Sony VAIO VGN-FW465J/B 16.4-Inch Laptop - Black Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I got this laptop as a birthday present for myself. Before getting this, I browsed different computers and considered Dell XPS 16, Mac Pro 15 inch and Lenovo Y650 as well. After all the comparisons that I made according to the design & features of all the laptops, Vaio FW won over a lot of mile.
Price: The price is very reasonable having jam-packed features. If you customized all the features that Vaio FW has to the other aformentioned units, i bet it will cost a lot lot more. See below prices comparison according to specs that Vaio FW465 offers with certain differences:
a.) Sony FW - From the main Sony site it is Less than 1,200 (including the mail-in-rebate) plus free 100 music downloads while from amazon.com it will be 1,029 (including rebate)
b.) Mac Pro 15 - Around 2k! The difference in specs with the Vaio FW are the following: backlit keyboard and battery life are the pros for Apple as I can see it. Apple have Mac OS but Sony offers free Windows 7 upgrade, sooo I still stick to that. The graphic card of Mac is Nvidia 9400m while Vaio have the astonishing HD4650. Vaio have bigger and brighter screen not to mention the Dolby sounds and Blu-ray capability - Mac Pro? .... NOT!
Disclaimer:Mac fan boys might read this and may say that I am just poor or anything (like they always do to people who didn't choose Mac) ---- you're wrong. I can afford Mac but the features they offer doesn't meet my standards. So chill and understand that people have different options in choosing computers.. peace!
c.) Dell XPS 16 - From its site - Around 1,650 having the same specs as the Vaio FW. I am also alright with this, but I have been reading so much negative reviews about the heat and the death blue screen for Dell lately. Soooo, that actually makes me a little bit cautious about recent Dell products.
d.) Lenovo Y650 - Around USD1,300 without the blu-ray capability, only 5400 rpm HD, having NVIDIA GeForce G 105M 256MB Graphic card and Screen LED 1366x76. This is still ok, knowing that Lenovo's are really durable.
Main Features: I like how they customized it to have 2.53ghz of processor speed with 320gb of memory having 7200rpm. That feature itself is already a plus compared to any other laptops out there. The blu-ray capability makes your HD experience of watching movies really great combined with High Definition Audio with Dolby Digital Live and the brightness of the screen. Nobody else (as of now) does great Blu-ray experience the same way Sony does it, for me. The graphic card was also upgraded to Ati Radeon HD4650 with 1gb dedicate dvideo RAM making your gaming experience really great. I also like the classy look of Vaio FW with the hinge and just seeing the Vaio logo makes people WOW already. Also, almost all my gadgets (PSP, my cellphone, camera and music player) are sony, so I find this convenient having the magic gate card slot. The motion eye camera, the pebble black key panels and the multimedia dedicated buttons are awesome as well. One more thing, if you guys are concerned about the heat being produced by this laptop - don't worry because it has a great cooling system and dock design. The heat is common to all laptops but this one is a lot cooler than others (compared to my old gateway, dell, macbook and my dad's toshiba).
I just wish it has a backlit keyboard to make it a complete package already (though the screen is too bright that you can see the keyboard panel as well, during night). Also, the bloatwares should be lessen -- I don't find this an issue but I know it's a hassle for some. You can delete them anyway but you have to allot some of your time in doing so. One more thing, you have to do a lot of things to maximize the performance of the laptop during the setup.
I don't need to make this really long. Overall, the unit is very nice and it has totally awesome features with it. This is a great buy and you can never go wrong with Vaio FW. I bet you can make use of this laptop for many years without being out-dated. I am a meticulous person when choosing my gadgets --- and this unit meets my expectation!
I ordered the Vaio FW neoprene together with this unit and it fits quite well.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Sony VAIO VGN-FW465J/B 16.4-Inch Laptop - Black

Broaden your entertainment horizons with the VAIO FW notebook featuring an extra-wide 16.4” XBRITE-FullHD LCD display. Great for watching widescreen Blu-ray Disc movies or viewing two websites side-by-side, this entertainment-rich notebook minimizes those annoying black bars you see when playing widescreen movies. Watch and record CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray Disc movies and get the most out of your games with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. An HD entertainment powerhouse, the VAIO FW notebook is inspired by theater screens, born from Sony HD expertise and powered by the energy-efficient and super-powerful Centrino 2 processor technology – the latest and greatest from Intel.

