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Sony VAIO TR1A Review

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  1. Sheldon •  July 23, 2003
    Rating: 4.5/5

    I got my TR1AP (XP professional) at the Sony here in San Francisco. It is an amazing machine, beautiful screen, build in CDRW/DVD, 802.11 all in a 3 lb package. Best looking notebook I have ever had

    Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

  2. Mark Pun •  July 24, 2003
    Rating: 5/5

    I’ve been waiting for this one for about two years. This machine replaces my 505TX, which I kept alive by upgrading the HD to 40 GB. I almost bought one of the SRX’s a year or so ago, but Sony discontinued them before I could. Considered the V505, but held out for something smaller. When I saw the TR released in Japan, I knew this was the one. Too bad they didn’t carry over the Bluetooth and WiFi5 (802.11a). I have had the laptop for 11 days, picked it up as it was being delivered to the store. Finally finished setting everything up and tweaking it just so. Absolutely love this machine. Battery life is incredible. Screen is beautiful. Camera is a great addition. The entire design really shows how well Sony’s design team takes into consideration form/function.

    Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

  3. Adam •  July 25, 2003
    Rating: 5/5

    I purchased the V505 (w/ the extended battery) earlier this year and thought it was the best road machine, but picked up the TR1A and it is hands down the best sub-compact laptop. Terrific battery for a cross country flight, the lightest full featured portable out there, the best screen i have viewed on a laptop and I own (or have owned) a g4 powerbook, numerous dells, numerous sony vaios. The zoom feature is an excellent feature for WP or any MS Office app, Ram is good, and wireless works well. Is it a good value???? If you travel alot and are tired of lugging spare batteries or working with the lowest LCD brightness setting to acheive max. battery, or tired of light laptops with with optical drive, then the TR1A is an excellent value.. The only items I can find fault is 1.) I wish the power connector was on the side, 2.) I wish the camera was optional since it is just about useless (unless you do web conferencing), 3.) the screen is extremely reflective and produces pretty bad glare when outside or have strong lighting behind you. It would have been nice to have an anti-glare screen. 4.) bigger or at least replaceable HD would have been a nice bonus.

    My .02

    Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

  4. Stephen Inoue •  August 5, 2003
    Rating: 4.5/5

    I love my Sony VAIO TR1A except I’m going to have to return it and back order wait for the VAIO TR1AP model.

    At work we use Cisco aironet for WiFi and it requires Win XP Pro. The TR1A ships with WinXP Home, and if you try to upgrade to XP Pro you will get a BSOD crash. I can do a clean Win XP Pro install, but I lose all the customization. So much for end user upgrades.

    Called Sony TS and got passed thru 3 techs before I was told they hadn’t heard of the problem, and that I’d be better off buying the TR1AP than trying to upgrade the TR1A. I hope Sony’s QA team sees this and can address this issue for other users wanting to upgrade from WinXP Home to WinXp Pro.

    I did edit a movie with the DV Gate & Adobe Premiere LE on the system and was impressed with the performance. Sexy, small and I can edit videos!

    Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

  5. D G •  August 28, 2003
    Rating: 2.5/5

    If you use Windows exclusively, the score is 9-10 – but for Linux/*BSD users the score cannot be higher than 5.

    After having a close look at the TR1A, I’ve decided to wait a month or two to see if Intel will change its mind and decide to be more open towards Linux users as I need the notebook for non-windows work. If they dont change – the next best option seems to be the IBM Thinkpad T40 since you can get it with the cisco built in wlan chip which works under Linux (can be ordered from http://www.emperorlinux.com ). The TR1A is basically a “Windows XP”-only notebook and for many businesses this is unacceptable since it renders it useless for individuals and businesses who require the ability to run Linux on it (which is essentially my problem – my company will not buy hardware that will not work properly with Linux).

    Feel free to sign the petition for centrino linux support:

    http://www.petitiononline.com/xanthan/petition.html

    For more Linux/Centrino information – go here:

    http://www.loonix.de/html/newsgroups/detail.php?mid=77

    A possible reason for the Intel vs. the OpenSource community situation can be found here:

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/29840.html

    Rating: 5 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

  6. Ryan •  August 28, 2003
    Rating: 5/5

    On the previous review, I don’t think it’s fair to rate this notebook a 5 because of a Centrino-related problem, as Sony does not control the Centrino’s lack of Linus support.

    That said, this notebook is a great purchase. Its size is great for the run-around portable user, and its screen resolution more than makes up for the 10.6″ fact. The processor runs fast enough (thanks to the 1MB cache) to run several programs smoothly. The keyboard, although a bit smaller, seems to be no trouble to type on even with its shorter key-travel. Compared to the Fujitsu Lifebook P5010′s keyboard, this keyboard is ten times better because its keys are placed without changing standard keyboard design drastically (the P5010 has its , . and / keys smashed together). The 30GB of space is adequate, although upgradable or more space would have been nicer. The built in wireless works smoothly, and the fact that the computer can still include a DVD/CD-RW combo drive at this size is amazing. Batterly life is long (5 hours for me just using Winamp, AIM, IE and the wireless) and the computer-side options available to affect that (processor speed, optical drive on/off) are numerous. If the laptop would have come with Office XP and Bluetooth, it would score an 11.

    Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

  7. Steve •  September 6, 2003
    Rating: 4/5

    I love this notebook but found that if you have the external vga port hooked up, video plays VERY choppily — like a bad webcam connection.

