Sony VAIO VPCYB35KX/P Notebook PC – Pink -

This is a great product. Sturdy construction, great screen resolution, super lightweight, boots up reasonably fast (it’s Windows 7), 4GB of memory – value wise, it’s hard to beat. Battery life is not staggering compared to some of the Apple products I own, but I needed a windows based machine for a specific application and this one did the trick.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

|

 Comments (3)

By 

I. R. Smart. “Tzu Crazy” (Seattle, WA) –

  

  

So in this market of not-quite laptop/more-than-a netbook, it’s easy to get bogged down and flustered, trying to figure out which system is the one for you. Sony has tried to bring its own netbook/notebook to the market with the Vaio YB series, but hasn’t really succeeded. It hasn’t altogether failed though either, but let’s break it down and figure things out.

Pros:

1.) Incredibly easy out-of-box experience. Connect battery, turn on. Run through a very simple Windows 7 setup, and you’re done.

2.) Not an altogether awful amount of pre-installed software (though still far too many Vaio entries in Programs/Features). The 500GB hard drive (456GB after formatting) has 437GB available, which is pretty reasonable after a Windows 7 installation.

3.) The system itself feels fairly solid, despite its platicky nature, with little to no flex anywhere.

4.) A nice array of ports for an 11.6″ laptop, with 3x USB, 1x HDMI, Ethernet, VGA, headphone/microphone, SD Card/Memory Stick.

5.) Nice resolution for the screen size, at 1366×768, and very bright.

6.) Decent battery life (4-5 hours).

7.) Raised palm rests that are quite comfortable, solid, and not smudge-magnets like many other systems.

However, the cons have to come in here, and there’s a lot of them…

Cons:

1.) The screen, while featuring a lovely resolution, is desperately (and I mean desperately) lacking in contrast. Viewing angles are atrocious, vertically and horizontally, and I’m just not happy with the way text is displayed due to the lack of contrast. Black text just looks faded and grey.

2.) There’s one fan in the system, and that’s on the left side of the system. It’s always blowing, and makes a noticeable whining in a quiet room. I wouldn’t classify it as obnoxious, even under full power, but it’s definitely present, and runs 100% of the time.

3.) There’s 4GB of DDR3 in the system, but with Windows 7 32bit installed, only 3.5GB is actually usable. Even more bizarrely, after opening up the panel on the underside, I found my system is equipped with one stick of 4GB RAM. But despite having two slots total in the computer, it’s only capable of 4GB max! So one slot will always stay empty…

4.) The trackpad, despite being very responsive, is very, very small. Curiously, it supports multitouch (but not for scrolling – that’s taken care of on one side of the trackpad with one finger, and is adjustable). Pinch to zoom and rotate is present, but good luck doing that with one hand. I found I had to use the index fingers of two hands to make it work. A bigger trackpad would help.

5.) The physical trackpad buttons are very loud and click-y. Definitely not conveying a high-end system here (which of course, it’s not).

6.) The E-series dual-core AMD processor in the system just seems to struggle doing the most menial tasks. Watching HD YouTube videos pretty much means not doing anything else, and there’s just a general sense of “slow” surrounding the entire computer. This isn’t helped by the pedestrian 500GB 5400rpm Hitachi hard drive inside. Thankfully the drive is easily swapped out for something faster (7200rpm drive or SSD, please!). The unfortunate thing is this computer feels slightly less netbook-y, but altogether not enough notebook-y.

7.) The keyboard’s keys are not full size. You get used to this for the most part, except for two absolutely obnoxious keys: The right shift key and the question mark key. The right shift is the same size as every other normal letter, and I just can’t get used to it. Any time I use this key (which is all the time), I have to look down at it to see where I’m pressing. And entering a question mark is even more difficult, since that key is even smaller than the right shift – and they’re both next to each other! Ohh the pain!

8.) While the keyboard has a nice, chiclet-style feel to it, the higher rows of keys (the numbers especially) have a noticeably “tinny” sound to them, which once again doesn’t convey quality…

9.) The power LEDs (yes, there are two of them, side and top, for no good reason), are astonishingly bright. These things light up a pitch-black bedroom. Good luck to your wife/husband/partner sleeping with you using your Vaio. Bright green fills the darkness. Oh, and you can’t cover the larger of the two LEDs (the one on the side) with some felt or duct tape, because the LED houses the actual power button!

