vaio s170 first impressions

well i got my s170 just a few hours ago, looked nice and everything, nice packaging. I opend it up and there was pretty much nothing extra, just notebook, powercable and adapter. with a $2500+ price tag i expected atlease a simple case or sumthing. O yeh and there were some papers, no cds of anysort cept the stupid AOL ****. so i turned it on and enjoyed the led at the end of the power calble untill i realized its just a amature sleezy LED. IT dont do ****. Id expect it to atlease change colors when the battry is full OR atlease be on only when pluged in or sumthing intersting. The fact is it jsut stays on constantly if the adapter had power. GJ SONY FOR ****. next i found the power socked little flimsy. i could wiggle the power cable enough to make it seem like it was bout to break. the case it really flimsy. I stuck in the battry, atlease it went in with ZERO FORCE which i though was nice. for plp who complain bout it being loose, did u remember to lock it? First thoughts not going to good, but i saw the radeon 9700 sticker and kept exploring. The placements of the usb and power sockets were nice, except atlease one USB on the back would be nice and the little covers on the usb and ethernet are anoying. outta all the socked they cover the USB? weird that the vga isnt coverd, id figure tats least used. The vga port has no place for side screws so i wounder if i will have problems with certian plugs, even the apples have similar flat design and screw holes. No home, end, pg up or down keys. I can live tho. I didnt get the wireless and atlease they were nice enough to not put a switch for the wireless on off, and insted left it wit a dummy plate. Nice because my other toshiba laptop has a USELESS switch.
ok so enough cosmetic complaints, lets get technical. First thing i did wat turn on the lappy and see nice bright vaio loading screen. Go through sonys lil custom windows setup and im ready to go. Not too many useless icons, as iv seen on other laptops with atleset 3 comlums on first boot. this has bout 15 icons most useless. So the first thing i do is customize the looks a little. Take tat supid win xp look off, and all the extra fade ect. features. put my computer in and show all files in folder options. Make the control panel visible and then explore. I go to make the system recovery files and lo and behold i get a screen that says error unable to continue, some nessacary files are missing. I JUST GOT THE FREKIN LAPTOP A FEW HOURS AGO. then i try the recovery wizard in control panel and decide to cancle it. I didnt do anything and its telling me i need to restart. So i restart and then jsut get fusturated so i shutdown afterwards. Lo and Behold...It doesnt shutdown the first time. It freezes. Leave it on for few minuites then jsut hit the power button. GO SONY!!! Next i turn it on again and the recovey disk creator icon in the sys tray is gone. Time to go hunting. the next few times i shutdown, it works fine, but WTH this lappy sofar sux for $2500+. ill instll some apps, games and XP Pro and see if the hardware can impress me. I think i will never buy a sony again, i was sckeptical at first, i mean common...sony...laptos...ewwww. I guess second guessing is bad for ur health. I dont hate this laptop, but outta the box its just a normal lappy, nothing special. Cant sony give somthing extra to make me feel good. Even a free towel would be nice. I guess i can live with this lappy, but future lappys WILL NEVER be SONY.

 

I'm getting mine later this evening. Did you ever get to make the recovery disks? RickReno had a similar problem with that.

So I will make sure that's done...and also need to resolve the WEP issue or at least be mindful when setting it up. What else should I "make sure to do" first thing?

Now I'm getting nervous! (I purchased an additional 512MB from memoryx.com which already arrived.....that'll be the 3rd thing to deal with).

Sue

 

ok well im writing off my s170 now. The recover disks....o and the problems plauge on. Well so i started to make th recovery disks after i found the recover wizard in control panel and lo and behold a freggin 7 CD-rs. For my money i expect them to give it but ok so i started a hunt for 7 blank cds. They make u burn from 7 to 1 (backwards) so i got 7-2 done nicely, took a little time, either slow burning or just a long verifaction process as after u burn each cd it verifies it. got to cd 1 and got a fregin error. sais to restart so i did and then went to make cd 1 again and there is no way to skip. Asses make it to i have to start at 7 again to make 1. Half the cds are wastes, as the ful cds arent burned and i dont wanna waste 6 more so time to give sony a nice call. there is a nice 10 GB chunck of hidden HD space which i assume is the backup. time to make recovery disks ans swipe the hd of all this sont crap

man this keyboard is stiff, guess i gotta break into it.

