Sony S15 - A little three Year Review

So as the thread title states I purchased my Sony Vaio S15 in 2012 for about $800. And I have to say after all the laptops I have owned (roughly 9) this has been the most reliable laptop I ever owned.

The Outsides: The case is still in perfect condition, no chips, dings or scratched panels.

The Insides: The old Dual Core I5 2.5 ghz CPU is still a remarkably capable CPU, and with the aftermarket SSD I installed, this laptop still feels just as fast as all the new laptops coming out. Graphically speaking with its 640 LT the laptop was never a beast, but it still manages to play most games at medium settings and decent FPS. I even use the laptop to run moderate size assemblies in Solidworks (CAD). The laptop still keeps its temperature at very reasonable levels (34-40C while browsing/watching movies 59-65C while gaming/using Solidworks).

The Screen: Sony got a lot of flack for the orange gate IPS screens they sent along with a lot of their S15 series laptops. I was one of the fortunate few that got a very good screen that displayed very good reds.

Software: After the initial replacement of the HDD with an SSD and of course a fresh install of W7 this laptop has been rock solid. I am still running the same W7 install I had from the start. I cannot say the same for any of the other laptops I own.

I was prompted to write this little review after hearing that Sony was getting out of the hardware business (which is a shame) and because you don't really ever see long term reviews for laptops. Shame about sony getting out of the hardware business though, they really made some great products (though I guess not enough of them).

 

Nice short review, Sounds like you got your moneys worth.

Eric

 

I used to have the Sony Vaio S13. Very similar to yours but smaller.

I got it for only $300 from a collection agency and it was one of the best laptops I've ever owned. So slim and light yet it still had a DVD burner and could run Skyrim on it's Geforce 640M LE.

The size and weight of an ultrabook yet with the features of a full laptop. Sadly it bricked after I'd owned it for only a few months. I was never able to determine the cause of failure.

 

Yep I played skyrim and the Mass Effect series, Both great titles. The 640 LE has proven to be a very capable GPU for its class. I never tried the overclocking mods people were using, but it sounds like quite a few ran speeds very near a 650m.

Like you said I really like the lightweight but still fully capable laptop features. Honestly I am having a hard time finding something equivalent in the modern laptop offerings. I was thinking it might be nice to modernizing a little, maybe get a quad core. But honestly after looking around I think I will wait a little while longer. Nothing seems to offer this very nice balance of build quality and performance while being comparably priced.

 

I have an S15 with the i7-3632 processor. The performance is still excellent, especially after performing a clean install and throwing in an SSD. Probably my favorite thing about it is how gracefully the design aged. It's still fairly thin for a 15-incher with a disk drive and dedicated graphics. My only real gripe is that the battery life is down to about 2 hours and change. I have the battery slice, but it makes it way too cumbersome to bring to classes.

 

I absolutely agree! CPU is still spanking common UV Haswell and Broadwell i7. Fortunately enough I have the one with proper Red LED screen, there is some screen bleeding showing up now but its minor.
My only gripe besides battery life is lack of up to date video card drivers and still unsolved wi-fi issues.
Bottom line laptop is rock solid. My next upgrade would be to snatch OEM SSD in Raid configuration and replace the hard drive.

 

1. Get a new battery. Batteries wear out after several years of use. BatteryBar, etc. will show you how much of your battery's capacity is still available.
2. If you have a SATA HDD, replacing it with a 2.5" SSD is the most painless way to upgrade. I've done that, and the speed boost is truly amazing. You can look around for the best deal as these can be found anywhere; OEM SSDs are likely to be rare and expensive. The RAID0 confuration is a little faster, of course, but a 2.5" SATA SSD is better value for money, IMHO, when comparing the overall performance to that of the HDD based laptop.

 

Not surprised the owners of S15, S13 still exist. Super sturdy machine. Im having it for about 2 years as well, the only glitch is it gets frozen sometimes for 10-15 seconds - maybe Windows issue, maybe the additional hard drive that I have placed instead of dvd writer.

Overclocking still works like charm and I can still play some modern games with normal settings (GTA V, Dragon Age Inquisition). Dota 2 is lag-free in ultra settings with overclocking.

Probably it is good to do a repasting of CPU/GPU, otherwise I feel like my S15 can hold another year or two. I've put my battery in a care mode (50% all the time) so it can still last for some 3-4 hours of light use.