    I left the rating at 8 since I wonder if I configured something wrong, but if not, the I’d rate it a 6.

    This was with playing any DVD, AVI file, etc. No other programs running, WinXPPro (TR1AP), 512 MB RAM. I’ve never seen this poor performance in video playback on any modern system.

    If I have both the lcd screen on and the external display activated (display sets to 1024×768, true color), the vfideo plays slowly, stuttering, etc. Disabling either display seems to make it better.

    Anyone else haviong similar problems? The only changes I made to the system was to merge the partitions into 1 large one using Partition Magic (no errors). I boosted the virtual memory to 1Gig manually to see if this helps but no luck.

    I wonder if it’s some config thing I did but can’t track it down.

    Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

  8. ronchi •  September 21, 2003
    Rating: 0.5/5

    I was extatic when i got it . What a little wonder. Very good performance, ultra portability,great quality screen and handy wireless connectivity.

    Untill four weeks after i bought it a small crack in the LCD appeared and i now find myself bumped to sony sevice by circuit city miami who claim no responsability.

    I am roaylly pissed of with it and now have to arrange for repairs in california whilst i live outside of the states.

    WAIT TO BUY AND SEE IF MY PROBLEM IS A BIGGER PROBLEM FOR THIS NEW VAIO!!!

    Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

  9. Tom •  October 16, 2003
    Rating: 5/5

    Has anyone had any problems typing on this machine? There is no real palm-rest and it seems a bit hard to me.

    Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

  10. bd •  October 19, 2003
    Rating: 5/5

    i’ve had only minor problems typing on it, and i’m a touch typist that switches between 4 notebooks at home (thinkpad, ibook, hp, sony) plus a keyboard at work. your little finger quickly learns how to find that dinky shift key, like when you need to type the @ symbol for email. my stubby fingers can’t handle a key pitch of 17mm — even 18mm is a strain — so i don’t know what sony has done to the key configuration to work this magic. maybe the wideness of the screen means the keyboard can be wider.

    speaking of which, the screen is gorgeous: bright but with dense blacks and saturated colors. with that high horizontal resolution (1280px) it has a high-definition hdtv feel. dvd movies just pop out of the screen. the fonts in browsers and terminal windows look even nicer than on a high-res (1440 x 1050) thinkpad, especially with cleartype. download a copy of microsoft reader and tweak the cleartype settings until it’s just perfect.

    Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

  11. jiggy •  October 27, 2003
    Rating: 5/5

    i’ve sold my other other viao multimedia laptop, retired the desktop, and even have the clie for sale now that i have this one. it does everything this journalist, photographer, part-time web developer, and web junkie will ever need to do. who needs a boat anchor, this baby fits in my messenger bag and i hardly notice it’s there. the extended battery life gives me more than enough time to do what i need to do in a day, and the screen is fantastic. the little keyboard takes a bit to get used to, but i just got an I-curve platform for it and an icekey, so not only is it comfortable to use at home, it looks so cool. but here are the downsides:

    * the speakers rot

    * the microphone is useless due to harddrive noise

    * there is not IR nor video-out port

    but that’s all. a little bit of aftermarket money and ya got it covered. btw, the headphone port is FANTASTIC.

    newer models now tr2 come with bluetooth and better wireless card…but i’ve used mine at lots of hotspots around America…works great. there is also a really good online forum for the tr1…see http://siliconpopculture.com/sonytr/

    well, good luck!

    Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

  12. kevin p •  February 18, 2004
    Rating: 2.5/5

    I’ve had a sony for a year before the hard disk developed bad sectors. Also there is some sort of an electricity power leak from the body that resembles the shock you get from a static electricity discharge but lasts a lot longer.

    Great design, poor manufacturing and unbelievably poor customer support. Just try and get hold of a complaints email address or phone number and you’ll see what I mean.

    Rating: 5 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

  13. runyaga •  February 10, 2005
    Rating: 3/5

    I travel quite a bit. I have had my Sony TR1A for about 1 year. The display is already starting to flicker and threatens to go out on me at any moment. Its troubling because anytime I move the laptop screen (open, close, adjust) the screen starts flickering – shaking horizontally, having lines appear and then starts working again.

    CONS:

    – It uses a 4pin(?) firewire so you cant recharge your iPod.

    – Linux does not work well with it

    – Very expensive memory (still have not upgraded 1G)

    – Web camera is useless (just like the camera in my P910)

    – Very “cheap” feeling. The case and keyboard – just seem cheep

    – The paint on the touch buttons go away fast.

    – The A key’s print has worn off completely (WTF?)

    PROs:

    – Looks great brand new (not after a year)

    – Small and lightweight

    Rating: 6 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

  14. Jorge •  August 3, 2005
    Rating: 2.5/5

    I’ve had my vaio for already 2 years in which I observed the flickering problem stated in other reviews, and also i got a sudden HD break wich costed me 600$ to get repaired. Just a week ago also my webcam broke, and i just decided to not to get it repaired, I had enough with their customer service. The customer service is just unveliabebly terrible. It looks that you have to be greatful to those telephonist for buying a vaio, instead of them being greatful to you for spending 2200$ in a machine of their comapny.

    Anyhow I assume my part when still i payed this amount of money for a beautiful product. Form won Function once more, and they are good at this at Sony.

    Rating: 5 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

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