Sony VAIO VGN-AR320E 17" Laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo 1.66 GHz T5500 Processor, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, DVD RW Drive, Vista Basic) | List Price: $2,699.00
Discount Price: $1,299.00
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Brand: Sony
Binding: Personal Computers
Release Date: 2007-01-30
Warranty: 1 year warranty
Features: - Multimedia studio notebook with 17-inch screen and 1.66 GHz T5500 Core 2 Duo processor
- 160 GB hard drive, 2 GB installed RAM (max), multi-format/dual-layer DVD drive (8x DVD+/-R)
- Connectivity: 3 USB 2.0, 1 FireWire, 1 HDMI output, S/PDIF audio output, ExpressCard 54 card slot, Memory Stick reader
- Tri-mode Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g), 10/100 Ethernet, Nvidia GeForce Go 7400 video card with up to 335 MB shared video memory
- Pre-installed with Windows Vista Home Premium (with Media Center capabilities)
Sony Vaio and Vista [Posted on 2007-04-08]
I purchased this laptop not too long ago, and so far, it's proven to be very nice. The 3 USB ports will be sufficient for my mouse, keyboard, and external hard drive, and the computer itself is fast and reliable.
As far as Vista vs XP goes: I haven't had any compatibility issues yet, though I'm certain they'll come up at some point.
All told, though, the widescreen display, 2gb standard RAM, and impressive hard drive all combine to make what is, to me, a very powerful and effective system, the only downside of which is its size, which is also a plus (screen size).
Huge, but nice notebook [Posted on 2007-04-27]
First, this thing is HUGE. Do not buy this if you want to have something to carry around. This is meant to be used an "all-in-one" desktop.
However, this size gives a big beautiful 17" screen. That's my favorite thing about it.
Other good things are it's built-in memory stick and SD slots. I slipped in a SD card and now I can take advantage of Vista's ReadyBoost. And the MS slot works well with my Sony digital camera.
The sound is quite good for a laptop. The built-in camera is nice.
Basically, this machine lives up to the Sony name in terms of sound and video.
What's bad? As I said, it's huge. The keyboard is really bad. Ports are placed in funny places (you need to open a cover to get to the Ethernet, another to get to the Firewire port). It comes loaded with W-A-Y too much junk, including 3 full length movies (that you have to pay to activate), trial-ware, and a ton of AOL junk.
Vista? Well, you either love it or hate it. I've had a few problems, but nothing major (yet). Don't judge the hardware by the OS. At some point, all of these machines are going to be Vista, anyway. Don't like Vista, get a copy of XP or Linux and install it yourself.
All in all, if you want a all-in-one desktop that excels in entertainment, this is a good choice (although a more expensive model with a TV tuner might be better choice). If you want a powerhouse machine, this may not be it. If you want something to carry around, definitely look elsewhere.
i am hapy with the service [Posted on 2007-05-21]
i really apreciated your help to buy my laptop.
Great Hardware - Terrible Software & Service [Posted on 2007-05-25]
I bought this laptop as a replacement for another Sony Vaio that had just died in the middle of a project. It is the third Vaio that I have owned.
Given the terrible support that Sony has given me, it will probably be the last Sony I own.
The hardware is great. Nothing wrong with it. The problem is with Vista. My old laptop (FRV28) running XP performed better at most tasks than this machine does despite being half as good in the hardware department.
I'm writing this review mostly as a rebuttal to one of the other reviewers here who said if you don't like Vista, just pop in your XP or Linux disk and away you go.
I'm a software developer who does a lot of support too, and so far I haven't been able to get XP or linux installed on this model. And all my efforts to get Sony to help have been fruitless.
Sony support has rebuffed all my attempts to get drivers for alternative OS's. Their canned response is that they only support Vista on this machine and will not provide any XP or linux drivers.
I have also not been able to get AOL video conferencing to work with the built in camera. I went back to Best Buy where I bought this and they couldn't get it to work either on a new model they pulled out of a box.
