Review – A397xp
Well where do I start with this laptop, after using 10 laptops in the last 7 years its taken me along time to be impressed.
I have owned:-
2 IBM Thinkpads, cant remember the spec. Work laptops
P2 Gericom 700mhz – Terrible, battery life was abysmal, support was awful. Took back
P3 Higrade 850mhz – Great higrade laptop, lasted 18 months. Sold
P4 Advert 2000mhz – Big, Heavy and faulty within 2 months. Sold
Dell Inspiron 8200 – 2.2 ghz p4m – Speedstep issues, the laptop would never run at full speed on battery. Ended up talking to advanced support who agreed that there was a design flaw with the model. Agreed to a full refund. Awful experience with dells support.
Toshiba 5200-801 – 2ghz p4m – Up until now my favourite laptop, fantastic screen (wuxga), nice lcd touchpad (why don’t they make them anymore), dvd writer. Had problems after about 9 months and ended up going into repair almost every other month. Eventually had lcd replaced, came back with a grainy sandy effect screen. Got fed up with it and was sold
Acer Travelmate 804lci – Centrino 1.7 1mb cache – Against all advice I went for this laptop. Infact its turned out to be a very good laptop. Only problem I ever had with it was that after the Toshiba resolution 1600x1200 I found it hard to go for a wgxa+ 1400x1050 resolution. It is fast, but I decided I wanted new technology and a wuxga screen. Enter dell again. You can find my acer on ebay. It ends on Tuesday.
Dell Inspiron 9200 – Centrino 2 2mb cache – Everything about this laptop rocks apart from one major major issue, the screen. What an awful sandy grainy effect it has. It is a lease laptop and will be used by my new employee. But why ruin the model with providing a screen fit for one of those cheap laptop makers, such as advent. The other thing is why after 3 months did dell decide to kill the model and change it to an Inspiron 9300. From my understanding the problems continue. The xps2 and the 9300 have been provided with screens which are substandard. Dell seems to have issues after issues.
Onto reviewing the uk mode of the a397xp.
I have always liked the look of the vaio range, always had issues over the specs up until now. Like a 16mb graphics card in previous models. I am happy to see that they have finally put a decent (not brilliant) graphics card. Similar specs to the 9700 mobility ati card I believe.
First impressions
After trying to find this model on the web, Everywhere had sold out. Finally found a place in Tottenham court road that sold one. It was expensive at £1700
Out of the box. There was the vaio. It looked as good as all the photos I had seen. Next to the 9200 it seems smaller.
I opened the packaging, no support disks provided. From reading on the forums you have to create them yourself. Bit of a nightmare as I like a nice clean install, with none of the software provided installed.
Wireless Mouse
Then there was a nice surprise waiting for me. A wireless mouse. I was expecting to have to use one of the 3 supplied usb ports. Its built it, you press the connect button on the underside of the laptop. Then you press the vaio connect button (making sure its on). You’re done. Very very cool.
Screen
So I plugged it in, turned it on. Nice little vaio logo came up. Then after a few minutes of going through the startup wizard I was greeted with absolute shock. The screen, it really is everything that has been mentioned on all the forums. It’s a work of beauty. Brilliant absolutely brilliant.
1920 x 1200 is perfect for me. The screen has a glossy effect. The colours are just excellent and with the dual lamp system. Its so bright, clear and sharp. The screen makes up for any potential flaws in the product.
With being next to the 9200 screen it makes the 9200 screen look so poor. In fact I am gonna complain to dell about it. Next to my Phillips monitor (which up until now looked brilliant). Now the Phillips crt looks average.
Problem is now I can never go back to any other lesser screen.
It also has an auto luminance sensor which adjusts the brightness to the lighting in the room. Very cool. Also has a magnify button, great for those presentations.
Sound
The sound wasn’t as good as the dell 9200. All down to a lack of subwoofer, better stereo sound though. It uses intels high definition audio technology. Volume seems less than the i9200 but still loud enough.
Went to pcworld and bought an external subwoofer (saitek). It is powered by usb. Now the sound has a better overall sound than the i9200.
Build
After playing around with the build, I created the back up disks and set off with my own vanilla build. Some of the software provided was nice, infact I decided to use some of it in my own vanilla build. Wrong, was unable to install the free software, which was a shame because you had adobe premiere standard and adobe acrobat elements. I know that some of you are thinking why don’t you just download them off the web, loads of p2p software out there. Unfortunately I can’t do that. This laptop is owned by my company and everything has to stay legal.
