Cute and portable but man, does it run HOT (Sony Vaio FJ1S/W)

Member Name: pcspinheiro

Product:	Sony Vaio FJ1S/W
Date:	09/08/09 (28 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Slim and nice looking, excellent screen

Disadvantages: Noisy fan, runs really hot, pricey

This was bought as a 30th birthday gift for my girlfriend and, quite franquly, it was the most expensive laptop I ever bought at about £900. It is thin and light-ish with an excellent 14.1" screen that is very bright and sharp. It has a very simple and elegant design with a pearl-like top cover and keyboard frame and the shiny chrome VAIO logo on top. The keyboard is confortable although the keys have a very low stroke but they still keep a nice feel. It comes with no bells and wistles: 3 USB ports, a VGA out, modem and ethernet connections PCMCIA card slot, and an oddly chosen TV output via a headphone-like jack for wich the brand suplies the cables and, to sum up, a magicgate slot for multimedia cards. Wifi can be turned on and off via a small button on the front. The incorporated camera in the screen bezel does the job but the mic tens to generate a lot of echo...

Performance wise its pentium M processor is franckly outdated but when running Win XP still does the job, especially since the RAM was upgraded to 1 GB. When it was first used the computer was dead silent but with time it became annoyingly noisy for some unknown reason. Even though the CPU usage can be close to zero the computer fan keeps blowing away hot air, and I mean HOT! The left side can be unconfortably hot to the point that you cannot keep the computer in your lap. And worst, the fan seems to produce some electronic noise that is picked up by the mic, so when talking to someone (skype for example) they will constantly hear an annoying sound in the background... And speaking of sound, although not as bad as I've seen on other computers, the sound is still pretty awfull...

Battery life is lower than average and the power meter will show ridiculous values of 6:45 then 4:30 but, in reality, if you get more than 1:40 you're lucky.

She loves the computer but I'm guessing mostly because it looks good... and she does nothing demanding on it aside from some internet browsing, woking with office programs and skype calls

Summary: If I knew what I was getting I might have chosen better for the money

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