HP Pavilion dv9000t Review

Overview and Introduction:

Hewlett-Packard recently took the lead as the number one PC maker in the world, finally overtaking their rival, Dell. With the market shift came many new computers from HP, and a much needed refresh to their laptop line. The HP dv9000t is the most powerful model HP has to offer with its crisp 17" screen, Core 2 Duo, dual-hard drive capabilities, and GeForce Go 7600 graphics card.

(view large image)

The HP dv9000t is configurable online via HP.com, the specs I ordered were as follows:

• Operating System - Genuine Windows XP Media Center
• Processor - Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo processor T5500 (1.66 GHz)
• Display - 17.0" WSXGA+ BrightView Widescreen (1680x1050)
• Graphics Card - 256MB NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) Go 7600
• Personalization - HP Imprint Finish + Microphone + Webcam
• Memory - 1024MB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• Hard Drive - 160GB 5400RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (80GB x 2)
• Primary CD/DVD Drive - LightScribe DVD+/-RW w/Double Layer
• Networking - Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network w/Bluetooth
• Primary Battery - 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
• OS and Recovery Media - System Recovery DVD w/Windows XP Media Center
• Accessories - HP Mobile Remote Control
• Price - $1,467.98 after rebate

HP dv9000t front view (view large image)

Reasons for Buying:

I had been in the market for a new laptop for quite some time. I do alot of digital design work including web design and photo retouching, as well as making art in my spare time. I needed something with a bright, large screen and ample resolution to work with. I also needed enough power to play the latest PC games. I had my eye on the HP dv8000, but soon after the dv9000 came out and I knew it was the one for me.

Everything you get with the dv9000t in the box (view large image)

Where and How Purchased:

I purchased my dv9000t straight from the HP.com site. At the time they had the best deal, and it gave me peace of mind going through the company itself in terms of warranty and tech support backing.

Build and Design:

The design of the dv9000 is excellent. It is much thinner and lighter than I had anticipated. The chassis is a very strong plastic, there is no flex anywhere on the body of the notebook. The screen will twist if ample force is applied, but is very sturdy for a 17" screen. When I push on the lid, no ripples are produced on the LCD.

HP dv9000t top view (view large image)

HP dv9000t under side view (view large image)

The most attractive part about the design of the notebook is HP's Imprint Finish. It is a swirled pattern on the outside and inside of the notebook, right under the keyboard. It definitely adds flare and personal taste to the normally bland world of mobile computing.

(view large image)

Screen:

The screen is one of the biggest things that attracted me to this notebook. As someone who relies on their screen for contrast and color accuracy, this screen has been nothing short of amazing. There are three options for customization regarding the screen: WXGA+ BrightView Widescreen (1440x900); WSXGA+ BrightView Widescreen (1680x1050) (which is the option I chose); and WXGA+ Ultra BrightView Widescreen (1440x900). The resolution differences are straightforward enough, but the Ultra BrightView does confuse some people. The difference between Brightview and UltraBrightview is the number of lamps lighting your LCD. Typical screens only have one lamp, while UltraBrightview contains two that light your screen. The outcome is a much brighter, and sometimes crisper screen. I would have chosen this option, but I value a higher resolution, and most screens are bright enough for me as it is.

Speakers:

The speakers on this laptop are some of the best I have heard and are made by Altec Lansing. In typical notebook fashion however, they do come up short. The sound quality is crisp and clear all the way up to max volume. There is no "tinny" sound from the speakers that many have. The only complaint I have about these speakers is that they don't get loud enough for my tastes. Not a big deal to me, as they get plenty loud for sitting around and listening to your MP3's, but for gaming and audiophile tastes, a set of external speakers or headphones may be a good option.

Processor and Performance:

The processor I have is the Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 (1.66ghz). The Core 2 processors are currently the best mobile processors on the market. The T5500 is the middle to low-end of the Core 2 models, but doesn't even break a sweat with everything I have thrown at it.

Benchmarks

The Intel Core 2 Duo offered with this notebook is the "low end" 1.66GHz version, but still offers very good performance, I got a Super Pi calculation time to 2 million digits of 1m 18s. That's slower than the under 1 minute results that 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo processors get, but still demonstrates the processor can chug through calculations fast.

