Sony Vaio P:Sony Vaio P… Performance Has a Price - The Review

Posted on 2009-02-07 13:32:00 | by: Daimaou | 13 Comments
Tags: SONY VAIO P… PERFORMANCE HAS A PRICE - THE REVIEW

Product Name: Sony Vaio P
Company: Sony
Rating: 6

Sony Vaio P… Performance Has a Price - The Review

UPDATE :
YES the Vaio P is Dual Core (Hyper Threading), please check the photos in the gallery...

NO this unit isn't faulty... Vista gave us a 2.7 mark while Windows 7 gave us a 1.9 mark, check the gallery

The Vaio P is by far sexiest Netbook available, but the P is also the most expensive and could be your best friend or worst nightmare.

Sony came up with an impressive design for the P. Great material gives the P the feel of a real high-end subnotebook and has a far better conception than other available Netbooks. The P’s keyboard is a real wonder, soft, precise, and large enough to be used for hours… The P’s large screen is also impressive with its 1600 x 768 resolution, and wherever your finger goes or eyes look you won’t find any conception mistakes… The P is rock solid for its size and has been crafted with delicacy and precision. There are almost no drawbacks in its design, construction, and materials... Ok, I said almost, since the P’s tracking point is a little cumbersome, but except from that, we admire Sony’s design team for this awesome device.

While I have no doubt the Vaio P is a winner when it comes to design and construction… I'm puzzled with Sony’s decision when it comes to basic specs.

The Vaio P sold in Japan in your average store features the same basic specs as US and EUR versions. 2GB of RAM, an ATOM Z520 CPU at 1.33GHz, Intel GMA500 a 1.8” HDD at 4200rpm and Vista Home… The same one Sony Japan sent us to test for a few days.

On paper the above specs appear to be fairly common with any Netbook, reality is however a cruel thing… Let me put this simply, the Vaio P sucks… BIG TIME! At least the stock version.

From the moment you turn it on to the moment you see Vista’s desktop requires around 1.01 to 1.02 minutes… Hold on a second here, seeing Vista’s desktop doesn’t mean you can use it… Oh no, far from it! You'll wait at least another minute to surf the Web or even using basic functions (depending on your Vista installation) To make things wors I extrapolate that once you install Office, or any other software, and start using Vista’s Widget bar you'll have to add at least 15 to 20 seconds more before getting the full potential out of your P and the HDD LED stops flashing like crazy… I reckon you need around 3.20 minutes once booted up to use the thing and get everything from McAfee, Bluetooth, and Sony’s mouse software fully loaded. (video below).

Music from Coppe Sweetrice.com

For crying out loud it's 2009! How is it possible with a New Gen CPU with Hyper Threading and 2 GB of RAM than a PC be can this slow? I'm sure you've discovered the culprit… Yep, Vista has proven again to be a resource hog and was not designed to be installed on a slow low end PC… But Microsoft is not the only one to blamed here, Intel has their share of responsibility. The ATOM CPU sucks big time unless properly integrated like on the Ion platform (NVidia), and how dumb are Intel folks for not providing a similar experience, if NVidia did it how hard can it be… Sony’s engineers are also too blame with their poor choice of components. To give you an idea, whether or not you run Vista or 7… You'll never get Aero to work on the P, like we did on a far cheaper Sotec C1 Netbook… This mainly due to the GMA500 chipset the P uses … A low end integrated video chipset good enough to power an average PDA, but not a decent PC.

I'll be honest with you, I'm very disappointed here, I really wanted to love the P test unit we got, I mean just look at it! It's gorgeous, but how did Sony screw up their latest ultraportable so bad? We know that whatever ATOM CPUs plus the 945G Chipset can't play HD videos, technically impossible but at least it would have given us a better experience… far better than the ATOM and GMA500 combo…

Is the P total rubbish? No, not really, there's still hope but it looks like only Japanese consumers will get to test the real power of the P.

So far only sold in Japan or via other channels, the Vaio P90 is the only one to consider because of its 1.86GHz ATOM CPU and 128GB Intel SSD… You still can't use AERO or get smooth HD video playback, but you won't have to wait 2 minutes once booted-up to use it… Unfortunately the P90 comes at a price (around $1,800 US), four times more expensive than the Sotec C1 notebook we tested earlier that runs Photoshop CS3 and AREO pretty smoothly… Something that even a P90 may not be capable of doing.

Sony Vaio P scores under Windows 7.

1.9... Pretty lame.

Conclusion:
To summarize, the Vaio P is indeed a real design wonder with a great screen and wonderful keyboard… But if you really want to get the most of your P you’d better be ready to spend a lot of money for the SSD and 1.86GHz CPU version. Am I sad? No, but frustrated, Sony had a very promising device with the P, they could have sold a lot of them even with a 1.3GHz if they had opted for Windows XP, the Intel 945G chipset and 5400 rpm HDD, same as found on your average Netbook.

I really hope someone at Sony will read this and take it into account. The P is a great device but needs better components or let’s just dream, NVidia’s Ion platform, Blu-ray support like full HD resolution on the average ATOM CPU…

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Posted on Sun Feb 08, 10:29 by ReallyJapan, Designer, Tokyo
Home Page: http://www.reallyjapan.com
It's really a shame, the design is awesome and the specs so awful.. what's wrong with sony?!

