Laptops Arena

The Sony VAIO S series laptops are surely gadgets you would want to consider if you're thinking of buying something good and business-looking like. As it's easier for you to figure out their performances, we are going to present 2 models from the Sony VAIO S series.

The Sony VAIO VGN-S4M is slim and light and easy to carry around since it weighs less than 2 kg. This laptop is silver and this makes it really elegant. The VAIO logo is, of course, imprinted on the lid and the small Sony logo is just above it. The display is 13.3 inches long is going to let you enjoy a good movie without making eye effort and sitting way to close to the screen. The keyboard on this model is good (keyboards have never really been a problem with Sony VAIO) with large keys which make typing really easy (in fact, since the keys sort of spring back, you can get a very good typing speed).  You will have no problems with those functional button either as SHIFT, ENTER, BACKSPACE and TAB are all properly sized. You will find the power button above the keyboard and those two shortcut button we have grown so very fond of because you can program them for the function you most frequently need. The silver touchpad (plus the buttons) offers good scrolling possibilities and is easy to use because of the accurate pointer manipulation.

As expected, you have the power, battery charge, HDD access, memory stick access, wireless card and optical disk access light on the front side of the laptop, in parallel with the touchpad. Right next to these lights you will find the wireless on/off switch. The optical drive is located in front of the laptop and this makes access more difficult then when it was places on the left or right side of the laptop. You get your usual USB ports, a FireWire port, D-SUB port, a type II PC card slot and the headphone and microphone ports. In case you were wondering where the Ethernet port is, try looking under that flap over there and you will find it, together with a modem socket. Since most of the time it's what's inside that counts, we must tell you, the components have surprised us as we did not expect good specs in a slim laptop. You get a 1.6 GHz Pentium M processor, 512MB of RAM, an nVidia GeForce 6200 graphics card plus 60GB of available disk space. It's pretty good for a laptop with its price (and it's not just any laptop, it's a Sony VAIO) even though you won't be playing the top of the games, it's still going to help you get around and get things done. The battery will stay alive for about 3 hours under normal Windows applications but you can also enjoy a good movie, with more than 2 hours of battery life.

In conclusion, the Sony VAIO VGN-S4M is excellent for travelers and people who are often on the road and want to have their useful "agenda" in handy all the time. Definitely an option we would go with.  Another model we are going to write about today is the Sony VAIO S460. For a price of almost 1800 dollars you don't get as much as you would expect. As far as design goes, the S460 is pretty simple-looking, good thing it's light and small.  Unfortunately, just like many other Sony VAIO S series laptop models, this model also has only 2 USB ports which are on the right side and this may irritate you if you usually use a mouse and that cord will keep getting in the way. Just VGN-S4M, the S460 also has the DVD drive placed on the front side and you will have difficulty in using it if the laptop is on your lap. The display of this model is 13.3 inches long, with a glossy and clear appearance. The keyboard and touchpad are about the same as the ones on the previous model. You have the 1.7 GHz Intel Centrino processor with 512 MB of RAM, the nVidia GeForce Go 6200 graphics card with 128 MB of RAM and 80GB of available disk space. Not exactly the top of the line laptop parts nowadays.

When running applications that require lots of memory and laptop usage, you will find that the bottom of the S460 heats up quite a lot and this will become very uncomfortable if you use this laptop on your lap. One pro is the battery life which lasts up to 3 hours while using it for listening to music and running some other simple tasks. The truth is, even with the USB port problems and that loose battery problem (which keeps shaking and moving even though it's locked), you get quite a good performance considering the Sony VAIO S series laptop is not so "hip" anymore. You get that cool Dual Layer DVD writer and this could really come in handy. Although it is not a gaming machine, you can use this notebook to play games like Battlefield 2, Prince of Persia and Unreal Tournament 2004.

If you want our advice, we would go with the models in the Sony VAIO SZ series, as they are practically new and improved models that come as replacements to these older models from the Sony VAIO S series. Although they are a bit more expensive, the price difference is nothing compared to the performance you would get from SZ laptops, which will remind you of their ancestors, the S series. The Sony VAIO SZ are 13.3 inches long in display, you have dual core Intel processors and you can expand the standard 2GB of RAM to make it a 4GB RAM laptop. You also get a webcam (which detects eye motion) and a Bluetooth, features that the S series doesn't have. The prices for the notebooks are usually $1500, give or take some hundreds of dollars, depending on the customization of the models. All-in-all, Sony VAIO are some of the best choices in laptop material so there's definitely one out there for you too.