Super Pi

Notebook	Time
HP Pavilion dv9000t (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo)	1m 18s
LG S1 (2.16 GHz Core Duo)	1m 11s
Dell Inspiron e1505 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 16s
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Toshiba Satellite M100 (2.00GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Samsung X60 (1.66GHz Core Duo)	1m 29s
Dell XPS M140 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 41s
Sony VAIO FS680 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 53s
IBM ThinkPad T43 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 45s

3DMark05 Results and comparison:

3DMark05 tests the graphics processing capabilities of a system:

Notebook	3DMark05 Score
HP Pavilion dv9000t (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo, Nvidia Go 7600 256MB)	3,517 3DMarks
Samsung X60plus (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7200, ATI X1700 256MB)	4,150 3DMarks
Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 256MB)	4,236 3DMarks
Asus V6J (2.16GHz Core 2 Duo, nVidia GeForce Go 7400)	2,918 3DMarks
Samsung X60 (1.66GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400)	2,264 3DMarks
ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400)	2,092 3DMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, nVidia GeForce Go 7400)	2,013 3DMarks

3DMark06 Comparison Results:

3DMark06 tests the graphics capabilities of a system, it is more demanding than 3DMark05.

Notebook	3DMark 06 Results
HP Pavilion dv9000t (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo, Nvidia Go 7600 256MB)	1,930 3DMarks
Apple MacBook Pro (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 128MB)	1,528 3DMarks
Dell Precison M90 (2.16GHz Core Duo, nVidia Quadro FX 1500M)	3,926 3DMarks
Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60 Nvidia GeForce Go7800GTX)	4,085 3DMarks
Compal HEL80 (2.0GHz Core Duo, nVidia Go 7600 256MB)	1,654 3DMarks
Dell XPS M1710 (2.16 GHz Core Duo, nVidia 7900 GTX 512MB)	4,744 3DMarks

Some screenshots from games being played on the dv9000t

F.E.A.R. (view large image)

World of Warcraft (view large image)

Half Life 2 (view large image)

Heat and Noise:

The dv9000t has quite a bit of power under the hood, but you would never be able to tell from the way it handles it. The fans rarely come on, only during heavy gaming do I notice them, and even then they can barely be heard. The notebook is very quiet, nothing that will bother your classmates during a lecture. The only time I have ever felt the notebook get even mildly warm was after a long session of playing F.E.A.R. After quite a bit of stress on all the components used during the game, it was still very comfortable to have on my lap.

Keyboard and Touchpad:

The dv9000 is one of the few notebooks on the market to offer a full-size keyboard along with a numpad. The numpad is a welcome, but rarely seen addition to the mobile world. The keys are all very responsive and offer a satisfying clicky noise when typing. The only complaint that I have is that the right shift key is scrunched due to constraints from fitting in the numpad. This isn't a big complaint for me however, as it is fairly easy to adapt to the smaller shift key, and is more than worth it as a trade-off for the numpad that is included.

The touchpad on the other hand doesn't get as much praise from me. It is average at best. I almost always use an external mouse, but when I do have to use the touchpad, I don't look forward to it. It tracks well enough, but is made of a strange material that is rather hard to slide your finger on in comparison to a standard touchpad. The mouse buttons underneath it are great however, and I wouldn't trade those for anything. The touchpad is aligned under the main part of the keyboard, so it is off center from the whole notebook. The reason for this however is so that it is center from where you are typing. The coolest feature about the touchpad, and one I greatly appreciate, is the ability to turn it on/off. No more accidently brushing the touchpad, causing you to type in the wrong place.

Input and Output Ports:

The notebook has a fair mix of everything and even has an HDMI port. All included ports are as followed:

• 4 Universal Serial Bus (USB 2.0)
• 1 IEEE 1394 Firewire Port
• 1 Expansion Port 3
• TV-Out (S-video)
• Integrated Consumer IR (remote control receiver)
• Microphone in
• 1 RJ-11 (modem)
• 1 RJ -45 (LAN)
• 1 VGA
• 1 HDMI

Left side view (view large image)

Right side view (view large image)

(view large image)

Wireless:

The pavilion dv9000t has two options for wireless. Both come with the Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG card, but one is with Bluetooth and the other is without. I chose the option with Bluetooth so that I could connect with my phone and pda. The card offers a strong connection to any network remotely close to me. I can pick up signals from neighbors 2-3 houses away from me. This is definitely a card to have when looking for a notebook with reliable wireless.