I decided to go back to the sony build. It is actually a great build and you can partition the drives yourself. You can remove the provided sony partition (which has the drivers and backup build on it). Very good software provided. See specs at the end.
Keyboard
Better than the 9200 keyboard, sits forward more and just feels better. Keys are in a convenient place.
Best I have seen in a laptop.
Other thing is that on the i9200 the screen wobbles slighty as you type. With the vaio I don’t have that issue.
Speed/Memory
The laptop is fast, however, you can tell that its only got 512mb ram installed. I will be upgrading to 2gig. Found somewhere that can do it for £260.
Anyway it takes ddr2 533mhz ram, although sony has provided only 400mhz speed 512mb ram. That will be ebayed later.
Expansion seems simple enough. You have to take the keyboard off, seems easy enough. 2 screws at the back and just clicking the 3 tabs at the bottom of the keyboard.
There is an expansion compartment at the base of the laptop which can be accessed via 1 screw.
The 2ghz processor is only 1 short of the highest available processor for the chipset (2.13ghz is available). Sony did well there, should have done better with the memory. Especially for the price. Never mind my company can pay for my upgrade.
Apparently the processor can be upgraded at a later date, that could be fun!.
Graphics
Provided with a 128mb x600 pci express card. From the gaming I have done, Far cry, unreal and pro evo 4 it all seems smooth. The lack of ram in the whole unit seems to have an ever so slight jittery effect. I am 100% confident that with at least 1gig ram installed this will disappear.
The card for me its perfect. For hard core gamers, this will be a negative.
It does seem quicker than the 9700 mobility card in the inspiron 9200. I am sure that the 6800 ultra will make it look poor. For professional users its perfect.
Hard drive
Its provided with a 80gig 5400rpm SATA drive. Seems very quick, as quick if not quicker than the 7200rpm Hitachi drive in the i9200 (dell inspiron 9200).
No complaints here.
Battery
Havent really fully tested the battery life, seems to be equivalent of the i9200. I imagine that the screen will take a hit on the battery. That beauty must use a lot of power.
Dvd Drive
The same model as the i9200 has. Although seems generally faster and more responsive in the vaio. It’s a sony double layer +- drive.
Ports and switches
3 usb ports, firewire. Microphone, headphone, av out (composite), monitor, 1 gig networking (something which is only matched in the dell inspiron xps2)
Above the keyboard you have mute, volume down, volume up, brightness adjustment, magnify, s1 (which is a programmable button), power switch.
To the front of the laptop (underneath the touchpad). Memory stick input, wireless off/on switch, wireless light.
To the left of the laptop you have microphone, headphone, firewire, usb and pcmcia inputs.
Conclusion
It really is a magical laptop, expensive but in my opinion the screen is probably worth the price alone.
Will be taking the offered additional warranty, onsite for businesses. A must I feel.
I am so so impressed. If you can afford one, buy it now.
Specs
CPU
• Bus Speed533 MHz
• Clock Speed2000 MHz
• CPU BrandIntel
• CPU Model Number760
• CPU TypeIntel Pentium M Centrino
• L2 Cache2048 kB
RAM
• RAM Form FactorSoDIMM 200-pin
• RAM Size (installed)512 MB 400mhz
• RAM Size (maximum)2024 MB 533mhz
• RAM Slots (free)1
• RAM Slots (total)2
• RAM Speed533 MHz
• RAM TypeDDR2 SDRAM
System
• Chipset BrandIntel
• Chipset ModelIntel 915GM Express
• PCI Express 16xYes
• Serial ATA (150MB/s)Yes
Storage
• Floppy DriveNo
• Hard Drive Size80 GB
• Hard Drive Speed5400 rpm SATA
Optical Drives
• CD Read Speed24
• CD ReWrite Speed24
• CD Write Speed24
• Drive LocationInternal
• Drive RemovableNo
• Drive TypeDVDRW± Dual Layer
• DVD Read Speed8
• DVD- ReWrite Speed4
• DVD- Write Speed8
• DVD+ ReWrite Speed4
• DVD+ Write Speed8
• DVD-Dual Layer Write Speed2.4
Video
• Graphics ChipsetATI Mobility Radeon X600 PCI-E
