Sony VAIO PCG-TR3A Review....

[MegaManXcalibur]

I ordered one of these from www.newegg.com about two weeks ago (the original unit I purchased was damaged in shipping so I had to wait for a replacement) and I have finally had several days to play with it. So here is my personal review of it (it?s lengthy but there is a bullet point summery at the end)....

First off here are the specs of the system....

Processor: Pentium M running at 1.0Ghz

RAM: 512MB MicroDIMM (has one slot open for an additional 512MB)

Hard Drive: 40GB

Aditional Drives: CD-RW/DVD-ROM, Memory Stick Pro Reader

Connections: 2 USB 2.0, 1 Firewire, 1 PCI card slot, 1 VGA connector, Headphone jack, Microphone jack

Networking: Built in 802.11b/g, 10/100 Ethernet, 56k Modem

Screen: 10.6" with max resolution of 1280x768

Graphics Chip: Intel 855GM with 64MB (which is shared with the system memory)

Weight: 3.11 pounds (with battery installed)

Ok at first look this thing doesn't look like it has a whole lot in the way of power, the processor is only at 1.0Ghz and it only has 512MB of RAM of which 64MB is shared with the graphics card. On top of that it has a small 40GB hard drive. But after using this thing for a while I can honestly say that it has plenty of power so long as your not looking to play the fastest games with it. It runs all of my needed programs very well (Visual Studio .NET, Microsoft Office 2003, Macromedia Studio MX, Sun Netbeans IDE, and CodeWarroir Development Studio for Palm OS).

Now onto some of the more impressive specs. First of all this notebook is using Intel's Centrino technology so it has both the Pentium M processor and a built in 802.11 wireless network card. It also means better battery life, and great battery life is one of the things I absolutely needed. In this field the VAIO TR3A performs flawlessly. I ran this thing on it's battery with several different settings and got the following results...

Screen brightness at lowest level and wireless card off: Around 4 hours

Screen brightness at lowest level and wireless card on: Around 4 hours again (wireless card didn't really seem to make much of a difference)

Screen brightness at highest level and wireless card on: Right around 3 hours and 15 minutes

These results are with the standard battery but a double capacity battery can be purchased as well, although it's pricey at $350.00 (that's Sony's price I'm sure you can find it cheaper elsewhere). This well exceeded the required time that I needed to run on the battery.

Another impressive thing about this laptop is that it weighs in at a mere 3.11 pounds, which is very light for a laptop with a built in optical drive (a lot of ultra portables don?t have internal optical drives). When carrying this around with you, you don?t even notice it (which is a huge change from my last notebook which weighed in at about 8 and a half pounds). This low weight can be attributed to this laptop?s small size; it measures in at approximately 1.4? thick, 10.6? wide, and 7.4? deep. This of course came at the price of requiring a small screen which has a 10.6? diagonal viewable area. But since it has a max resolution of 1280x768 you can have quite a bit on screen at one time. And if you need to see something at a larger resolution there is a button on the monitor that allows you to magnify (lower the resolution) the screen. But like all LCD screens I have seen the image is very fuzzy at the lower resolution.

This thing also has your standard Centrino equipped 802.11b/g card. This is really nice because it will work with older 802.11b networks but also work with newer and faster 802.11g networks. Although I was sort of surprised Sony didn?t include 802.11a functionality, but since I have never seen an 802.11a network it really doesn?t bother me.

And where would we be without connectivity? Luckily this laptop comes equipped with both USB 2.0 ports (2 of them) and a Firewire port. This covers most any peripheral that you will come across. There is also one PCI card slow located on the right side which can use both Type I or Type II cards. It also has an external VGA connector so you can hook this machine up to an actual monitor. Finally it also has the standard 10/100 Ethernet port and a 56k modem for those of you still on dial-up.

And just for fun there is a built in camera located above the monitor. It?s not much of one, but it can work as a web camera or to record movies or take picture in a pinch (by pinch I mean that you absolutely want a picture of something and don?t have a decent camera on you). Another nice feature is the inclusion of external volume controls. On the right side of the monitor there are two buttons that allow you to increase and decrease the volume, which really doesn?t qualify as a real feature but it makes life a little easier. Also the software included for the touch pad has three nice little features, the ability to use the extreme right side of the touch pad for scrolling up and down, the abilty to use the extreme bottom of the touchpad to scroll left and right, and the ability to use the very top of the touchpad as a back and forward button in your browser (both of these options are easily disabled if you don?t like them). Finally I'd just like to add in that this laptop is also extremely quite, you don't even hear the fan unless you are in a perfectly silent area and then you can hear little "whine" from the left side where the hot air is blown out.

The only real downsides to this unit that I found were the speakers and the position of some of the keys on the keyboard. The speakers built into this unit are not much, just two fairly tinny sounding things located above the monitor, about what you find on most laptops. As for the keyboard the Page Up, Page Down, Home, and End keys are merged with the arrow keys so if you want to Page Up on a document you have to hold in the Fn key and press the up arrow to do so. There is an Fn key right next to the arrow keys so this isn?t much more then an annoyance once you get used to it. A second annoyance on the keyboard in the right shift key, it?s quite small and until you get used to it you can often hit either the ? key or the up arrow.

So overall this is a great laptop for anybody who wants a super light unit with good battery life. It?s got plenty of power for your basic needs but it?s going to push the latest and greatest in games. I am defiantly very happy with this thing and would recommend it to anybody.