Click here for more information about Sony VAIO VGN-FW465J/B 16.4-Inch Laptop - Black

Read More...

Toshiba PORTEGE M200 Tablet PC (1.5 GHz Pentium M, 512MB, 40GB Hard Drive) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I got my M200 several months ago and am very satisfied with it.
However, I use it less than I had anticipated, so I only gave it 4 stars.
Common Tablet Features - neat, but not much used.
I enjoy taking notes in different colored pens, with the ability to erase notes written in "pen" and to add space between lines already written. I use the Journal and the pen for to-do items or short lists. For longer documents, I prefer to type. While suring the web, I find it inconvenient to have to open the input panel to write the web address, and then to look for and peck the "enter" or "go" button. I have used a pocket-pc for a number of years and often attempt to use the same input shortcuts on the laptop which do not work. I get confused between the pen input shortcuts on the tablet and the pocket-pc. I really love many of the "power toys" games that were offered free by Microsoft. I use my pen to play these games. So far, I do not use OneNote much. It forces me to use a different methophore to organize my files (from many folders to a single, very large, binder). This is really inconvenient for me because I have a lot of folders and subfolders already organized. I have reorganized one small project into a binder, but I don't think I will be transfering over more files into the OneNote format. I most often use the pen as a pointing device with full access to the keyboard in the "laptop" mode. I find the pen easier when I am moving a lot of files around (especially in FrontPage).
I have a fully configured desktop 2 Ghz machine at home with 17" LCD monitor and real keyboard. The M200 is great, but does not match user-interface with a full desktop. I do use it more at the office.
Machine specific review:
The screen has a bad glare in "tablet" mode when I am at my office where ceiling lights are directly over my desk. Glare is not an issue at home where a table lamp sits next to the laptop. All the colors seem to be washed out when I get a bad glare. The screen is wonderful with a very high resolution when there is no glare. The pen feels silky smooth when it glides on the screen. Keyboard is excellent! Love the cushy bubble-like feel. Audio recording is amazing. It has noise-cancelling through 3 tiny microphones build into the screen bezel. Music sounds very good through plug-in headphones. Built-in speaker (mono) is loud and good enough for hearing recorded conversations. It has a very extensive set of ports including an SD card slot. It is very fast, even with modest memory (I have the Dolthan version). Ethernet connection is fast (have not tries wireless yet). Battery seems to last about 4 hours of continuous light use. Overall, it feels solidly and well built. The hard disk made annoying, continuous, clicking sounds when I first got it. But after I turned some processes off and twicked power save options (and windows has optimized itself) I don't hear the clickings as often. I thought not having a CD/DVD drive might be a pain, but I found it to be easy to set up another desktop with a CD/DVD drive to share it on the network. I thought the 4.5 lbs weight might be too heavy but I find it to be not too bad. I am glad I bought a hybrid instead of a slate model, since I am not using the pen very much. Setting aside the tablet features, the M200 is a very well made high performance laptop with an amazing screen (in the right viewing angle). But if I were to exclude the tablet features, I could have gotten a 2.4 lb laptop (Toshiba R100) or a 3 lb laptop with a built-in CD/DVD drive (Panasonic W2). So, I gave it only 4 stars, but I still think I made the right choice. I may learn to use more of the tablet features in the future as I grow more proficient at it, and I use it occassionally now.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Toshiba PORTEGE M200 Tablet PC (1.5 GHz Pentium M, 512MB, 40GB Hard Drive)

