out of this one, but I guess then that depends on the type applications we run on it. I have obviously the display was at 50% of full brightness. Even at level I had not problems in reading the eBook I was reading. Though the official claim is of 2.5Hrs it seems to be giving more than that. But yeah there is one problem regarding battery life and that is that if I fully charge the battery i.e. 100% and leave the machine shut down at night, the following morning when I wake up and witch it on ( after around a gap of 14 hrs or so) the battery life would show only 88%. I don’t know whether it’s a battery depletion problem or just the sensor or software issue.
Rating: 3.5/5
Conclusion:
An excellent value for money product contrary to my own belief that Sony Vaio laptops are not value for money products, and that Sony charges a premium for its laptops. But after experiencing this laptop I really don’t think that I am going to go back to any other company for laptops (the only exception may be Apple). If you are looking for a laptop in the similar price I would suggest that this one is a real good buy.
For Pics i have used those floated by sony on their official website.
Well let’s begin:
*sp.sony-asia.com/media/150/74697
Manufacturer: Sony
Model: VPCCW26FG
Colour: White
Price: 56000 INR + 5000 (for additional one year warranty, optional)
Detailed Configuration:
Processor: Intel i5 M520 @ 2.4 GHz
Ram: 4 GB of DDR3 (i suppose 1066 MHz)
Hard Disk: 500GB @ 5400rpm
Graphics Unit: Nvidia Geforce GT 330 M
Display Resolution: 1600 x 900
Size: 14 inch
Weight: 2.4 Kg (including the battery)
OS Provided: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit
USB Ports: 3
HDMI: Yes
i.LINK(IEEE 1394) 4 pin (S400) x 1
Display Output Connector Analogue RGB, mini D-sub 15 pin x 1
Wireless LAN Type Integrated Wireless LAN IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n
Bluetooth Bluetooth standard Ver. 2.1+EDR
No recovery disc or installation disc is provided. Sony vaio recovery centre can be used to create recovery discs. It takes 4 single layer DVD or 2 Dual layer DVD. Recovery partition is present.
If someone is interested in fresh start installation they can download the home premium iso from Microsoft website and use the serial key provided at the base of the laptop. Rest all necessary drivers can be downloaded from the Sony vaio support page for the particular model or else can be installed from the recovery discs which we make.
Windows Experience Index
Processor: 6.7
Memory: 5.9
Graphics: Aero 6.3
Gaming Graphics: 6.3
HDD: 5.8
Overall: 5.8
Build Quality and Looks:
At 2.4Kgs I don’t know whether to call it heavy or not, but then at least one thing is for sure it feels real sturdy when held in hands. No flex behind the display or on the keyboard. The only place I felt a bit of flex was below the optical disk drive, in an area of about a square cm. Overall looks excellent in white, more appropriately pearl white and not exactly white. Palm rest are made up of slightly glossy surface but doesn’t attract finger prints.
Rating: 4.5/5
Display:
Well if you ask me I have seen many a laptops, including machines from dell, hp, Acer, Sony, Apple etc. And in case of display till date the best laptop I used to feel was from dell, but after seeing the brilliance of this display I was left spell bound. Its way better than those provided with dell or hp. Acer I would not even compare and Apple all together has a display with different aspect ratio. Some may say that on a 14 inch screen 1600x900 resolutions is meaningless, but I would say it always leaves you with some more of work space on the desktop.
Sometimes I have noticed that while watching certain movies the screen tends to be a bit grainy.
Rating: 4/5
Gaming:
Haven’t really tried a lot of titles on this laptop yet, had modern warfare 2 with me, so was able to try that only. And with the performance I got from it I was pretty much impressed.
With all settings set to high and resolution of 1360x768 and anti aliasing set to 2x, I was getting a constant of 30+ fps outside and when inside a building I used to get 40+ fps. Which I must say is good enough for laptop which isn’t primarily built for gaming. In intense fights I say 30 fps, but never anything lower than that. May be I am just in level two, so I can’t say for sure, but then I don’t expect it to fall much either ways. Anyways there is still an option of turning off the AA setting, which for sure will prevent fps to fall below 30 under any circumstances. And when I pushed the resolution all the way to 1600x900 I got about 18 to 20fps outside in intense fights and 28 fps inside, it was with all settings high and AA set to 2x.
Rating: 5/5
Really couldn’t have asked for anything more than this from a laptop in this price bracket and with such portability.
Daily performance:
For applications like word, spreadsheet and PowerPoint this machine is more than adequately powered. It handles multitasking quite comfortably and hasn’t shown any kind of lag in any of the applications. So for internet browsing or general office applications its more than one can ask for.
Rating: 4/5
People who would want to use this machine for daily word processing or internet browsing should better go in for models which are lower priced than this. Because investing so much on a machine, whose power you would never use would be unwise according to me.
Keyboard:
*sp.sony-asia.com/media/168/83748
This laptop isn’t backlit. And that was one of the main reasons why I bought the white coloured laptop. Even when it’s not backlight the light from screen is more than sufficient to light up the keyboard even in rooms with absolutely no light. I guess the key stroke isn’t more than 2mm and 19mm key pitch. But then this isolated kind of keys (each key is isolated from the other) is a sheer treat to type on. May be it will take some time to get used to typing on this type of keyboard but then I find it really comfortable. This again is subject to person likes and dislikes.
Rating: 4/5
Track pad:
*sp.sony-asia.com/media/150/74701
The track pad is not glossy like the ones present in hp laptops. It has a slight rough texture which according to me helps getting a better feel while using it. Personally no matter how good a track pad gets, it can never beat the ones provided with macbooks or macbook pro. And moreover I find myself more comfortable using a standard mouse than a mouse pad or track pad. Yeah you can zoom in and zoom out of web pages, explorer windows, desktop, documents using the pinch in and pinch out finger movements on the track pad.
Rating: 3/5
Heating Woes:
This is a field in which this laptop really impressed me a lot. I was always worried about laptops heating up a lot, because I have been used to seeing hp and dell laptops more often than Sony vaio. I have used this laptop on stretch for 14 hours and it didn’t seem to show any kind of heating problems. The rear of the laptop was totally cold, keyboard didn’t show any signs of heating and yeah the palm rest (left side) was a bit warm, but nothing that you would notice unless you are intentionally looking for it. There is minimum sound made by the system cooling fan, so no buzzing or hissing sound.
Rating: 5/5
Battery Life:
Not very sure of how much battery life can be drained out of this one, but I guess then that depends on the type applications we run on it. I have obviously the display was at 50% of full brightness. Even at level I had not problems in reading the eBook I was reading. Though the official claim is of 2.5Hrs it seems to be giving more than that. But yeah there is one problem regarding battery life and that is that if I fully charge the battery i.e. 100% and leave the machine shut down at night, the following morning when I wake up and witch it on ( after around a gap of 14 hrs or so) the battery life would show only 88%. I don’t know whether it’s a battery depletion problem or just the sensor or software issue.
Rating: 3.5/5
Conclusion:
An excellent value for money product contrary to my own belief that Sony Vaio laptops are not value for money products, and that Sony charges a premium for its laptops. But after experiencing this laptop I really don’t think that I am going to go back to any other company for laptops (the only exception may be Apple). If you are looking for a laptop in the similar price I would suggest that this one is a real good buy.
For Pics i have used those floated by sony on their official website.
