Each of us dreams of having a small and light laptop that can be used in any environment. Back in 2008, SONY released the smallest slider notebook of the UX series, which had a 4.5 "screen with a truly fantastic resolution of 1024x600 (for those times) pixels, as well as an equally amazing filling. At the heart of the device was Intel Core Solo U1400 1200 MHz, which it had 1GB of RAM and a 40GB hard drive, the notebook weighed only 540g including the battery, although it cost a lot and was not available to everyone.
However, even this seemed not enough for the company, and already in 2010, SONY renewed this series again and exhibited new models that differ in more interesting design and powerful filling, which made them especially attractive to the general public. Of course, such laptops are far from cheap, moreover, they can be put in a row with the most expensive models on the market: on average, such a laptop will cost 9500 hryvnia.
Buy a small laptop: first exposure
VAIO P series laptops can be found in 5 colors: white, orange, red, black, poison green. The black laptop among all turned out to be not only the most serious in appearance, but also in terms of configuration, and it cost 2 times more expensive than all the others. White, could not suit many, also at a higher price compared to colored ones and the fact that over time it could still turn into off-white, shabby. Of the colored laptops, orange seemed the most acceptable, since it did not have such a toxic color as the others and its appearance was a great mood enhancer. Such a computer can be called an "orange". When you look at this computer, you understand what a truly expensive and thoughtful laptop is. The surface of the device is matte, made of plastic. Side view, very much like a large paper clip.
There is a traditional set of ports on the sides of the laptop, which makes it possible to fully use it: on the left 1 port + headphone output + power supply connector, built-in Wi-Fi / WiMax adapter switch, on the right - 1 USB + port for connecting a docking station (allows you to add network port and VGA output).
On the front of the case, you can see 2 slots for memory cards: one is required for connecting a memory card (MemoryStick), the second is for connecting an SD card up to 32GB.
There is a removable battery at the bottom of the computer, so you can always replace it with a more powerful one.
When you open the laptop, you realize that before your eyes is an almost standard model with an almost full-size keyboard and a somewhat unusual wide screen.
The laptop keyboard is unusual, it is comfortable, despite the small size of the laptop, there is a full set of keys, including function and navigation keys, large "Enter" and "Backspace" buttons, however, at first you still have to get used to it. Above the keyboard you can see the power on buttons, the screen backlight illumination, 3 indicators of the Caps, Num Lock and Scr Lock buttons, and there are also 2 small loudspeakers.Under the keyboard are indicators for the laptop's status, charging display, hard drive activity, and wireless activity.
Thanks to this arrangement of the lower indicators, you can see the state of the laptop when the lid is closed. Also here you can see the built-in microphone, as well as 3 buttons: WEB - for quick access to Web sites, a button with an icon to change the screen resolution, as well as the "ASSIST" button required to launch the SONY Care application (responsible for maintaining the laptop, and (See also software recovery). If you press the last button with the laptop turned off, the utility starts restoring the laptop, up to the factory state, as well as restoring the preinstalled software and restoring from a checkpoint.
To control the cursor, the laptop has a joystick, traditional for all SONYs, which is located in the center of the keyboard. 3 additional buttons can be seen under the keyboard. Two of them are similar to the left and right mouse buttons, and the third button is needed for fast page scrolling or simple scrolling (track point). Thanks to this configuration and the location of the buttons, manufacturers have obtained a very convenient cursor control solution.
Also new models of notebooks of the P series are equipped with a touchpad and two buttons, which are located next to the screen. Thanks to the additional touchpad, navigation in the reading mode is greatly simplified, it becomes very convenient to view pictures, pages, documents, etc., and in such conditions, wherever you would think to open a standard laptop.
Among the design flaws of the laptop, one can single out only the not very good location of the built-in MOTION EYE web camera, which is located next to the touchpad. For example, during video communication, in order to be in the center of the frame, it is necessary to position the laptop at an uncomfortable angle. In general, the laptop will suit any, even the most demanding user.
The design of the laptop is of course important, but it does not carry all the information about the quality of the machine, so we will consider the hardware and the selected software.
Smallest laptop: what's inside
The laptop is based on the Intel Atom Z530 processor, which operates at a frequency of 1.86GHz, has 2GB of RAM, as well as a 64GB SSD disk, an integrated Intel Mobile Graphics Media Accelerator 500 graphics adapter, and a full package of communication interfaces (Wi-Fi ( 802.11n), WiMax, Bluetooth (2.1 + EDR), etc.). The working system is Windows 7 Home Premium. With these parameters, our laptop does not boast of high performance, but it should cope with basic office applications with ease. It should be noted that the processor and chipset are cooled by a passive cooling system, so our laptop can be classified as one of the quietest.Impression
The first question that worries many users of such equipment is whether it is possible to work with such a high screen resolution, because for an 8 "screen, the resolution of 1600x768 pixels is already too cool. The very first experience showed that for some applications such a high resolution has a bad effect on readability. For example, in order to read a message in Skype or ICQ, you have to peer into the text (!), in such cases it is better to transfer the laptop to a lower resolution, this can be done very quickly by pressing one of the buttons on the panel. when it comes to working with Web pages, as well as office applications, things are somewhat better here, since in such applications there is always the ability to scale texts or images, which in turn allows you to achieve excellent readability without having to reduce the screen resolution.A few words about using the light sensor. Thanks to the sensor, the brightness of the screen adjusts to the ambient light level.On the one hand, such a function is quite reasonable, since the brightness of the screen decreases in low light conditions, which should be less tiring for the eyes when working with small images, but on the other hand, such insufficiently high brightness in normal lighting, on the contrary, will lead to rapid fatigue. Actually, the owner of such a laptop can determine for himself the mode in which it is most convenient for him to work. If you want to turn off the automatic brightness control function, you can do this by going to the VAIO Control Center application, where there are some specific settings that can be used to customize the operation of the notebook.
