SONY VAIO N19VP_B - VAIO for students

4. 3. 2007 19:20    Rubrika: Laptop Review

Original design, Intel Centrino Duo platform, glossy 15,4'' display, superb keyboard and a nice battery lifetime are the most interesting features of this new model from Sony. But what's most probably the crucial bate is it's price. For the very first time, Sony came with a notebook affordable for most users.

First of all, I have to mention that the tested notebook was a pre-production sample and the build quality is inferior. Nevertheless we were assured by the Sony representatives that this is going to be settled with the final retail version.

Basic description

The design is simply-simple. No unnecessary elements anywhere. The austerity of this design is a bit strange for the first look, but then it tends to be very likable after some time. I believe that some people might not like it, but I also believe that some will definitely love it as well as, finally, I do. The main part of the body is silver, with a black keyboard in it and the lid is black from both sides.

The hot air exhaust is situated on the right side which I personally find unlucky. Therefore we can find the optical unit on the opposite side, where it is accompanied only by the Kensington lock slot. The rear side offers only a LAN and modem ports, the rest of the space belongs to the battery. The rest of the peripherals is on the right side. Namely two (only!) USB ports, an ExpressCard slot (with doors), MIC and headphones jacks, DVI port, Firewire and a wireless adapter switch. The SD/MMC and Memory Stick readers are located on the front side. I say readers, because there are unique slots for both card types.

What I find a weak point of this layout is the position of USB ports on the right side, where they will collide with a mouse.

Informational LEDs are divided into two groups, one on the right side above keyboard right next to the power button (all three key locks) and the other, informing about power, status, HDD activity and wireless network is on the front side, just below the touchpad. Thanks to this position they are hidden while working and one has to move slightly to see them. Their shine is decent, yet sufficient.

The hinges are positioned on the very edge of the body and the lid therefore moves "behind" it. It has no lock but it requires quite a force to open it and both hands have to be used. Even though the overall build quality is inferior, the lid rests well in its position.

While the dimension of 364x265x38,4mm are standard for a 15,4'' notebook, the weight of 3.1kg (6lb 13.35oz) is slightly more compared to other laptops of this size. Everyday carrying will therefore not be very pleasant.

Keyboard and operating elements

Keyboard is definitely one of the best my hands have ever tasted. It has literally no flex, writing is very comfortable and the buttons make nice, sexy sound when pressed:-). We have a full size Enter, Backspace, Tab and Caps Lock keys and I appreciate the Ctrl key back on the left edge where it belongs. But unfortunately nothing is perfect these days and neither is this. But it has only two small imperfections. The right side where the Home, PgUp etc buttons are is not separated from the arrows and the End key can't be pressed without watching where your finger goes and the left Shift key is smaller than usual.

The touchpad is wide just like the display, it has a scroll area on the right side and finger slides perfectly on it.

The only other functional elements here are the power button and Wi-Fi switch on the right side. No volume control or multimedia buttons.

Main performance parameters

Knowing that the Centrino Duo platform is used in this computer, the fact that it contains the Intel Express 945 chipset is no surprise. The processor is T2050E(1.66GHz/ 2 MB L2 cache/ 667 MHz FSB) which is neither the newest nor the most powerful chip these days, but price is the key here. HWiNFO32 program results are as follows:

Single-Thread mode (only one core loaded)

• Fixed point unit test: 19 089

• Floating point unit test: 14 304

Multi-Thread mode (both cores loaded)

• Fixed point unit test: 38 428

• Floating point unit test: 28 757

The performance really isn't the strongest attribute of this computer but it is sufficient for the usual office work.

Random access memory (RAM) is DDR2 type on the efficient frequency of 533MHz. There is only one module from the Huyndai company. The bandwidth of the memory bus was measured to be 1649MB/s, which is a slightly bellow-average score. The memory can be expanded up to 2GB.

The supplier of the harddisk drive is Toshiba and its name is MK8032GSX. The 80GB of its capacity are connected via SATA-150 interface and its disks rotate at speed of 5400rpm. 8MB buffer size is standard as well. Let's have a look, how did it perform in our tests:

• HWiNFO32 (read rate while reading from the cache): 79.67 MB/s

• HD Tach (the real average read data transfer rate: 27.3 MB/s

• average random access time: 16.8 ms

The transfer rate belongs to the worse average of our chart, but the random access time is one of the most frequent values.

The optical drive is DVD+-R DL type and can therefore handle all common disk formats including double layer DVD+-Rs. Reading and burning was reliable and the noise level was quite allright, even when spinning at full speed.

N19 can connect either to a „wired network“ (LAN – 100mbps maximum, modem) or a wireless networks (WLAN). Unfortunately there are IrDa port and Bluetooth missing. The Firewire standard IEEE1394 is called S400 here but is fully compatible with FW devices.

You can find all the parameters at the end of the article in a table.
Measured performances and graphs are available in the performance tests.

Display and graphics card

The Sony X-black technology grants the 15,4-inch display a glossy surface for better contrast and colour rendering. Overal impression is nice, it has got rich colours and relatively good horizontal viewing angles. The best thing I find about it is the fact that black colour is simply black even at the maximum brightness of the monitor. Among its disadvantages belongs a narrow stripe of light at the bottom of the LCD. The range of brightness setting is satisfactory, divided into nine steps. I only miss the possibility to fully turn the monitor off instantly.

The graphics card Intel GMA950, integrated on the motherboard is a money and energy saving choice. In exchange, it is of course responsible for its weak performance in the tests.

