Jonathan's Store - Sony VAIO VGN-SZ330P/B 13.3" Laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7200, 2 GB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, DVD+-R Double Layer / DVD¿RW Drive)

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Sony VAIO VGN-SZ330P/B 13.3" Laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7200, 2 GB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, DVD+-R Double Layer / DVD¿RW Drive)
From Sony

Price:

2 new or used available from $1,200.00

Average customer review:

Product Description

Sony VGN-SZ330P/B VAIO(R) SZ Series Notebook PC - This ultra portable PC is less than 1" thin, weighs only 4 lbs. with the battery, yet inside it's svelt exterior you will find some of the latest in mobile PC technology. Like the Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7200 (2.0GHz). A processor that has two separate cores that can each run at up to 2.0 GHz. For applications that support this, it's like having two processors in one! You also get 120GB of hard drive space and a Double Layer DVD Writer. Perfect for storing and backing up large amounts of data, as well as giving you the freedom to take on creative tasks like DVD video creation. 2GB of DDR2 SDRAM (not expandable) 13.3 Widescreen LCD Native Resolution - 1280 x 800 NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400 with 128MB of dedicated memory and Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with 128MB of shared memory 120GB 5400RPM SATA HDD with G-Sensor Shock Protection Built-in Camera and Microphone DVD Writer - (write speeds) up to 2.4x DL DVD+R, 2x DL DVD-R, 3x DVD-RAM, 8x DVD+R, 8x DVD-R, 4x DVD-RW, 4x DVD+RW, 24x CD-R, & 16x CD-RW DVD Writer - (read speeds) up to 8x DVD-ROM & 24x CD-ROM Built-in 802.11a/g Wi-Fi Wireless Networking Adapter Multimedia Card Reader - support Memory Stick(R) DUO with MagicGate(TM) functionality One ExpressCard/32 Slot - 5-in-1 Memory Card Adapter - supports Memory Stick, Memory Stick(R) PRO, Secure Digital, xD-Picture Card, & MultiMediaCard One Type II PC Card Slot Ports - 10/100 Ethernet, 1 VGA Out, 1 (4-pin) Firewire, 2 USB 2.0, 1 Headphone, & 1 Microphone In

Product Details

Amazon Sales Rank: #1920 in Personal Computers
Brand: Sony
Model: VGN-SZ330P/B
Dimensions: 1.50" h x 12.50" w x 9.30" l, 4.10 pounds
CPU: Intel Core Duo 2 GHz
Memory: 2000MB DDR2 SDRAM
Hard Disk: 120GB
Processors: 2
Display size: 13.3

Features

Sleekly designed, lightweight notebook with 13.3-inch screen; powerful 1.83 GHz Intel T7200 Core 2 Duo processor (667 MHz FSB, 4 MB L2 cache)
120 GB Serial ATA hard drive, 2 GB RAM (2 GB max), multi-format/dual-layer DVD+/-RW drive, multi-format memory card adapter
Two USB 2.0, one FireWire, one PCMICIA, one VGA, Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN), tri-mode 802.11a/b/g wireless LAN, Bluetooth, Ethernet, modem
Hybrid Graphics System lets toggle between NVidia GeForce Go 7400 (128 MB dedicated) and Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (128 MB shared)
Windows XP Professional edition (SP2), biometric fingerprint scanning, integrated camera

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Product Description
The sleekly designed, lightweight Sony VAIO VGN-SZ330P/B notebook PC delivers intelligent mobile design while placing a priority on usability and performance. Coolly contemporary, it has a magnesium coating and aluminum finish on the palm rest for a great blend of the fashionable and the functional. It measures a mere 1.5 inches thin and features a superb 13.3-inch widescreen display with XBRITE LCD technology, long battery life, and a generous, comfortable keyboard. The integrated tri-mode 802.11 a/b/g wireless LAN enables wireless connectivity on the fly, while the integrated wireless Wide Area Network (WAN) technology helps keep you connected and productive when away from your workstation. The integrated web-camera and microphone make video conferencing over VOIP connections easy.

It comes preloaded with a suite of Sony multimedia software, enabling you to create, manage and view your multimedia files with ease. Use Sony's Click to DVD software to easily create high-quality customized DVDs with the 8x multi-format DVD burner (compatible with dual-layer discs), while Sony's SonicStage software makes managing your music files and making your own audio CDs a cinch.

