Finally decided on the SR

After going back and forth between laptops, having bought a Asus G50, a Dell Latitude D630, and even an Acer netbook, all of which were returned because they did not satisfy my needs, I finally decided on the Sony SR290 CTO with the following specs:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8600 (2.40GHz)ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3470 with HDMI™ Output
DVD +/- R DL / DVD +/- RW / DVD-RAM Drive
Trusted Platform Module / Biometric Fingerprint Sensor
Video Standard
120 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive [5400 rpm]
13.3" WXGA (XBRITE-ECO™ technology)
Windows® Live OneCare 90-Day Trial
Wireless LAN (802.11a/b/g/n) with integrated Bluetooth® technology
No Engraving
Night Black
Standard Battery
Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Premium 64-bit
2 GB DDR2-SDRAM (DDR2-800, 1GBx2)

I was actually able to use this exact model for 2 weeks for a psychology experiment that my school was running. I talked to the co-ordinator into letting me borrow it for 2 weeks. All I had to do was give them my student card.

In any case, I really enjoyed using it and the 13.3" screen was the perfect size for me. The only thing I did not like was the bilingual keyboard, but I got used to it after a while and it was fine. For the first time I tried out the HDMI onto my HD plasma TV and it was amazing. The 3470 and HDMI is definitely worth the $50 upgrade. I placed the order today and it will be here first week of December, just in time for a christmas present to myself.

 

Congrats!
You made a smart choice

 

Tony i see that you have a 320 gb hard drive. I got the cheapest hard drive/ram because I'm going to upgrade them after. If you upgraded your hard drive, what kind is it? Was it hard to swap the hard drive?

 

I got the western digital scorpio black wd3200bjkt (With free-fall sensor)
However this drive is even louder than the already loud toshiba hdd that came with the laptop

It's very easy, took me about 3 minutes, there are 2 esay access panels on the bottom that give you easy access to the ram and hdd

 

Do you own a GT R? Wish I did...

 

I have 2gb of Ram and the 160gb HDD as well and...honestly...vista flies. Granted, much like with any computer EVER with vista you need to turn off useless services and disable indexing...but believe me... once you do that vista will fly(i can confidently say, and this has been confirmed) that my computer is more responsive than a macbook pro running os x(last gen...havent played on the new ones).

Vista is very snappy on the SR....with the 2.26ghz proc and 2gb of ram and 160gb hdd(im pretty sure its one platter... so it should be an equivalent speed to the 320gb... or am i wrong?). Anyways... my recommendation... optimize vista...its so quick ive gotten lazy about my plans to buy 4gb dual channel ram and a 7200rpm HDD due to how happy i am with the laptops performance...


Also, whoa dude...your school uses Vaio SR's!! What school is this?! I'm impressed, my alma mater was all about dells and hp laptops....and imacs in the library. I personally would love to see vaio overtake the marketplace, but they appear to be pushing for the small company approach(very unlike sony with everything else ever...), they dont offer industry/business/fleet laptops that companies could buy in bulk and have on-site efficient brown-nosing techs that swap out motherboards faster than you can say "my dell's not working". haha

 

how do you clean up vista? I haven't had a primary vista computer in well...ever. I do have a 32 bit Home Promium disc that I can use for a clean install, but I'd very much rather run the 64 bit that comes with the computer.

 

Haha no I don't I wish I did..
Most dealers jacked the price up to over $100k... You'd be lucky if you can even find one.