VAIO S1HP

Hey there. I got my S series nearly a month ago now, I've neeb meaning to post something here but life's been busy lately, not been home in 3 out of 4 weeks, and I'm glad to say my beauty of a notebook has been with me the whole time, without a hitch.

I'm guessing that most of you will be wondering why you haven't seen an S1HP in the stores lately, well if you're in the US, you wont have done. As far as I can figure, the S1HP, VP and XP are the European models. The US market has the likes of the S150, 170 etc.

My system is the low-end of the Euro S-series, but it does all that I need it do so far. Here's the spec so you can do a decent comparison to your equivalent models.

This is read from the stickers:

CPU: Intel Pentium M 715 1.50A GHz
LCD: 13.3" TFT, 1280 x 800
HDD: 40GB
RAM: 512MB
ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 (32mb)
WLAN 802.11b/g inbuilt
CDRW (didn't need DVD burner, and it added too much to the cost to get the VP, I'm a student...)

Having read the first impressions of the S170, I was a little concerned about the 7 CD-Rs required to burn the restore disks. I thought this strange as my Mum has a new DTR VAIO, a K115S, which came with a DVD restore disk in the box.

On arrival, I was glad to see mine did too. As well as the power supply and quick setup manual saying in fragmented translated English how to plug the thing in. To be honest there wasn't much else to know.

I had no problems with the first boot, and to this day *touch wood* I've had not problems, I don't think it even knows what a blue screen of death is! I've been running CS and CZ on it occasionally, have installed Intellisync to keep Outlook 2003 in sync with my slightly dated Clie SJ-33. Have ripped my entire CD collection to SonicStage without a hitch, in fact it does it automatically for me now when I stick a CD in.

Though the Sony 'crapware' as I've heard it called before, slows down system performance slightly, there is the option to disable or remove it all. I've chosen to keep most of it as the drag 'n' drop CD writer and backup facilities have come in handy. Norton AV has been scheduled to work every day at 2AM, it found one nasty on one of my old backup CDs from an old desktop, it sorted it out no probs. Now I'm running WinPatrol and Spybot:SnD daily after the virus scan before I even get up, seems to be keeping it running great.

The wireless feature is an absolute marvel. I've got a Linksys wireless B router which I already had set up for my Mum's laptop, and the office desktop. Setting up the network was no problem; XP Pro sorts that in a tick. I've been using NetMeeting with shared desktop enabled to manage my web server running on the office PC from wherever I am. And you'd be amazed how many HotSpots there are in England. Having wireless broadband anywhere really is worth paying extra in my mind. Though it's standard in all UK S series models anyway.

The rubber covers for the Ethernet and USB ports do the job, they arem ade of a dense rubber, which does feel a tad flimsy, but after a bt of tugging to test them I'm glad to say that they stay in place damn well.

Battery life is always stated as more than it actually is, from 100% I'm generally getting on average, 4hrs 10mins from it. That’s the standard battery. Just running office applications mind you, and not the CD drive. Having played music on the CD drive and having a game of CZ in the back of the car the other day, I got about 3hrs 15mins before it started squawking at me for power. This is pretty damn good in my mind.

The main attraction to the unit was the lightness and the wireless capability. I went for Sony because I've still never had a bad experience with Sony in general (aside from trying to get any sense out of a customer assistant in the NYC Sony Store on Labour Day...).

The design is lovely; build is good, slight keyboard bounce that doesn't bother me. It’s a very light and versatile bit of kit.

I love it to bits.

Thanks to all who provided opinions and advice on these forums, it did help my pre-purchase decision making. So this way my feedback to give a little back.