ANY ONE KNOW HOW TO BURN RECOVERY CD 1?

O yeh what u shoud do first, get 7 black cds b4 ur first turnon and make thoes recovery cds FIRST B4 U DO ANYTHING. I MEAN ANYTHNG, INCLUDING CHANGINg UR BACKGROUND.

whats the wep issue, i just installed my new 108 G wireless card.

 

pgkool: sorry about your bad experience. Where did you get it from? Can you take it back? Just out of curiosity, what are your specs?

*******************************************************
Fujitsu S6210: 1.6Ghz PM ~ 768MB RAM ~ 60GB 7200RPM Hard Drive
*******************************************************

 

Did anyone else have difficulty comprehending this post, or was it just me?

Sue: The first things you will want to do is boot up and make sure the computer works fine, then install the RAM (make sure the power cables and battery are removed and that you are in an uncarpeted area), then boot up and create the recovery discs ASAP. Then enjoy! You won't regret your purchase.

Sony VAIO VGN-S150

 

sry i was little crazy minded, sry if my post is all random thoughts stuck together.
I have a VGN-S170 from sonystyle.com
1.7 ghz pentium M
radeon 9700
Xbrite 13'3 in screen
256 ram
80 gig 5400 rpm hd
no wireless or bluetooth
win xp home

 

So far, so good. Made the recovery disks without a hitch (took about 1 hr using the DVD burner). Have been spending time setting up wireless access point off of ethernet router (works fine for me, with a small problem with getting Dell laptop to recognize network upon rebooting).

Installing RAM next. I have an empty slot inside so this should be easy enough thanks to pictures posted here and on thumbrockets....

Not sure what to do about Norton Internet Security 2004 Antivirus Trial version which comes with S170. I own a copy that predates the current Activation versions. Should I uninstall trial version first? If my owned copy doesn't install, I'm screwed! (Don't want to have to recover the HD!).

The 80GB HD came partitioned with most of it (55GB) on D drive, and half of C was taken up by software. Just mentioning this. Am installing everything onto D drive, not C.

Will try to photograph the double battery for you as it definitely sticks out beyond the hinge. Doesn't bother me but it might not please you. No wiggle with battery (there is a lock to engage).

It's very fast and light. I love it.

Sue

S170P

 

well im glad to hear urs is better. I made the recovery cds again and the second time it worked fine. Well i geuss tats 2 copies i have now (wasted 8 cd-rs). Guess that dvd burner helped, i just got the cd-r dvd rom combo. 24x cd-rw....ewww.but not bad.
yeh the ram should be ez to install, where did u get ur ram from?
yeh there is 10 gb missing if you add up the space, that is in the hidden recovery partition. What i am going to do now that I have my recovery SETS made is swipe the whole HD and install clean winxp pro. the recovery disks and online software should be all i need, and no more sony crapt.

 

My god. Rule #1 with PC laptops: Don't even boot it up. Throw an OS intaller in there, format/partition/reinstall OS. God.

 

Serith,

That's not the best idea for everybody. If your OS is on the recovery disks then you may want to boot your machine up when you get it as you may want to make the disks that do not come in the box unless you ordered them seperatley from Sony!

Although there is a lot of useless stuff on those recovery disks, some things may be usefull like Click to DVD or DV Gate if you have a Digital Video Camera. It also saves you some time downloading all those drivers. Remember Notebooks use a lot of OEM specific Drivers and not general drivers. (E.G. ATI never used to supply drivers for mobile video cards you needed to get them from Sony which can be a pain, I don't know whether this is still the case.)

Just a suggestion.

Peanutt uses
Sony TR1MP / Sony A190 (New) / Toshiba E805 PPC / Sony Ericsson P900

 

Erm.. That's why you order your laptop with bare bones worthless software. I wish i didn't even have to buy an OS. When my Sony arrives in the mail i wont even boot into the pre-installed XP Home, I'm going to format/partition/install winxp professional from scratch. I might even create an extra partition and try and do a gentoo-linux install.

 

My coworker just got his S170. There were a LOT of hiccups to start out with, just as you others are reporting. FIrst of all, the optical drive (DVD-RW) was not reading all discs. It would just spin, and not detect a disc. But it was inconsistent...This was a pain. Eventually he called Sony Support, and they told him to disable it in Device Manager, reboot, then enable it, and it actually worked!