Battery:

The battery that comes with the dv9000 is an 8-cell Lithium-Ion battery. The laptop averages about 3 hours of battery life with low performance usage and a dim screen, an amazing number for a notebook this big. With more demanding usage however, it gets around 2 hours.

Operating System and Software:

The operating system I chose for my system was Windows Media Center Edition. In essence, it is Windows Home with more multimedia options. I have no need for pro and the features included on MCE are pretty neat, especially for a media fanatic like myself. There is a Recovery Partition that is located on your primary hard drive for any recovery woes. When you first boot up it asks you to burn this partition onto CD/DVD. I opted for the Recovery Discs however, just in case. The system was loaded up with Bloatware when I received it, and among the bountiful programs, none of them were useful to me. After cleaning up all of the unwanted programs and cleaning my registry however, I had a near clean install.

Customer Support:

I haven't yet had the need to test out HP's customer service, and hope that I will never have to (knock on wood). There are many options for warranties however, and I have heard from others that HP is one of the better companies out there in terms of customer support.

Conclusion:

The dv9000 is a gorgeous desktop replacement machine with enough power and features for nearly any user. It is definitely one of the best buys on the market for the money, and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a 17" notebook.

Pros:

• Extremely affordable
• Beautiful Imprint Finish
• Built-in Mic/Webcam
• Unrivaled screen
• Nearly silent operation
• Thin and light for a notebook of its size

Cons:

• Not enough choices for resolution
• Middle of the road GPU
• Dissapointing touchpad
• Fingerprint magnet!

Toshiba Satellite A135 Review

The Toshiba A135 series notebook is offered in a wide variety of configurations, and ranges in price, at common big-box and online resellers, from under $700 to nearly $1500. The particular model under review here, an A135-S4427 provided by Toshiba, falls near the lower end of this range, and at first glance appears to be an excellent choice for the value-minded consumer looking to obtain a nicely outfitted notebook. The S4427 comes with Vista Home Premium, an Intel Core Duo T2250 processor, one gigabyte of RAM, 120 gigabytes of hard drive space, and a DVD-SuperMulti drive, all for well under $1000. Although a stripped-down Celeron configuration will generally cost the least of any A135 model notebook, the S4427, for not a whole lot more money, and provides just about everything one might hope for in a non-gaming, consumer-oriented notebook.

While comparing the prices of various A135s, I actually found myself thinking that this particular Toshiba series really is exemplary when it comes to illustrating the somewhat confusing task of pricing and purchasing a notebook. Yes, it’s possible to save some money by going with a weak CPU and minimal RAM, but unless an extra 15 or 20% cost is truly prohibitive, it almost never makes sense to purchase the weakest model in a series. Conversely, from the perspective of value, it rarely makes sense to opt for one of the most expensive models within a particular line. In the case of the A135, it’s possible to spend nearly double what an S4427 would cost, but from my perspective, an upgrade to the Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 and twice as much RAM and hard drive space is not worth the very substantial jump in price. In short, the exact review model I received, the A135-S4427, is probably the exact model I would myself purchase if I were in the market for a solid notebook that should have no trouble handling general office and multimedia tasks. My only concern, at the outset of this review, was whether or not Vista Home Premium, running the Aero interface, would be hampered by a single gigabyte of RAM. I’m glad to say, with some elaboration below, that performance was always quite good, and that the addition of an inexpensive flash drive to make use of the Vista ReadyBoost feature offered some performance improvement in certain high-stress situations.

Toshiba Satellite A135-S4427 Specs:

• Processor: Intel Core Duo T2250 (1.73 GHz/2MB L2 Cache)
• OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
• Hard Drive: 120 GB SATA @ 5400RPM
• Screen: 15.4" WXGA TruBrite Widescreen (1280 x 800)
• Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950, Up To 224 MB Shared
• RAM: 1GB DDR2 SDRAM @533 MHz (2x512MB)
• Optical Drive: DVD SuperMulti Drive (CD/DVD burner)
• Battery: 6-cell lithium ion
• Wireless: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11 a/b/g
• Weight: 6 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.47” (H) x 14.2 “ (W) x 10.5" (D)
• Ports/Slots: 1 IEEE 1394 (FireWire); 4 Universal Serial Bus (USB 2.0); VGA monitor out port; S-video out; RJ-45 Ethernet LAN; RJ-11 modem; Type I/II PC Card Slot; headphone/speaker jack; microphone; 5-in-1 bridge media adapter supports Secure Digital, Multi Media Card, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO and xD Picture Card; Secure Digital slot supports SDIO

First Impressions

(view large image)

My first thought upon seeing the A135-S4427 was that it’s a pretty standard consumer notebook: nothing exceptional in terms of appearance or build quality, just a lot of black and silver plastic. In all ways, the A135 occupies the middle ground and seems to be the equal of its competitors.

