Yes it has some drawbacks...
Written: Oct 02 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: light, fast, strong, shiny, thin
Cons: no drives, small screen
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| Dgephri's Full Review: Sony VAIO Z505JSK PC Notebook |
After seven years without a computer at home, and lots of research, I settled on the Z505-JS (that's the Win98SE version of the JSK). The reason was very simple: nobody else bundled quite as much in the "less than 4 pound" category. I knew I wanted a light, fast, and powerful machine, but many in the 4 pound size only have 4-8 Gig drives.
Then, I found the Z505 Pro series...a 650 Intel processor, with 12 GIG! Nobody else was close, and you can even bump RAM up to 256Meg. Add to that integrated Ethernet, the usual modem (a winmodem, but I have cable through the ethernet now), two USB (one mini) a PCMCIA slot (would have preferred two), a very nice touch pad, the jog wheel, and that spiffy magnesium alloy casing (the supplied port replicate matches!). The whole thing is light, but not flimsy. It is so light, the screen won't separate from the keyboard under it's own weight, you have to actually pull the two apart with two hands.
The down sides: no integrated drives, relatively small screen, lots of cords needed to hook stuff up. At my desk, I have the audio out to speakers, power cable, USB to an external DVD drive, another USB out to my CD-RW (or Saitek X36 FlightStick), ethernet to my cable modem, a TV converter plugged into the Port Replicator. Lots of wires.
The big plus side: When I want to take just my computer somewhere, it fits into a leather zip up sleeve that looks like a regular, letter-size notepad in a binder. Thinner than most textbooks. No notebook carry-all case for $150, I might take the power cord along for presentations, that's it.
This notebook has very clear compromises. Not everyone wants to spend $3000 plus another $600-1000 to make it the equivalent of a big desktop system. But it does everything I have tried to make it do. For games I run the TV converter into my 27" Sony TV, for the web I plug in my ethernet cable modem, for networking I run a USB Belkin Direct Connect. I can carry a floppy and hook up to any computer with a USB port and download data at 12Mbps for backup or transport.
I paid for flexibility, and compromised for some of it. But I don't believe I would have been happy with what $4000 would have bought me in a desktop unit.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Dgephri
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Location: Oregon, US
Reviews written: 6
Trusted by: 0 members
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