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Sony VGN-TXN15P/B

75

Good
  • Pros
  • Weighs 3 pounds with DVD drive
  • Outstanding battery life
  • Cons
  • Crawling performance
  • Optical-drive eject button is too small

User Reviews for Sony VGN-TXN15P/B

  • Reviewed by: braindonor23

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: size/weight, connectivity, biometric security, battery life, screen quality

    Weaknesses: the price is kinda steep, but I found it worth it. No integrated webcam like most vaios.

    Overall Evaluation: This one is a winner. If portability is a must for you, look no further. the TX series is very small and light and not lacking any of the features of a larger notebook or even a desktop. In addition to the Wireless LAN, it also has bluetooth, and wireless WAN built in. also features fingerprint recognition and memory card readers, also built in. The battery life is phenominal, I've owned a handful of laptops in the past, and I was very impressed by how much time I got out of a charge with this one. The size is definitely the biggest selling point, I take it everywhere, and it doesn't dissapoint

  • Reviewed by: jwang5939

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: sleek design, mobile, ultralight, battery life

    Weaknesses: UPC speed, small keyboard (maybe)

    Overall Evaluation: I was impressed by its ultralight weight and sleek design. After I played with it for a while, I really like its bright and crystal clear LCD. Although the words look small on it, but I can still read them comfortably. Its UPC is pretty fast for normal web-surfing, but you may need faster UPC for data mining and gaming. Its keyboard is too small to me, but should be ok to girls. Overall, I give it 4.5 star rating.

  • Reviewed by: sononkyo

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Refined design; LED screen pops out text; meticulous focus on aesthetics and correlating form with function

    Weaknesses: Core Solo not a huge jump over Pentium M, 1.5GB MAX ram, keyboard hump, fan goes on all the time, feels fragile (but is not)

    Overall Evaluation: Thin and light is one of the most marketable buzz words when you label that on a laptop. The fallacy is, most laptops that get slapped with that label are anything but light and certainly not thin. With this machine by Sony, not only do the labels stick, but also along with a whole cachet of positive euphemisms. While there are some subjective design choices that mar perfection, this laptop delivers an uncompromising performance when used as intended for endurance and office apps.There two things that jump out at you when looking at any laptop, the quality of the keyboard and the screen. The screen doesn't disappoint. LED screens have been perfected by Sony now for 1.5 years and coupled with their X-brite technology, the screen can create a depth behind 2D text because it is so sharp and bright. The carbon fiber material also helps bring a high class finish to the construction, begging you to touch it or at least, run your fingers over it to marvel at this hybrid alloy material. When you begin to use their machine for a long time, the button placements down to the reinforced spindle for the notebook hinge just appreciates in function over time. You will understand why each button was placed there.The weaknesses of the machine do not compromise the overall function but they do merit mentioning because it is obvious. The Core solo processor, while picked because of its less than 5W power, chokes when pushed. It can be alleviated to an extent when you expand the RAM to the limit, but there is no reservoir of power by that CPU. You don't need to run complex programs like graphical games to see the shortcomings of the CPU, just run a heavy flash ad and you can see a freeze of the system. Speaking of RAM, the limitation is less than 2GB, while XP Pro operates at a sweet spot of 1GB, if you decide to upgrade to Vista, you are going to be pushed. The keyboard also has some humps that raise the keyboard which can possibly scratch the screen and there is a feeling of fragility--not enough to make you want to baby it, but enough that you just cant throw in a backpack or messenger bag along with a heavy textbook or a 500 page brief.The upcoming TZ series hopefully will correct the deficiencies that the TX series didn't get to. All said, the TX series certainly raised the benchmark what a thin and light notebook should strive to be. Recommend!

  • Reviewed by: Aloeman

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Size, weight, portability - Loaded

    Weaknesses: External Antenna, Core Solo, price

    Overall Evaluation: I have been using this laptop a little over a month now and I am amazed by it. It is so light and portable. I carry it around in a portable DVD player case, and I still have room to spare. The laptop is solid except for the little external antenna, but I have not had any problems with it so far. I just took it on a trip and watched 2 movies back to back and still had over 2 hours of battery left. The key are a little small, but not too unconfortable. I would compare them to my wife's Dell 700m. The fingerprint reader seems to work well, and the wireless features work very well. This notebook can connect anywhere on the Sprint network, with the integrated modem. I love this machine! I hope other manufacturers take note that the ultraportable market needs more computers like this one, and start coming out with many models.

  • Reviewed by: atomicworld

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: super great battery life - suprisingly great keyboard / comfortable

    Weaknesses: processor is single core, and not that powerful for heavy duty stuff

    Overall Evaluation: the tx series is the best for a super great battery life!and super mobility, the wifi is pretty strong too,this my my 2nd TX series notebook, and old one i gave to a relative, and got the updated one with the fingerprint sensor - and supposingly longer battery life, but i have yet my reservations on whether on not the battery life has improved over the previous tx-650p model... other than that, this is the best notebook out there for mobility, you can carry it with you no problem, and you can work on it no problem! the screen and keyboard are compact but very comfortable once you get used to the portable size-ness of the machine. overall, the battery life is the reason why you want this notebook, and the screen is super bright as welli love the TX!

What You Should Know about the VGN-TXN15P/B

Not Much RAM for Multitasking

The more RAM your laptop has, the faster programs will run and the greater number of windows you can work in at one time. If your needs are simple and you rarely do more than two things at once on your PC, the relatively modest amount of memory that comes installed in inexpensive laptops will be enough. Today the standard amount of RAM shipped in most PCs is 2GB. If you like to multitask--say, you want to launch a search for a file and start backing up data to a disc while you watch a news video--you need more memory.

Read More »

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