Sony VAIO K Series Review (pics, specs)

by Howard Louis

I have always been a Sony fan for many reasons. Sony is often on the cutting edge of electronics and I find no exception to this with my new VAIO K series laptop. I find Sony stylingto besuperb and very appealing. From walkmans to discmans to my TV, Sony has never let me down and so I do have brand loyalty. Thiswas the main reason I looked to Sonyfor a laptopand I am happy to report that I am very pleased with the purchase I made. I purchased the VAIO PCG-K23 new in asealed box on eBay for $999. It wasshipped to me last month. I was leery of a large purchase on eBay, but with the PayPal guarantee and positive feedback, I took the risk. I have no regrets on the the purchase method or product.

Sony VAIO K Series (view larger image)

Full System Specs for Sony VAIO PCG-K23

• 2.8 GHZ Pentium 4 533MHz FSB
• 512 MBpc2100RAM (2x256)
• 60 GB Hard Drive
• 15.4" wide screen 1280 x 800
• 24x CDR/8x DVD ROM
• Built-in Memory Stick Reader
• Wireless B/G
• 3 USB 2.0 ports
• 1 fire wire port
• 1 parallel port
• 1 VGA Port
• ATI M345 Integrated Graphics

Appearance and Aesthetics

I was in the market for a desktop replacement that I could occasionally take with me. The Sony VAIO K model serieshits the nail perfectly for my needs. Although not the lightest laptop out there, this was not a concern for me. The laptop weighs just over 8lbs. The weight combined with the 15.4 inch widescreen display andrather largefootprint means you'll not want to lug this laptop too far.The VAIO K isalso slightly bulky as far as thickness, coming in at 2.2 inches. One neat thing is the laptop is styled in a manner that it isangled downward from the rear to the front. The case is an all plastic shell. Overall the unit is well built and sturdy considering it weighs over 8lbs. I personally have no problem holding it with one hand without it feeling like it is going to come apart by flexing.

Screen

The VAIO K sports a widescreen15.4-inch LCD display. The native resolution is 1280 x 800 and comes with the XBrite option.XBrite seemsto cause more glare than I have noticed on other laptops. It is noticeable outside or by a window, but as a desktop replacement in an evenly lit areait looks fine and suits my needs just fine. The widescreen feature not only gives you more screen real estate, but when watching a DVD, no more black bars at the top make watching the movie even more enjoyable. Notice the glare below on the screen from the flash.

Sony VAIO K Series Front view (view larger image)

Below you can see the slanted style from the back to the front. Very sharp! From side to side, there is not much contrast loss, but as with most laptops, from up and down movements you can seea loss in picture quality. The screen has very little ghosting and this surprised me. Whether scrolling a text document or playing a first person shooter, the quality is above most other units.

Sony VAIO K Series Left View (view larger image)

CPU, RAM, Hard Disk

The laptop came with an Intel Pentium 4 processor clocking at 2.8 GHZand with a533MHz Front Side Bus (FSB). This processor is good for speed, but as you would expect, it does run warm at times. Under normal usage, the fan can be noisy from time to time, but for a Pentium 4 I guess I have to live with that. The laptop shipped with 512MB of rather slowPC2100 SDRAM, and unfortunately it is 2 x 256MB configuration providedso all the slots are full, meaning upgrading the RAM is more expensive. It's odd that Sony would include slow PC2100 RAM combined with a Pentium 4 processor, I'm perplexed by this as it causes a bottleneck in system performance. The hard drive is a spacious 60GB drive, but only spins at4200 RPM so it is not a power house for use in such applications as Adobe Photoshop. I am happy with a Pentium 4 processorchoice as it will for the most part be sitting on my desk andI therefore have no need for centrino technology as this point.

Below you can see how the 2.8GHz Pentium 4 compares to other processors posted on the forum under the hardware section Let's measure our notebooks CPU speed (http://www.notebookreview.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2657).

