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Hardware

Sony X505/SP Notebook Review 235

Posted by michael from the eat-a-sandwich dept.
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."
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Sony X505/SP Notebook Review More

Sony X505/SP Notebook Review

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  • Better link and more info on this laptop (Score:4, Informative)

    by W32.Klez.A ( 656478 ) * on Friday January 09, 2004 @12:45PM (#7930026) Homepage
    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.
    • I dont know but IMO a smaller/thinner notebook is a very specialized product for a small market. I personally have a Dell Inspiron 4150 and I think it weighs in around 5-7lbs, but I think it is a perfect weight/size. When you go smaller you start to lose drives (ie, cdrom, etc..), I/O connections, and also the laptop is so light that if you *accidentally* snag your power cord then its to the floor w/ the laptop. I hate the devices that are too small... PDA/phones that try to be laptops (or laptops that try

      • Re:Laptop too thin.. too small. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Trashman ( 3003 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @01:19PM (#7930497)
        I dont know but IMO a smaller/thinner notebook is a very specialized product for a small market. I personally have a Dell Inspiron 4150 and I think it weighs in around 5-7lbs, but I think it is a perfect weight/size


        To each his own. The notion of the perfect size/weight is subjective. I personally think the IBM T30/T40 is the perfect wieght at less than 5-lbs and it is still very functional.
        • To each his own. The notion of the perfect size/weight is subjective.

          The same goes for pricing and OS. I would much rather get this 1.3 kg subnotebook [sub300.com], loaded with Lindows, no MS tax, for less than a US$900 (as compared to $4000 for the X505/XP). BTW, there are other options in Lindows.com. And yes, I would wipe it and put Mandrake on it :-)

      • Mine is like 8 pounds(Inspiron 5100), and I can't wait to have the money to replace it. I had an iBook for a while, I think it was 5 pounds or so. That was my ideal, fairly light but still had a drive, just wish it had been able to do a resolution higher than 1024x768, but that seems to be what you get with all of the smaller laptops. You're right about the really small ones though, I don't understand how anyone can use something like a Picturebook.
      • I dont know but IMO a smaller/thinner notebook is a very specialized product for a small market.

        Anyone who commutes into a large city and uses mass transit and wants to carry a laptop to work in the mornings, this sort of thing is great for. Also, anyone who has to travel for their jobs. It's not that small of a market.
    • those aren't fingerprints- that's the plastic peel-off anti-scratch sheeting that protects it during transport. they just haven't removed it in those pictures.

  • Thinner and thinner. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ActionPlant ( 721843 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @12:48PM (#7930066) Homepage
    Looks like Apple will be going back to the drawing board. The iBooks look pretty thick in comparison.

    Damon,

  • No onboard RJ45 connection (Score:5, Funny)

    by Delirium Tremens ( 214596 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @12:53PM (#7930145) Journal
    Yeah, I really missed those dangling network adapters [icube.us].
    Getting connected is a must. X505 gives you the
    option to connect to your network through USB to
    LAN adapter or Wireless (WIFI card is included)
    I guess it should have actually read: Getting connected is a must. But we forgot about it during design.
    • 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.
  • After 6 years of tech support, Toshiba is the most problem free of the laptops I've dealt with, and IBM/Dell tied for the worst. Apple laptops are also sweet, but I've had more limited dealings with those.

    Just got a Toshiba Satellite M35-S359. Something like 1.4" thick, 15.4" screen, ~7lbs. *Very* sweet laptop, and heat is no issue with the Centrino proc in there. Forget IBM's fragile creation, get something with some panache :)
    • 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. The

  • RIAA, Bad luck (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jrockway ( 229604 ) <jon-nospam@jrock.us> on Friday January 09, 2004 @12:54PM (#7930149) Homepage Journal
    I know slashdotters (like myself) love Sony's offerings... they're cool and neat looking, but remember that Sony is supporting the RIAA in all of the lawsuits. Also, the MemoryStick media that they back (and surely put in this laptop) is much more expensive than CF or SD or anything else.

