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

Posted on Tue Jan 20, 12:19 by Pachedzhiev, Student, Sofia , Bulgaria
Home Page:
I hoped for the P.

Hopes are flying out of my head right now , bye bye P ... *sad* :/

Posted on Tue Jan 20, 01:13 by doskey, IT, Beijing
Home Page: http://www.erawtfos.com
I like style of Vaio P. But its score is only 1.9 on Windows 7.

Posted on Tue Jan 20, 01:47 by kanjikai
Home Page:
I would have like more on daily and practical use. My VAIO SZ5 C2Duo 2 Ghz takes lot to boot Vista too, but then every operation or multitasking is pretty fast.

Beside this, the Score under Windows does not give you a fair idea about daily use performance. It would be much usefull if you describe the change in performance (boot the OS, start applications, web browsing, music...) between Vista and Windows.

I was waiting for this review, but it doesn´t solve my dudes.

Posted on Tue Jan 20, 01:58 by scottbakertemp, student, US
Home Page:
It's not Intel and Microsoft's fault that Sony picked the most resource intensive OS they could find from MS and the slowest components they could find from Intel, and slapped it all together for double the price of competing products.

I'm sure MS, Intel, or heck pretty much anyone would have adviced them otherwise.

Posted on Tue Jan 20, 02:08 by kanjikai
Home Page:
Sorry, i write "dudes" instead "doubts".

Posted on Tue Jan 20, 02:41 by MathieuB, IT Editor and Bartender, Montreal, Canada
Home Page: http://feeds.feedburner.com/hardware-revolution
The decision of Sony to install Vista on the Vaio P probably has to do with it not being a netbook.

I'm pretty sure that Microsoft now only licenses XP for netbook, thus why Sony went for Vista.

Stupid move by Sony, not to mention that Vista probably brings the price up as well.

Just get an external CD-ROM usb, and load XP or even better XP Lite onto that machine and see it fly =)

Posted on Tue Jan 20, 03:33 by devlimdotcom, IT Student, Malaysia
Home Page: http://www.devlim.com
This Sony Vaio P is really Beautiful and sexy .

Posted on Tue Jan 20, 07:55 by pandego, student, brazil
Home Page: http://www.akihabaranews.com/en/
very smart, very funny.

Posted on Tue Jan 20, 07:57 by pandego, student, brazil
Home Page: http://www.akihabaranews.com/en/
very smart, very funy.

Posted on Tue Jan 20, 10:25 by ArcteryxWhaor
Home Page:
Why on earth would anyone buy a netbook with an HDD in 2009. Get an SSD for speed, shock resistance, low temp, lower power consumption, etc. Vista flies with an SSD.

Need more storage? .. thats what the MS/SD slot is for.. more solid state memory,

Posted on Tue Jan 20, 12:44 by daw0lverine, Trader, Tokyo
Home Page:
C'est vraiment pas mieux avec windows 7 ?

Posted on Tue Jan 20, 01:06 by Daimaou, Survivor, Tokyo - Japan
Home Page: http://www.akihabaranews.com
daw0lverine> Un poil mais quoi qu il arrive tu as le bottleneck hardware surtout avec le HDD

Posted on Tue Jan 20, 08:17 by nEILh, AUSTRALIA
Home Page:
The Sony P is using a Single Core ATOM CPU with a reduced bus speed - your article suggests its a dual core, which it's not.

Posted on Tue Jan 20, 09:55 by Daimaou, Survivor, Tokyo - Japan
Home Page: http://www.akihabaranews.com
I will check this tomorrow before sending over the Test unit, I have a doubt and in this case this may make more sens... I was sure the Z520 Atom was dual Core

Thanks for pointing this out

Posted on Tue Jan 20, 10:40 by DrEvil
Home Page:
This will be much better with XP, or with Windows 7, which is far more netbook friendly. Vista sucks bigtime, even on my high-spec Thinkpad and 3 gig of RAM and 7200rpm HDD.

I wonder if anyone has tried Ubuntu on this Vaio?

Posted on Wed Jan 21, 12:20 by Virtua, Uk
Home Page:
There is also a 1.6ghz chip. For some reason the 1.8ghz chip has a real price premium on it - I think the 1.3 to 1.6 will be quite noticeable, whereas 1.6 to 1.8 wont be so much - I have a 1.6 in my Fujitsu U2010 and it measures 3 on the vista score.
Agree with you on the hdd - go ssd!

Posted on Wed Jan 21, 12:37 by Virtua, Uk
Home Page:
I think there is a problem with your machine - There is a very good japanese site I use and it shows your spec machine as -
Processor: 2.7
メモリ：4.2 Memory: 4.2
グラフィックス：5.9 Graphics: 5.9
ゲーム用グラフィックス：3.0 Graphics for the game: 3.0
プライマリハードディスク：4.1 PURAIMARIHADODISUKU: 4.1

Makes sense - if my Atom1.6ghz processer in my Fujitsu is 3.0, and the 1.8ghz is 3.4 - 2.7 sounds right.
Check it out I say

Posted on Wed Jan 21, 08:20 by Daimaou, Survivor, Tokyo - Japan
Home Page: http://www.akihabaranews.com
Virtua, the above Screenshot with the score is on 7 not Vista, with Vista I have the something around 2.7 too

Posted on Wed Jan 21, 08:25 by Virtua, Uk
Home Page:
Thanks - that makes better sense of things.
Must be due tto Windows 7 being a beta more than anything - I would say vista performance is somethig better to use as a benchmark.
Word on the street is that a special "netbook" version of windows 7 is coming out soon.