It also sucks that they have the 10GB of hidden space just wasted on the recovery discs. I mean, you paid for a 60GB HD, you'd expect 60GB of space, not 50GB, right? I guess you have to create the recovery discs (the program was a little buggy, though mostly because he tried using DVD+R media, which isn't supported, it's a - minus only drive) then reinstall everything to reclaim the 10GB? That doesn't seem right. What if the recovery leaves the 10GB there as a default partition?

Also, the laptop seems sluggish in general, even though it's a Pentium M 1.7GHz! Not noticeably faster than a previous P-III 1.0 GHz, which is amazing...

I think the full clean reinstall is the only solution. I'm still impressed by the hardware specs, it will probably be a screamer. But then you lose the Sony media apps (as someone mentioned), which might be useful. I wonder if you can install the programs individually from the restore discs, and not need to restore the entire system all at once.

Overall pretty disappointing. We're engineers, so we can handle all these device enabling and burning restore discs and repartitioning. But what if we were just regular customers? We'd be paying $2500 for a sluggish machine with flaky optical drive and 10GB less HD than we paid for...

 

Well, first of all, the any 60 GB HDD on the market has only about 55 GB or so real storage. It's marketing ploy everyone use. Indeed, Sony still used 5 GB (and in a hidden partition, too) to save the recovery files rather than burning CDs, but it is not a Sony unique practice either. Also, it is also more fool-proof for regular customers who are not tech savvy -- you will always have two copies of system files if you burn the recovery CDs.

Performance wise, there are plenty applications that are not CPU heavy and 1.1 GHz will definitely handle very well given the proper RAM & HDD configurations. In fact, if you pay attention on the throttling of your 1.7 GHz CPU, you will notice it will be clocked at 600 MHz most of the time to preserve battery life.

Then, there is no problem doing partial application recovery to just install what you want. Of course, you have to know what you need, and again it is easier for Sony to just install everything for the regular peoples who know nothing about computers. This is also a common practice done by any other notebook manufacturers.

 

Well, I've had my S170 for about a month, so here's my thoughts --

Pros:
- The XBrite screeen is phenomenal. I have no idea why there's people out there who wouldn't want it. I think the reflectivity concern is overdone, even in a very bright room I find it's almost never an issue.
- The keyboard's very good -- not the best I've used, but good. Good key layout as well.
- There's no superfluous keys/buttons/lights -- it's a nice clean design
- Battery life is good, haven't done extensive testing but it seems like 3h30-4h30 is probably the average (if you're not watching DVDs -- probably around 2h45 if you are)
- Doesn't appear to overheat excessively, I can use it on my lap without noticing the heat too much
- The machine looks very cool and has even impressed friends who are part of the Dell cult ("You should have saved youself $$ and bought a 600m -- wait a minute, DAMN that's a nice looking laptop!").
- I like the fact you can get DVI-out (although this does require the docking port)
- I like the widescreen -- great for DVDs. 1280x800 feels like adequate space for most purposes(and I'm someone who's used to working at 1600x1200).

Cons:
- Having to burn your own recovery disks, and the 5gb that's taken up as a recovery partition. I mean how cheap are they, it would've cost like $1 for Sony to throw a recovery DVD in there.
- The fact you have to reformat the machine to get rid of all the Sony bloatware.
- The battery is just a tad loose -- jiggles around a tiny bit (but it *is* held in place, won't fall out or anything). No big deal though.
- The fan is a tad louder than some other laptops out there, but it's not horrendously loud and in an environement where there's any other ambient noise going on, you typically don't notice it.
- Seems to me that the max volume through headphones still isn't quite as loud as I would like. Perhaps I need to do more testing with different types of headphones.
- The 4200rpm drive is sluggish and seems to be a significant performance bottleneck, and swapping in a new hard drive is a delicate procedure. This is my single biggest complaint with the system.
- The DVD-R and -RW drive only burns at 2x
- I'm worried about the plastic port covers breaking off some day. Although presumably Sony did some stress-testing on these...
- Wish there were dedicated PgUp/PgDown keys -- instead you have to hold Fn down simultaneously
- Sony overcharges for batteries and other accessories

Despite the length of my "cons" list, overall, I'm very happy with the machine. The hard-drive is the only major annoyance, and that's a fixable issue. I had considered the Dell 700m, but the battery life sucks; and the Thinkpad T42 with SXGA screen, but it's a pound heavier. Also none of these have the XBrite, and I *really* really like the Xbrite.

