High Priced and Low On Performance: The Sony VAIO VGN-P530H

The Sony P, or Sony VAIO VGN-P530H, is turning out to be yet another one of Sony's underpowered, overpriced netbooks that doesn't do anything to meet the needs of the average user. The netbook audience has always been small, since this is a niche market composed of those who need something smaller and cheaper than a conventional laptop, but bigger and more feature filled than a PDA. Limited functionality and poor design mean that the Sony P doesn't measure up well against competing netbooks, and it even costs more. That spells death for the sales life of this little computer, no matter how cute it may be.

The first look we get at the system specifications tells us where the biggest programs are. It operates on two GB of RAM, which are not upgradeable, sixty GB of hard drive space, and 1.33 Gh of processing power. It also runs Windows Vista, an operating system known for its resource consumption. Operating this OS on this computer will have disastrous results. This is the first of the design problems, and there are lots more.

We should remember to mention the strong points of this computer before tearing into it. The Sony P is portable and convenient, less than ten inches long, five wide, and only one thick. That's pretty small, but it remains comfortable for typing, and weighs just one and a half pounds. It might not be quite as small as the commercials imply (we can't fit one in our hip pockets), it does fit well in a briefcase, purse or satchel, and the looks are nice. However, under that shiny skin is a host of problems.

People who own this little computer have one central complaint, and that's the power problem. You need a GB of ram and a Gh of processing speed to run the operating system on this computer, according to Microsoft. While this computer meets the technical specifications, it doesn't run well. There are lots of speed issues as soon as you start up any other program, since the netbook has only enough power to run the operating system itself.

The obvious solution would simply be to uninstall Vista and install Windows XP or Windows 7 instead. Unfortunately, this is difficult, if not impossible. To begin with, the Sony P has no CD-ROM drive, making installing XP tricky at best. Worse, the Sony P uses a new video card (the Intel GMA 500 chipset) for which there is no Windows XP driver available. One can try installing Windows 7 instead, for which there is a GMA 500 video card driver available.

Of course, removing Vista also removes some functionality. Many of the Sony P's most useful features, like its wireless Internet connection (which operates on wireless 802.11b/g/n, ethernet, and Verizon's 3G Mobile Broadband (for a cost)) require Sony software to work. This software mostly just runs on Vista, so changing to a different OS costs you a lot in the way of functionality. Of course, if you stick wiht Vista, you're sacrificing 20 GB of precious hard drive space to Vista and the proprietary Sony software.

To make matters worse, the video card that comes with this little netbook lacks dedicated video memory, instead allocating up to 760 MB of system memory for this purpose. This might be fine, if it weren't for the fact that memory on this machine is in short supply. That means that it's all taken up running the operating system, resulting in flickers, slow downs and skipping while watching DVDs. Popular streaming video sites like YouTube are nearly unwatchable.

The Sony P is clearly not meant to be a primary PC. Rather, it's a secondary PC, designed to be highly portable to the exclusion of all other factors. If you need a basic computer for very simple operations-like taking notes in class, or entering data in a warehouse-then this tiny, light computer will fit the bill. For any other purpose, you can surely find a more powerful computer for less money elsewhere.

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