The HP Pavilion dm3 also beat the VAIO Y by a wide margin, lasting 9:07. That's nearly an hour longer than the category average, but less than Sony's "up to 8 hours" claim and well behind the ASUS U元0A's epic runtime of 9:55. In the LAPTOP Battery Test, which simulates continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi, the notebook lasted 6 hours and 22 minutes. This is the one area where the VAIO Y falls behind the pack. The pricier Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13 beat this time by 44 seconds, but the AMD-powered Toshiba Satellite T135D was 10 seconds slower. When we transcoded a 114MB video from MPEG-4 to AVI using Oxelon Media Converter (which uses multithreading), the task took 2 minutes and 1 second. If you want this feature from a 13-inch VAIO, you'll have to step up to the $1,199 SR Series. We wish Sony offered a discrete graphics option, like HP does with the dm3t. Gameplay in World of Warcraft was a decent 26 frames per second at 1024 x 768 resolution, but that plummeted to a snail-like 7 fps at native resolution. Its score of 906 in 3DMark06 is slightly above the ultraportable average (852). That's a tad faster than the 21.0 MBps category average, but slower than the ASUS U元0A (23.2 MBps) and on a par with the HP Pavilion dm3 (22.4 MBps).įor a notebook with integrated graphics, the VAIO Y holds its own. The VAIO Y completed the LAPTOP Transfer Test-in which we copy a 4.97GB folder of mixed media files-in 3 minutes and 53 seconds, for a transfer rate of 22.3 MBps. This is 7 seconds slower than the category average of 61 seconds.
SONY VAIO S CHARGER WINDOWS 7
The 5,400-rpm, 320GB hard drive booted to Windows 7 Home Premium in a relatively sluggish 1 minute and 8 seconds. Anecdotally, the VAIO Y proved to be a good performer we noticed only a bit of lag when we tried to zoom in on our Manhattan office while we had Pandora streaming in the background, and most applications opened quickly. The VAIO Y also beats the Intel version of the Toshiba Satellite T135 (2,701). The system scored 2,906 in PCMark Vantage that showing is above the ultraportable category average (2,739), much better than the ASUS U元0A (2,442), and slightly higher than the HP Pavilion dm3 (2,874). This dual-core CPU, along with 4GB of RAM combined to offer snappy performance.
SONY VAIO S CHARGER SOFTWARE
ArcSoft's bundled Magic-i Visual Effects 2 and WebCam Companion 3 software lets you tweak settings like brightness and contrast, as well as add fun special effects like frames and masks.Ĭlick to enlargeLike many other ultraportables in this price range, the VAIO Y features Intel's 1.3-GHz Core 2 Duo SU7300 processor. The other caller could easily make out the funny faces we made. The Motion Eye webcam on the VAIO Y captured high quality images during a Skype chat. Up front you'll find separate Memory Stick and SD Card slots. The Ethernet ports, two more USB 2.0 ports, and an ExpressCard/34 slot line the right side. The left side houses the power jack, VGA port, HDMI, one USB 2.0, a FireWire port, and headphone and microphone jacks. Like most ULV notebooks, this one lacks a DVD drive, so looks elsewhere if that's and important feature to you. There are few surprises when it comes to the port selection on the VAIO Y. We suggest keeping the volume one or two notches below the max. Foo Fighters' "Learn to Fly" sounded a bit less harsh. The speaker bar above the keyboard produced good volume when we streamed tunes from Pandora (enough to double as a mini stereo in a hotel room), but Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Under the Bridge" sounded tinny.
SONY VAIO S CHARGER FULL
When we streamed an episode of 24 on Hulu at full screen, horizontal viewing angles were generous, and we noticed a high level of detail even in standard definition mode.ĭialog in that episode of 24 was loud and clear, but music was a less fulfilling experience. The VAIO Y boasts a gorgeous 13.3-inch LED-backlit display that offers vivid colors and excellent contrast levels. (Anything under 100 degrees is acceptable.) The HP Pavilion dm3, on the other hand, registered as high as 102 degrees on the underside. After playing a Hulu video for 15 minutes, we measured temperatures of 88 degrees Fahrenheit on the touchpad, 94 degrees between the G and H keys, and 98 degrees on the bottom side of the laptop. Compared to other ULV notebooks we've tested recently, the VAIO Y keeps its cool.