These magnesium-shelled laptops weigh in at a svelte 1.99kg, and with Intel Pentium 4-M's on board, they pack a performance wallop with decent battery life to back it up.As with most Sony products, you could beat the VAIO V505P notebook with an ugly stick for days and still not ruin its good looks. The odds are you wouldn't damage this thin-and-light, either--the VAIO V505P's lightweight, magnesium shell makes it both a tough nut to crack and, at 1.99kg, easy to tote around. We were also impressed that, unlike many previous Sony notebooks, this one is fast compared to similarly configured notebooks. If not for an inconvenient keyboard layout and a short one-year warranty, this notebook would be a sure winner, thanks to its good (but not great) battery life, its boatload of bundled software, the standard DVD/CD-RW combo drive, and the optional integrated 802.11b wireless.
Sony's thin-and-light VAIO V505 series notebooks are sleekly styled, with the same classy light purple and dark gray that have been the company's hallmark for years. They also inherit the same rugged magnesium case found on their VAIO R505 predecessors, making for a notebook that, sans the 340g AC adapter, weighs only 1.99kg. Competitors such as Dell's 2.7kg-plus Inspiron 600m and IBM's 2.26kg ThinkPad T30 are chunky monkeys by comparison. The VAIO V505-series notebooks measure 227 x 242.4 x 35 mm, which is about average for this class of notebook.
VAIO V505-series notebooks are what's called legacy free, meaning that they eschew older connectors such as parallel and serial ports and don't have an internal floppy drive. VAIO V505s also, unfortunately, forgo a modular bay, so a USB floppy such as Sony's PCGA-UFD5 is your only recourse if you really need one. The right edge is home to a single USB 2.0 port, a V.90 modem port, a 10/100 Ethernet port, a 24X/4X/12X (CD-RW) and 8X (DVD) combo drive, and a Memory Stick port. The left edge sports a second USB 2.0 port, microphone and headphone audio jacks, a single Type II PC Card slot, a VGA port, a Sony iLink (four-pin IEEE 1394) port, an AC jack, and a Kensington lock receptacle. The back of the notebook is consumed entirely by a six-cell, 11.1V, 4,400mAh battery.
Looking head-on at the front lip of a VAIO V505 series reveals the easily accessible but cleverly tucked away, power switch and lid latches. On the outside, you can also see lights for the power, battery, and hard drive access. Once you pop the screen up, you'll spot the unit's touchpad; the right and left buttons; the keyboard; and its 12.1-inch, 1,024x768 display. We liked the firm, responsive feel of the touchpad buttons, and the touchpad tracked well. (There's no pointing-stick option on the VAIO V505 series.) The display has a nice range of colours, but in our experience, the screen was viewable at only fairly shallow angles unless you up the brightness considerably from the default setting.
We've seen a few reviews lauding the VAIO V505-series keyboard, and we have to admit that it has a nice, crisp feel, with little discernable flex, and its layout is comfortably desktoplike in most respects. But the oft-used right Shift key is squashed to one-third desktop size to accommodate the inverted-T cursor keys, making it far too easy to mistakenly hit the adjacent up-arrow key and wind up typing in the line above where you started--the type of niggling little flaw that can ruin your day.
The two tiny speakers above the keyboard provide clear-enough sound to play Windows system sounds, but they won't cut it for MP3s or movies. They're no worse than those in most notebooks, but it's our feeling that when the speakers don't cut it, headphones should be included; the VAIO V505s ship without any.
When you buy from Sonystyle.com.au, Sony offers the VAIO V505 in two models for AU$3,999 each. At the heart of these machines is Intel's Pentium 4-M processor in 1.8GHz and 2.2GHz speeds. Memory varies from 256MB to 512MB of DDR SDRAM, and hard drive capacity ranges from 40GB to 60GB. Standard, and not upgradable, are the DVD/CD-RW combo drive; the 1,024x768, 12.1-inch screen; and ATI's Mobility Radeon graphics controller, using 16MB of DDR SDRAM of memory. It's too bad that Sony doesn't offer a couple of choices for the fixed media bay to help reduce the cost.
Optional integrated 802.11b wireless is available in the preconfigured and customised models sold on Sony's Web site, but you'll need USB or a PC Card to add it to models sold in retail outlets. Bluetooth is not integrated, so you'll have to go the USB/PC Card route for that wireless technology, as well.
Sony bundles a boatload of software with the VAIO V505 series. Our test machine shipped with Microsoft's Windows XP Home operating system, but you can also opt for Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP Pro for an additional fee. Sony also includes some standard productivity software: Microsoft Works 2003, Microsoft Encarta, and Microsoft Money 2003, with Microsoft Office Small Business Edition and Office XP Professional available as optional upgrades. Sony also bundles some of its own software, including its DVGate video-capture and editing program, MovieShaker movie-authoring program, PictureGear Studio image handler, and Sonicstage music player and organiser. InterVideo's WinDVD 4.0 handles DVD-movie playback, while licensed versions of Sonic Foundry's Acid sample-looping program and Sound Forge audio editor are on hand for aspiring DJs and musicians.
Note: The above-mentioned software configuration is only available in the US. Australian models ship with Windows XP Professional pre-installed. Software bundles may vary. Please check with your local distributor for more information.
The V505 produced a good performance score of 120, only 3 points behind its nearest competitor, the ThinkPad T30. Even better, the VAIO beat the WinBook X4 by a significant 14 points, thanks to the WinBook X4's use of the SIS 651 graphics adapter, which borrows system memory to be used as video memory. Although it came in second in this small test group, the VAIO V505 is still fast enough to run basic office and multimedia apps at good speeds.
The VAIO V505 features an 11.1V, 4,400mAh battery, which boasted good but not great battery life in our tests, particularly compared to its similarly configured peers. This VAIO would not fare as well against the new, power-conserving Centrino notebooks, but nevertheless, the VAIO V505AX topped the WinBook X4, which has a 14.8V, 3,600mAh battery, by more than 50 minutes, and it finished just two minutes behind the ThinkPad T30, which has a 10.8V, 4,400mAh battery.
Sadly, Sony maintains the trend in notebook support lately, providing only a one-year, limited warranty on the VAIO V505 series. In our book, such a short warranty leaves a lot--specifically, another two years--to be desired. Sony also doesn't provide a promised turnaround time on repairs, and the current estimate from the service department was quoted as a leisurely five to seven days. In addition to its average warranty, the company's also comes with online tech support which includes FAQs and downloads.
Sony VAIO PCG-V505P (Pentium 4-M 1.8GHz; 256MB RAM)
Company: Sony Australia
Price: AU$3,999
Distributor: Selected resellers
Phone: 1300 720 071
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