Craig's Review of the Sony VGN-S360 Sub-Notebook

Introduction:

This is a review of the Sony VGN-S360 sub-notebook computer. In this review I will cover a myriad of applications and benchmarks used by the PC industry as standards of testing and benchmarking for the enthusiast or gamer as well as the business minded individual.

Let me start off by saying that this machine is small!! It is not for someone looking for a desktop replacement! The screen is amazingly accurate and as definitive as they come, but it is only 13.1" diagonal and will not take the place of the 15.4" widescreen you may already be used to on a different model or brand of PC.

If gaming and DVD playback in a dorm room or any other place where the machine may stay plugged in and setup in the place of a small TV and entertainment system is what you're looking for, this is not the machine for you.

But if you're looking to be mobile (in the truest sense of the word!) and still have connectivity for the internet, a great screen for DVD playback and a sweet video processor for the coffee house fragfest that always seems to break out when you actually sat down to work on something productive read on!

The Meat and Potatoes:

As an seasoned sales professional that was raised in the 80's (ya, I had parachute pants!) I have quite an affinity for playing computer games when I am blessed with the free time. Given that I travel three out of four weeks every month for business, I have been looking for a notebook that would be light as well as powerful enough to play at least the second generation of current games such as Call of Duty, Rise of Nations, Counter-Strike, Quake3, ect.

I am required to travel with a Compaq Armada 700 that is provided by my employer as it has proprietary software installed that is essential for me to be in contact with the home office for a number of reasons. This means I have to carry two computers and two power bricks...not good! My first PC for this was the Alienware Area51m. The Area51m is an amazing machine to say the least! Mine was a bit older than the current models but had very much the same specifications as far as size and weight are concerned.

What I loved about the Area51m was that I could play any game I wanted on a huge 16.1" UXGA screen wherever my travels happened to take me. And take me they did and still do! A lot!

What I did not love about the Area51m was the size of the powerbrick and the combined weight of carrying it along with my Compaq in the same double notebook bag. We're talking at least 20lbs of technology between the notebooks, power bricks and essential peripherals. Again, not good.

So I decided that, for me, the best solution would be a Sub-Notebook computer that could fit snugly along side my Compaq that could act as a nice DVD viewer, web surfer and light gaming-on-the-road rig.

I looked high and low. I looked at all of the Boutiqe builders from Falcon-NW to Alienware to Voodoo to Velocity Micro and found nothing that would fit the bill for what I was looking for.

Then I stumbled upon the Sony VGN-S360 at a Best Buy while picking up some printer ink (ok, ok...and looking at the latest games ). This little computer was exactly what I'd been looking for in that it was small, had excellent battery life, an amazing XBrite Screen and quite a powerful graphics processor unit in the 64Meg ATi 9700Mobility.

Needless to say...I was floored that the unit I'd been hoping for was not released by one of my long time beloved Boutique retailers, but from a tried and true technology mammoth such as Sony.

So here I am, sitting at my desk writing this review as the S360 runs a few benchmarks over to my left shoulder. I'm amazed at the clarity of this screen when playing games or running aforementioned benchmark programs. There is absolutely zero ghosting on this screen and not a hint of lag to be found when playing UT2004 or CSS at the native screen resolution of 1280x800 with all detail settings at medium. So on with it I'll go...

A Few Pics For Size Comparison:

These are just two pictures that will give you an idea of the size of the S360 in comparison to a few everyday objects and other pieces of technology the average business professional is lugging around.


Synthetic and Gaming Benchmarks/Pics:
*It should be noted that all tests were run with stock hardware settings after installing Norton System Works, Spy Bot Search & Destroy, SpyWare Blaster, Adaware SE, the entire Office 2003 Suite and Trillian as well as the HP 5000 Series All-In-One printer drivers. Norton Virus protection and System Works were enabled as were all spyware related programs during testing. Latest version of Omega's drivers installed (ver 2605a). Video card settings were the factory default of 391Mhz GPU and 210Mhz RAM.

I can't begin to tell you how fun it was play testing games on this machine! I loaded up various games, using both new and aging engine technologies, and was not ONCE disappointed with the gameplay/image quality! Take a look at some benchmarks and draw your own conclusions...