    Also, I just plain haven't had good luck with Sony products:

    My NX60 stopped working one day for no reason (didn't drop or crush it), my stereo shocks me when i touch the case (so that's gone), my brother's PS2 died for no reason, my coworker's sony laptop's keys [letters on the keyboard] have all rubbed off ("how can I type now!?" "remember where the keys are" "what!!???"), etc, etc, etc.

    My Multiscan200sf monitor is holding up quite nicely; that's a well-made piece of machinery :) Then again, maybe they didn't suck in 1997.

    Note that I'm not flaming or trolling, I just think that most people on slashdot would be better-served by choosing a more open vendor than Sony.
    • The only bit of Sony hardware I own is a nice 19" Trinitron CRT. I learned to stay away from most of their other stuff after tech supporting some of it. A lot of people share your luck in dealing with their products, in my experience.

      Although I do enjoy the PS2, I waited till it was cheap-ish (relatively speaking).
    • I don't know about the other denizens here, but I have to say I have *never* had any luck with any computer device made by Sony that had mechanical components (so I'm supporting the parent posting in a way). I previously owned a VAIO -- a large one, not the little tiny ones -- so I expect the device to be at least a little durable. Instead, the keyboard failed within a year. A year later, the hinge on the screen broke. The device is still operable, but it is *extremely* fragile.

      I ended up getting a Del

    • Re:RIAA, Bad luck (Score:2, Interesting)

      by dial0g ( 86962 )
      I share your experience with recent Sony products. My VAIO R505 has had numerous issues (LCD latch has broken 2 times for no apparant reason, docking station has had issues, and the battery has problems and is costly to replace).

      I also have a dead PS2 (my newer PS2 works perfectly though, seems they fixed the DRE problems) and it seems any discman I've bought int the past few years has died in 6 months.

      Interestingly, I had a discman from early-mid 90's that lasted a good 6 years as well as a bookshelf st
    • Also, the MemoryStick media that they back (and surely put in this laptop) is much more expensive than CF or SD or anything else.

      Also remember that one of the main reasons that MemorySticks are more expensive is that it they are proprietary, while the CompactFlash interface (form factor / pinout / comunication protocol) is an open standard. I don't know if SD is proprietary or not.

      Also, since CF has the contoller on the chip not the reader, it allows a lot of flexability in terms of the actual technolo
    • I would laugh, but take Sony and substitute Apple, HPaq, Dell or Toshiba, and you could describe any product made.

      Maybe I'm just innured because I HAVE the sony handycam, the digital camera, work buys me a new Sony Vaio every couple of years, I love my PS/2, and I've managed to tweak the 2.6 kernel so my new Clie syncs correctly... and ...

      Alright, I'm a Sony Zealot, deal.

      But our CEO is hooked on them too. He only destroys them half as often as the Dells we used to buy him.

  • 2Thin 2Furious (Score:3, Funny)

    by ThePretender ( 180143 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @12:54PM (#7930158) Homepage
    No direct quote as the article is now Slashdotted... However, they ask about inspiration for the carbon fiber. Oh come on, we all know carbon fiber is rad on your tricked out import racer, so why wouldn't it look just as cool on your laptop?

  • Can a laptop be too thin? Too small? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by in_ur_face ( 177250 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @12:55PM (#7930170)
    I dont know but IMO a smaller/thinner notebook is a very specialized product for a small market. I personally have a Dell Inspiron 4150 and I think it weighs in around 5-7lbs, but I think it is a perfect weight/size. When you go smaller you start to lose drives (ie, cdrom, etc..), I/O connections, and also the laptop is so light that if you *accidentally* snag your power cord then its to the floor w/ the laptop. I hate the devices that are too small... PDA/phones that try to be laptops (or laptops that try to be palm/small sized) are less user friendly.
    • Depends why you have a laptop. If you travel, then no, as long as the keyboard is usable, then no,
      there is no such thing as too small and light.