Calculating Pi to 2 million digits of accuractywith the Sony VAIO K (view larger image)

(view larger image)

Keyboard and Touchpad

The full-size keyboard is responsive, but it is not exceptional by any means. Thetouchpad on the other hand has much room for improvement. As you can see, there is no built in scroll feature on the touchpad. Also, at times, the touchpad flakes out and lags for a moment. This doesn't happen very often, but is annoying when it does. The touchpad problemis not a major concern though because whenthe laptop ison my desk, I stick withusing a USB optical mouse.

Sony VAIO K keyboard and touchpad (view larger image)

Sound

Also above you can see the speakers in the grey metal grill with the power button to the right. The speakers sound great for movies and all other general music needs. As with any laptop, this is no super sound system, but is good enough for most. One lacking feature is an external control for sound volume besides the function commands on the keyboard. If you listen to a lot of MP3's and seeing how this is a desktop replacement that will be on your desk 90% of the time, I would recommend buying a set of powered speakers. I personally have a cheap pair of Logitec external speakers.

Below you can see the audio connections. There is an iLink, microphone, and audio output. Also below you can see two of the three total USB 2.0 ports. The fire wire port is also shown with the LAN port here as well.

Sony VAIO K left view (view larger image)

Wireless

This laptop features a robust 802.11b/g wireless card built in. Reception with my D-Link brand router is flawless at both 54 mbit and 11 mbit speeds all throughout my house. You can certainly expect to get good wireless reception for those times when you go mobile or just want to sit around on your couch or table free of cords. below you can see the wireless switch located on the front of the laptop. Also pay attention the the memory stick reader on the left (sorry about it being a little out of focus). Also visible is the wireless on/off slide switch below

Sony VAIO K front view (view larger image)

Battery

The battery on this unit is not impressive, however it falls right in the range you would expect for this style of laptop. I found that running time can be as low as 1.5 hours to 3 hours. Some longer DVD's may fall short as you may not make it 2 hours with the screen contrast turned up all the way. I found the MAX battery option under Windows XP to work well, but as stated before, this is a desktop replacement, not an ultra long battery mobile unit. Of course we all want more battery life, but if this was a major factor to me I would not have looked at a P4. More likely a Pentium MDothan would have been myCPU of choice if looking for battery life.

CD-DVD ROM

Sony combined a 24X cd burner and a 8x DVD rom into this unit. Burning CD's so far has been error free and all of my DVD's play fine on the DVD rom. It does seam though there is a high MS access time from when your first insert the disk. Here you can see the optical drive. Notice the non standard bezel, this may be a dilemma if I ever decide to upgrade the bezel may need modified. Either that or I will buy a external DVD burner. The drive though is pretty quite except when installing software when the spindle gets going.

Sony VAIO K right view (view larger image)

Playing Games

Don't expect to play DOOM 3 of Far Cry very well, but the ATI Radeon IGP 345M although integrated graphics, provides better than expected results from games. GTA Vice city plays flawlessly. 64 MB of system ram are dedicated to video. This is not my ideal choice, but as I am not a heavy gamer, should still suit my needs nicely.

Other Ports/Views

Below you can clearly see the power connector on the left followed by the internal 56k modem.. Then you have a VGA output port (one of the few times I have seen one that is not colored blue?) Then you have a parallel port. Not sure why this is still on the laptop , yet no PS2 port? It seems like those two would come together. Yet, no s video output? What's with that? Who needs parallel???? Oh well, thank goodness for 3 USB ports. The final one is here on the far right with the other two around the corner on the right.

Sony VAIO K back side view (view larger image)

Sony VAIO K back side view (view larger image)

Software

The normalbundled software comes with this unit. Windows XP Homecame installed as the OS, but since getting the laptop I have installed Windows XP Pro with SP2. Everything you need comes with the laptop. Sony Click to DVD, Sony DVGate Plus, Sony SonicStage, Sony PictureGear Studio, Sony VAIO Media, Sony VAIO Update, Sony VAIO Recovery Wizard, Sony VAIO Help and Support, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Google Toolbar, Intuit Quicken 2004 New User Edition, EasySystems Dragn' Drop CD+DVD, Microsoft Works 7.0, Microsoft Office 2003 60-Day Trial, Norton Internet Security 90-Day Subscription, AOL Online 90-day Trial are all found here.

