Sony Vaio, not worth the high price tag (Sony Vaio FE21S)

Member Name: JT86

Product:	Sony Vaio FE21S
Date:	10/06/08 (247 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice looking, easy to use

Disadvantages: Keyboard keys flirt off

I've only ever had one desktop PC, the rest have been laptops. So far I've had a Samsung (rubbish), two Packard Bells (ok) and now this Sony Vaio FE21S that I've had coming up for two years.
I think I paid around £1200 for the laptop at PC World.

The cover is a light grey, with VAIO imprinted in shiny silver. The keyboard part is light grey, with the same colour touchpad.

The touchpad has two long buttons below it, one for left mouse click, one for right mouse click.

There are 5 small round buttons above the keyboard. One for mute, two for increasing and decreasing volume, and two buttons which can be set to the shortcuts of your choice.
The on/off button is on the right above the keyboard.

~~ SPECIFICATIONS ~~

CPU: Intel Core Duo Processor T2400, 1.83 ghz

Memory: 1 GB / Go DDR2 SDRAM (533mhz)

Hard Disk Drive: 160GB / Go

WLAN: 802.11a/b/g

Screen: 15.4" WXGA (1280x800) X-black LCD

Optical: Super Multi Double Layer DBD+_RW Drive

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 with 128MB

Weight: 2800g

OS: Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition

The laptop came preinstalled with Adobe Photoshop Elementsm Adobe Premiere Elements, Roxio Digital Media, SonicStage, SonicStage Mastering Studio.

Microsoft Office or Word were not included.

There is a built in camera at the top of the screen, and also a microphone and Bluetooth.

On the front of the laptop are holes for a microphone and earphones, along with a slot for a Memory Stick Duo.

The left side has sockets for an Ethernet cable and phone/modem cable, and the CD/DVD drive.

There are 3 USB slots on the right side, plus an S-video output, a PCMCIA slot, a 4 pins i.Link Port, VGA Monitor Out, and an ExpressCard slot.

~~ VERDICT ~~

The screen is very clear and easy to see in all lights.

It's quiet in operation, but like all laptops, the base gets quite hot after it's been on for a while.

At first I used to get about 2-3 hours out of the battery, but now I'm lucky if I get an hour's worth.

My only problem with this laptop is the keyboard. It's different to other laptops I've had and has flat, shallow keys, that are full size. It makes it easy to type, but the keys can pop off. This happened to my ctrl key and in theory it should have just popped back on, but didn't. I tried the delicate process of trying to reattach it, but it never fully clicked back on, and after many times of trying to click it back down something broke, so now it's just kind of precariously balanced. The right menu button next to it is slightly loose but just hanging in there for now.

I've not had any other problems with the laptop - touch wood! After almost two years of using it nearly every day and putting it through it's paces, it's fared much better than my previous laptops.

I probably wouldn't opt for a VAIO next time, purely because of the keyboard problem.

Summary: Wouldn't recommend

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