As you may have read, I purchased a new laptop last week, and I said I’d answer the question am I happy with it. Well here are my first impressions and feelings on what I’ve purchased and will have to live with for possibly another 5 years.
The packaging of the Vaio can only be described as minimalist. Power lead, check – ooh great the power supply has connectors at right angles to the cable, why can’t all power supplies be like this, less chance of damaging them! Laptop battery – check. Laptop – check. A couple of pamphlets about warranty – and done. Great not much to throw away.
The out-of-box experience of Windows has never been good – and laptop PCs have often been full of crap-ware. Sony annoyed me instantly – when it got to wireless network connection – um, I checked the store demo laptop and it definitely had 802.11a wireless, but it couldn’t find my 5Ghz network, not happy – this laptop is going back first thing in the morning! Once Windows setup had completed and the machine had rebooted a few times, I got to log in, first stop – network and sharing, change adapter settings and lo’ in their wisdom by default 802.11a is turned off! (The setting is under the advanced driver options – find that if you don’t know what you are doing!) Turn it on, and voila’ I’m on my 5Ghz wireless network – Windows update time (argh!) 2 hours later and multiple reboots, I think I’m done.
The next step is the removal of crap-ware. Sony even give the full instructions to completely remove the “complimentary” anti-virus software on the back of the invoice. This was highlighted by the man in the shop (score one bonus point for customer service), I guess they’ve had complaints. AV gone (three reboots), Microsoft Security Essentials installed and I’m away again. Add, chrome, acrobat, Skype (preloaded, but old version update me please), remove office and install my own copy with OneNote, Outlook et al. Getting there. Acrobat Reader (another preloaded needing update).
Set up Media Centre (no tuner – but the best way to watch Sky Player!) – hmm no Sky Player icon. Some Google time and a few reboots later, I found the solution here. Sky player is a must for couch surfing, but it gets confused if you use multiple browser sessions (or browsers), so it’s easier to use it within Media Centre, then you always know where it is.
Hmm, other things of note to add – GNS3 – it may not do voice interfaces, but for practicing everything else its fine. There are limits onto which versions of IOS you can usefully load on its emulated 3745 & 7200 routers for voice – 7200 for PSTN, 3745s for the rest. Wireshark of course, never know what you might need to look at. Of course putty. Interestingly, I was able to find 64-bit versions of both of those! Not forgetting chrome (preinstalled with an update me!). VMWare – mental note – need more RAM.
I have added the latest Intel wireless drivers, so I can now use WIDI once I purchase the Netgear Push2TV adapter for the other end (surprisingly this is cheaper in the UK than the US – it is just hard to find). This is a feature not advertised at all by Sony – but the combination of wireless chipset and i3-370 provide it (along with the new driver and wireless display software that is).
So once all this was done (its been over a few nights as I remember what I’m missing, not all at once!) the important question – am I happy with what I’ve bought. The short answer is yes. I now use it on my commute (1hour on a train – not the tube/bike sections) in both directions, without having to carry a power supply. I can get a couple of lab problems worked through in that time, or write a blog post (like this one). The screen size (13”) doesn’t bother me, in fact its great as I can watch TV without it being obscured by the top of the screen.The keyboard is comfortable without being too large (although its taking a bit of getting used to the position of home/pgup/pgdn/end one above the other), typing on it is a breeze. As for performance, its handles everything I’ve thrown at it so far – its not a desktop replacement, so I don’t expect it to be one. Sony, you have one happy customer. Time to remove the stickers!
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