Design and Build

Satellite A135 lid view (view large image)

As indicated, design and build are unremarkable. I have no problem with the look, dependent as it is on offering decent form and function at a reasonable price. The build quality, like most consumer notebooks, seems fine too. I would have no concerns purchasing an A135 for myself because I travel minimally and tend to treat my computers with a care I rarely afford my other possessions. As always, an especially demanding or careless notebook user is probably better off looking at some of the more solidly built business models, though this inevitably means spending more money.

Satellite A135 front side: speaker and headphone jack, volume dial, 5-in-1 card reader, wi-fi on off switch (view large image)

Satellite A135 left side: VGA monitor out port, fant vent, USB port, S-Video, PCMCIA slot, FireWire port (view large image)

Satellite A135 right side: 2 USB 2.0 ports, optical drive, Kensington lock slot (view large image)

Satellite A135 back view: Modem, power jack, Ethernet LAN port and USB port (view large image)

The screen

(view large image)

The LG.Philips-manufactured display, a glossy TruBrite in the Toshiba lexicon, provides a resolution of 1280x800 and presented no problems at all. In fact, the screen was excellent. Had I purchased this notebook for long-term, personal use, I would have been quite happy with the LCD. There is no discernible light leakage and everything looks sharp and clear.

(view large image)

Graphics

Satellite A135 running Vista Aero (view large image)

My main concern with the graphics was whether the GMA 950 could adequately handle the new Vista Aero interface. In the end, I was pleasantly surprised: the look was very nice, and whatever system RAM was being utilized by graphics, this siphoning off of physical memory never seemed to cause any significant lag. Everything worked in pleasant harmony. As indicated by the 3DMark05 and 3dMark06 scores below, this is no gaming machine, but it does what it sets out to do and does it well.

Sound

Two speakers situated just above the function keys provided adequate sound that was reasonably clear and loud for a notebook. There is a volume wheel on the front of the notebook, which is handy, and overall I had no complaints about sound. I watched, and enjoyed, a lengthy DVD without benefit of external speakers or headphones.

Processor and Performance

The Intel Core Duo T2250 CPU, together with GMA 950 graphics and a gigabyte of RAM, performed surprisingly well. After reading a few articles on the demands of Windows Vista, especially when the Aero interface is enabled, I really wondered if a gig of RAM and integrated graphics would result in poor performance. In the end, performance was surprisingly strong, with and without ReadyBoost flash memory added to the hardware mix. Much of what I say here is somewhat anecdotal, though I did run Super PI and PCMark05 with and without a ReadyBoost allocation. The results didn’t vary much, but PCMark05 did indicate an overall performance increase of 3% with ReadyBoost enabled. I also noticed a difference between ReadyBoost and non-ReadyBoost performance while running Super PI in the background for an extended period of time; it seemed that various applications (Internet Explorer, Word, Notepad, Everest Home) responded and came to the fore much more quickly when flash memory was available to ReadyBoost. One final word on the CPU: some people may be put off by the inclusion of the older Core Duo in this particular model, but for most purposes, for the foreseeable future, the T2250 seems good enough and I for one wouldn’t hesitate to buy a machine with a T2250, particularly given the overall performance of this A135-S4427.

Benchmarks

Super Pi Comparison Results

Super Pi forces the processor to calculate Pi to 2 million digits of accuracy and gives an idea of the processor speed and performance:

Notebook	Time
Toshiba Satellite A135 (1.73GHz Core Duo)	1m 28s
Fujitsu LifeBook N6410 (1.66 GHz Core Duo)	1m 22s
LG S1 (2.16 GHz Core Duo)	1m 11s
Dell Inspiron e1505 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 16s
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Toshiba Satellite M100 (2.00GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Samsung X60 (1.66GHz Core Duo)	1m 29s
Sony VAIO FS680 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 53s

Comparison results for 3DMark05

3DMark05 tests the overall graphic capabilities of a notebook, below is how the Satellite A135-4427 did compared to other notebooks:

Notebook	3D Mark 05 Results
Toshiba Satellite A135 (1.73GHz Core Duo, Intel GMA 950)	519 3D Marks
Alienware Aurora M-7700(AMD Dual Core FX-60, ATI X1600 256MB)	7,078 3D Marks
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400 128MB)	2,092 3D Marks
Asus V6Va (2.13 GHz Pentium M, ATI x700 128 MB)	2,530 3D Marks
Fujitsu n6410 (1.66 GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400 128MB)	2,273 3DMarks
HP Pavilion dv4000 (1.86 GHz Pentium M, ATI X700 128MB)	2,536 3D Marks
Dell XPS M1210 (2.16 GHz Core Duo, nVidia Go 7400 256MB)	2,090 3D Marks

The score obviously indicates this notebook won't do for more demanding 3D graphical needs such as gaming, but with 1GB of RAM Vista Aero still ran fine.

PCMark05

I used PCMark05, a general system benchmarking tool, to compare results when the notebook had a 2GB USB flash drive available for the Vista ReadyBoost feature and when it didn't. This Vista ReadyBoost feature allows the system to use a flash drive like extra memory, according to these benchmarks the flash drive did allow Vista to run faster, although marginally:

PCMark05 Results	Without ReadyBoost	With 1.6 GB ReadyBoost Flash Memory
Overall PCMark05 Score	2,937	3,027
HDD – XP Startup	5.2 MB/s	5.9 MB/s
Physics and 3D	63.95 FPS	63.66 FPS
Transparent Windows	2965.92 Windows/s	2945.22 Windows/s
3D – Pixel Shader	8.56 FPS	8.51 FPS
Web Page Rendering	1.19 Pages/s	1.24 Pages/s
File Decryption	42.94 MB/s	42.31 MB/s
Graphics Memory – 64 Lines	208.46 FPS	207.82 FPS
HDD – General Usage	3.73 MB/s	5.55 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 1 / Audio Compression	1516.3 KB/s	1547.12 KB/s
Multithreaded Test 1 / Video Encoding	244.49 KB/s	220.19 KB/s
Multithreaded Test 2 / Text Edit	72.26 Pages/s	70.5 Pages/s
Multithreaded Test 2 / Image Decompression	19.99 Mpixels/s	18.12 MPixels/s
Multithreaded Test 3 / File Compression	3.43 MB/s	3.33 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 3 / File Encryption	20.17 MB/s	19.95 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 3 / HDD – Virus Scan	31.65 MB/s	39.78 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 3 / Memory Latency – Random 16 MB	7.24 Maccesses/s	7.05 Maccesses/s

You can see that with 1.6 GB flash memory allocated to ReadyBoost, the score was 3027, about 3% higher, with most of the gains appearing in areas where the hard drive would be under stress.

HDTune

Hard drive performance, using HD Tune as the measure, was as follows:

(view large image)

Input Devices

Satellite A135 keyboard view (view large image)

Of the two fairly minor complaints I had about this notebook, the keyboard was one of them, though I am admittedly rather picky about keyboards. I prefer the Windows key to be located at the bottom of the keyboard, next to the control key, but Toshiba put this key at the top of the keyboard, to the right of the function keys. Also, the tab key is narrower than I’m accustomed to, and all of these little keyboard eccentricities seem to result from the inclusion of a media button panel to the left of the keyboard (couldn't they be at the top?), though maybe it’s justified by design reasons I’m unaware of. I did notice some flex in the keyboard as well, though I never found this to be a significant problem or detraction from my overall typing experience. The touchpad was fine, but I generally used a USB mouse. On the whole, I found input devices to be okay, with no really serious problems, but the keyboard did leave a little to be desired when compared to some other notebooks I’ve used.

Battery Life

The 6-cell battery allowed me to watch a complete DVD, lasting 1 hour and 48 minutes, and still had 22% charge remaining. During general usage, the battery lasted for two hours and fifteen minutes, with minimal effort to reduce power consumption.

Heat and Noise

Generally the A135 did well in terms of heat and noise. The notebook was fairly quiet and stayed reasonably cool, with the bottom and palm rests never getting very warm at all. The fan did come on rather frequently, though it generally ceased spinning within a couple of seconds. But I did notice this regular, rapid cycling on and off, which often seemed to occur every few seconds. Another thing I found somewhat disconcerting was a regular blast of warm air coming out of the side vent, located on the left, whenever the fan did turn on. If it weren’t for the fact that I operate the mouse with my left hand, and I do generally use an external mouse, I might never have noticed the warm gush of air. But I found myself almost unconsciously shortening my left arm in order to avoid the warm air. I would guess that these are the sorts of issues that wouldn’t bother some users at all, but may drive a small selection of people absolutely batty.