      Personally, I can live without any drives when
      I travel: compact flash makes a reasonable backup choice.

    • Yes, I was about to say that sooner or later laptops will be so light that people will be afraid to use them outdoors lest they be blown away in the wind. Soon we will be needing laptop-weights just to hold them down.
    • No, as long as it's useful, a laptop can never be too thin or too small. Or too battery-conservinge.

      Obviously you don't have to fly regularly with a computer. There are **THOUSANDS** of us who do. 5 to 7 pounds is a nasty backache waiting to happen, especially when compared to something like the Sony Z1A I have. It's got everything (2 USB ports, firewire, sound in and out, PCMCIA, built-in RJ45 Ethernet and 802.11b), sacrifices no drives (built-in CDRW/DVD, USB floppy), great keyboard, great screen, touchp
      • Wow....what DID we do as a society before laptops? How did we survive? Thousands of people wandering the earth searching for the perfect gizmo to fly AND work. None available? How primitive. I'm surprised that we, as a society, made it into the 21st century without people being able to take their gizmos with them everywhere they go. Sheesh.

  • Alt link for info (Score:5, Informative)

    by KirkH ( 148427 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @12:56PM (#7930177)
    The page seems to be dead, Jim, but here's another source of info on the X505 [dynamism.com].
  • My God. $4,000 who is going to buy this? P-Diddy? Martha Stewart?
    • "My God. $4,000 who is going to buy this? P-Diddy? Martha Stewart?"

      A sales manager who travels a lot with an expense account...
    • I'm assuming they reviewed a system from Dynamism.com, which mean it's not actually being offered in the US yet. This also typically means that Dynamism is charging a $1000+ markup on it for importing it and installing a US OS and providing support.

      I would guess that if Sony releases this in the US it will probably sell for around $2000.

    • My first laptop was a GRiDCase III Plus which I bought back in 1985.

      $8,150

      For my part, it looks like a _really_ nice machine, but it makes me sad that Sony recently got burned on the pen computing thing, so won't be doing a pen slate or convertible --- oh well, there's always the NEC or the Fujitsu or even the Electrovaya Scribbler...

      William

  • keyboard position (Score:5, Insightful)

    by planetsphinx ( 712454 ) <cannon@planetBAL ... com minus author> on Friday January 09, 2004 @01:00PM (#7930228) Homepage
    ok, with the keyboard slammed against the outside edge of the deck, how the heck am I supposed to use this in my *LAP*?
    Come on Sony.. move the keyboard back so I can rest my palms on the deck, and hold the laptop on my lap at the same time...
    • Looking at the pics, it seems the motherboard occupies the blank space between keyboard and screen, which means they can make the keyboard thin and not have to worry about cables etc under the keyboard.

      Suggest you stick strips of velcro underneath the unit and on your lap-covering garments :)

      Baz
      • Suggest you stick strips of velcro underneath the unit and on your lap-covering garments

        That's a nifty idea. And with a light enough laptop and strong enough velcro, you could probably stand up and not drop the laptop. You could even think of it as a sort of wearable computer that way. You might want to rig up a cord from the cover to your belt so that when you stand up, the lid would automatically close, too.

  • Touchpad? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by loteck ( 533317 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @01:08PM (#7930340) Homepage
    Does anyone know if Sony has addressed the widespread touchpad issues [com.com] that have plauged the Vaio laptops, specifically the 505 series?

    I have a thin v505 that is less than 6 months old, has been treated extremely gently, and is already in need of touchpad replacement/repair (the cursor just skips all over and simply does not accurately track finger movement). This is an annoying and widespread enough problem to warrant those considering purchase of a 505 to perhaps think twice. And if you do, definitely get that extended warranty (but that may just go without saying in laptop purchasing).

    • Does anyone know if Sony has addressed the widespread touchpad issues that have plauged the Vaio laptops, specifically the 505 series?