This notebook is powered by the Intel Core 2 Duo processor, which offers a 20 percent performance boost over its predcessor while using 28 percent less power--so you get the benefit of a powerful dual-core PC plus all the benefits of mobility. The dual-execution core T7200 Core 2 Duo processor provides an optimized, multithreaded architecture for improved gaming and multitasking performance, and it features a 2.0 GHz speed, lightning quick 667 MHz system bus, and massive 4 MB L2 cache. It also offers the revolutionary Hybrid Graphics System lets toggle between internal and external graphics chips, enabling you to choose lighter battery consumption or better performance depending on the situation. Other features include a 120 GB Serial ATA hard drive, 2 GB of installed RAM (maxing out capacity), Bluetooth wireless capability, advanced security/safety features that include a biometric fingerprint sensor, long battery life (up to 5.5 hours with included standard battery), and Windows XP Professional operating system. This is Windows Vista capable PC, and it's also Windows Vista Premium ready.

The Basics

Hard Drive: Large and in charge, the 120 GB hard drive (5400 RPM) offers enough to room to hold a digital audio library of over 20,000 songs and still have room left over for movies, games, and a large collection of software. This Serial ATA (SATA) hard drive also quickens the pace with a higher speed transfer of data--akin to FireWire and USB 2.0.
Processor: The Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 processor has a 2.0 GHz processor speed, super-fast 667 MHz front-side bus (FSB), and an enormous 4 MB L2 cache. (An L2, or secondary, cache temporarily stores data; and a larger L2 cache can help speed up your system's performance. The FSB carries data between the CPU and RAM, and a faster front-side bus will deliver better overall performance.)
The Intel Core 2 Duo processor has two computational execution cores in a single processor, providing greater system response when running multi-threaded applications simultaneously with no significant increase in power consumption. It's optimized for multitasking and is ready to support the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system. It can simultaneously run multiple demanding applications--such as graphics-intensive games or serious number-crunching business productivity applications--while downloading music or running virus-scanning security programs in the background. Some of the advanced Intel innovations of the Core 2 Duo processor include:
- Smart Memory Access: Improves system performance by hiding memory latency, thus optimizing the use of available computer data bandwidth to provide data to the processor when and where it is needed.
- Advanced Digital Media Boost: Effectively doubles the execution speed for instructions used widely in multimedia and graphics applications.
- Dynamic Power Coordination: Coordinates Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology and idle power-management state (C-states) transitions independently per core to help save power.
- Deeper Sleep with Dynamic Cache Sizing: Saves power by flushing cache data to system memory during periods of inactivity to lower CPU voltage.
Memory: The 2 GB of built-in memory (PC4200, 533 MHz, DDR2 SDRAM, 2 x 1 GB) maximizes capacity for this notebook, ensuring that you'll speed through all your work-related and multimedia tasks without breaking a sweat.
CD/DVD Drive: The double-layer DVD drive is compatible with a wide range of formats, including both DVD+RW and DVD-RW discs, CD-RW discs, and dual-layer (DL) DVD+/-R discs, which can hold up to 8.5 GB of data--great for backing up your MP3 collection or your most important documents. It features the following speeds: 2.4x for DVD+R DL, 2x for DVD-R DL, 8x for both single layer DVD+R/-R, 4x for both single layer DVD+RW/-RW, and 24x/16x for CD-R/RW. It reads DVD-ROM discs at 8x and CD-ROMs at 24x.
Keyboard & Mouse: This notebook has a standard 86-key keyboard (3mm stroke and 19.05mm pitch) and electro-static two-button touchpad as well as a wireless LAN on/off button.

Screen, Graphics and Sound
This notebook has a 13.3-inch LCD screen with anti-reflective coating has a widescreen 1280 x 800-pixel resolution. This XBRITE LCD provides higher brightness levels than standard displays, resulting in deeper blacks, brighter whites, true-to-life color, and razor-sharp detail. This notebook uses Sony's exclusive Hybrid Graphics System, which lets you set your graphics performance with a simple flick of a switch, enabling you to toggle between an internal graphics chip for optimal power consumption with excellent performance or an external graphics chip for even more robust performance. You can choose either the integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (with up to 128 MB of dynamically shared video RAM) and the installed Nvidia GeForce Go 7400 graphics card (with 128 MB of dedicated video RAM).

Nvidia's TurboCache feature increases the performance of this thin and light notebook PC without increasing its size or draining its battery. It's coupled with the PowerMizer 6.0 advanced power management technology, which significantly extends your notebook PC's battery life while minimizing the amount of heat it produces.