Customer Service / Tech Support

Thankfully at this point I have not had a reason to contact Sony as this laptop has been trouble free. As stated above, the mouse is iffy at times, but I still think it is a driver issue. I guess that speaks for itself as far as Sony quality. If the Customer service is anything like their notebooks, I assume it would be first rate.

Likes

• Sleek modern looking style
• Wide screen display is flawless
• Great wireless reception
• Sturdy Quality materials
• Excellent overall performance

Dislikes

• No S-Video
• Slower PC2100 RAM
• Rather heavy
• Average battery life
• Poor gaming ability

Summary and Conclusion

As a desktop replacement, this Sony laptop not only looks good, but performs quite well. Although not top of the line now, this Pentium 4 2.8GHzlaptop isgood enough for my needs.One thing I should note is thatI am perplexed as to why Sonywould put a higher end 533FSB Pentium 4CPU with slower PC2100 RAM.

As before, Sony has not let me down and I am willing to pay a slight premium for the brand and the faith I have in it. I do miss theS-Video feature, but I was aware of this and still purchased it anyway as I don't need output as of now. Downfalls include an iffy touchpad, but this may be driver related. The screen is great and I am glad I went for the widescreen model. Watching DVD's has never been so enjoyable. If your notebookPC will not be leaving your desk very often, look to the Pentium 4 of AMD 64-bit processors. If you want a good battery life, go for an Intel Pentium M based notebook. If you are looking for a name brand desktop replacement laptop that won't break your wallet, look to the lower priced Sony units.

 

nice review of the product, but i think this is an overstatement:

"Sony is often on the cutting edge of electronics and I find no exception to this with my new VAIO K series laptop"

neither the p4 mobile, weight, graphics, nor battery life are cutting edge in this particular product or at this price point. with a statement like that you gotta back it up.

 

I guess some people just love Sony, as much as I like many Sony products myself (I own two digi cams from them) I'm not a huge fan of their VAIO lineup. The fact that they only include Memory Stick card readers, don't have modular optical drives and tend to always do one silly thing that kind of cripples a notebook performance (in this case it is the slow memory) I just can't be tempted into buying a VAIO, despite the good looks and a few nice features.

Now, the VAIO S380 is a different story, I like the look of that laptop and must force myself to refrain from buying [ ]

DigitalCameraReview.com | BargainPDA.com | TabletPCReviewSpot.com

 

After reading the review on your Vaio K Series notebook, I am hoping you can help with a dilemma my son and I are having regarding his new PCG-K35 notebook. He wants to hook pc to tv. We have contacted a number of computer dealers and techs. searching for a solution but are getting a lot of contradictions. Even Sony Support wasn't much help since they didn't know the ins and outs of this model. However, they did suggest the possiblity of a Handycam Audio Adaptor Cable (VMC20FR) that might work. Presently, he is using his HP Pavillion notebook for powerpoint presentations in college so we know the tv has the connection. "Specific solutions" would greatly be appreciated from anybody. Just thought I would add that we now have two Sony computers (desktop and notebook) and love them both. Want to get rid of the HP that keeps on overheating and etc.!

 

Overall though, what I meant more by that was Sony is always creating new fancy models of new technologies for mass markets. Discmans and Walkmans, handicams, super audio,ilink, etc.... I guess for me, Sony always have been reliable for me and I do have some brand loyalty.