Wireless

The Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 worked without any problems, though setup took me a little longer than normal because I wasn’t used to the new Vista configuration drill.

Software

Yes, there was a great deal of junk software on the A135, just as I’ve come to expect, and I didn’t bother uninstalling most of it. Nonetheless, performance was good, surprisingly so, as I’ve mentioned, given that I always ran the notebook with Aero enabled. Everything I tried to do I could do without any problems: general business-type tasks, DVD watching, listening to music, surfing the Internet.

As for Vista, the A135 afforded me my first extensive use of the new OS, though I’d installed a beta version of Vista on a desktop last year. Just about the first thing I did was turn off the new User Account Control (UAC) feature, which was driving me nuts. Once that was done and Windows quit asking me to confirm every other thing I tried to do, I found it took a couple of hours to get used to the differences between XP and Vista. The new interface is quite appealing, and Vista, in general, handled everything I asked of it with the same equanimity I’d become accustomed to with XP.

Conclusion

At the right price, and with the right configuration, the Satellite A135 offers extraordinary value. It is a fully capable notebook computer and performs better than I expected after reading various articles on the demands of Windows Vista. Toshiba has managed, at least in the S4427 incarnation of the A135, to provide a good CPU and screen, a full gig of RAM, a nice-sized hard drive, Vista Home Premium and an excellent optical drive, all for a very low price.

I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this notebook to someone looking to buy a notebook for general office and multimedia tasks while keeping the price low and avoiding serious sacrifices in terms of performance and components. Given that most people are capable of adjusting to a couple of keyboard eccentricities, my only real caveat would have to do with the fan cycling on and off and the blast of warm air that might bother a left-handed mouse user. Are these problems serious? I really don’t think so, but everyone’s tolerance for such things is different, as is a person’s tolerance for paying double or triple to get a computer that seems nearly perfect. As it is, at the most recent weekend’s sale prices at the usual big-box and online retailers, this notebook is as good a value as I’ve ever seen. I never felt like I was using a machine that made serious trade-offs in order to keep the price down.

Pros:

• Exceptional value
• Very good multimedia machine
• Excellent screen
• Decent build quality
• Reasonably appealing appearance
• On the whole, stays very cool

Cons:

• Keyboard layout may take some getting used to
• Some flex in keyboard
• Fan tends to cycle on and off
• Warm air blows out of left vent and onto the hand of a left-handed mouse user

Sony VAIO SZ2 Review

Background

The VAIO SZ is Sony's latest thin and light range of notebooks, available in a range of specifications all with dual Intel / nVidia graphics and Intel dual core processors.

Sony VAIO SZ2 (view large image)

I opted for the flagship SZ2VP model with the following specifications:

• Intel Core Duo T2600 -- @ 2.16Ghz per core
• 1GB DDR2 RAM
• 120Gb 54000RPM hard drive
• 13.3" LCD with LED backlight, running at 1280 x 800 resolution
• Dual Layer DVD +/- RW optical drive
• Switchable Intel GMA 950/nVidia GeForce 7400 graphics

Being the limited edition prestige' model, this was only available to purchase through Sony Centres or Sony Style online. After a visit to my local Sony Centre and being told a very vague "we might be able to get one for mid September" I decided to pursue the online method!

Build and Design

Sony VAIO SZ2 setup (view large image)

My first thoughts on unpacking the SZ were "wow...it's small!" This is my first laptop, yet with the top level VP' only weighing in at 1.69 kilos (3.7 lbs) I was very pleased with the size and weight of the unit.

(view large image)

The VP features a carbon fibre top casing, yet there is much discussion as to how much carbon fibre is actually present in the laptop! The casing does not feature the weave' you would expect from this material, yet it still provides an interesting effect and also contains blue metallic particles visible in certain light conditions.

The palm rest and keypad area have a brushed aluminium finish which makes a great change from the plastic of many other machines and gives great aesthetic appeal.

There are a total of 5 switches located above the keyboard; two shortcut switches, a wireless on/off switch, power button and the graphics switch. It's a shame you can't turn off wifi/Bluetooth independently with hardware switches but it is easily done from the software utility.