Business Applications/Web Surfing Synopsis:

As a business minded professional it was of the utmost importance that this computer excel at all Microsoft business applications such as the entire Office Suite including Publisher, MapPoint and Powerpoint. This computer crunches all of these programs as quickly as my AMD FX-55 powered desktop system.

The wide screen LCD display is quite nice when viewing Excel spreadsheets as you are able to see much of the horizontal data without needing to crop or resize columns. Conversly, you are not able to see as much vertically and may find yourself scolling up and down a bit more than you are used to with a 4:3 aspect screen as opposed to the 16:10 aspect on the S360.

Working in PhotoShop CS is an absolute thrill as the XBrite monitor really gets a chance to show you how accurate it is in its portrail of real life scans and photos. The wide screen and fine resolution gives you plenty of a palate to work with and leaves you wondering why the hams Sony has not made us a 24" LCD with XBrite yet!

Web surfing could not be nicer. This laptop found full signal in locations my Armada couldn't even manage to squeak out one bar of connectivity. The included internal Intel wifi card has excellent range to say the very least and the Sony drivers are excellently designed.

Sitting in a hotel bed or couch with the S360 in your lap is about the same as holding a medium sized hard covered novel. You know it's there but you're enjoying the experience of having it there more than the nuisance of knowing it's there.

The computer never got overly warm to my lap or otherwise felt like it was going into "Chestnut Roasting" mode. I think all of the gentleman in the room know what I'm talking about

DVD playback was nothing short of amazing given the excellent image quality of the XBrite screen. I cannot say enough about the LCD. You just have to see one upclose for yourself.

The keyboard is, obviously due to the size of the notebook, a bit smaller than your standard set of keys. I have rather large hands and can say that after about 30 minutes of typing I felt right at home on the S360. There is absolutely zero "sponge factor" or "give" in the keyboard as you type. The keys feel solid and even have that special little sound to them that says mmmmmmm

In Closing:

In all, I'm very pleased with the business capabilities of this computer as I know it can handle large PPT files as well as accurately and comfortably display larger-than-we'd-like-to-have-but-the-company-keeps-creating Excel files.

Whether you need to pull the S360 out to open Outlook for that contact's phone number or to edit the latest TPS reports in Adobe Acrobat, this little monster will handle anything Mr. Gates and company throw at you with most definite ease.

By now, you can get a sense of the practicality of this Sub-Notebook for the business traveler looking for a nice solution for that StarBucks hot spot stop to check his Corp email or the quick Powepoint reference during that important sales meeting...but...what kind of GenX'er would I be if I didn't close with the entertainment value of this beauty!

I had no idea when I laid down the bread for this PC of the gaming potential it had inside. Coming from a desktop outfitted with an AMD FX-55 64bit processor and an Nvidia BFG6800Ultra video card, I had very little hopes of an even somewhat respectable outing by the S360 in this regard. MAN was I wrong!

If you're looking to play Mr Professional during the day and Mr Hitman during the night and all the while be able to run for over five hours on a single battery charge AND fit the little devil in your briefcase with plenty of room to spare...look no further than the Sony VGN-S360. You will not be let down!

-Craig

PS
Please feel free to PM me or post here with any questions you may have. There are very limited review materials about this Sub-notebook online and I'd like to make sure I covered everything a potential buyer is looking for.

no prob...anything for the community!

I had to resize the pic of the Stress Test so it wasn't 1.2megs. It ran in native 1280x800 for the test

I'll try Doom3 this weekend. I don't own Halo sorry

Yes...the fan noise is noticeably louder than most small laptops...BUT...that's the trade off of having a workhorse such as the ATi9700m chip in this puppy.

I'm willing to deal with it but I can see how some people may be annoyed with it if they're used to integrated graphics in their IBM's and Dell's.

The hard drive replacement is a major job...see here: http://www.talkvaio.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=8

The machine has two RAM slots. The S360 comes with one stick of 512

Updated with 3Dmark01SE Score and Pic link

I'm an avid gamer on the S360 so I'm going to try some loading and testing under intensive 3D games. Thanks for the heads up on how to change the fan speed

wow...I just noticed 5k posts...I need a life

Sub-Notebook is an industry term for the smaller notebooks...it seems they're either getting bigger (I hear there is a 19" LCD for a laptop coming!) or smaller these days, not optimizing the normal 15" designs.