• Graphics Memory Size128 MB
• Graphics Memory TypeDedicated
Display
• Screen CharacteristicsX-Black
• Screen FormWidescreen
• Screen Resolution1920 x 1200 pixels
• Screen Size17.0 "
Software
• Operating SystemWindows XP Professional Edition
• Software BundleVaio - Adobe Premiere, Microsoft Works, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Photoshop Album SE, Adobe Acrobat Elements, WinDVD for VAIO, Sony Click to DVD, Sony SonicStage Mastering Studio, Sony PictureGe
• Software ExtrasVaio Drivers + Utilities, Sony SonicStage, MoodLogic, VAIO Media, Sony DVgate Plus, Adobe Acrobat Professional, Sony Hotkey Utility, Memory Stick Formatter, VAIO Edit Components, Sony Notebook Setup,
Devices
• Built In MicrophoneNo
• KeyboardStandard
• Pointing DeviceMouse Touch Pad
Input/Output
• Docking / Port ReplicatorYes
• DVI OutNo
• FireWire IEEE 1394Yes - 4 Pin
• InfraredNo
• Line In / Microphone SocketYes
• Line In SocketNo
• Line Out / Headphone SocketYes
• Parallel PortNo
• PS/2 PortNo
• SPDIF InNo
• SPDIF OutNo
• S-Video InNo
• S-Video OutNo
• USB Ports3
• USB Type2.0
• VGA OutYes
Multimedia
• Sound Card TypeIntel High Definition Audio
• Speaker Setup2 Speakers
• TV TunerNo
Communications
• 56k V92 Data/Fax ModemYes
• BluetoothYes
• Ethernet ControllerGigabit 10/100/1000 Mbps
• Wireless Networking802.11b/g
Power
• Batteries Installable1
• Battery Life2 hours
• Battery TypeLithium Ion
Dimensions
• Depth280 mm
• Height45 mm
• Weight3.9 kg
• Width405 mm
Cards / Expansion
• PCMCIA Slots1 x Type II
Card Reader
• Card Reader3 in 1
• Memory StickYes
• Memory Stick DuoYes
• Memory Stick ProYes
Security
• Kensington Security LockYes
Warranty
• Warranty Length1 Year
Well where do I start with this laptop, after using 10 laptops in the last 7 years its taken me along time to be impressed.
I have owned:-
2 IBM Thinkpads, cant remember the spec. Work laptops
P2 Gericom 700mhz – Terrible, battery life was abysmal, support was awful. Took back
P3 Higrade 850mhz – Great higrade laptop, lasted 18 months. Sold
P4 Advert 2000mhz – Big, Heavy and faulty within 2 months. Sold
Dell Inspiron 8200 – 2.2 ghz p4m – Speedstep issues, the laptop would never run at full speed on battery. Ended up talking to advanced support who agreed that there was a design flaw with the model. Agreed to a full refund. Awful experience with dells support.
Toshiba 5200-801 – 2ghz p4m – Up until now my favourite laptop, fantastic screen (wuxga), nice lcd touchpad (why don’t they make them anymore), dvd writer. Had problems after about 9 months and ended up going into repair almost every other month. Eventually had lcd replaced, came back with a grainy sandy effect screen. Got fed up with it and was sold
Acer Travelmate 804lci – Centrino 1.7 1mb cache – Against all advice I went for this laptop. Infact its turned out to be a very good laptop. Only problem I ever had with it was that after the Toshiba resolution 1600x1200 I found it hard to go for a wgxa+ 1400x1050 resolution. It is fast, but I decided I wanted new technology and a wuxga screen. Enter dell again. You can find my acer on ebay. It ends on Tuesday.
Dell Inspiron 9200 – Centrino 2 2mb cache – Everything about this laptop rocks apart from one major major issue, the screen. What an awful sandy grainy effect it has. It is a lease laptop and will be used by my new employee. But why ruin the model with providing a screen fit for one of those cheap laptop makers, such as advent. The other thing is why after 3 months did dell decide to kill the model and change it to an Inspiron 9300. From my understanding the problems continue. The xps2 and the 9300 have been provided with screens which are substandard. Dell seems to have issues after issues.
Onto reviewing the uk mode of the a397xp.
I have always liked the look of the vaio range, always had issues over the specs up until now. Like a 16mb graphics card in previous models. I am happy to see that they have finally put a decent (not brilliant) graphics card. Similar specs to the 9700 mobility ati card I believe.
