Sony VAIO NW Series Review

A very interesting value, in a modern industrial design, solid performance and great LCD screen. Mine is a 120J model, that is, it lacks of BluRay drive, but the rest is essentially the same. Neat design, indeed, resembles a Macbook. It seems thinner than it really is, the keys can be pressed with confidence and returns an acceptable amount of tactile feedback. The disk spins at 5400RPM, fast enough for everyday computing. Please note that if you upgrade your operating system (mine came with Vista 64 bits Home Premium) to Windows 7, some buttons cannot be operated until you reinstall drivers and utilies from Sony support website. I installed a brand new Windows 2008 R2 Standard Server, which sports a Windows 7 kernel and new internals. Speed is quite good, the machine is now crowded with Visual Studio 2008 Team System, SQL Server 2008 Enterprise, Office Ultimate 2007 SP1, and it performs admirably for its price tag. Please remember that if you format the hard disk, you will lose all Sony software, including instant web access feature, which lets you browse the internet without booting the main operating system. Seems that this is achieved by a tiny Linux OS and open-source browser in it, that can be launched directly at the booting phase by pressing WEB button, which in turns prevents the main operating system to be booted.

Battery depletes in about 2 hours of regular use. The EcoBrite display is fitted with one backlight lamp (most notebooks sports two), but Sony engineers done their homework, backlighting is pretty uniform across the screen surface. Screen glossy finish is first class, and contrast of white on black is really amazing.

Speaker sound is acceptable, since this model is not a digital-media-oriented one. Perhaps because of this, there is a noticeable lack of bass, as you may expect. It’s like listen to your music only by means of tweeter speakers. Volume is average, however you can listen to your favourite DVDs in a reasonable quiet ambience. Considering the general-purpose target of this machine, sound is ok.

On the negative side, you can feel some hot spots on the left side of the keyboard, besides touchpad. this could be pretty uncomfortable for some users. DVD drive lid seems cheap and fragile when you close it with your fingers, perhaps this is a subjective impression (my Acer 5920 was stolen 10 days ago and I replaced it with this brand new Sony).

On the performance side, since the model is equipped with DDR2, 800MHz memories, all the software gives the impression of responsiveness and fluidity navigation across applications. 4GB memory is more than enough for most users. I am comparing this with my stolen 5920 Acer, which was equipped with a T7500 processor (4MB cache L2). However, in spite the Acer should be faster than this machine (judging from the hardware standpoint), the Sony seems faster to me. I think the machine must have good components, and 2MB cache of its T6500 processor is quite efficiently used. In addition, windows 7 core is more efficient than Vista (you can perceive a 10% improvement in average). Video playback is ok, provided you are not gaming with Quake 4 or something like that. For BluRay movies, provided the machine is equipped with BDROM drive, decoding is executed at its Intel 4500MHD video chip stage, thus freeing main CPU to perform this task. In general, HD chips are able to decode BDROM contents in an on-chip fashion, thus the machine can be equipped with low-cost, low-performance CPUs to cut costs. This is not the case, T6500 is perfectly able to decode BluRay streams (expect CPU consumption of about 50 to 70% in this task for full HD output).

In the frontside, the machine has two slots, the upper for Sony card formats, the lower for SD-MMC formats. When a card is inserted, a LED lights to indicate card accessing. There is no SPDIF (Sony Philips digital interface), audio connectors are analogs mic in, line out. A HDMI connector on the left side relieves the absence of SPDIF, but you will need a newer receiver which accepts HDMI connections to hear multichannel sound. Please remember that TrueHD sound recorded in Blu-Ray digital tracks are not supported via normal SPDIF connections (there is a bandwidth issue). If your receiver accepts optical or SPDIF and not HDMI (like mine), perhaps you can purchase some USB-to-optical sound card, like some Creative models.

In conclusion, a good value, a clever industrial design. Recommended.

Rating: 8 :: 13 out of 13 people found this user review helpful.