Because of this purchase, I have went from a big Sony Vaio proponent to someone who won't buy any more Sony products.
Vista Sucks! [Posted on 2008-06-02]
I bought this as a replacement for a computer that I built. I still miss it, but could never figure out why it was blowing motherboards every few months. Anyway, this is a pretty nice computer. I miss the speed of my old one, but it does almost everything I need it to do...so far. The screen is nice and bright, and big. I was going to use my old flat screen but liked this one so much I decided to go with it full time.
I'll focus on the negatives as they are always more glaring than the parts that are working fine and un-noticed:
- I never tried Vista before I purchased this laptop. I must say I really hate it. The processor should have been an upgrade over my last computer. The memory and video card about even. And the hard drive is a big step back from my RAID drive. With that said, I can just tell if this machine were running XP instead of Vista it would run MUCH faster. There is just so much junk running in the background of Vista it slows everything down. It takes what feels like forever to boot up. Think it takes as long now as it did 3 computers ago when I had Windows 95.
- Can't "downgrade" to XP easily, or at all. When you put in the XP disk and it starts installing, it says it can't find a hard drive. It only has a single hard drive, yet somehow it's set up as some sort of RAID configuration, or at least that is what it is meant to think. Meaning if you want to even install XP, you first have to find a RAID driver just to get it to install, let alone all the other drivers you'd need once installed. I didn't go any further than that. I'm sure there is one out there somewhere, but I sure don't know where to find it.
- I couldn't get Zone Alarm installed because of Vista. Ended up slowing everything down and I had to reformat the hard drive. Couldn't get a virus scanner to install because of Vista. So, I'm running with no firewall or virus scanner. The other day while installing a program, it took me half an hour researching on the web to figure out how to. I had to disable Vista's User Account Control (the little thing that says "XYZ is trying to run, do you want to allow it?"), do a little of this, and a little of that. Even had to open a DOS prompt and enter code! Maybe now that I have all this crap turned off I can finally put Zone Alarm on...lol
- As I expected, it came pre-loaded with TONS of crap. 30 day trails of this or that , or AOL this or that. I removed the ones I could see as soon as I turned it on. But, you always keep finding folders or files you missed months down the road. But, I did expect this. It is rather sad though how much disk space they take up for all of this, and how long you have to invest of your time removing all of this. One time I bought a computer with two disks. One with Windows, and the other disk with the "fluff". So, you could choose to put it on your computer or not. Wish they'd all do that.
- Documentation was very lacking. There was almost no documentation on the installed hardware or software. It has a built in camera just above the view screen. Took me a couple weeks to figure out how to use it because it wasn't in any of the documentation. I stumbled onto the program that runs it. I'm sure there are still bells and whistles I have no idea are on here that I have yet to stumble across.
- DVD-Rom seems to be going out already. Some disks it reads, others it won't. Even putting in a blank disk to format is kind of hit or miss on if it wants to recognize it. Being that it's a laptop and portable, I put almost all my music CD's on the hard drive. When I was done, had about a foot tall stack that it simply wouldn't read. And, that was less than a month after purchasing...and it seems to be getting worse.
- Hard drive is only a 4200 RPM, not 5400 or 7200 RPM. I asked the salesmen if he had any with faster drives, and he said, "It should have that". Now this is my first laptop (so I know nothing about laptop hardware), but even the salesman seemed taken aback by the slow speed of this hard drive. Coming from a RAID drive with two 7200 RPM drives on my old system, I can say a slow hard drive makes a HUGE difference.
As you can see, most of my complaints are not with the computer itself, but with Vista. I know a lot of computer makers are still selling XP systems, so you may want to go that route instead. It's been a big headache to say the least. It's sad that a good computer could be a bogged down mess because of something the manufacturer has nothing to do with. Hopefully they'll KEEP selling those XP systems.
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