You are correct though, this laptop is not top of the line, but Sony has treated well and for a poor guy like me, I thought it was a good deal for a 6 month outdated Sony...[ ]

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by NForest

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by NForest

 

"Excellent overall performance"

-how can this laptop be *Excelent* overall performance if it has WAY outdated ram (PC2100 LOL there is PC4200 out and DDR3 is on the way), the HDD is unbareably slow running 4200RPM (come on theres 7200RPM and SATA out now), the graphics card is a total joke (a radeon 9600 64MB in a laptop can be had for less than $900 anything most expensive with a slower video card is pretty much a ripoff).
-ONLY a memorystick reader, pretty much ever other laptop has 4in1 (SD, MMC, MS, MS PRO readers) the $900 laptop mentioned above has a 6in1 (incldudes CF Type 1 and 2)
-no Svideo is a rediculous, my 5 year old dell i8000 had Svideo and VGA out. yeah alot of manufacturers cut corners but i think sony cut right thru the flesh on this one.
- 3x USB? laptops half the size have 4 or 5. one of the asus laptops approx the same size and specs has 6x
- no SPDIF
- i see why it has no ps2 port because that interface connection is being replaced by USB, but the number of usb ports is LACKING for this laptop
- not sure how great a Wedge will fit into notebook bag
- i really dont see $1200+ worth of HW in this, maybe $600 of HW $600 for the name since half the HW in this laptop is WAY out of date.

"Sony is often on the cutting edge of electronics and I find no exception to this with my new VAIO K series laptop"

not sure about this, sony is usually lagging behind even no-name manufacturers in specs and performance for all their electronics ESPECIALLY laptops.

just my 2¢

-->Asus M6BNe | Pentium M 1.6GHz Dothan | 1024MB PC2700 Micron Ram | Radeon 9700 Pro 64MB | 80GB Samsung 5400 RPM 8MB Cache | Gigabit LAN | CDRW + DVD Combo |
-->Compal CL56 | Pentium M 1.6GHz Dothan | 1024MB Ram | Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB | 60GB HDD | 10/100 LAN | DVDRW |

 

HI howard

I BOUGHT the pgc-k35 wich is almost the same as yours. i would like to uprade it. do u have some advices?

 

I have a Sony Vaio PCGK15, 1024x768 screen version of the one reviewed here. My screen went at 13 months, Sony wanted $350 to repair it. Had problems with Harddrive for next 6 months, after several reinstalls and much time lost, pitched it to the side and did nothing with it as had already chased enough money into it to fix the screen on my own.

saw a hardrive on ebay, got it and replaced the harddrive, works fine now, use external 15" screen as I cant get external drivers to go over 1024x768.

Other than the above, complaints are internal fan runs far too often, need a thermopad if you actually want to use it as a "laptop" and not cook your legs, dont mind losing the xbrite screen as it bothered my eyes with the excess glare, most other lcd monitors have matt finish, no glare, colour on xbrite was fine, glare was a horror.

Not really useful as a portable computer except short term, battery lasts 1 hour before its dead, so if you want to use as a true portable, take it on the plane, you get to watch 1/2 a dvd between flights.

Like the restore feature built right into the harddrive. Made backup cd/dvd when first got it and it worked fine restoring the new hd. (didnt work on the old one).

Sony customer service was so awful and rude that I will never buy another sony product in my lifetime, ever.

kaw

 

Hey kaw
I have a Sony PCG-K15 too and I think it's a piece of doodoo. But regardless I have it, and so I have to deal with it! I had made the recovery disks, and then my son lost them on his way down to visit with me at Christmas (I live and paint on a little island near Tahiti), and it refused to access the recovery drive to make more. Then my hardrive died, and I had to send it in (extended warranty from circuit city--what a joke!) and they sent it back in BIOS mode, and Sony won't supply the recovery CDs anymore (that says something right there!) and so I'm stuck! Could you sell me a set? I would be forever grateful! Or I could trade for Art! check out my website: www.polynesiapaintings.com thanks! Melanie (polynesiartiste) PS my kids are leaving the US to come down here to Huahine on June 20th...from RI...they could bring them down to me..