VAIO SZ2 right side view (view large image)

VAIO SZ2 left side view (view large image)

VAIO SZ2 front side view (view large image)

VAIO SZ2 back side view (view large image)

Screen

The LCD features LED backlight technology, which gives a very thin screen and lid -- only around 5/6mm thick. Whilst helping to reduce weight and giving a great look to the product, it does make the LCD seem slightly fragile with a little amount of twist (though probably not as much as you'd expect from something this thin).

The 1280 x 800 resolution works excellently on the 13.3" screen. Not having perfect eyesight, I was concerned about a high resolution on a smaller screen but I find it a pleasure to use with absolutely no problems.

It features Sony's X-Black technology, which gives the typical glossy effect to the screen. Not having a massive range of experience with various manufacturers, I can't really compare it to others, yet suffice to say it also seems to feature some kind of anti glare coating which is hard to describe but it seems to reduce the visible reflections from objects behind you. I am also impressed with the very large viewing angle on the screen, far more so than any other LCD's I've used.

The brightness on the screen is excellent and I find myself turning it down from the highest setting when indoors and only using the brightest setting when outside, which still gives a decent picture.

Features and Performance

I'm not a gamer yet I tend to run multiple applications at the same time, particularly resource hogs like Photoshop. The Core Duo seems to live up to the task very well though I can't say it's any faster compared to my desktop running an Athlon XP at 2.17Ghz with the same 1GB of RAM and a lowly graphics card.

The dual graphics are a fantastic feature and allow you to switch between the integrated Intel GMA 950 chipset, or the dedicated nVidia GeForce 7400 with 128mb dedicated memory. Use the Intel while running office applications to conserve battery life, or the nVidia for more extreme use. A restart is required to flick between the two chips, which is a bit of an annoyance yet it is still an excellent innovation and something I haven't come across in any other laptops.

The fingerprint reader is located between the two touchpad buttons and although I considered it a toy in the pre-purchase stage, I now consider it a godsend! It can be used for logging onto Windows, launching applications (assign an app. to each finger) or entering passwords into web windows. It does the job very well and recognises my fingers first go around 95% of the time. To check security I asked a co-worker to try and logon to my system but they were denied access even after 5 minutes of trying! While I'm sure it's not that secure, it is certainly a viable alternative to entering hundreds of passwords.

The optical drive provides pretty much every kind of functionality I could ever dream of with dual layer DVD +/- rewrite ability. My only gripe would be that the disc tray seems a little fragile, yet for the amount I use the drive this is only a minor concern. I suspect this is due to the thin form factor of the laptop.

Expresscard 34 and a PCMCIA slots both feature on the laptop, yet the Expresscard is filled with Sony's included card reader which seems to cope with all the main formats such as SD and MMC. A built-in Sony memory stick duo reader takes care of their own format, but it's a shame they shun the popular SD format to a separate reader in favour of their own cards.

Included media card reader in the ExpressCard slot (view large image)

It also seems Sony were a bit tight on room by only including two USB 2 ports, which although is adequate for myself, I'd have preferred to have seen more.

There's VGA out but no composite video for outputting to a TV, which I consider a major downside on a laptop costing £1800 ($3,000)! Also, my VGA to TV converter doesn't work on this laptop like it did on my Mac Mini meaning it will be difficult to output the image to a standard TV screen.

Heat and Noise

The laptop seems exceptionally quiet, and the fan noise is almost inaudible in anything other than total silence. I've yet to hear the fans totally shut down, but this may be because I primarily use the nVidia graphics. Shortcut button 2 is pre-set to drop fan noise and CPU clock, yet whenever I've used it the difference has been minimal.

The optical drive is far from quiet when in use and during start-up, yet again as I use it so little this is not a problem for myself.

It seems to produce a fair amount of heat when using the nVidia graphics, though no more than I'd expect from a performance orientated machine with dedicated graphics and it never gets annoyingly hot, just quite warm. Again this is something I can live with. Using the Intel graphics allows the laptop to run very cool and quiet.

Keyboard and Touchpad

(view large image)

After reading various forum reports of problems with the spacebar and keyboard in general on the SZ I was very sceptical. However after using it for a few weeks it seems to have none of these problems. I neither greatly like or dislike the keypad and assume it's something I'll grow to like over time but at the moment I'm still adjusting from my full sized Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard.

The key travel seems about right and it seems relatively quiet in operation. Being a touch typist, I still occasionally hit the wrong key but again, I'm sure this is something I will adjust to over time.