• 3DMark 2001: 4 709

• 3DMark 03: 889

• 3DMark 05: N/A

• 3DMark 06: N/A

3DMarks 05 and 06 could not have been started, probably because of a lack of video memory. The specs clearly state maximum of 128MB shared video RAM, but the graphics subsystem takes only 64MB in N19 and this cannot be changed in the BIOS. It is clear that this notebook will not handle new and demanding game titles, but some even new games (adventures or shooters like Made Man) can still be played with medium details.

You can learn more about graphics cards on this page about mobile graphics cards
Measured performances and graphs are available in the performance tests.

Multimedia

The visual part of entertainment on N19 is allright, the wide screen display is nice and movies look great. The problem is with the audio experience. With its quality as well as with its volume. The quality fits perfectly into the category of cheap plastic speakers without any signs of bass and rattling at higher volume. The maximum volume itself is even lower than we are used to in this class. This unfortunately applies for the headphones too and that might cause inconvenience e.g. in case of traveling.

The volume control is not any better. It is done by a combination of Fn key and F3/F4. It does not respond perfectly when the processor is fully loaded, but at least it can be pressed by just one hand.

An external monitor can be attached via VGA(D-Sub) connector, which can easily be considered to be a DVI port thanks to its white colour.

To be a little more multimedia-oriented, the notebook is equipped with a memory card readers and S400 (Firewire) port for easy cooperation with photo and video camera. On the other hand it is a pity that there are only two USB ports and the integrated microphone and camera are absent.

Security and data protection

It is not surprising that we do not find any sophisticated security measures in a low-end students notebook. In this segment we can rarely find stuff like TPM chip and/or a fingerprint reader. Neither is available the HDD password protection. Therefore we have to be satisfied by user and supervisor passwords.

Cooling and noise

The noise of this machine is simply the way we would expect it to be in case of a VAIO with an integrated graphics solution, i.e. comfortably low. When sensors notice a higher temperature, the cooler spins faster of course, bur its loudness is still easily acceptable. Even right after startup it doesn't spin at maximum speed as it often is with other computers.

an hour of use – light load (please read the note below)

• touchpad = 30.8°C

• left palmrest = 28.8°C

• right palmrest = 30.7°C

• right side of the keyboard = 29.0°C

• left side of the keyboard = 31.1°C

• maximum on the bottom = 35.1°C near the exhaust

• exhaust = 33.5°C

an hour of use – full load (gaming mostly)

• touchpad = 31.1°C

• left palmrest = 28.2°C

• right palmrest = 29.5°C

• right side of the keyboard = 29.0°C

• left side of the keyboard = 30.8 °C

• maximum on the bottom = 35.8°C near the exhaust

• exhaust = 37.9°C

temperature of the surroundings: 22.9°C

These good values are partly a result of a well designed cooling system and use of an integrated graphics card and a processor with lower Front Side Bus.

The air intakes are situated in the front and left parts of the bottom. One of them is therefore covered while having the notebook on the lap, but the temperatures augments only slightly.

Battery

The Li-Ion type battery has a capacity of 4400mAh and gives tension of 11,1V. Energy saving configuration resulted in a battery autonomy of 4 hours and 3 minutes in our standard battery test*. That is a nice time in the category of 15,4 inches notebooks.

It is however not fitting exactly in its place and it moves slightly, but that is, in words of Sony representatives, a measure against its overheating. When releasing if from its place, we have to move a safety trigger and press another operator while taking it out. This can be easily done with just one hand.

BIOS

The BIOS is very simple and does not offer many options to set. Besides above mentioned passwords, it offers only standard possibilities like to set the time/date, boot from external sources, switch off the welcome animation and set the order of boot devices. I quite miss the option to set the amount of system memory used by the graphics subsystem.

Accessories

Together with the OS, we receive a portion of software that should ease our first use of the computer:

SonicStage® CP 4.0
DVgate™ Plus 2.2
WinDVD® 5.0
Google Picasa
Roxio DigitalMedia SE 7
Click to DVD™® 2.5
Adobe® Reader® 7.0
Microsoft® Works 8.5
Microsoft® Office 2003 SBE – 60 days trial

Price and warranty

On the Czech market, there is just one version being sold nowadays. It contains T2050E / 512MB RAM / GMA 950 / 80GB HDD a DVD+-R DL optical device. Its recommended end user price is set to 25 500Kč (approximately 1090 USD excluding VAT). Standard 2-year warranty (Czech market) can be extended by a year or two.

Conclusion

The main goal of this product is to offer the Sony quality and design to a wider clientele. It should satisfy those who do not need high performance, but appreciate a good battery lifetime and unique design. These, together with the name of manufacturer and price are its strongest weapons.

Pros and Cons

+ design
+ good battery lifetime for a 15,4'' notebook

- only 2 USB ports and both on the right side
- build quality (the final version should be better)

*The battery test is performed by a short HDD entry every 30 secs. During the whole time of the test the display is turned on and set to an easily legible level of brightness. Such a workload is near to simulating continual work with documents (letters, tabs etc.). The test is terminated when the battery reaches 3% of its capacity and the computer is turned off. The same procedure is applied to all the notebooks tested by the NOTEBOOK.CZ redactors.

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Photogalery of SONY VAIO N19VP

Measured performances and graphs are available in the performance tests.
More detailed parameters collected by the HWiNFO32 program can be found in the HWiNFO32.zip