Sony Vaio VGN-S1VP notebook

Sony's best yet?

As far as performance goes the S1VP holds its own well against other slim line models. Running MobileMark the Sony turned in a battery life time of over three and a half hours, which is pretty respectable for a notebook this size. The battery is definitely good enough to keep you working all the way from London to Paris on Eurostar, while the performance score of 181 shows that the S1VP is not throttling back too much on performance to achieve a decent battery life. The SYSmark 2002 score of 204 is also very respectable for a slim and light notebook, and you should be able throw pretty much anything you like at this little machine.

 

 

As well as superb design and solid hardware specification, Sony has also equipped the S1VP with a decent software bundle. Pre-installed you'll find Sony's Adobe pack which includes Photoshop Elements 2.0, Premiere Standard, Photoshop Album 2.0 Starter Edition and Acrobat Elements 6.0. On top of this you get a copy of Microsoft Works to make sure the S1VP is productive straight out of the box and a copy of Norton Internet Security to keep you protected from all those malicious emails and executables out there.

The Sony Vaio VGN-S1VP is one of those products where I find myself looking for something negative to talk about. Being very critical I can say that the keyboard does flex a little when typing at speed and doesn't feel as solid as something you'd find on an IBM ThinkPad. I could also say that the graphics chipset is a bit disappointing, but since you have the option of paying a little more for a cutting edge 3D chipset, that would seem like a somewhat harsh criticism. On the whole the S1VP is a lovely little laptop, and one that I would be more than happy to carry around with me every day of the week.

That said, after a couple of days more use, I found myself in a quiet hotel room with the S1VP plugged into the mains. Not only did this mean that the CPU was running at a full 1.7GHz, but it also meant that an incredibly loud variable fan kicked in and stayed on constantly during use. Now, I'm usually willing to accept a bit of fan noise in a very slim notebook, but the constant whine of the S1VP soon started to drive me mad. If you're working in an area with reasonable ambient noise you might not notice it, but in a quiet room it's quite distrubing.

As always price has to rear it's head, and although this little Vaio is not what I'd call cheap, it's by no means overpriced either. With a street price of £1699 including VAT, you're getting a well specified and beautifully crafted notebook computer. It may be a little larger and heavier than Sony's amazing Vaio X505VP, but it's also better specified, has pretty much everything integrated, sports a better screen and comes in at £400 less. If you want the ultimate IT style icon, you're going to have to go for the X505VP, but for me the S1VP is a better all round package - it's still beautifully designed, but doesn't compromise on functionality.

Verdict

Sony has yet again produced a superb slimline notebook computer that can handle anything you're likely to throw at it. The screen is simply breathtaking and the performance and battery life are both impressive considering its size. Almost everything is perfect with the S1VP, but ultimately the excessively noisy fan means that this little Vaio misses out on an award. If you can live with a variable whine in the background though, you'll fall in love with this Sony, much like I initially did.

Sony Vaio VGN-S1VP
Rating	80%
Price	£1699
More info	The Sony web site

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