First impressions
After trying to find this model on the web, Everywhere had sold out. Finally found a place in Tottenham court road that sold one. It was expensive at £1700
Out of the box. There was the vaio. It looked as good as all the photos I had seen. Next to the 9200 it seems smaller.
I opened the packaging, no support disks provided. From reading on the forums you have to create them yourself. Bit of a nightmare as I like a nice clean install, with none of the software provided installed.
Wireless Mouse
Then there was a nice surprise waiting for me. A wireless mouse. I was expecting to have to use one of the 3 supplied usb ports. Its built it, you press the connect button on the underside of the laptop. Then you press the vaio connect button (making sure its on). You’re done. Very very cool.
Screen
So I plugged it in, turned it on. Nice little vaio logo came up. Then after a few minutes of going through the startup wizard I was greeted with absolute shock. The screen, it really is everything that has been mentioned on all the forums. It’s a work of beauty. Brilliant absolutely brilliant.
1920 x 1200 is perfect for me. The screen has a glossy effect. The colours are just excellent and with the dual lamp system. Its so bright, clear and sharp. The screen makes up for any potential flaws in the product.
With being next to the 9200 screen it makes the 9200 screen look so poor. In fact I am gonna complain to dell about it. Next to my Phillips monitor (which up until now looked brilliant). Now the Phillips crt looks average.
Problem is now I can never go back to any other lesser screen.
It also has an auto luminance sensor which adjusts the brightness to the lighting in the room. Very cool. Also has a magnify button, great for those presentations.
Sound
The sound wasn’t as good as the dell 9200. All down to a lack of subwoofer, better stereo sound though. It uses intels high definition audio technology. Volume seems less than the i9200 but still loud enough.
Went to pcworld and bought an external subwoofer (saitek). It is powered by usb. Now the sound has a better overall sound than the i9200.
Build
After playing around with the build, I created the back up disks and set off with my own vanilla build. Some of the software provided was nice, infact I decided to use some of it in my own vanilla build. Wrong, was unable to install the free software, which was a shame because you had adobe premiere standard and adobe acrobat elements. I know that some of you are thinking why don’t you just download them off the web, loads of p2p software out there. Unfortunately I can’t do that. This laptop is owned by my company and everything has to stay legal.
I decided to go back to the sony build. It is actually a great build and you can partition the drives yourself. You can remove the provided sony partition (which has the drivers and backup build on it). Very good software provided. See specs at the end.
Keyboard
Better than the 9200 keyboard, sits forward more and just feels better. Keys are in a convenient place.
Best I have seen in a laptop.
Other thing is that on the i9200 the screen wobbles slighty as you type. With the vaio I don’t have that issue.
Speed/Memory
The laptop is fast, however, you can tell that its only got 512mb ram installed. I will be upgrading to 2gig. Found somewhere that can do it for £260.
Anyway it takes ddr2 533mhz ram, although sony has provided only 400mhz speed 512mb ram. That will be ebayed later.
Expansion seems simple enough. You have to take the keyboard off, seems easy enough. 2 screws at the back and just clicking the 3 tabs at the bottom of the keyboard.
There is an expansion compartment at the base of the laptop which can be accessed via 1 screw.
The 2ghz processor is only 1 short of the highest available processor for the chipset (2.13ghz is available). Sony did well there, should have done better with the memory. Especially for the price. Never mind my company can pay for my upgrade.
Apparently the processor can be upgraded at a later date, that could be fun!.
Graphics
Provided with a 128mb x600 pci express card. From the gaming I have done, Far cry, unreal and pro evo 4 it all seems smooth. The lack of ram in the whole unit seems to have an ever so slight jittery effect. I am 100% confident that with at least 1gig ram installed this will disappear.
The card for me its perfect. For hard core gamers, this will be a negative.
It does seem quicker than the 9700 mobility card in the inspiron 9200. I am sure that the 6800 ultra will make it look poor. For professional users its perfect.
Hard drive
Its provided with a 80gig 5400rpm SATA drive. Seems very quick, as quick if not quicker than the 7200rpm Hitachi drive in the i9200 (dell inspiron 9200).
No complaints here.
Battery
Havent really fully tested the battery life, seems to be equivalent of the i9200. I imagine that the screen will take a hit on the battery. That beauty must use a lot of power.
