SONY VAIO NS Series VGN-NS290J/S NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo T6400(2.00GHz) 15.4" Wide XGA 4GB Memory 250GB HDD 5400rpm BD-ROM Intel GMA 4500MHD - Retail

Great job Sony

Reviewed By: Kraemer on 4/7/2009

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 week to 1 month

Pros: 1) It's fast. The t6400, 4gb of ram, and Vista x64 are a great combo.

2) The screen is gorgeous and BD video looks stunning on it, even outside of native 1080p resolution. As said in other reviews, the contrast ratio isn't as good as many other sony displays, but it's WELL above any other notebook in it's price range.

3) The design is impeccable. The rugged, textured, thick plastic clamshell chassis is thick, stylish, durable, and minimalistic in appearance. The hinges are stiff and show no signs of them eventually becoming wobbly. The machine is also slim and makes very good use of its size. The keyboard is large (sans the number pad) and so are the keys, perfect for those with large hands or thick fingers. They keys also provide a nice amount of tactile feedback.

4) Oh man does this thing run cool and quietly. Even while gaming the bottom barely gets warm. Also, the fan is super quiet and the placement of then intake and outtake vents are excellent.

5) Wireles

Cons: The onboard video is a major disappointment considering the inclusion of the BD drive. Yes it displays BD content beautifully, but it lacks in many others, usually when playing games. I wish they chose to include an Nvidia solution.

Also, the bloatware included with the device is absurd. Sonys proprietary applications provide SOME usefulness, but mainly bog down performance with extra actives services and processes. I suggest removing a majority of them.

Regardless though, the video card produces GREAT image quality with the BD drive and in general. It's simply not a great gamer. For example, i'm pulling about 20 fps in WoW with medium to low settings.

Other Thoughts: I'm very, very pleased with this purchase. I feel as if I got more than what I paid for.

A few notes: I wiped my machine (save your recovery partition. It does not include recovery disks) and installed the latest Windows 7 x64 beta on it and the performance of this thing shot through the roof! All drivers on the Sony website work well with the Windows 7 beta and a majority of the drivers are installed already. WARNING though. You MUST use the video driver located on Sonys website to watch BD content!

Also, this machine is supported well in linux. Tested with Ubuntu 8.10 and 9.04 (Beta) as well as Opensuse 11.1. A note though, the Intel driver has known performance issues with recent kernels and it is noticeable, especially in Ubuntu. Bug fix in the works.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you?

Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!

Reviewed By: on 2/4/2009

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Slim design. Solid case. Runs Vista like a charm. Textured plastic case resists dings and scratches. Wireless hooked up on first boot.

Cons: Gloss screen is a little distracting. Blacks aren't as deep as I would expect from a Sony. When did manufacturers stop sending the system restore CD/DVD's with the computer?

Other Thoughts: I bought this laptop with the idea that it will probably get beat up in my travels. The textured case handles bumps and scratches better than a smooth surface, though we'll see how it handles dirt over time. I was disappointed to find out it had a glossy screen, but there were no dead pixels and the picture is vibrant. I set the Sony next to my 5 year old Toshiba Satellite and noticed the blacks weren't nearly as dark on the Sony as they were on the older computer - not sure if it's a gloss vs. matte screen issue or not. Although I'm not a fan of Vista, it runs very well and seems quick. Sound quality is very good for a laptop. Plenty of plugs and ports conveniently placed on the computer. The trackpad buttons click very loudly, but I use the tap-to-click feature on the pad more often than not. Overall a great computer!

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you?

Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!

GREAT!

Reviewed By: Os Quixote on 1/25/2009

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

Pros: where to begin... Beautiful screen, bright no complaints. the new T6400 surprisingly runs great. The keyboard feels very good. The Built in web-cam looks fantastic. Having the built in WiFi-N is great, I clocked my speed at almost 14mbps wireless!!! The whole things feels great and looks great. Sleek, very professional. I was very scared on switching to vista (i used to work in tech sales retail) and I hated it back than. But swear to G*d i like it better than XP on this laptop. I got mine at best buy for $800 though. Also 800 Mhz FSB on a mobile processor is pretty sick in my opinion. Amazing that Sony through in not just a CD/DVD-RW its straight up BDROM so it burns CDs, DVDs, and can play Blu-rays as well. Think about it, average BD player is what $400? Great audio as well. GPU handles Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 with maxed graphics and hardly any lag.

Cons: 2 ram slots and only 4GB max. That blows considering you're running 64bit vista. If it maxed at 8gb these machine would be a complete steal. What happened to media center being part of vista? That's upsetting. Also only 2MB L2 cache? 4MB or higher would of really made it a better buy. I would of like at least 2.2Ghz on the processor but I still bet this thing could beat my old desktop i built that had 3GB and a P4 3.4Ghz HT.

Other Thoughts: Battery life is pretty decent compared to every other laptop i've used which would include Toshiba, HP, Gateway, and Dell as far as brand goes (i do understand these brands are very likely to have models with very long batter life). A little over 5 hours of battery life is what you get when you the computer just sit there. Heavy use as far as I've noticed knocks anywhere from an hour to 2 1/2 hours off of that 5. However power consumption is very customizable. Overall I don't think there is a better computer out there for the price and I've been looking to get a new one for over a year

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you?

Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!