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enzo95

Hi all,

Despite being a loyal (and happy) Vaio user for the last 5 years (began with GR series, at the moment using a GRX315MP at work and FX505 at home), I have discovered club vaio forum very recently.

I want to buy a new Vaio but this time a lighter model - 3.9 kg is becoming too much to carry along, getting older I suppose . I keep on hesitating between B1XP and S2XP/HP (or maybe S3 which is yet to come out). Could you guys help me with some advise on following aspects:
- Screen (13.3 vs 14.1)
- HDD (4200/5400/7200 RPM, which model has which RPM)
- FAN NOISE (annoying experiences with FX505, happy with GRX)
- Graphics card (doing a lot with Photoshop)
- overall quality

Thank you all in advance for your time!

Cheers to all from Netherlands.

kee-lo_

See I only have to say one thing an a load of B users arrive....

jammold

LOL Kee-Lo you have that "magic" touch!

Congratz on 21,000 posts!

Foxhound

All VAIO's are installed with the cheaper 4200 RMP. You can have it installed with an 5400 RPM or even an 7200 RPM hdd.
for 5400 RMP the max is 80Gb and for the 7200 RPM is 60 Gb.
Both are Hitachi brand Hdd just like the normal installed 4200 RPM.
I heard Western Digital will be releasing a whopping 100Gb 7200 RPM this year!
I see you live in Nederland, so I wouldn't know if there are online shops who give you the option to costumize your specs.
I can give you a German shop's URL.
I don't know if I can post online shop URL is this forum. In some forums making commercial for shops is prohibited.
As for your advice on your decision.
It depends on what you are going to do wih your laptop. My expierence is that with graphic intense use shared memory is not advisible.
In terms of screen I'd say an X-brite screen is cream de la cream. Seeing is believing.
The Fan noise of the S1 is pretty noisy but it doesn't bother me that much. Please also take in account that the new VAIO are also going to be released in March (the S3XP with the new Geforce Go 6200 with turbo Cache Pentium M 755 (2 Ghz). The new FS series are also going to use these new cards.
But then again Sony tends to update their line-up very often.
It's your choice, so whatever it'll be make it a good one.

AlanHudson

Sorry I'm a little late in arriving here. I've had the B1XP for a couple of months now, and generally very pleased. I use it both for work and leisure, and no problems with screen res and fonts. Very good battery life and fan noise not too intrusive if you go into the settings and adjust accordingly. I just wish it had an extra USB socket on the right side of the case.

JeAnDrE

I have a B1XP, and I'm very pleased with it.
I bought it to replace my old notebook, a Compaq Celeron 766Mhz, and I think this Vaio is overall a better notebook.
I bought this model because it have some things I think are essential in a notebook:
- 2.3kg (or something)
- Small
- Long battery life
- Very quiet, does not make noise at all (I keep working at night and in fact B1XP is much better than my old Compaq)

The performance is fine, the Centrino 1.7 has a 2Mb cache, which is very important for "heavy" applications, like Java programming applications (Sun One Studio, Borland JBuilder).
512Mb of RAM it's enough to work well with it.
The integrated 64Mb card is not perfect for games, but this not means they do not run videogames, in fact, it runs but is not the perfect choice.
For any other work, even some Photoshop or Adobe Premiere jobs, I think it makes the job done.
The screen is good, I like high resolutions like 1400x1050 because it allows me to work with several Windows at same time to watch and monitor multiple variables, when I'm testing new software, for example.

In conclusion, I think B1XP a great choice for those who wants a very portable notebook, for professional use!
For those who want a desktop replacement to play games, watch movies and have great picture (widescreen) and sound, I'm certain that there will be other choices...

João from Portugal

seb21__

By the way, would the shared graphics memory cause performance slow-down in Photoshop?

I think shared memory is no problem for Photoshop.

It's a question of quality and not a question of frames per seconds.
You wan't more speed with Photoshop.

512MB System memory is the minimum, better you use 1GB.

But it's a question of what do you make with photoshop.