 

I got my S170 yesterday. Before booting it for the OutOfBoxExperience i first booted it on a CD containing Acronis True Image and created an image of C: on a file server attached to my home LAN.

I ordered the 1.7Ghz 735 CPU, and initially found that the system did seem slow, as others have reported.

Knowing that Norton software tends to be about as useful as cow dung, I completely removed the Norton Internet Frustration Suite and replaced it with the very fasty NOD32 antivirus package from Eset. I also installed Kerio Personal Firewall (free for personal use).

Now the computer is as fast as I expected it to be. The Xbrite LCD is fantastic, I've never seen a better display on any laptop.

I'm very pleased with this notebook, and highly recommend it.

http://liesofmassdeception.org
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http://steverider.org

 

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

 

I believe you are expected to buy it again for each computer. I have bought it three times now, for two XP desktops and my S170.

I think they give you a slight break on the price if you buy
5 instances.

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http://4morewars.com
http://stevesnews.org
http://steveswebhosting.com
http://steverider.org

 

The Sony VGN-S170 is a fine computer. However, heaven help you if it fails. My computer got corrupted, at the same time the DVD drive quit. It s has taken many phone calls to resolve the problem down to the DVD drive. In the mean time Sony send me the recovery disks for VGN-A170, so here I am a month later with no laptop.

Sony now told me they will send me the right disks by Wednesady.

By the way I registered this machine when I bought it. But they still cannot find the model number.

Net, I am avoiding Sony like the plague in all products henceforth. I am not a complainer. I have been a happy Panasonic,Dell and HP customer.

Sony's website is set up to frustrate the service customer at every turn. And oh by the way, I had to pay $20 twice to talk to alive agent who was no help.

Dev Purkayastha

 

Well, I've about 2 months with my Sony Vaio and, as everybody, I have my pros and cons:

Pros:
-Beautifull 13.3'' WideScreen, but, I have an issue: the screen looks very bright when you look it from the top, and the material doesn't look like other XBrite screens... I don;t know if is only my laptop, or is a general fact
-Great battery life (about 3 hours with WLAN on)
-Really nice look (with the silver body, feels solid -unlike my IBM Thinkpad T42, the plastic feels weak and easy to unassembly)
-It's light... again, 1 lb less weight than my T42
-No useless buttons (but I miss dedicated volume controls, and Contrast adjust)
-The MemoryStick slot... is great for my Sony Clie PDA
-You get what you need... and what you paid
-The mouse feels good... I hate the double mouse in Dell models, altough I was customized with my IBM "eraser"...
-Clean design, with simple, well builded borders

Cons:
-The screen is a little bright, hard to tune
-The 10GB HD space for recovery (altough I've used it when I changed something in my configuration and it never booted up again...)
-No dedicated Home/End, PgUp/PgDown keys
-No screws for VGA port
-No integrated mic
-I had some problems with my wireless configuration... sometimes it missed its IP, switching to another one completly different
-The fan sometimes is noisy
-The battery feels weak

The hidden partition... well, what I did with my HDD is to install Partition Magic and resize the partitions... even the hidden one... Sony really uses about 3.5GB for the restore software, so I resized it to 4GB, and the C drive to 25GB, so I can install a lot of software... I hope when I use (again) the recovery wizard, it doesn't have problems with this re-allocation...

This laptop, with my Walkman NW-HD3, were one of the best buys I've made... ah, and by the way, I didn't have problems creating the recovery discs, but I rather Sony allows me to choise to build it in a DVD, instead of 7 CDs...

s

 

3 months after my last review of my Vaio S170... well, the problems with the wireless configuration solved with a patch, downloaded from the Microsoft website. The battery still has a good life: I can see a whole 2.5hr DVD and still have battery to work for a while, with the WLAN ON. I tried to use the Sony restore utility, to see what happened when I resized the hidden partition, and I didn't have problems.... but, the fan is still noisy. Now, my desktop PC is dusty because now I work all the time in my Vaio: is fast, reliable, comftable, light and looks really good