my VAIO~

Make. Believe. Their tagline. Buy. Believe. My tagline. RM3k is not a small amount considering its use for the purchase for a laptop. But it's a price paid mostly for branding and exclusiveness. My first laptop was from the Acer Aspire series in which it was spoilt after 2-3 years of usage. The hinge was broken and later on motherboard fried when nearing the completion of its 3rd year of service to me. I don't think I was a rough master as the Compaq CQ40 served me well past its 3rd year mark but I think its time to get a new one. After all, there is tax exemption of RM3k for purchasing personal computer once in 3 years. I mean, if its time to change, why not? Rather than entering the pockets of corrupted officials.

I just got this Vaio C Series laptop on 8/8, an auspicious day! Upon opening the case, there is the Vaio laptop (of course), battery charger with 3 different pin plugs, spec sheet, warranty guide and a quick start up guide. The "guide" was brief indeed as it shows the parts name and how to power up and backup your lappie. Rest assured that the complete manual is pre loaded in your laptop. =)

I chose the neon green colour. Among the C series, there are white, black, pink, orange and green. There are 2 latest colours of red and blue to the series but somehow its either down to choose between orange and green for its outstanding light reflective index of the material used to produce its body.

A full picture of this laptop. 14 inch screen weighing at approximately 2.4kg with the battery. Well, I chose this over the Acer Time Line X series intel i3 processor 13 inch model which was lighter and thinner @RM1999. But sorry to say, I'm doubtful over Acer's durability. Hence, I decided to try out Sony's Vaio.

Got this from Sony Centre in Kinta City. Comes with an additional warranty and a free Vaio bacpack. And... a pretty salesgirl which gave me very good attention and professional in promoting the products. No, the girl is not a free gift, but part of the service =)

Coming back to the lappie, it has an Intel i5 processor 2.3 GHz, with the turbo boost technology to 2.9GHz when you are multitasking. 4GB of RAM should be enough for you to run Windows 7 Premium with the Aero functions and a few gadgets at the side. 500GB of hard disk should be sufficient, and it has a spindle speed of 7200rpm instead of the usual 5400rpm, bridging the gap between the performance of a laptop to one of a powerhouse desktop.

Other than netbooks and entree level lappies, most of the lappies nowadays would come with a graphic card. my Vaio C series has a built in Intel HD graphics for balanced and normal usage. Once a programme such a games start to load, you can configure for performance priority and thats where the dedicated 1GB of video memory from the ATI Radeon chip kicks in!

Vaio does have its own software which offer updates online. The ASSIST button will initiate a user friendly rescue attempt to backup your system, reformat, etc. Upon pressing, the WEB button also launches a internet browser without booting up Windows. Once Wifi is already activated and in range, you can start surfing the web within 5 seconds! That's almost on par with the boot up time for the Mac! Though only web browsing can be done (no MSN, no adjusting volume, brightness, etc...) its a very useful button to me to like check up football scores the night before when I have a few spare minutes before going to work. Both ASSIST and WEB button can be activated when the system is shutdown. The customizable VAIO button is a shortcut key for your media gallery and other Vaio softwares like Vaio Gate, etc.

It comes with a HD 1.3MP effective pixels webcam, ideal for Skype conversation. Although the slow internet connection at home maybe a deterrence for high definition video calls, but it might come in handy sometimes elsewhere. The webcam also serves its purpose in the hand gesture media selection. Browsing and selecting songs, pictures, videos without the click of the mouse by swiping your hands mid air left and right. It's not really a practical feature, but perhaps they wanna give you a sample on how Playstation Move and Eye Toy works.

The light emitting material is not meant to be misunderstood as glow in the dark material. It only displays its strength when under proper lighting. When the surrounding is dark, something else will take on the centre stage, just like the picture below.

Yup, the illuminated keyboard strikes out when the surrounding is dark. The light sensor triggers the backlit keyboard in dim conditions like a typical setting in a coffee house. I might wanna disable the function if I'm running on battery. The 6 cell battery should last you around 2-3 hours of usage unless you are running power draining programs.

So there is it, a brief but comprehensive review on my new laptop. Why not a Mac Book Air with that price? Perhaps I want something exclusive. Everybody else owns an Iphone or Macbook in one way or another. Yeah, I'm glad to be a proud owner of something sharp in colour. So far so good with my new toy, Vaio C series =)