Marginally larger than the Portege 3500 Tablet PC it replaces, Toshiba's Portege M200 Tablet PC is also more adaptable, more battery efficient and substantially more powerful. Blending the speed of a standard-size midrange notebook with the convenience of pen-based input and subcompact portability, the Portege M200 is a great fit for those who are handier with a pen than a keyboard and value a truly petite profile.
The unit is most at home when used to enter, store and share notes and concepts that might otherwise be entered in handwritten format. In fact, measuring just 11.6 by 9.8 by 1.3/1.5 (depending on configuration) and tipping the scales at a scant 4.5 pounds, the Portege M200 is just slightly more bulky than a conventional paper-based notepad. Users input data in one of two ways -- either by sketching directly on the swiveling, double-duty 12.1-inch poly-silicon SXGA+ TFT color LCD display screen (maximum resolution 1400x1050) or via the system's 84-key keyboard.
Though the Portege M200 is not as powerful as a comparably priced but substantially larger desktop replacement notebook, it is one of the fastest tablets currently on the market. Sporting an Intel "Centrino"-based processor (1 MB Level 2 cache) running at 1.5 GHz, a whopping 512 MB RAM memory and an nVidia GeForce FX Go5200 32M graphics processor with 32 MB of dedicated DDR video memory, the unit will easily handle most day-to-day mobile computing tasks and the vast majority of today's most popular 3-D apps too.
The Portege M200 features today's most desirable connectivity options, including an integrated 56K modem for low-speed e-communications, a 10 Base-T//100 Base-TX Ethernet connection for fast LAN and Internet access, and Wi-Fi compliant wireless LAN technology for those times when you can't plug in. The system also sports a surprisingly large 40 GB hard disk and facilities for an external CD and/or DVD drive, a pair of ultra-fast USB 2.0 ports for plug and play peripherals, an integrated TouchPad, 13 function keys, a speaker and microphone and full 16-bit stereo sound. Battery life is estimated at a whopping 4.34 hours.

Click here for more information about Toshiba PORTEGE M200 Tablet PC (1.5 GHz Pentium M, 512MB, 40GB Hard Drive)

Read More...

HP Pavilion DV4-2161NR 14.1-Inch Laptop (Digital Plaid) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I had have this computer for a month now, so here goes nothing:
Pros:
- Excellent design
- 4GB Ram, enough for most tasks
- 500GB hard drive, for me that's enough for now
- Small size and little weight (even lighter when DVD is removed, which is an excellent feature in itself)
- Windows 7 (better than Vista, we'll see about XP)
- EXCELLENT PRICE
Cons:
- Battery life is about 2 hours, bound to decrease within 6 months, not on par with most other laptops this size.
- Touchpad really has a mind of its own on ocassion.
- Glossy design is beautiful, but it's also a fingerprint magnet
- Opening it is a cumbersome task, not really bad, but a little.
- Windows 7 "64bit" - Some old programs I use refuse to work in such environment.
All in all a solid laptop, with excellent features (and minor inconveniences), but please, HP, this is my third HP laptop and the batteries have never been your forte. (yet I keep buying HP) DO SOMETHING!
UPDATE: The battery won't last for more than an hour and a half, so I took two stars off my review for this major inconvenience. Sorry to say this, but I no longer recommend this purchase.

Click Here to see more reviews about: HP Pavilion DV4-2161NR 14.1-Inch Laptop (Digital Plaid)

For those who want an all-in-one performance notebook with rich multimedia features, the HP Pavilion dv4 Entertainment series delivers mobile performance that looks as great as it runs. Powered by the latest processor and graphics technologies, it delivers optimal mobile performance to support your lifestyle.

Get 29% OFF

Click here for more information about HP Pavilion DV4-2161NR 14.1-Inch Laptop (Digital Plaid)

Read More...