      Well, obviously, by getting rid of it. :-)

      I'm quite glad myself, as I really hate touchpads... Eraserheads are not much better for fine movement, but their location is far superior for occasional large-scale movement -- which as a mostly-emacs/xterm-in-X user, is what I care about the most (to switch windows, etc). I'd guess that space issues were the main the reason Son

  • Too small to be useful (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KirkH ( 148427 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @01:09PM (#7930355)
    It's pretty cool, I'll give it that. But at $3500 or $4000 (depending on which case material you go with) it's just too expensive and too feature limited to be something I would go for.

    No trackpad (have to use trackpoint or external mouse).
    No built-in floppy or optical drive.
    Have to use dongles for LAN and VGA out.
    Have to use PC Card for 802.11.
    Only a 20GB hard drive.
    Max of 512MB RAM.
    1 GHz Centrino CPU.

    All your paying for is thinness and lightness. That may be enough for some, but not me. Get rid of all the dongles, include a CD drive, beef up the specs a bit and then we can talk. I don't care if you have to make it a little thicker and heavier -- it needs to be useful!

    I suspect they're going for the mobile professional market. Marketing guys that will pay out the nose for the smallest, hippest item. Good luck to 'em.
    • "All your paying for is thinness and lightness. That may be enough for some, but not me."

      It's not meant for you. It's a niche product. It's meant for business travellers.

      I saw a few laptops sorta like this (very small, no externals to speak of) being used by journalists and business peeps at Siggraph a couple of years ago. Whereas I have an Inspiron. I love this machine but I'd be nervous as hell trying to navigate around the show floor with it tucked under my arm.
    • No trackpad (have to use trackpoint or external mouse).

      That's a disadvantage?? I HATE trackpads with all my soul. The only reason I haven't bought a laptop is that the only ones with trackpoints these days are (a) huge toshibas (b) super expensive sonys and (c) ugly thinkpads. I'd buy a powerbook with a trackpoint in a shot...
      • Amen, brother.

        The only thing I don't like about my conversion from ThinkPads to PowerBooks is the loss of the TrackPoint and the gain of the touchpad, which seems to send my cursor just about everywhere but the right place :-(.

        Would love Apple to see the trackpoint light.

        D
        • Would love Apple to see the trackpoint light.

          Me too, but I wonder if there are patent issues involved.

          Whenever I see a particular unique solution used heavily by one manufacturer, and only sparsely used by others (and in the case of eraserheads, it's usually for notebooks which are physically too small to use anything else), I start to suspect patents...
          • IBM does have a patent on it, but it's appeared on Toshibas and others, so I don't think the terms are prohibitive.

            I suspect the real reason we don't see more trackpoints is that the rubber eraser tip self-destructs after 6 months to a year of heavy use. Manufacturers probably don't want to explain the need for that kind of maintenance to irate customers who just see their mouse cursors start drifting bizarrely.

            I know the first time I saw that happened, I thought there was something really expensive wron

  • Sharp Actius MM-10 (Score:5, Informative)

    by kindbud ( 90044 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @01:09PM (#7930356) Homepage
    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.

    • Re:Sharp Actius MM-10 (Score:4, Informative)

      by kindbud ( 90044 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @01:35PM (#7930671) Homepage
      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.
      • First point is that tiny notebooks don't have to give up important features like network connectivity and touchpads.

        Of course in many people's view, the touchpad is a drawback, not an `important feature.' It's good there's a laptop for everybody's taste, though -- in fact, Sony's use of an eraserhead is a hopeful sign, given the lemming-like movement of the industry towards touchpads lately.

        Oh, and according to the review, the Sony does have an ethernet adapter.

  • Custom Designed Motherboard? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LamerX ( 164968 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @01:20PM (#7930501) Journal
    What do they mean by custom designed motherboard? Is there some sort of standard for notebook motherboards? I thought they were all custom designed. Last time I checked my crappy Dell notebook had a custom motherboard in it too. I think maybe that was some kind of hype statement?

