Laptop Review-Sony VAIO SE

Laptop Review-Sony VAIO SE

Article by SmithJames

Sporting a modern minimalist look, the platinum silver magnesium alloy lid of the VAIO SE tapers along the sides, breaking up its boxy shape. The only accents are a large chrome VAIO insignia in the lid's center and chrome rear hinge. The exterior cuts down on fingerprints and smudges, which we love.
The VAIO SE's brushed aluminum interior uses the same platinum silver as the outside. The upper portion of the deck gently tapers into the large recessed keyboard deck. Sitting above the keyboard such as SONY VPC-EA Series Keyboard are buttons for Eject, VAIO Assist, Web browser, power, the VAIO Media Gallery and a Stamina/Speed switch to toggle between GPUs. Here, there's also a pair of thin speakers. On the front lip on the notebook sits a silver switch to toggle the wireless radios.
At 4.4 pounds, the 14.9 x 10.1 x 0.9 inch VAIO SE is one of the lightest 15-inch notebooks ever. It's lighter than both the 5.6-pound Dell XPS 15z (15.2 x 10.3 x 1-inches) and t he 5.8-pound HP Envy 15 (14.9 x 9.6 x 1.1 inches). However, when its extended sheet Dell laptop battery is attached, the VAIO SE weighs 5.7 pounds and has a thickness of 1.3 inches.
Keyboard and TouchpadThe Sony VAIO SE features a silver island-style backlit keyboard like SONY VPC-EA Series Keyboard with a full number pad and generous spacing. While the Tab, Caps Lock and Left Shift Keys were a tad small, the large flat keys delivered solid feedback. The keyboard's backlighting was bright enough to clearly distinguish letters and symbols in a dim setting, but we noticed a significant amount of light bleeding from underneath the keys.
We enjoyed running our fingers over the smooth 3.8 x 2.25-inch Synaptics touchpad. Instead of complicating the multitouch features with a ton of gestures, Synaptics whittles it down to a few useful swipes. One-finger scroll, pinch-zoom, two-finger scroll, flick and press worked well. Two-finger rotation was a hit-or-miss affair, and poor palm rejection caused the cursor to jump around at times as we were typing. We did like the oversized mouse buttons with their firm, springy feedback.
Battery LifeDuring the Laptop Battery Test (continuous Web surfing via Wi-Fi), the Sony VAIO SE lasted 4 hours and 18 minutes on the Speed setting with the extended battery sheet. That's 38 minutes below the 4:56 mainstream category average. In Stamina mode, the VAIO SE lasted 5:26, beating the HP Envy 15s time of 5:01. However, the Dell XPS 15z lasted the longest, clocking in with an impressive 6:08.
When we added Sony's $ 150 sheet Laptop Battery, the VAIO SE lasted a massive 10 hours and 35 minutes, If you can live with the expense and 1.3 pounds of extra weight this is definitely the way to go.
ConfigurationsOur $ 999 configure-to-order review unit of the Sony VAIO SE (CTO VPCSE290X) come s equipped with 2.5-GHz Intel Core i5-2450M processor, 4GB of RAM, 640GB 5,400-rpm hard drive, AMD Radeon HD 6470M with 512MB of VRAM and Intel HD Graphics. Although our review unit came with a 640GB 5,400-rpm hard drive, Sony currently offers 500GB and 750GB hard drives. The sheet battery adds another $ 150 to the cost and so does the SONY VPC-EB Series Keyboard.
The $ 929 base model has similar specs to our review unit except for a 500GB 7,200-rpm hard drive. The $ 1,449 preconfigured high-end model features a 2.8GHz Intel Core i7-2640M CPU, 6GB of RAM, a 640GB 5,400-rpm hard drive, AMD Radeon HD 6630M graphics with 1GB of VRAM and a Blu-ray player.

Laptop Review-Sony VAIO SE

Sony XBR 55HX-929

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