Sony A290/A600 Questions

It's a great computer. It has the best screen available bar none, looks good, is well built and mine is very fast.

Cheers

Steve

My A600 has the 1440x900 screen. I didn't want anything higher. No need to comment on the quality of the screen which you already know to be THE BEST. It also has a neat "magnifyer" button which instantly switches to 1024x600. Didn't expect to use the auto bright feature of the lcd, but found it to be a superb feature. Have a gig of Corsair memory that tested for a day with no errors. The Sony 100 gig drive is sata. Got the complete MULTIMEDIA docking station off ebay yesterday for $116 bucks(brand new). Sorry 9300 dudes, no real docky for you. Keyboard has a great feel. Styling is sweet but you may first think the plastic isn't up to par. I work with the latest IBM T series and get shocks constantly, so the plastic is welcomed in my book.

I'm not a hardcore gamer but I am running the ati tool which is conservatively set at gpu/475 memory/300.

The only downsides I've noticed is the lan jack in back is recessed. Depending on the lan cable you use, it can be a pain in the as3 to remove. A larger battery would have been a nice option.

Can anyone comment on the (real world/usage) battery life, heat and (fan) noise/activity? I am also interested in the brand(s) of HDs they use for the 100GB (5400rpm) option.

I get about 2-2.5 hours. Can't help with the hard drive. I bought mine with a 40G drive and swapped that out for a Seagate 100Gb 5400 drive. I believe Seagate are the only ones who make a 100Gb 5400, so that's probably what they use.

Steve

My 100 gig drive is hitachi. The Model # is HTS541010G9SA00
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/5k100/5k100.htm
The drive is unbelievably quiet. I loaded fttool to check and the accoustic level was turned on. I left it the way it was since adjusting it made no difference in speed. I did however, turn off the feature of it parking it's head to save power. As for it being sata, it's a big debate but it does seem that the sata 5400 drives are faster than the pata 5400 drives.
I believe the magnifying button is on all a600 series, and yes it is 1024x600. It works with a sony driver so I'm sure it could be modded to use a different setting if you wanted to.
The a/v docking station has everything. 5.1, svideo in and out, DVI, tv tuner, audio amp, etc etc. I haven't used most of the connections yet, but the speakers sound clear up to their highest volume. If the laptop will be stationary for most of it's use, I would highly recommend it. I just watched t2 and forgot I was using a laptop.
My games are maybe 1 - 2 years old and have not had any issues with the x600. I'm using the stock sony drivers with the attool to overclock. Not that I needed, but just wanted to. I might try the latest omega drivers for the fun of it. I wouldn't expect the latest games to have any issues, but just going from it's specs, you'd problably would want to turn the quality down for the games to run smooth. I'm just speculating here.
I love this laptop and the docking station just gave it a 2nd personality. Going to hook up cable tonight.
Now I just need a wireless router with a hardwire lan capable of 1000mbps, does anyone know of any?

It's a Hitachi tool you can use at boot up to make adjustments to the hard drive. About half way down on this page, if you download the iso image, you can burn a bootable cd without the need of a floppy drive. It's called "Feature Tool".
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

For what it's worth, I haven't used any other disk programs other than sisandra, but it's benchmarking is showing my sata drive beating the 7200 laptop drive.

oops, Yeah, I don't know why they don't offer it as an accessory afterwards. They only offer the regular port replicator. It does use the different ac adapter, and I suppose when you buy it with the laptop, they give you the adapter that has the straight end and not the 90 degree end. The ports on the laptop itself should do you fine though.

Thanks for the router suggestion but I was looking for one with gigabit capability since the vaio card supports this. I guess the home market is ready for one yet, and the only option is to use a gigabit switch.

It's good you're getting it this week, I couldn't wait for mine.

Seagate should be releasing their 100gig 7200rpm drive this year, shouldn't they?

I'm considering getting myself an s360 915 chipset with a 60gig 5400rpm drive, so would I be able to swap a 100gig 7200rpm SATA drive into that when it's released?

When I booted off the tool disk, the accoustic level was already adjusted to the lowest (quietest). Changing that setting made no difference with the speed so I set it back to low. There was another section of the tool, which I believe said "performance" or "power saver", I forget. I changed that setting all the way up which did increase it a few Megabytes faster. I think it's a power saving feature which will stop the arm from parking itself, which means less drive activity.