Sony Vaio P115 Review

When the first Sony Vaio P came out last year, I drooled over it. The design was exquisite and youâ€™d even ask if Apple made that sexy thing. The price was too high and the specs are on the lower end. A year later, a redesigned Vaio P, the specs were bumped a little and Sony lowered the price too. You can even say it’s an engineering feat.

Hardware & Design

The design of the Vaio P is so unique that you canâ€™t compare it to any other laptops around. The Vaio P maybe the most portable PC available in the local market. It’s so light and tiny that you can put it in any purse/man-purse. It’s even smaller than any netbook available. The design is quite a head-turner.

The body feels cheaper compared to the first generation of Vaio P. The older model feels more expensive. I donâ€™t like the neon color of the unit. It feels very pasticky and too pink for my taste.

The screen is pretty crisp but on the dimmer side. I think Sony decided to lower the brightness to conserve battery. One thing that might frustrate any user is the smallness of the screen. The fonts are so tiny and hard to read. And on landscape mode, browsing the web is a bit of a chore since you have to scroll a lot. It’s a good thing that Sony added a â€œlargeâ€ view toggle button for a quick change of resolution. The keyboard is surprisingly good. I wrote the entire review on this Vaio P without any trouble.

You have 3 ways for UI navigation. First, you can attach a Bluetooth or wired mouse. I was able to connect my Apple Mighty Mouse without any problem. Second, you can use the middle trackpoint button similar to any ThinkPad laptops (they replaced the old optical navigation on the previous model.) Or you can use the optical trackpad on the right side of the screen with your thumb. The left&right button is located on the left side of the screen. The last 2 options will require some learning curve to fully utilize it.

Battery and Performance

Battery life is at 3.5 hours using a WiFi or a 3G USB dongle. This is quite good for a portable laptop. It’s very ideal for those short breaks in a coffee shop. Multi-tasking is very much plausible but not recommended. You can browse the net (with 5 tabs open), edit Office Word document, fire up TweetDeck and YM messenger with ease. But start adding the windows media player or the Sony’s media player and you’ll feel some sluggishness to it.

This can be attributed to the Atom processor used in most netbooks. If you only surf the net, this baby is everything you might need. It also helped that this unit comes with 2GB of RAM and an Intel Z540 Atom 1.86GHzÂ processor.

The system got a base score of 2.4 on Windows Experience Index with the processor getting a 2.7 sub-score.

Features and Multimedia

One of the features of the Vaio P is it has an accelerometer to turn the unit in portrait mode for browsing. The screen will reorient itself in 2-3 seconds. Since the height of the screen in landscape mode is very limited, turning it sideways will give you more screen estate. It’s good for reading documents, blogs and surfing the net. I find this feature very gimmicky. I donâ€™t see anyone turning this unit sideways to read articles and the navigation is a bit harder.

The multimedia playback is great. I tried playing an HD movie and it played without any hiccups. It didnâ€™t have any problem playing YouTube videos. The Vaio P really shines when playing a video. The screen is perfect for watching movies on the go. It can play 1 to 2 movies on a single full charge.

At just 1.3 pounds, the Vaio P is so light that you can watch videos in bed, it’s even better than watching on an iPad. I wish that Sony would add a backlit keyboard on the next version.

Sony Vaio P115 specs:
8â€³ display @ 1600Ã—768 pixels
Intel Atom Z540 1.86GHz
2GB DDR2 RAM
64GB Sandisk SDD
Intel GMA 500
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 2.1 w/ EDR
2 x USB 2.0 ports
Memory Stick Duo/SD Card reader
0.3MP webcam

Conclusion

After playing with this baby for a week, Iâ€™d say if youâ€™re looking for a portable PC just for browsing the net, chatting with an IM client, watching videos and have extra moolah (and I do mean extra moolah to spend) this is the best you can get. But if youâ€™re in a budget, donâ€™t even think about it. This will cost you Php59,999.

At half the price, you can get an iPad. Or better yet, at quarter of that price, you can get a regular netbook. The Vaio P is obviously not for everyone. I really think that Sony created this pocket PC not to sell but to prove that they can make one. It’s a luxury gadget.

Editor’s Note: Dale is a reviews & special assignments contributor for YugaTech. The review had some minor revisions from me and you can read the 1st generation Vaio P review here for better perspective. – Yuga

Sony Vaio P115 @ testfreaks.com

18 Comments

Keli Schimandle says:

12 years ago

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- Reply
Winfred Bila says:

13 years ago

I’m very happy to read this. This is the kind of manual that needs to be given and not the random misinformation that’s at the other blogs. Appreciate your sharing this greatest doc.
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kibi's halo-halo says:

14 years ago

too expensive.. maybe ill just buy it only for style :p by the way please visit my site it is http://www.halo-halo.biz.. thanks
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Jonaflormic says:

14 years ago

ok rin sya. http://bitsformovingup.blogspot.com/
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Bella says:

14 years ago

Base on experience… Not worth the money… I prepare the vaio m…
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Ry says:

13 years ago

you mean, you PREFER Vaio M?

blue says:

14 years ago

i have owned 2 of these vaio p; 1st a white z520 1.3ghz 60gb model (kinda slow) that i traded up for the newer sleeker green z540 with 64gb ssd.

since this year’s refresh is just to candy colors and no touch screen yet so i’m keeping my beloved device. it blazing at these specs of 1.83ghz and ssd! much faster than an n450 device i tried and eventually sold. TOTALLY worth the splurge if you can stomache the price.

i heard from the maker it’s not meant to be your main use pc but your secondary anywhere anytime toy and it seems to do this just fine :)
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john says:

14 years ago

I’ll be looking for more reviews first before I buy this laptop. Para alam ko rin kung ano ang mga possible na maging sira. Maybe after 6 months bibili na ako.
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Solidhosting says:

14 years ago

I am not buying this! Nice gadget but will not benefit from it. :D
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leeto says:

14 years ago

The price is way high and its non-sense as the output would just be the same as that of a regular laptop on a lesser price.
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ice says:

14 years ago

wow that really is expensive.. you could get a high end laptop here in riyadh for about 54,000 pesos. The smaller the gadget, the higher the price
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Manny says:

14 years ago

Its a cool product, but as the review said, its not for everybody. Thats why you have target niche markets.
Although the pricing is a bit high compared to if you get one in Sg or Hk.
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CarloBlogg Online 3.0 says:

14 years ago

That’s one portable laptop. But its tooo expensive – I guess the Sony Vaio laptops are not meant for everybody. Even if I have that much money, I will have to go with a midsized laptop with higher specs. :)
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lawreas says:

14 years ago

this is more worthy than 2 ipads combine.. the price is just a let down.. if I’m rich though, I won’t hesitate to buy one.
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Rose says:

14 years ago

Oh please! For that price? Will buy a kick ass specs sexy ultraportable laptop in Hong Kong.
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rene says:

14 years ago

..parang pang-girly lang ang clor nya noh..?
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leeto says:

14 years ago

the price is non-sense. i can use that money to buy a very good laptop and, thus, with more functionalities.
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