When you turn it on for the first time, it takes a long time to boot, this is due to the need to comply with some of the nuances when you first start Windows 7, as well as the applications (and there are many of them) that the laptop is equipped with. Already at the second and subsequent downloads, it became clear that the download time did not decrease at all, which was very upsetting, because when buying a mobile laptop, we still hope that it will be immediately ready to work, but here you need to wait about 3 minutes until the full load occurs. , and 50 seconds when waking up from sleep mode. The reason for such a long download is the large number of applications that are "stuffed" with the laptop, loading can be accelerated if you remove some of them: McAffe antivirus (not very suitable for a laptop, because it overloads the system). A good replacement for this antivirus can be the free Microsoft Security Essentials antivirus, it copes pretty well with major threats, and does not overload the system. You can also uninstall SONY branded applications, but first, you need to figure out what is responsible for what, so if you do not know what the application that you want to uninstall is responsible for, it is better to leave it, but disable autorun (in the application settings menu). With such manipulations, the boot time of the laptop will be about 1 minute, and the exit from standby mode will be no more than 12 seconds.
Since notebook performance is poor, you should pay special attention to the software that you intend to use on a regular basis. For example, if you are using Internet Explorer, which does not seem very fast, especially when it comes to loading and opening new bookmarks, so it is better to use lighter browsers: Firefox, Google Chrome, or Safari.
You should also pay attention to the pre-installed Microsoft Office 2010, you can use it in the full version, for which you need to purchase a licensed version with a key, or use the free version of Starter, it is almost a full version of Word and Excel. These programs are easy to work with, however, when opening very large documents or spreadsheets, you will immediately feel the slow performance of the laptop. In principle, using Microsoft Office 2010 applications at standard definition is quite convenient, and there are no inconveniences or problems.
Thanks to the clear and competent design of the keyboard, it is not difficult to work with the text, because after a while using the laptop you do not notice the difference between the standard keyboard and the smaller version of the laptop. The only thing that draws attention to itself in the location of the keyboard is the accidental triggering of the track point when you accidentally touch or press the surrounding buttons, in these cases the cursor moves and the text is typed in the wrong place. To eliminate this shortcoming, the developers offer 2 solutions: you can disable the click on the track point, then for the left click you will need to use the button at the bottom of the keyboard, and this is not very convenient in practice. If you still do not like the above solution, then you can disable the click temporarily by using a special mode that will be active while typing on the computer and you can set the delay time yourself. To carry out these manipulations, you need to go to the mouse settings menu. This method will give you the opportunity to block accidental movement of the cursor, and at the same time, keep the convenience of clicking on the track point.
The work of the Skype client does not cause any complaints, however, for normal operation in video communication mode, the best option would be to uninstall a set of programs from ArcSoft, which are necessary for any kind of decoration for images from a video camera. There is no payload in these programs, and they overload the processor seriously.
If you are wondering if you can use a laptop to watch videos, here the answer is unequivocal: "Yes." Experiments carried out with a VLC laptop showed that the available performance of the laptop is quite enough for watching standard definition video, but it should be borne in mind that the laptop cannot pull the HD format.
The power of the speakers is also sufficient for watching movies and listening to music at home, since such speakers are clearly not enough in a public place, so in the latter case it is better to use headphones. As for the sound quality of the laptop, it is quite high.
Let's talk about another very important point - the battery life. From experience, you can see that one battery charge lasts about 3 hours, which is quite decent, although, of course, I wanted more (at least 5 hours). The battery life depends on such moments as: whether a Wi-Fi / WiMax adapter is used, what screen brightness is set, etc., however, these moments can add or subtract no more than 15 - 20 minutes from the total time. Of course, for those for whom the battery life is very important, you can advise to purchase a more powerful battery, and then the problem will be solved by itself, since the computer can work in this case up to 6 hours. However, if you take into account the cost of such a battery, which, by the way, is 2 times thicker and is produced only in black, then this solution is not suitable for everyone.
conclusions
Should you buy such a small laptop? As you already understood from the review, the answer to this question depends directly on what tasks you are going to solve using a laptop, as well as on what you personally need. I just want to say that after purchasing this computer, personally from me, many problems were solved at once and it became an irreplaceable assistant. SONY VAIO VPCP11S1R / D is always convenient to carry with you, it is practically not felt in a bag, it is also convenient to work with it in any situation. Thanks to its advantages, such a nuance as not too high performance becomes almost invisible.
If convenience does not matter to you, then you can pay attention to more affordable laptop models: DELL INSPIRON 11z, which you can also learn about from our reviews.
Among the shortcomings of the SONY VAIO P, we can only note that it has a too bright appearance (i.e., cheaper price solutions of the model), this sometimes interferes with work, because, having taken out such a laptop in a public place, there will definitely be a couple of three smart people , who will start pointing fingers at you and loudly discussing interesting details, which always throws you off balance, although, of course, you can understand the curious, everything interesting is always interesting.
Useful article: "Make a GIF from a video: life hack" You Clever ""
Watch the video review of the Sony Vaio P
