The S380 is not that bad at all

Hello everyone . I got my S380 a month back and I had to give away S270 for that . The S270 was a nice machine , speedy , it was not that bad at all for playing games at lower resolutions and lesser effects . The AMR 9200 did a pretty good job even though it had 32 megs of dedicated VRAM but I used to play HL2 on it at 1280x800 with all the effects and heavy details turned off and I had abolutely no problem at all .

Then I heard about Sonoma and the new chipset 915PM . Then the Sony people told me that the S380 was available which was better than the S270 in ever aspect . So I got it . Till now its working pretty well . It works on Dual channel mode coz I have installed two Elpida DDR2 512 MB memory modules in it and I don't see much of a difference but it feels good to own a 1GB DDR2 RAM laptop so I did that just for the heck of it . Two things make me want to ponder about Sony's way of going about things .

First of all --- The Nvidia Geforce Go 6200 with TC is decent . I'll not say its the best or it performs better than X600 or 9700 but its really okay . I played DOOM 3 on it , it did not run well with standard 2D clock settings so I had to manually increase them to 353/708 , now it runs smoothly on Medium Quality settings with everything turned on apart from VSYNC . But it surely has some compatibility issues with some games . I don't know if I can say that but I tried the popular tennis game TOP SPIN on my S380 . I was shocked to see that it did not run well at all on FULL SCREEN mode . Everything was smooth but there was some sort of a delay which made the game unplayable on the S380 . I don't know if some of have you experienced the same problem but I hope this does not happen with other games . TOP SPIN worked well under the windowed mode which is almost the full screen mode so it hardly matters .

Then I installed another game -- Imperial Glory , a strategic combat game , you know , blowing up the armies and stuff , ENGAGE THE ENEMY !!! I remember that it did not used to run all that well on my S270 and it worked amazingly well on the S380 , I was a little surprised to see that but felt a little relieved thats for sure.

I don't understand one thing --- why are you people always worried about the HEAT part of S380 . Yeah I agree that it gets HOT after a few minutes of usage but its really okay . We should expect that from these Sonoma thin and lights . Its weird , first we want a laptop which is sleek and sexy , then we want a laptop which plays all the games ever released or made , then we want one that stays as cool as possible , well what can we expect from a 1.9 kg laptop , its main aim is to provide portability and Sony has done a wonderful job in the S380 and the 6200 is certainly better than lots of other cards . Well what I am saying is that when we go for a thin and light notebook , good graphical abilities should not be the top priority , PORTABILITY is the IDEA behind subnotebooks and thin and lights , we can't expect a S380 to perform as good as a DELL XPS GEN 2 , look at the size of the machine for god's sake , it weighs well over 3 kgs as compared to S380's 1.9kg ,there is a big difference and lets face it XPS GEN 2 may beat the hell out of S380 but the performance is almost the same , it is 6200(32/96) VS 6800 Ultra(256 MB) but the processing speeds are almost the same except that it has PENTIUM M which a little more efficient than CENTRINO . I mean can you guys carry around a 3kg laptop or even if they're meant to replace the desktops , don't you think they cost a little too much than a proper gaming RIG if they're meant to be placed on your desk ??

I don't know what the fuss is all about , I know you guys will have your own opinions but I would really like any of the moderators to answer my questions and clear my doubts and indecisions.

Thank You

VIVA LA REVOLUCION !

 

Well, I would recommend you try out S360 before you try to understand why people complain S380's heat and lack of gaming power -- yes, you can't expect gaming power in a portable machine without trading off some heat, but the Dothan-based S360 provides better gaming power with less heat than its own Sonoma cousins.

 

I have tried the S360 . Okay I understand that these Sonoma notebooks do tend to get a little hot but don't you expect that from Intel 915PM and all the new technology , PCI express , new and better graphic card and mind you I ran 3DMARK 03 on my S380 just in case and the score was around 2900 and over here at notebookreview.com the reviewer of the S360P claimed that the 3DMARK O3 of the machine was around 2630 . I know this does not truly explain the difference between the gaming capabilities of the two machines but it surely says something , doesn't it ?

VIVA LA REVOLUCION !