Dvd Drive
The same model as the i9200 has. Although seems generally faster and more responsive in the vaio. It’s a sony double layer +- drive.
Ports and switches
3 usb ports, firewire. Microphone, headphone, av out (composite), monitor, 1 gig networking (something which is only matched in the dell inspiron xps2)
Above the keyboard you have mute, volume down, volume up, brightness adjustment, magnify, s1 (which is a programmable button), power switch.
To the front of the laptop (underneath the touchpad). Memory stick input, wireless off/on switch, wireless light.
To the left of the laptop you have microphone, headphone, firewire, usb and pcmcia inputs.
Conclusion
It really is a magical laptop, expensive but in my opinion the screen is probably worth the price alone.
Will be taking the offered additional warranty, onsite for businesses. A must I feel.
I am so so impressed. If you can afford one, buy it now.
Specs
CPU
• Bus Speed533 MHz
• Clock Speed2000 MHz
• CPU BrandIntel
• CPU Model Number760
• CPU TypeIntel Pentium M Centrino
• L2 Cache2048 kB
RAM
• RAM Form FactorSoDIMM 200-pin
• RAM Size (installed)512 MB 400mhz
• RAM Size (maximum)2024 MB 533mhz
• RAM Slots (free)1
• RAM Slots (total)2
• RAM Speed533 MHz
• RAM TypeDDR2 SDRAM
System
• Chipset BrandIntel
• Chipset ModelIntel 915GM Express
• PCI Express 16xYes
• Serial ATA (150MB/s)Yes
Storage
• Floppy DriveNo
• Hard Drive Size80 GB
• Hard Drive Speed5400 rpm SATA
Optical Drives
• CD Read Speed24
• CD ReWrite Speed24
• CD Write Speed24
• Drive LocationInternal
• Drive RemovableNo
• Drive TypeDVDRW± Dual Layer
• DVD Read Speed8
• DVD- ReWrite Speed4
• DVD- Write Speed8
• DVD+ ReWrite Speed4
• DVD+ Write Speed8
• DVD-Dual Layer Write Speed2.4
Video
• Graphics ChipsetATI Mobility Radeon X600 PCI-E
• Graphics Memory Size128 MB
• Graphics Memory TypeDedicated
Display
• Screen CharacteristicsX-Black
• Screen FormWidescreen
• Screen Resolution1920 x 1200 pixels
• Screen Size17.0 "
Software
• Operating SystemWindows XP Professional Edition
• Software BundleVaio - Adobe Premiere, Microsoft Works, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Photoshop Album SE, Adobe Acrobat Elements, WinDVD for VAIO, Sony Click to DVD, Sony SonicStage Mastering Studio, Sony PictureGe
• Software ExtrasVaio Drivers + Utilities, Sony SonicStage, MoodLogic, VAIO Media, Sony DVgate Plus, Adobe Acrobat Professional, Sony Hotkey Utility, Memory Stick Formatter, VAIO Edit Components, Sony Notebook Setup,
Devices
• Built In MicrophoneNo
• KeyboardStandard
• Pointing DeviceMouse Touch Pad
Input/Output
• Docking / Port ReplicatorYes
• DVI OutNo
• FireWire IEEE 1394Yes - 4 Pin
• InfraredNo
• Line In / Microphone SocketYes
• Line In SocketNo
• Line Out / Headphone SocketYes
• Parallel PortNo
• PS/2 PortNo
• SPDIF InNo
• SPDIF OutNo
• S-Video InNo
• S-Video OutNo
• USB Ports3
• USB Type2.0
• VGA OutYes
Multimedia
• Sound Card TypeIntel High Definition Audio
• Speaker Setup2 Speakers
• TV TunerNo
Communications
• 56k V92 Data/Fax ModemYes
• BluetoothYes
• Ethernet ControllerGigabit 10/100/1000 Mbps
• Wireless Networking802.11b/g
Power
• Batteries Installable1
• Battery Life2 hours
• Battery TypeLithium Ion
Dimensions
• Depth280 mm
• Height45 mm
• Weight3.9 kg
• Width405 mm
Cards / Expansion
• PCMCIA Slots1 x Type II
Card Reader
• Card Reader3 in 1
• Memory StickYes
• Memory Stick DuoYes
• Memory Stick ProYes
Security
• Kensington Security LockYes
Warranty
• Warranty Length1 Year