Pros:

- Small and very light

- Great battery life

- Good power for most needs

- Built in 802.11b/g card

- Built in optical drive

- USB 2.0 and Firewire ports

- Very quiet

Cons:

- Keyboard can take a while to get used to

- Speakers sound tinny

- Won?t run the latest games

Edited May 8, 2004 by MegaManXcalibur

[SirEvan]

can you do a test for me? try running it with the screen closed, wireless card off. I saw this laptop today at frys, and was thinking about it, but would like to see how long it would go with the screen closed and off. Let me know what you find.

[MegaManXcalibur]

Ok I ran the test with the screen closed and the wireless card off. Total I had about 4 and a half hours. So you get about an extra half hour with the monitor turned off.

[Iain]

Always wanted one, although I would feel I was paying for some stuff I wouldn't need, especially the camera. Saying that, I'd still love one. It's just a shame I cant find a good deal on one in the UK!

[dheaddy]

Always wanted one, although I would feel I was paying for some stuff I wouldn't need, especially the camera. Saying that, I'd still love one. It's just a shame I cant find a good deal on one in the UK!

Same here, I saw one in the flesh in Selfridges and just feel in love with it. Just need to find a good price now!

Great review btw, very helpful :yes:

[Iain]

Yeah, I saw one in the Sony shop. Stupidly expensive prices in there though. ?1800 for the TR1! lol..

[MegaManXcalibur]

I don't know how cheap you guys are looking for but I got mine at www.newegg.com for about $2,000 which is pretty good for this model (still pricey but worth it if you ask me). By the way thanks for the positive feedback dheaddy.

[Iain]

Well I'm torn between three laptops at the moment, with this being one of them. Just wondering if I really need a laptop THAT small...

[MegaManXcalibur]

I was asking myself the same question. If I went a little bigger then I could save a few bucks. But when then I considered all the possible locations I could use my laptop finally (college being one of them since we get very tiny amounts of space on those desks, also works great when you sitting at a crowded table with a bunch of other people). Also the extremly light weight makes carrying this thing around easy as can be (you could easily carry this thing in your backpack with your books if you could find some kind of case to protect it from getting smashed). Overall if you want an ultra-portable you might as well get just that, something ultra portable.

[aaron901]

good review. :)

[Daniel F. Administrators]

congrats you made the front page - https://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=20344&category=main

[helmers]

What about graphics performance? I wouldn't expect much from something used shared memory, but I've seen some nForce mainboards doing it okay... Also it would be nice to know if it did support MPEG2-decoding, as well as how well it handles divx/xvid compressed movies. With a widescreen this could be a very nice thing to show movies on, even if the speakers are a bit shabby.

[altermind]

my dad has one of these... there sweet.. but.. useless for any new games

[Stunod7]

How long do you use this laptop consistently? Does it give you any unnecessary eye strain because it's so small?

I'm getting ready to switch jobs and they are going to have to buy me a laptop and I've been looking at this laptop quite a bit but given the time I spend in front of my laptop through out a day (around 6-7 hours) I don't know how well it might work for me... Any chance on me renting it for a week ;)?

[MegaManXcalibur]

How long do you use this laptop consistently? Does it give you any unnecessary eye strain because it's so small?

The longest stretch I have used the laptop so far has been about 8 hours. I felt no eye strain at all, actually it's quite easy on the eyes.

Any chance on me renting it for a week ?

Maybe when I see Satan buying ice skates :D

What about graphics performance?

Well frankly the graphics chip is great for most anything besides high powered games. For things such as playing movies it works perfect (and the widescreen is really nice). DivX also works find, but I haven't actually attempted anything in the form of MPEG2 (I don't do much with movies besides watching a DVD). I did test Tron 2.0 on this laptop recently and it ran it fairly well when I lowered a lot of the setting.

[Stunod7]

You know... I always knew this picture would pay off I just didn't know when.

Let me know when you get this so we can arrange shipping and payment ;)

[Iain]

What's the difference between this and the TR1, except the 100mhz faster processor, 10gb more hdd space and 256mb more ram? Are those the only differences? Seems minimal changes for a ?200 increase in price.

[Stunod7]

I do have another serious question. Could you sit at this laptop for 6-8 hours a day 5 days a week or would this small screen start to give you problems? Just give me your opinion... You are the first person I've "talked" with who owns one of these and I'm really curious.

[MegaManXcalibur]

No sitting in front of this thing hasn't bothered me yet (and I've been using it pretty constantly since I got it). For me the small screen doesn't cause me any grief what so ever even when I use it for 8 hours a day for several days strait.

And as for Pulse's question those are the main differences, that and the inclusion of 802.11b/g instead of just 802.11b. So it's not a dramatic difference (the bigger hard drive, extra RAM, slightly faster processor is worth the extra cost to me but to many people it really wouldn't matter).

[helmers]

I have used a similar screen 1024x768 10" on my laptop for three years now, and I have had no problems. The important thing is the contrast of the screen as well as the viewing angle. Other than that you would have to have severely reduced eyesight to have a problem with these things.

[BxBoy]

I feel in love with this the first time I saw it, especially with it's ultra portability design and good battery life. Unfortunately it's still a bit too pricey for my blood, and until my current vaio laptop breaks down, I have no need for another one.

and oh yea, there were a couple of spelling errors, but overall a great review. (Y)

edit: oh yea, question about watching DVDs, are you able to watch a full movie on a fully charged battery?

[MegaManXcalibur]

Spelling errors? Blame Microsoft Word, it was suppose to be spell checking me :D

As for watching a movie, I can watch a full movie and have a lot of battery to spare.

And thanks for the positive feedback.

[dplant]

Hi

Can anyone tell me is there any problem buying the Sony from the US to use in Ireland/UK, will it support dual electricity or will I need an adapter, warranty issues etc

Many Thaks

Dave