Posted on Wed Feb 11, 01:05 by outie
Home Page:
"You'll never get Aero to work on the P"? What makes you say that when you can get it to work under Vista (none home basic)? It looks like ti just needs a proper driver for win7.

Posted on Fri Feb 13, 09:25 by Computercarekid, USofA
Home Page: http://computercarenetwork.com
As much as I like sony products, they have been over pricing low power products a bit too much over the pass few years. and as usually, purchasing their high end products will cost you two arms and a leg...

Posted on Sat Feb 14, 09:53 by kuyache
Home Page: http://ggtech.co.nr
1.9 is not really lame as most built-in graphics will score 1, dragging the whole system down.
the Atom inside any netbook/notebook are NOT A DUAL CORE.
they are just Hyperthreading.
its pretty much the same as the old Pentium 4 HT.
Only the stand alone desktop atom 330's are Dual Core which windows will report as 4 CPU's.
anyways i like the style of the vaio p but it is still big for a pocketable. i would still prefer UMPC's.

Posted on Sun Feb 15, 07:54 by Shinigami, Germany
Home Page: http://pcmasters.de
The thing is, that this VAIO is not designed for high performance. It is not a shame nor is the score bad. First of all: Vista is a piece of crap, put the Win7 on it it should run like a charm. This is an ATOM based System, don't forget that it is like a Celeron and it is designed to be portable and small. Vista is a big piece of crap that should not be used for such a system, besides that the system should be nice with some tuning. First thing is to trash Vista along with the crap that Sony supplies. Seriously, the first Install from the manufacturer is slowing down the system like hell. Did the test few times, always same result: Better to install a clean Windows w/o the crap from Sony or who ever.

Cheers!

Posted on Sat Feb 28, 06:23 by LLP, IT, USA
Home Page:
If the only benchmark is how fast a system boots up, you are missing the whole point. It isn't about top performance, but usability. Once you get this little wonder running, you will soon be surprised by it does whatever to getting things done almost anywhere. If you don't have the patient, this pc is NOT for you, just like Apple Air. You get this kind of device for two reasons, the wow factor and the convenience. You will do ok with other products, just not getting both in one device. Sony did a great job to re-introduce the right way to the UMPC. About the hardware spec, if only Nvidia’s chip available early enough to make the design cut. Atom is a scaled back CPU focusing LOW POWER concept, which made all the Netbook POSSIBLE. Nevertheless, you don't expect business would give up their best at the very first chance, look ahead for the VGN-P90 spec. Just wait for the more capable ones priced near the more capable SONY laptops. You pay for what you get.

Posted on Wed Mar 04, 10:32 by Sunny, Internet
Home Page: http://onlygizmos.com
We shouldn't call it a Netbook, Its not a cheap one. This would be a ultraportable for me!

Posted on Sun Mar 08, 02:59 by Kampanye, Student, Kebumen, Indonesia
Home Page: http://kebumendiary.info/Pemilu2009/kampanye-damai-pemilu-indonesia-2009-bukan-hanya-damai/
Every think sound great. But it's to expensive for me.

Posted on Tue Mar 17, 09:34 by partoba
Home Page: http://tobablog.com
This is a great review about the Sony Vaio. But as you wrote, it's more stylish than performance objective. But I like the style and color.

Posted on Wed Mar 18, 09:55 by Jokebug, Boston
Home Page: http://www.jokebug.com
To me, if you are willing to spend your bucks on a sub-notebook, netbook, or whatever you wanna call it, it better have a worthy price-performance, be that ElCheapo or Sony. So I don't find this particularly appealing. Having said that, it looks sexy.

Posted on Thu Mar 19, 10:41 by Dajaco, Undergrad, UK
Home Page: http://www.nintendo-centrum.net
Everun note still kicks the shit out of everything umpc / netbook markets have to offer., I have one, i have xp, vista ultimate, and windows 7 build 7000 ,. all run perfectly well - especially windows 7 ,. it can run all of the aero graphics you can throw at it ( thanks to ati x1200 , and its access to ram for extra memory resource), and it has a gutsy 1.2Ghz dual core,. perfect size too,., cheaper, better - vastly better performance, touchscreen beauty - as for reliability, ive had it on 24/7 since launch as a low power downloader,.
battery life is its only shortcoming imo ,. but given how easy it is to swap batterys, and the availability of the external battery on a cable.. (as well as the hardware button to allow a low power state (locks at 800Mhz .. instead of 1200 per core)., love the thing.

Posted on Sun Mar 29, 03:31 by Razak, Director, Brunei
Home Page:
I have a 1.6ghz Vaio P and it is still disappointing. I am thinking, if you serve a cup of coffee in a restaurant and its bad..you return it. If you go to hospital and get wrong treatment you sue them for malpractice. How come computer manufacturers are allowed to mislead their customers like this?

Posted on Sun Apr 12, 12:49 by VietnamHotel, CEO, Hanoi, Vietnam
Home Page: http://www.vivisit.com
I think it's only sexy looking. What it needs to do is get tougher.

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