Sony VAIO VGN-SZ120P/B 13" Laptop Review
Sony VAIO VGN-SZ120P/B 13" Laptop Review from doubleagent. Solid High-End Machine, I was on the line between choosing a Sony vaio sz120 and sz160. I’m glad I went with the 120. The main differences between the two are the material they are made from — fibre carbon for the 160 and magnesium alloy for the 120 (ignore the fact that they describe the 120 as black carbon — this refers to the color only), the weight — the 160 is about a half pound lighter due to the fiber carbon, and the screen quality. The last thing made me hesitate, as the 160 screen is both thinner, and brighter than the 120s. But the 120 is still pretty darn nice, and for the price difference, it wasn’t worth it to me to go with the 160.
Of cosmetic note — the 160 model has a smooth black exterior, and the word vaio is in black. The 120 has a rough black surface, and the word vaio is in silver. I prefer the rough surface myself, as it is both less prone to scratches and fingerprint smudges.
The machine itself seems fairly solid. The battery is slightly loose, but not too bad. The built in dvd dual layer burner is a very nice new feature for someone whose last laptop didn’t even have an internal drive. I was hesitant about the fingerprint reader at first, wondering about whether it was really necessary, what happened if it failed to read your fingerprint properly, etc — but I am surprisingly taken with the feature. Specifically, the ability to use it to do fast switches between two users on the same system. You can scan multiple fingers, and if you simply can’t get it to respond, you fall back to your typed-password.
The webcam, on the other hand, is a waste of space and power. It’s incredibly poor quality, and because it’s a usb powered camera, it runs afoul of the duo core usb-bug issue that causes your battery to drain faster than it should. Here’s hoping they patch that soon.
A heads up on the battery life — although Sony has scaled back from it’s original, preposterous claims of six hour battery life, it’s still overestating by a long shot. In speed mode, you’ll get somewhere over two hours. In stamina, just over three.
You’ll hear Sony taking a lot of grief over the keyboard on this model, and at first, I was also taken aback. I’m used to a keyboard where the keys are raised, and narrow towards the top. The keyboard on this model is almost entirely flat, and as a result the keys take up the entire space allotted to them, and are much larger than what I was used to. People have called these keys “plasticky” and “cheap” feeling, but honestly, I think it’s the size that’s shocking at first, and people may just be taken aback by the new style. As someone with fairly small hands, it took me about a week to ten days to adjust to the new feel. Now I’m fine with it. For someone with larger fingers, this might actually be an advantage.
My 100 gig drive shows only about 87 gigs. I’m told a good chunk has been set away in a hidden system recovery area. The machine also come pre-loaded to crap they were trying to sell you on. (AOL, Anti-spyware software), etc. I spent the first day or so just cleaning off the clutter.
The wireless seems strong, I haven’t tried the bluetooth out yet, and physically, the machine is simply lovely. If you’re using stamina mode, and the screen seems to dark at first, use Function+F6 to brighten things up, as going into the display management system just resulted in an overbright, washed out screen.
This may sound like a lot of critical material, but I don’t regret buying the machine, and think it will serve me well, hopefully for as long as my last vaio did.
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