  • My experience with Sony laptops (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jared_hanson ( 514797 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @01:28PM (#7930569) Homepage Journal
    A few years ago, I baught a Sony VAIO laptop. It cost about $3000. As was standard with Sony at that time, it came with a one year warranty.

    Almost exactly one month out of warranty, I started having problems. The computer would start, stay on for a very short time (usually less than 5 minutes) and then it would shut off.

    Thinking some part may be drawing too much power, I tried disconnection every possible part that could be disconnected. However, this did not solve my problem. I finally succumbed to calling the support department, which of course had no clue and recommended I send my laptop in to be serviced.

    I sent my laptop in as they said, and got notification that it had been received at the service department. A week passed, and I had not gotten any indication as to the status. I called support, gave them my ticket number, and asked them what was going on. They had no idea, and nothing had been logged. A couple days later I called again, and got the same result.

    At this point, I became rather upset, and demanded they call me back by the end of the next day to tell me what was going on. They were kind enough to call me back, but not smart enough to figure out the problem. They said it would cost me $2200 dollars to have the problem "fixed" which I'm sure at that cost meant sending me a refurb unit.

    This was 1 month out of a year long warranty, and I was furious and demanded better service. At this point, I could have gotten a computer that was twice as powerful for the same price they were going to charge me for "repairs." Unfortunately I got nowhere in my requests for fair compensation. In fact, I had to pay $60 dollars to cover services rendered and have my unfunctioning laptop shipped back to me.

    $3000 dollars got me use of a laptop for one year and one month. This thing had minor wear as it served mainly as a desktop replacement. After dealing with Sony, and being a loyal customer of their other products, I kindly told them to fuck off. I have never spent another dime on Sony products.
    • From personal experience, most Sony products (including a laptop) have had quality problems:
      My Sony stereo's CD player no longer works (skips)
      My Sony Discman's volume control seems to be set on Random and the secret "constant noise" feature is permanently engaged
      My Sony television blacks out when trying to play DVDs through my Sony PS2 using S-Video hookups (though Xbox/normal DVD player work fine through the same TV)
      My PS2 stopped reading discs 3 months after I got it. I exchanged it, but now that's actin
      • Yeah, I was a loyal customer of Sony, and had their stereo equipment in both my car and my home. Since the laptop incident, I've had my share of issues with other systems as well. I'm slowly phasing out of my home anything with the Sony name.

        I wrecked my car, and promptly sold the stereo equipment that was inside it. (This was not Sony's fault but a good excuse to get something different).

        Problems with stereo equipment:
        - A VCR that refuses to output on the RF out connector.
        - A DVD player that quit read
    • My Sony Vaio laptop stopped working entirely after 2 months.

      I've spent hours upon hours talking to Indians with american sounding names (Paul, Adam...I think they're all biblical). It's mind numbing, frustrating and entirely useless.

      We all know Dell consumer tech support is also in India.

      Does anyone know a company that makes laptops and has support in the USA?

      (BTW, the problem is it crashes on the Phoenix BIOS splash and just prints L 07 07 07 07 07 infintely, if anyone has any idea what this is...)
      • Except for i-series (I've heard bad things about them).

        Over the years I've gone through:

        ThinkPad 700
        ThinkPad 760cd
        ThinkPad 760xd
        ThinkPad 770z

        ...and my current machine is a ThinkPad T22.

        All of them ran/run Linux, all of them were desktop replacements, all of them had hundreds if not thousands hours logged logged before they were "retired" and all of them still run (they have been handed down through my family as I have upgraded).

        For one brief moment I bought a non-IBM laptop (a Fujitsu), but frankly yo

  • Small Laptops ... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @01:40PM (#7930743) Homepage Journal
    Small Laptops ...

