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."

Better link and more info on this laptop

[W32.Klez.A]

The full review on one page is available here [designtechnica.com].

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 [icube.us] as well.

Alt link for info

[KirkH]

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

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: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.

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.

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 [slashdot.org] out.

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: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: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.

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