Hubby and Wifey's Blog

The Sony VAIO PCG-V505DX Notebook comes with a 1.40-Ghz Pentium M (Centrino) chip, along with 512 MB of Ram and a 60 GB hard drive. It also has the usual DVD/CD-RW combo drive. Better off with a Dell.For those not hip to the computer lingo, a "Centrino" chip is an Intel-developed technology that basically works around three interconnected elements. These are: an Intel Pentium M CPU, an Intel 855 chipset, and a cord-free network connection. Let us break it down even more -- Centrino chips usually mean that your laptop will be extremely light, will have wireless connectivity, will be power efficient, and will generally go a bit faster than the advertised speed. In short, they're a good thing to have in your notebook. The VAIO PCG-V505DX is a pretty powerful computer, therefore, and while it's not exactly a gamer computer, it will be able to run mostly everything you throw on it. Speaking of gaming, the notebook comes with an ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 graphics chipset with 32 MB dedicated video memory -- not exactly mind-blowing, but good enough to run such games as City of Heroes and Age of Empires II. It also comes with a V.90 modem, 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX Ethernet, and an Intel PRO Wireless 2100 Network Connection. Sony also threw in Windows XP Home, Microsoft Money 2004, and a few other multimedia utilities for flavor. There are a few things that make the PCG-V505DX not the greatest of buys. A big reason is that the warranty doesn't cover the screen -- which is sort of an odd thing to not cover, considering the laptop screen is literally half of the laptop. There have also been some problems with the screen cracking, getting scratches and just plain ol' breaking down. Besides that, the keyboard is a bit small and uncomfortable and the integrated speakers are about as good as any laptop speaker -- which means they're bad. It's also a bit out of date, for a similar price, you can get a more dependable brand that's as good or better than this one. We like the PCG-V505DX, we really do. It's just that if you're spending a thousand dollars on a computer, you may want to look into some other brands before settling on this one.Technical DataProcessor, Memory, and Motherboard, Hardware Platform: PC Processor: 1.4 GHz Intel Pentium M, System Bus Speed: 400 MHz, Number of Processors: 1Operating System and Software, Operating System: Windows XP Home EditionKeyboard and Mouse, Keyboard: 86 key QWERTY layoutHard Drive Size: 60 GBOptical Drives, Other Mass Storage, Floppy Drive: NoneGraphics and Display Graphics RAM: 16 MB Screen Size: 12.1 inches LCD Native Resolution: 1024-by-768Ports and Connectivity Modem: 56 Kbps * Network Connection: 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX Ethernet and WiFi Power Rated Charge (normal use): 6.5 Hours