So far the best laptop I've ever owned

I picked this laptop up early yesterday from Best Buy after reading up on ultraportables for the last few months. I decided on the Sony because of what reviews had said about build quality, battery life, and design. After using the unit in the store for a half hour or so I decided to go for it and treat myself. :)

In store the unit was in a large display and taped down so it couldn't be messed with. The display actually made the unit look bigger than it is, and only when the associate brought out the Sony box from "the back" did I realize what I was actually getting.

The packaging for the unit is very simple. The battery, the notebook itself, and the AC adapter are all packaged separately. When you pull the unit out of the box, all you have to do is pop the battery on the back (more about that later), and plug it in. I found that my battery did have a decent charge (about 50%) right out of the box, which was nice because when you pull this thing out and see how small it is, you're going to walk around with it, holding it in only one hand for a few minutes - simply because you can. :)

The documentation for the unit was sufficient. To be honest I haven't really gone through any of it yet in great detail. The one thing I did notice is that the notebook doesn't come with any restore CDs. This requires some explanation.

5GB of the hard drive is partitioned off as non-accessible space to store a "recovery partition." What does this mean? Well it means that of the 60GB of hard drive space you paid for, you can only actually use about 55GB. In order to make recovery discs, Sony makes you provide your own CD-R media to create discs off of the recovery partition on the laptop via a program they supply. The program is easy to understand (wizard format) and provides you with the option of creating a set of 7 CD-Rs, or a single DVD+-R and a CD-R as a recovery set.

If you repartition and format the drive without creating restore discs, Sony will make you pay for them, and they're NOT cheap.

The notebook that I got came with Windows XP Pro installed. There is a version that comes with XP Home. Being as this one is targeted at business users (XP Pro + the Cingular internet package - more on that later) I figured the XP Pro install would be relatively clean. Nope. There was a good 8GB or so taken up by programs that didn't need to be there. Uninstalling these programs was quite the mess as well - add Add/Remove Programs was full of "shared libraries" and things like that (mostly Sony's apps) that made stripping this laptop down to bare essentials without a full XP reinstall nearly impossible.

I decided that trying to strip all of Sony's "include-ware" was futile and decided to see what the restore process was like via the restore discs I had made. To my surprise Sony actually lets you reinstall the OS without all of the include-ware from the restore CDs. This was a big surprise and was VERY nice. Props to them for this - I've never seen any other manufacturer do this... now only if they'd just include a dual-sided DVD with the laptop in the first place...

Enough about the included software though - let's talk battery life.

Fully charged Windows XP reports that I have a little under 5 hours of battery life with a full charge. Being as I'm used to the $500-$800 laptop demographic through our suppliers at work, I'm used to roughly 1 hour battery times and that's with the CPU throttled and the screen set as dim as it will go. Such is not the case with this Vaio. I was able to run the full recovery restore, customize XP to my liking, and install all of the programs I normally use off CDs and from my network and the Vaio still reported 2 hours of battery life - this is with the screen on full brightness and the optical drive working nearly the whole time.

Battery life is EXCELLENT.

With that said, the placement of the battery is somewhat awkward. Usually the battery on a notebook is hidden somewhere in either the side or the bottom of the unit... on the Vaio T series, the batteries are slapped right on to the back. I've read a lot of reviews that say that they don't like this design... but even though it IS awkward, I think it adds to the style of the device. It does look somewhat awkward sticking out the back, but when you're using the laptop, you can't see it, so you quickly forget it's even there.

The Vaio T350P comes with very few ports on the outside. Included on the left side of the unit is a Memory Stick reader (typical of Sony), a small IEEE1394 "i-Link" port, a VGA port for external monitor, and two USB 2.0 ports. RJ11 56K and RJ45 Ethernet jacks are located on the right side of the unit, along with the optical drive. The Ethernet and phone jacks are covered with small plastic doors that can be a pain to open if you don't have long enough fingernails, but they make the unit look cleaner and protect these ports from dust and debris.

Included also is Wifi and Bluetooth, and on some models, "WWAN" capability and the potential (requires subscription) for Cingular's cellular internet. This is a cool feature that I'm sure a lot of business people will use, but because of the current price I can't see many people at home springing $60-$80 a month on top of cell phone service to take their 350P totally wireless anywhere. You can turn all wireless communications off to save battery life with a hardware switch on the front of the Vaio. I found this to be extremely useful. Windows XP simply disables the devices when the switch is off, and automatically re-enables them and reconnects you to your networks when the switch is turned back on. LED indicators are also present to show you which wireless devices you're currently using.

Also included on the front of the Vaio are hardware volume + and - buttons, as well as a hardware Mute button. The hardware Mute has an LED indicator to let you know if Mute is on or off. Very slick.

One complaint I've seen regarding this laptop - and you may have to check this Vaio out in real life once if you're considering ordering one online because of this - is the size of the keyboard. At work I use a Logitech USB keyboard that's designed for a PlayStation 2, so I'm used to (and actually like using) smaller keys. The keys on this Vaio keyboard are not standard size though, so you should be aware of this before you purchase the unit - especially if you have large hands.

Opposite the keyboard on the Vaio T is an excellent screen. I can easily say this is probably the best example of a laptop screen I've ever seen. Amazing clarity, and a bright vivid picture make viewing stills or video on this notebook a very enjoyable experience to say the least. Sony's XBrite technology is definitely awesome, and if you're considering a Vaio, I'd highly recommend going with a model that has XBrite.

The only real issue I've found so far with the Vaio is the occasional dip in performance. This can be accredited to several factors - the hard drive is only a 4200rpm drive. Most laptops sport 5400rpm drives, and some now even have 7200rpm drives. Another thing that will directly affect graphics and games is the video chipset used. Sony went full on Centrino with this, and that includes the use of Intel's graphics chipset, which doesn't have any VRAM of it's own, so it borrows from the system RAM.

If you take a look at the target demographic of this notebook though - these things shouldn't matter. This Vaio isn't designed for games or graphics design... the Intel video chipset is excellent for 2D writes, so doing the "normal" computing tasks, and definitely business commuting tasks is a breeze for this little Vaio, but anyone considering using this for intense graphic design or the newest 3D games should probably look elsewhere.

This Vaio is as thin and light as it is brilliant and stylish. Using it in public will definitely get you looks, stares, and questions, using it around the office or a geek crowd will get you much of the same. Sluggish video performance and awkward battery aside, this is still an excellent unit that's extremely easy to carry around and a joy to own and use. Of the past 7 laptops I've bought, including an older Sony Vaio FRV-25, I've always felt a bit of buyers remorse when having to plug my "mobile" computer in to a wall outlet every hour and a half or so, and having to lug all 6 or 7 lbs of my "mobile" computer around - but such is simply not the case with this Vaio.

The Vaio T is truly a "mobile" mobile device, and I would highly recommend it to anyone - except hardcore gamers. :)