    I've been wanting a really small laptop for sometime now and finding one that looks sexy and has some punch at a reasonable price is not that easy. But when you realise that you can purchase a G4 12in ibook for just over a grand and an 11in G4 powerbook for just over 1.5 grand. This sony laptop starts to look decidedly expensive all for a couple of millimeters here and there.

    Aside from the math, Id rather give Apple some of my hard earned dosh , than redmond. I'd bet Yellow Dog Linux would run a beauty on those *book's too. I just need a job... After a while one needs a gadget buying fix, and I've been yearning for the tiny powerbook for too long now!

    • You know, they have Gentoo for the Mac's too.

      What better way to benchmark a new box than by clocking an KDE build in 18 hours instead of my usual 24.

      • Never tried gentoo on Mac hardware before. In all honesty though i dont see that there is a huge point to it. Macs have very predictable hardware configurations, I doubt that the performance benefits of a custom build would be worth it. Even so there are other benefits to using Gentoo than performance. The ease of updating / upgrading via portage is one.

        What hardware are you running your gentoo on? I cant say I've ever had to wait 18hrs to build KDE. (2xAthlon MP 1400).

        • Macs have very predictable hardware configurations, I doubt that the performance benefits of a custom build would be worth it.

          In my limited Gentoo experience with Intel hardware, I've noticed that Portage is less about compiler optimizations, and more about compile-time options. Leaving out unnecessary crap is much more important than simply using some gcc -O1337 options. For example, you can build software with or without GNOME bindings. Some binary distros seem to build all possible bindings just in cas

        • Athlon 1700-xp and PIII 866 (dual).

          KDE isn't so bad. It's qt that always seems to take forever. Then, if you don't set your flags to forget about gnome you end up compiling that too when some package that hooks to both adds in all of its gtk dependencies.

          For laughs run emerhe -ep kde. Note all the gnome entries.

  • Non-integrated WiFi is lame (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alispguru ( 72689 ) <bob.bane@me.PLANCKcom minus physicist> on Friday January 09, 2004 @01:52PM (#7930867) Journal
    Actually non-integrated WiFi is lame on all notebooks, but especially so on this one.

    When it's ultra-light and ultra-thin, the goal is portability, right? This should mean I can close the machine, dump it into its bag, and run.

    But you can't do that safely if you have a WiFI card in the slot with the antenna lump sticking out of the side, just waiting to break off or transfer a bump from the outside into the card socket (munging it and in all likelyhood your machine's motherboard).

  • Fujitsu P-Series (Score:4, Informative)

    by tercero ( 529131 ) <tercero1@h o t m a i l.com> on Friday January 09, 2004 @01:54PM (#7930890) Homepage
    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
    • How the hell do you people keep touting 7 and 9 hour battery life! Maybe I just made a bad notebook buying decision with my Toshiba Satelite, but I'm lucky if I get a half hour out of the thing, and its only 2 years old. Sure, when it was brand new I could get maybe an hour and a half out of it at high speed. Online is said 3+ hours, but after purchasing it I realized that was in "low" mode (like 300MHz or something ridicilous). I realize I probably cut my batter life in half by leaving it depleated for a w

  • too slim... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Chuck Bucket ( 142633 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @02:19PM (#7931174) Homepage Journal
    wow, I think that's just too thin. I love my g3 12" ibook, and I think it's just the right size for everyday use. I know some execs will buy these sony's, but I suspect it'll end up on IT's desk more often than not. we had an issue at an old job of ours, the 'hot-headed' CEO would "drop" his tiny laptop (across the room) and it would break. again, it was sent in for repair more than it was used.

    CB
  • ... and wired ethernet in a notebook is simply unacceptable now.
  • Using the X505 in a public place such as a coffeehouse or on public transportation, you'll notice a lot of glances. Whether they are looking at the elegant little powerhouse in front of you or the big grin on your face while using it, you will be noticed - it's just that special.

    Just reread that a couple times. It speaks for itself.

    --Bruce Fields

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