The touchpad has a slightly rough texture to it which works well, and it is easily configurable from within windows for scrolling and tapping speed, etc. Another neat feature is the ability to use the top left corner to maximise, minimise or close windows. Perhaps this is common to other laptops too, but I was still impressed by this simple feature. I later discovered, however, that I kept inadvertently tapping the top left corner while typing and this led to me closing the window I was working in! So this corner functionality has now been disabled; a shame really.

Speakers

I was all set to purchase a cheap pair of speakers to supplement my laptop, yet I think I'll leave this for a while now given the quality of the built in speakers. Peering through the grille results in what looks like a pair of tiny (half-inch) diameter drivers which result in an exceptionally clear and loud sound. Of course, there's no bass but I really wouldn't have been disappointed had the speakers had JBL or similar logos on!

External audio is provided through a 3.5mm line out socket, though the output seems very quiet when using this into my amplified external speakers. There is also a massive amount of hiss/feedback that appears only when the AC power cord is plugged in. If someone uses the external audio a lot then this will prove annoying and the Sony representative I spoke to did not have any idea what it could be. SPDIF optical output would have been nice, especially as this one of the most expensive laptops on the market today!

Battery

Doing everyday tasks as I have been for the past weeks, using the nVidia graphics and wireless and Bluetooth on I reliably get just under three hours battery life. This is using a high/mid LCD brightness setting. I expect 4+ hours easily using the Intel graphics with wireless switched off. Sony offer an extended life battery, but it is far too expensive at around £240 and increases the size and weight of the laptop considerably (see the notebook review forums).

Bundled Software

This is by far and away the laptops worst feature. The amount of bundled useless software was unbelievable and performance out of the box was far below my expectations. Sony make it reasonably difficult to do a clean install, by not providing a separate windows CD (or any CD's... for that matter) in the box. They include a hidden recovery partition on the hard drive and there is an option to create your own recovery discs. The problem with recovery is that it would reinstall all the bundled nonsense!

I have a separate standalone copy of XP pro so I installed this on the laptop with no problems, using the drivers available to download from Sony's website. Though there are many forum posts relating to this issue, I had a problem free clean install and everything works perfectly.

Benchmarks:

Super Pi calculated to 2 million:

Notebook	Time
Sony VAIO SZ2 (2.16GHz Core Duo)	1m 14s
Asus W3H760DD (2.0 GHz Pentium M)	1m 33s
Dell Inspiron e1505 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 16s
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Toshiba Satellite M100 (2.00GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Samsung X60 (1.66GHz Core Duo)	1m 29s
Dell XPS M140 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 41s
Sony VAIO FS680 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 53s
IBM ThinkPad T43 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 45s

3DMark05:

Notebook Comparison	3DMark05 Score
Sony VAIO SZ2 (2.16GHz Core Duo, nVidia GeForce 7400)	1,851
ASUS W3V (2.0 GHz Pentium M, ATI X600	1,263
Lenovo ThinkPad Z60m (2.0GHz Pentium M, ATI X600 128MB)	1,659
ThinkPad T43 (1.86GHz, ATI X300 64MB graphics)	727
Asus V6Va (2.13 GHz Pentium M, ATI Radeon Mobility x700 128 MB)	2,530
HP dv4000 (1.86GHz Pentium M, ATI X700 128MB)	2,536
Toshiba Satellite M100 (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400 128MB)	1,660

HD Tune:

(view large image)

Conclusion

I am very pleased with the SZ2VP. Is it a performance machine...is it a thin and light...is it a desktop replacement? It combines extreme performance in an exceptionally lightweight package. I was after a super-fast notebook to take to university and the weight saving is a fantastic plus.

Spending an afternoon reformatting isn't much work for the machine you have at the end, but it shouldn't be a required step.

Pros:

• High speed -- T2600 dual core runs at 2.16 GHz
• Battery life -- Expected around 4 hours with no wireless and Intel graphics
• Lightweight -- only 1.69kg (3.7lbs)
• Overall design -- the use of aluminium and carbon fibre make it stand out as something a bit special.

Cons

• Terrible pre-installed software -- It shouldn't be there!
• Lack of independent wireless switches
• No TV out -- For £1800 ($3,000), it really needs this basic feature!
• Lack of SPDIF -- Again, for £1800 it would be nice.
• Shortage of USB ports