10.) Extremely tinny/thin sound, but this isn’t altogether unexpected. Use earphones.

11.) Last and definitely least, there are 5 individual stickers on the laptop out of the box. While easily removed, it feels like an advertisement for everything about your new computer. Windows 7 sticker, AMD E sticker, Dual Core Graphics sticker, Energy Star sticker, and the Sony…

Read more

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

|

 Comments (3)

By 

M. Fulkerson (Portland, Oregon) –

  

  

When buyers are looking for a laptop these days, it can get rather confusing as to what constitutes the higher price, and what specifications best fit the individual user. As far as netbooks/notebooks are concerned, it seems that any company who isn’t Apple has had challenges offering a quality product for the right price. This Sony Vaio isn’t going to light the world on fire with its design and makeup, but it’s an acceptable option if you’re looking for a very compact computer.

One of the nicest things about this computer is its ease of setup. Simply plug it in and you’re good to go. Windows 7 is installed, and after some minor walkthroughs, you’re ready to roll. For a netbook this size, it is a genuine surprise to see the amount of available plug-ins. It contains the standard ethernet, headphone jack, SD card slot, VGA, 3 USB’s, and perhaps most notable is an HDMI slot. This really is essential when owning a netbook of any size, and many netbooks do not offer this option.

The resolution (1366×768) is also impressive considering the screen size. Textures and graphics handle nicely with internet usage, and also video game play.

The hard drive contains 500GB of memory, and while only 440GB will be usable with all of the software involved, this is still a nice amount of storage space.

The battery life seems to top out around five hours which is about standard for a netbook. After a week of usage this unit has been consistent with its battery life while being utilized for internet, essay writing, and video game play.

This Sony Vaio also has no optical drive, and while many will feel this is a slight, it’s absolutely necessary for a netbook. The build of the computer is solid and portable, and the absence of an optical drive makes this possible.

The cons of this computer unfortunately outweigh the pros, some cosmetic, some more serious. The first thing you will notice is the absolutely miserable contrast. When the computer was booted up for the first time, my jaw dropped when I looked at the screen from just a barely diagonal angle. When looked at from the side or from the bottom, the light from the screen literally disappears. Granted, this is a very small screen, but this is some of the worst contrast I’ve ever witnessed in a computer.

The second thing I noticed is the size of the keys and trackpad are incredibly small. Obviously, this is a netbook, so any discerning shopper is going to be ready for this, but if you have big hands I’d seriously consider putting your hands on this thing before you buy it sight unseen.

The LED lights are unbelievably bright as well. You could light up a campsite with these lights, but considering that most people will be toting this to a cafe or to their bedroom, I feel the insane brightness deserves a mention here. And don’t think you can cover up these lights because the brightest of all these buttons is the actual power button. Oops!

The final cosmetic flaw with this computer is the annoying level of ad stickers you get plastered all over the front of the unit. SIX labels were stuck to every conceivable surface of the computer. When you’re spending over 500 dollars for a tiny netbook do you want further advertising screaming in your face when you crack it open? No! It’s like paying 100 dollars a month for HBO and Showtime and having to watch ads. Not cool. These can be easily removed, but why should one have to?

While digging into the depths of the computer, my first thought was how Sony could have easily upgraded the processor without losing any performance otherwise. Unfortunately, the E-Series dual core AMD processor will allow you to keep a few windows open at once and that’s about it. Using iTunes with a window open will not be a fun experience either. While surfing the net, I turned to the iTunes store and experienced lagging and freeze ups. Mind you, I only visited the store with absolutely no library in the hard drive, so if you have a sizable music collection, the frequency for lag is definitely there. Would it have killed Sony to throw an i3 processor in there at the very least? Of course, the 5400RPM Hitachi hard drive is fighting against this notion, too, and it boggles the mind why more computers don’t utilize an SSD, or even 7400RPM drives.

The sound is abysmal on this thing, as well. Yes, it’s a netbook, so most people won’t care about this, but be ready to have your own speaker system ready to go if you plan to house your music in it.

Perhaps the biggest head scratcher of all is the 4GB of RAM. While this amount of RAM isn’t offensive at all for a notebook, you’ll only be able to use around 3.5GB with Windows installed. What’s totally perplexing is that this computer maxes out at 4GB while still having a slot for 4 additional gigs of RAM. Err, wha?? I am used to upgrading RAM…

Read more

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

|

 Comment