
Having decided that our Sharp Actius was just too heavy to lug around in spite of how well we liked it, we decided to buy a lighter unit for vacations. It was hard to find one that would match the features on the Actius, but we finally settled on the Sony Vaio GRT 100C. This turned out to be a very good choice.
Now, with the GRT 100 series, they are all basically the same Sony guts, and the end number/letter just denotes extra features. The 'C' is to indicate extras shipped on all machines destined for retail sale at Circuit City. You can order your own custom GRT 100 at sony.com for anywhere from $999 to $4000, but this one is actually a very good combo off the floor.
CD-RW & DVD /- RW
The CD-RW works extremely well. This unit does not come with the usual restore discs, so you have to make your own right off the bat. This is not a problem. Copying was very easy and fairly quick. The DVD /- RW also works very well.
Display
This one comes with a 15″ monitor and the display is amazingly clear. I have bad eyes and refuse to wear my bi-focals unless driving at night so at first I was worried about the small font with the whatchacallit, enhanced ummm you know…oh yeah resolution.. DOH! These small fonts are not a problem though, even for me. The display is so incredibly crisp that I have no problem at all reading what's on my desk top. The colors are brilliant and while it isn't quite as bright as the Sharp Actius, it's pretty damn close. The graphics card is an Nvidia GeForce��€ž� 4 420 Go, so even games graphics are top notch.
Memory
This unit comes with 512MB DDR SDRAM, expandable to 1024MB, and 32MG Video DDR SGRAM. That's separate memory folks, not shared. What that means is you can play graphic-intense games on this without having a memory crash. Most laptops share that memory, so this is definite plus.
Geeky Stuff
Pentium� 4, 2.8GHz, 40GB Hard Drive; The Vaio GRT 100C has no Serial Port, but does have an Ethernet Port, 3 USB 2.0 ports, 1 IEEE 1394 Port, 1 Parallel Port, RJ-11 modem jack, AV-out (mini-jack), Memory Stick media slot, VGA output, headphone (stereo), monaural mini-jack microphone, and a port replicator connection.
No Integrated Wireless
One draw back is that there is no integrated wireless, it comes with a Integrated V.90 Modem instead… so we had to go buy a separate card for the wirelss. I expected it to bleed because of the antennae not being built in but that was a groundless fear. The wireless card worked just as well as the built-in wireless on the Sharp Actius.
Touch Pad
Like most lap tops these days, it has an Electro-Static Touch Pad. I don't like touch pads at all. I just can't get used to them and find them very awkward to use so we bought a little mouse for it. I did use the touch pad a little to try it, and it just is not very responsive. I've also read numerous reports from folks who have had quite a lot of trouble with the touch pad going bad. Like I said, that didn't deter me as I planned to plug a mouse into it anyway.
One problem I found with the touch pad was that my thumb's natural rest area is where that touch pad resides, so I have to watch it close or I accidently relocate my cursor to who knows where… aggravating. My friend, however, doesn't have that problem so it must be a function of hand size differential. This is, however, irritating enough to me that it takes them down from 4 stars to 3.
Sound
This sony VAIO has built-in stereo speakers which are much better than the Sharp Actius speakers were, and a monaural mini-jack microphone. These speakers are good enough to crank your CDs on with no distortion. The only thing some of you may not like is that they are light on the bass.
Portability & Battery
While not the lightest choice on the market, it beats the hell out of the Sharp Actius'10.2 pound by weighing in at 7.5 lbs with one battery; 8.0 lbs with battery and optical drive. Probably still too heavy for a student who takes it to each class, but way easier to carry around on vacation.
Battery life sucks. We ran it out several times and every time it died at a little over one hour of use. Not an issue for me since I have the thingies to plug into my cigarette lighter in the car, and the thingy for jacking into the airline ports… but if you need to rely on the battery then this one is probably not what you are looking for. Extra batteries run about $250 for this puppy.
Speed
According to rigorous tests by CNET: In maximum performance tests, the VAIO GRT160 placed second to the Fujitsu LifeBook N series, which houses a faster 2.8GHz Pentium 4 processor. Still, for a 2.66GHz Pentium 4 system with these specs, the VAIO GRT160 still posted a great score and will have no trouble running office and content-creation apps at a fast clip. Other CNET results of this machine can be found here.
Our experience pretty closely matches their conclusions. This is one fast little sucker. It did run faster after we wiped the hard drive of all the extraneous crap software and loaded XP Pro instead of the Home version it came with, but it was pretty damn fast even before that.
Software bundle and extras:
Windows� XP Home, Microsoft� Works, Money 2003 (time-limited features), Encarta� Online (trial/fee required), Easy Systems Drag'n Drop CD DVD, Sony Click to DVD, DVGate Plus, Adobe Premiere LE, Intervideo WinDVD 4, Sonicstage with MP3 encoder, SonicStage Mastering Studio, Screenblast ACID, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Sony PictureGear Studio, Network Smart Capture, VAIO Media, MSN� 8.0/AOL (fee), Age of Empires 2, Norton Internet Security 2003 Trial (fee), VAIO Support Agent
Support
We actually did call Sony support for something (I forget now what it was) and they were much better than usual call center folks. They knew what they were talking about and were very curteous. We asked about turn-around times for repair if we ever needed it and they said right now it's about a week. The warranty is a one-year, limited warranty with 24/7, toll-free phone support. We have many Sony products (Wega, DVD, etc) and have talked to them about those items previously. Sony is awesome. They even paid to repair our Wega locally 3 days after that warranty expired. I love Sony.
My Overall Take
This is really a nice machine and I'm quite happy with it. The weight could be less, but it's ok for vacations when you are just carrying it from the car/airport to the hotel and back… but I would not recommend it to road warriors and note-dependent students. It would get too heavy fast I think. For folks like us who don't have to carry it everywhere though, it's really a great unit. The features are wonderful and the support is just unbeatable. Too bad Microsoft is now forcing that damnable Vista on everyone… I have recently retired all of our PCs and switched to Macs.
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