PRODUCT REVIEW: SONY VAIO NOTEBOOK PC PCG-GR390

Working at an electronics store allows me to get a first hand impression of all the great products that come out on the market the very day that they release. While showing a customer the new Sony Vaio Notebook, I myself was impressed by the quality of this computer. I've never been a huge fan of Sony Laptops until now, they finally came out with an incredible unit at a reasonable price. Sure enough, using my employee discount I bought the Sony for about $1440.00 and I still got the $100 rebate. That's almost half the price I paid for the Dell Inspriron 8000 I bought last year for a more powerful PC!

First off, let me just say that the Sony Vaio, PCGGR390 is pretty damn light for the kind of power it has. Comparing it to my Dell, which was rickety and noticably thicker, this looks to be an obvious evolution in technology following the theme - lighter, more powerful, cheaper. It probably weighs about 7 lbs with the battery and about 6 without the battery. I can feel the difference when I pick each one up. It has a purple hue to it, along the same color scheme of recent Sony products like Memory Sticks, PDA's, and Vaio PC towers. The screen is slightly thinner than on my Dell, at roughtly 1/3 of an inch thick, wow. The DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive is modular and hot swappable. The Notebook came powered with a Pentium III-M at 1.2 Ghz (specs say it has a 512k L2 cache! Is this true?), 512 MB of RAM, a 30 GB Hard Drive, ATI Rage 3-D Graphics Card, a Sony Memory Stick RW drive, TouchPad, and a an obvious Sony thing, "Jog Dail," on the front that allows you to perform operations in programs without moving the pointer from place to place on the screen. I added an Optical Mouse for when I'm at home with it on my desktop. Interestingly enough, it has no floppy drive, but really in these days where one MP3 doesn't fit on a floppy, you certainly realize how obsolete it has become, and how much the CD-RW has become the media of choice for storage. The unit also lacks a built in microphone, but that's not a big deal. The Vaio Notebook has 3 USB ports (one more than the Dell), 1 IEEE1394, a Composite Video out, microphone jack, speaker output, 10/100 Ethernet, Modem.

THe obvious flaw with my Dell was the heat problem, and the Sony remains a lot less hot than the Dell gets. The drives are also quieter and the DVD is less skippy during playback, however "The Matrix" crashes during mid playback, probably a software error considering "Beetlejuice" played fine. The 15 inch SXGA TFT screen is very sharp and vivid, beating out my Dell at the same native resolution in crispness and clarity, WOW! I'm serious when I say that the screen quality is truly incredible. Screen does get dimmer when you disconnect the power and run off batteries, but I think that is adjustable.

The sound of the built in speakers was pretty good, and completely acceptable when disconnected from external speakers. One clear difference I noticed when I did hook up speakers was that the Sony Vaio drove more power to the speakers than the Dell ever did, giving me even louder sound! How? I'm playing a techno mix now that is rattling the house down - amazing! I have yet to share all my music files from my other PC's on this one, but this will now be my Multimedia playback system. What's great is that while working on material on one Notebook, I can watch movies on the other! That's what I call multitasking.

Windows XP was the operating system on the PC, and so far this was my first major intemate encounter with the operating system that I was, to be honest, a little apprehensive about, from all the comments people have made about incompatabilities and glitches, however I have yet to encounter any major flaws. Windows XP so far seems to be stable, more user friendly, and helpful than previous versions. I certainly notice the big change in boot up time. I pressed the power button on on both my PC's at the same time, and the XP booted up about 3 times as fast as the Millienium Edition. It also looks like XP makes is truly easy to network my Notebook to my other Notebook and PC's. I may just create a Wireless network in my house, and allow all the units to share a broadband connection without wires.

You know, as much as people like to bash Sony for being proprietary, and not a factor in the Home PC market, they are truly making strides recently with their equipment. I own several Sony products now (36" Sony Trinitron TV, Sony Playstation 2, Sony Digital8 Handycam, Sony Clie, Sony Surround Sound), and don't see a reason to switch, considering their Sony Memory Stick media is transferrable between all their electronics. I was able to load all 160 photos I took with my Sony Digital8 Handycam and put them on the Notebook just by reading the Memory Stick. As far as digital cameras go, Sony seems to be the way to go, and I will likely get the Sony DSCF707, a truly incredible 5.0 Megapixel Digital Camera that does awesome "Trekkie" stuff like emit visible lasers and uses a nightvision filtered CCD to determine focal distance with some kind of image holography in TOTAL DARKNESS! Holy cow, that's cooller than hell. You know it's Sony that's pioneering consumer AI, I mean seriously making strong movement toward proliferating it. Sony AIBO AI Pets are certainly nothing to scoff at in terms of what they represent.

Owning this computer certainly reminds me that I now live in the future that I used to think about when I was a kid. I mean, geez, a whole computer I can carry under my arm comfortably, and with such incredible capabilities. The capabilities of my notebook weren't even possible in entire rooms back a couple decades ago, and now, it's truly incredible! Under my arm, I can carry a portable movie and photo studio, a portal to all the information in the world, a personal communicator, a paperless writing medium, jukebox, DVD player, and video game arcade. I already know what the next stages of technological change in the personal computer industry are beyond this point. Operating systems will do more and become Human Interface Systems, learning and making decisions based upon your habits, and even interacting with you like a normal person. The internet will be omnipresent, and accessable without wires at broadband speeds much in the same way cell phones permiate our world now. More and more objects will network, and the PC will become the central hub for all data, from computers embedded in your car, clothes, appliances, and TV. I've spoken about this on my Crossroads of the Mind's Eye website, but eventually computer intelligence will be indistinguisable from human intelligence. What a time to live!