Sony VAIO VPCEB1E9E 15.5 inch notebook

A. GILL

at 12:35 am

I bought this when i finally decided to stop buying cheap, bargain

laptops from Acer and go for something more expensive, but something

i hoped would provide a better experience, and last much longer.

Here is what i liked about my new Vaio:

== PRICE ==

Its £210 more expensive than my previous Acer laptop which, on paper

sounds like a lot, but taking into consideration what you get for that

extra money, and the experience it provides i think this is well worth it.

== DESIGN ==

At thus price you’d expect something cool i guess, similar to Macbooks.

And the Sony does look very nice. Nice rounded edges, sort of elegant in a way.

The keyboard is fitted together perfectly and looks great. Also, no clicky sounds

from the body when typing which shows it is made to a good standard. The shiny front

case of the laptop feels smooth, not plasticky like my previous Laptop. The black

and grey colours were not to my taste, a bit dull but im sure i can live with those.

== SPECS ==

The sharp 16:9 screen with 1366 x 768 dpi resolution looks crisp. The intel graphics card handles everything fine,

especially as the system has 4GB ram. Connectivity is great with 3 USB ports, e-SATA, b/g/n wireless card, gigabit ethernet,

bluetooth 2.1+EDR (enhanced data rate), CD/DVD drive which reads and writes CDs and DVDs, Microphone and headphone port,

Memory stick slot, HDMI and VGA output. Built in webcam was OK quality for making the odd Skype call (has a resolution of 640×480).

The intel core i3 at 2.13ghz is perfectly capable of everyday multi-tasking. Coupled with Windows 7 64bit its perfect, as you may

know Win7 is a bit lighter on resources than its predecessors. 320GB hard drive is a bit small for me personally, but no problem as it

can be easily upgraded. The system also supports maximum of 8GB RAM so in the future you could add 4GB more if you so wish to.

== PORTABILITY ==

This could easily be used as a desktop replacement for many people, but it is a laptop and portability is an

important consideration. It weighs 2.7kg (with the battery inside) which is oddly enough the exact same weight

as my old Acer model. So there should be no problem in taking it with you, and the wide range of connectivity options

make it great for portable use.

== BATTERY LIFE ==

Stated as having a 4.3hr battery life, which considering everything that has been crammed into it seems OK. Of course you

can increase this within Windows by lowering screen brightness and disabling odd things you might not want to use. I think

you could squeeze almost 5hrs out of this. Recharge time is 3.5 hours from 0% to 100% battery.

== CONCLUSION ==

Weighing exactly the same as my old Acer im surprised how much Sony managed to fit inside this. It looks great, perfect for

travelling around with, but powerful enough to use a desktop replacement. Plays HD movies perfectly and supports full HD res.

Huge amount of connectivity options, and the potential to be upgraded in the future should you need to. Great value for money.

I’d highly recommend this, so im gonna give it 5/5.
Rating: 5 / 5

Des Gardiner

at 2:57 am

Received the item very quickly from the seller.

I was disappointed to find that, whilst I needed to make my own software back-up DVD’s, I got no Windows 7 DVD.

The product does come with a Windows XP CD! Why? No other CD’s or DVD’s for the software (not even for Windows XP!).

Once set up there is the usual reasonably useful Sony help and guidance tips. The performance of the laptop is pretty good. This does impact on battery life in standard configuration and you are likely to get about 2 hours life.

The keyboard is brilliant, and with the addition of the number pad to the right (as a normal PC keyboard) makes typing easier and eliminates the need for and issues with Num Lock being on or off.

On the down side of this, Sony have, for some peculiar reason placed the mouse pad in the “usual” laptop position of below the space bar. However, considering that you now have a full keyboard, this means the mouse pad is actually not in the centre of the wrist rest but 1/3rd of the way from the left. This, for me, has meant that when trying to use the mouse pad I invariably ended up activating the scroll feature of the pad. This can be annoying and I go flying off to either different web pages or different parts of a web page without intention. I would much prefer the pad to have been in the middle of the wrist rest section and not offset in the way it has been.

Build quality and the screen are both to usual Sony standards so buyers should have no concerns from that perspective. The processor is quite powerful so should manage most peoples needs. YouTube and other Video playback is good and local sound quality is very good.

Overall a more than adequate and capable laptop only let down, in my opinion, by that mouse pad position.
Rating: 3 / 5