What's the Difference s380 s480 ?

From looking at sonystyle.com site I can't tell the different between the two notebooks except that the s-480 is cheaper for the same component and the cost of upgrading is the same.

The s480 only has a base of 256 mb ram. But when I customized each so they have the exact same specs the s480 is still cheaper then the s380.

The only difference being that the s380 won't let you choose the nvidia 6200 unless you get the A/B/G wireless, while the s480 lets you just buy the A/B wireless with bluetootn.


512 mb ram (2x256)
Intel Pentium M Processor 740 (1.73 GHz)
40 gig harddrive
wireless w/bluetooth (s480 a/b) (s380 a/b/g)
13.3 w/ xbrite
nvidia 6200
cd/rw

VGN-S480
Price as configured:
$1649.99

VGN-S380
Price as configured:
$1779.99

So am I missing something?

 

I had the same issue. I carefully reviewed the specs on Sony Style, and the only difference I see is that the s480 might not have the 32 Megs of dedicated video memory. Could just be an oversight in drafting the specs, though; both max out at 128 shared.

 

s480
Graphics
nVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 6200 128MB TurboCache™
Graphic Internal


s380
nVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 6200 128MB TurboCache™ (32MB Discrete Video Memory, 96MB Dynamically Shared Video Memory)


But interesting thing I just found,
if you click more info next to video card on the s480, the description of the 6200 is:
-------
nVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 6200 with Turbo Cache™
The S380 offers the powerful nVIDIA® Graphic Chipset. Advanced graphics processors increase the visual performance of your computer for both professional applications and gaming.
-------

They are using the s380's description for the 6200 on the s480. Which makes me think its got to be the same. perhaps the 6200 was a afterthought on the 480. Which makes this even more bizar,the higher model # is cheaper and no different? Silly Sony. [8)]

 

Ya I looked at that too. While the 6200 seems to be default on the s380 its optional on the 480 but even with that upgrade the 480 is still cheaper.

I thought it might be the centrino sticker, that made the difference, but on the specs, both share the same cpu models, chipset the centrino one, and they give the same name for the wireless chip. and they both sell themselves as centrino.

on the specs for the s380 and the s480 they both say its the 6200 TurboCache, which I believe is the code name for the 32 dedicated 96 shared card family.

 

Well, if what you say about the 6200 TurboCache is true, then the only difference is the s480 is cheaper?! That makes me ready to buy, I think. Are you pretty sure, because I can't find independent confirmation, and the site definitely describes the graphics chips differently.

That said, i have no information to doubt what you say.

 

It keeps bugging me a little so I checked around more. On sonystyle. On the fs500 it describes the video card as:
NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 6200 128MB TurboCache™

Then in the more info popup it says:
-------
NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 6200 128MB TurboCache™ (32MB Discrete Video Memory, 96MB Dynamic Video Memory) - optional
The GeForce™ Go turbocharge performance for notebooks, without consuming more power or battery life. Now you can experience GeForce™ 6 Series performance and features in a thin and light notebook including support for the latest games and multimedia software.
-------

Finally I also just looked up reviews of the underlying component, the nvidia 6200, it is pretty definate that the TC are all 32/128 or some combination of dedicated and shared.

-------
With TurboCache, eVGA can offer the e-GeForce 6200 TC at a cheaper price by including just 32MB of RAM on the card (eVGA also offers 16MB and 64MB versions). To your computer, the card looks like a 128MB graphics card, but that's only because it bites off a chunk of your PC's main system memory for video processing and transfers the data at a relatively high speed over the PCIe bus. The 32MB of memory on the card itself works as a cache for graphics data.
-------
and
-------
Currently Nvidia is only shipping notebook versions of the 6200 TC card in a 32MB dedicated 96MB shared configuration. This should be plenty for
-------

Finally on the Sony's UK website they state a disclaimer at the bottom of their sales stuff for the S series
-------
* NVIDIA® TurboCache™ technology combines the size and bandwidth of video memory and dynamically available system memory for optimal performance.
-------

None of it is definate, but seems to suggest that there is always a sharing and dedicated portion.

But then it also gets me thinking about the FS series in general. bigger display same specs and even cheaper then the S480. But I guess it would have lower battery life and weights like 5.4lb instead of 3 something.

 

Ya Like I said I could be wrong, but this is the offical laymen's description of turbocache from nvidia:
----------
How Does it Work?
The revolutionary TurboCache technology utilizes the additional bandwidth of the PCI Express graphics bus to reach higher levels of graphics performance than traditional video memory solutions, delivering the performance and features you expect from NVIDIA graphics hardware. By allowing the graphics processing unit (GPU) to share the capacity and bandwidth of dedicated video memory and dynamically available system memory, TurboCache turbocharges performance and provides larger total graphics memory.
----------


The key thing in there is:
By allowing the graphics processing unit (GPU) to share the capacity and bandwidth of dedicated video memory and dynamically available system memory.

On the positive side the 480 may have 128 of fully dedicated
[ ] you never know....

 

Well, at least its nice to know I'm not the only one struglling with this. I agree that it does not make sense to "downgrade" the graphics in the newer model, but it was the only semantic difference I could see. Given your description from the nVidia site, however, I'm inclined to agree that it is the same graphics system in the s380 and s480. Just some sloppy editing on the Sony web-site perhaps.

 

I've been doing a lot of research into the 6200 TC as I am disappointed with the fact that this is an apparent downgrade from the ATI Radeon 9700 that was in the S360 model. It does in fact have 32MB of onboard and uses 96MB of system memory for additional processing which of course would never be as fast as dedicated memory. Regarding how it is listed...the 128MB is only the total memory available (32 dedicated and 96 shared). NVIDEA is planning on coming out with a 6200 TC by the third quarter of this year that has 128MB on board. It is not available now. If you were also interested....benchmarks from Tom's Hardware site http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050208/index.html show that the 32/96 combo is faster than the 64/64 combo because of a lower memory frequency on the latter. I'm not sure if the 64/64 is even offered as a notebook version.

HP ZV5220US 15.4"WXGA 512MB RAM 60GB HD AMD XP+ 3000 8lbs. (heavy)