Posted on Wed Jan 21, 10:19 by Daimaou, Survivor, Tokyo - Japan
Home Page: http://www.akihabaranews.com
I updated the review... YES this ATOM is DUAL CORE, check photo in gallery, and the score is 2.7 with Vista but 1.9 with 7.

Posted on Wed Jan 21, 11:30 by Nandos
Home Page:
Hm... I think that is Hyper-Threading and not dual core ^_^;;;

http://ark.intel.com/cpu.aspx?groupID=35466

Posted on Wed Jan 21, 02:22 by daw0lverine
Home Page:
arf, merci du test j'etais pas loin de me l'acheter perso (akiba fait mal ) faudra attendre la prochaine version

Posted on Sun Jan 25, 02:30 by starstreak007, Hawaii
Home Page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/starstreak007/
My TZ150n takes just as long to startup. With everything loaded it'll take around 3-4minutes. Once its loaded, it seems to move fine. I scored:
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU U7500 @ 1.06GHz 4.3
Memory (RAM) 2.00 GB 4.2
Graphics Mobile Intel(R) 945 Express Chipset Family 2.0
Gaming graphics 256 MB Total available graphics memory 2.7
Primary hard disk 41GB Free (85GB Total) 3.9

So the "P" has a processor about 2x slower but has a faster video score? I think with a SSD it should be even faster startup on the P?

Posted on Fri Jan 30, 12:31 by almtbwu, Engineer, Toronto, Canada
Home Page:
Nice review. I'm really considering this but WILL not buy the 1.3Ghz Atom when there is a faster 1.8Ghz available in Japan although the price sounds crazy considering what you can get on the market for that price.

Was it easy to install Windows 7 on the P? Did it affect the dual boot?

I expected the slow boot with Vista so was glad to hear about the dual boot feature.

You sure the Atom is a dual core? I heard that Intel is still working on the dual core.

Posted on Fri Jan 30, 04:08 by almtbwu, Engineer, Toronto, Canada
Home Page:
Just found out the P90 version does not have built in GPS nor 3G support.

Why would Japan not include those features in the P90? I don't understand the different versions out there.

May have to look for the UK version for at least the 1.6Ghz Atom and hopefully that has GPS/3G.

Posted on Mon Feb 02, 03:17 by Alexey, engineer, Taiwan
Home Page:
The reason why japanese models don't have GPS is because it's AGPS wich (in case of Vaio P design) requires presence of 3G network. Currently P90 are not providing 3G because of some contract with one japanese cellular operator. Soon P90 will be offered with 3G subscription (modem will be locked to this operator) and AGPS.
People who don't want to use 3G shouldn't be bothered to use AGPS too. It won't work without 3G.

Buy BT GPS instead

Posted on Wed Mar 04, 02:40 by mat
Home Page:
this is a high end luxury product....not for people with a budget in mind!!!it may take 3 mins to boot up n go into browsing like u claim but it has an unix platfom jus like ta psp to boot up in 30seconds!!duh
if u r doin a review for netbooks, do it for netbooks n nt desktop replacment!!if u wan performance on a little thin then do it against ta vaio TT!!n sony this never gona hear wat u gota say!!this thin is 600 grams n u know y vista was installed instead of xp,coz microsoft says the specs for vaio p is to high for xp.n this thin comes with a mag alu top!!tis is no perfomance pc its a lifestyle pc used s a second pc for traveling!!

Posted on Fri Apr 03, 06:26 by David_P, Student, Colorado
Home Page:
The Vaio P is marketed with vista because Windows has restricted licenses for XP to low spec computers, however the P's high resolution, and 2 gigs of RAM keeps it from being licensed to XP, which I'm sure Sony would run with in a second if they were allowed to. Its a great concept, I LOVE the size and the keyboard layout, but the low processing speed, Vista, and the Price are a major turnoff. I might get one A) after 7 comes out and B) when/if the 1.86ghz's price gets reduced.to a considerable level.

Posted on Thu Apr 16, 12:28 by S_J_C, IT Infrastructure Architect, Sydney
Home Page:
You prove youself to be really clueless calling the Atom a dual core. Hyperthreading is not dual core it is a single core that presents two virtual cores to the the operating system and for that reason it is not that powerful (remember Pentium 4). So stop repeating the foolish remarks of another poorly informed writer and go look up what Intel themselves say about hyperthreading.

Oh and the reason the poor Vaio P is lugged with Vista is that MS has a restriction on what hardware is allowed to be OEMed with XP. Unfortunately the P is deemed "too powerful" by MS because of its 2GB RAM and very high res screen.

So blame MS for the crap performance and credit Sony for shoehorning what technology they could into a small, passively cooled (ie completely silent) package. I am considering paying the extra just so I can escape the sounds of fans for a few hours a day.