 

Like I said, you really can't expect too much in heat when you really demand performance, but the problem is S360 gives you a better balance between performance and mobility -- S380 is really not bad, it is down right good, but it is not longer the best like S360. Of course, there are people who really don't need performance and just pick up S because it looks slick. Imagine how much shock they have when they literally "feel the heat".[ ]

 

Okay i own a S380 and it doesn't get that hot,for a laptop that is thin and light you expect it to make heat. And as far as the graphics card i think the 6200 is great i know it is 32 dedicated and 96 shared but the card runs off of PCI-Xpress and the Ram in the S380 is DDR2 so it is faster than just DDR RAM so when it accesses the shared part it runs faster than older laptops with shared megs.
Let me tell you about myself so you don't think i am some newbie who is baseing this off of reviews and things i read. First i am a Paratrooper that is deployed in Iraq and is always on the go and this laptop has out done the previous laptop which was a sharp RD20 that had a 64 MB 440 go video card and a 3.06 GHZ P4. This laptop plays games at medium to high settings (better than a laptop with 64 MB Video Card)with no lag.T he laptop get a little hot but it isn't spitting out fire and it never over heats i use it in very hot weather (Iraq-100 to 140 F)sometimes and it runs smoothy. I carry it around with me on convoys and it can take a beating. It is small powerful and well built.One more thing all these reviews you read about the 6200 TC are great and true for the hardware they are reviewing but i haven't see a review with a 6200 TC paired up with a Laptop that has DDR2 RAM so it may suck in other laptops that doesn't mean it sucks in a S380

 

milesb83,

I'm glad to hear that S380 is serving you well in the extreme environment. As an owner of S170 and a user of Sony laptops for more than 5 years, I have no doubt that any of the S series can withstand the toughest challenges, but I am glad to hear such a real-life testament.

On the other hand, people usually don't carry laptop to such harsh environment. As a person who had served in the Air Force, gotten blasted by jets every day, then work my way as an engineer to jet engine and gas turbines, I really don't consider the sound from my S170 a noticeable noise. The fact that the fan's pitch sounds like a jet engine actually please my ears than some other weird fan pitch from other laptops. However, there are many people out there who will mainly use their laptops in the middle of the night or a very quiet office environment and these people may find the noise unacceptable. Their complains will sound like whining, no doubt, but they deserve the best value for the money as well, and S series probably will never deliver on that ground.

I personally still believe S360 offers a better package in most situations and is a clear winner. S380 (or the new S480) comes in a close second, but it does have its strengths, DDR2 memory and 5400 RPM HDD among them. Both S offers still out-shine any other machine out there when you want performance on the go, but what I constantly remind people is if you just want something on the go, S380 (or S360) may not be your best choice because you are paying the premium and penalty for the extra performance.

Again, thank you for your comment. I am really glad to hear an S being put through the test and delivers what it promises. It gives me more confidence with my own S and when I recommend S series to people.[ ]

 

The fan noise is really annoying. And it doesn't only happen when you are using the notebook under extreme conditions - just having mine plugged into AC power it makes a hell of a lot of noise. This is annoying, especially since I plan to study with this laptop on my desk. If every 2 minutes it feels like an airplane is driving over my head it will be very hard to concentrate.

This is the only thing that I HATE about this laptop. Everything else is really really nice! The keyboard is a great size, the laptop is light and easy to carry (smaller than an A4 sized folder!), the screen is a delight to look at. I haven't as of yet tried out any games, but I am seriously thinking of returning it (I have a 28 day grace period) due to the fan noise - it makes much more noise than even my old desktop!

This is definately a laptop to buy if you are not bothered by fan noise, which, unfortunately I am.

 

Hello. This seems to be a rather good sony S series thread. So I was wondering if anyone had answers to my questions.
First of all, does the s270 have an internal mPCI slot?
And if so, is this actually a/b/g wireless and will it work in the s270?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833106219
(also found at this site which has the same specs for it)
http://www.digitallyunique.com/wm3b2915abgnax.html

Thank you for your help.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by ralck2

 

Doesn't say much, especially since 2630 is a horrible score for an S360 (must be with the stock Sony drivers). Mine without overclocking sits around 3100 in 3DMark03.

Do not be mistaken, the 9700, like it or not, is alot faster than the Go6200 in the Sonoma S's.

Just for kicks, what kind of SuperPi 1M score can the Sonoma S series laptops get? This 1.7 pentium M bests my desktop athlon running at 2.4Ghz somehow with a time of 45.495 seconds. I always wondered how much extra cpu power i could have had with the new chipset/fsb/ddrII...

Oh yeah, and about the wireless cards, anyone know of any that i could slap in here that would be compatible with Airopeek?

 

Well I don't know , you might be right there . But I got the 3DMark03 score from here , I did not make it up . And yes I do agree that it might be the result of no overclocking . Well my S380 calculated upto 2 Million Pi in 1:43 , 1 minute and 43 seconds . Not bad at all huh .