Connectivity and Expansion Slots
The Intel PRO wireless LAN 3945ABG provides a tri-mode network connection (supporting 802.11a/b/g), with throughput up to 54 Mbps at 5 GHz (802.11a) and 2.4 GHz (802.11g). The Bluetooth wireless connectivity enables you to synchronize and transfer files between the PC and peripherals such as cell phones and PDAs as well as use Bluetooth-enabled headsets for online audio chats. And with the wireless WAN, you can access the Cingular Wireless national EDGE network to extend your wireless coverage beyond LAN access networks and hotspots, giving you the freedom to go farther, do more, and stay connected.

This notebook includes a next-generation ExpressCard/34 card slot (in addition to a traditional PCMCIA slot), which lets you take advantage of thinner, faster, and lighter expansion cards for even more advanced wireless, networking, storage, and security features. comes with a basic selection of connectivity options, including:

2 USB 2.0 ports for connecting a wide range of peripherals--from digital cameras to MP3 players
1 FireWire (also known as IEEE 1394 or i.Link) port for connecting digital video camcorders and other peripherals
1 VGA monitor port
1 PCMCIA (Type II/Type I) card slot with CardBus support
1 port replicator connector
1 headphone jack, 1 microphone jack
5-in-1 memory card adapter (compatible with Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, Secure Digital, MultiMedia, and XD formats; also supports Memory Stick DUO with MagicGate functionality)

Customer Reviews

Pricey for just the style
I had the notebook for about 3 days before I promptly restored it and put it back in the box. A notebook is a notebook, each of them have pros/cons. I will simply list them for you.

PROS:
Style and size is the best. It's sleek, thin and light, a huge contrast to any Dell and especially HP/Compaq. Nice dual graphics feature (stamina vs speed). Soft, but no so quiet keyboard. Pictures on the LCD look extremely crisp and vibrant, better than my 19in Dell flat panel.

CONS:
Backlighting is dimmer than the premium models (e.g. SZ360). I also noticed uneven LCD brightness. For example, depending on the viewing angle, the top/middle/bottom, 1/3 of the LCD will be brighter than the rest of the area. The fan is always on, even on idle. I actually had my hands on 2 SZ330's and one was noticeably louder than the other.

NUETRAL:
So you think you're getting a souped up notebook. Afterall, it has the most current CPU out right now (Core 2 Duo). Well guess what? Notebooks throttle the CPU speed to save power, when it's idle it runs at 1GHz. Okay, that's typical you say. Let me tell you, as soon as you get any kind of processes going, it bumps up to 2GHz, boy does the fan start to spin and make a noise like a jet airplane. I don't know if this is common but I started to become fearful of opening IE and doing basic typing. It takes quite some time to get the noise level back down.

SONY TECH SUPPORT:
Clueless. I called 3 times, they sounded like I had woken them up from bed. In fact, I called pretty late, 1AM PST. So that could have been the case. Anyhow, their response was slow. They had to look everything up in some knowledge base and couldn't answer simple questions. Your best bet was to get level 2 during normal business hours. So even though they tout 24/7, it's really not.

AMAZON'S RETURN POLICY:
Be aware that Amazon will charge you a 15% restocking fee for an open notebook. The first one I purchased had a stuck pixel. It was green on black and red on white. Quite bright to be honest. Anyhow, as soon as I discovered this, I submitted an exchange request and was denied. Why? Because it was not defective according to Amazon. Their reply was this: Manufacturers do not consider 1 dead/stuck pixel defective. Therefore, I can send it back but pay the 15% restocking fee. Needless to say, I fought them on this for 2 weeks and finally got them to take it back. Amazon's customer support was horrible in dealing with this issue. I dealt with a different person everytime and each time received different answers: Yes you can get an exchange, no you can't, we will pay shipping, UPS will pick it up, you pay shipping, we will charge you 15%, we will not. Let me just say, wow. I will never buy a notebook from them again.

OVERALL:
Excuse my Amazon rant. I ended up getting a SZ360 on a gamble that it would turn out OK from Amazon. It's the last notebook I'm going to buy from them. Back to the SZ330, it's a fine fine notebook but not really worth ~$1800+. All you're getting for the price is the size and style. If this is what you have to have, then go for it, but be conscientious of possible defects on the LCD and a loud fan. Amazon may not take it back. =)

Still great, but not much changed
This is just as fantastic as the first Core Duo SZs, but almost a year later, there still is yet to be any dramatic changes besides the processor. Design is pretty much the same, most of the ports are exactly where they were, the case, although beautiful is essentially what it has been all year. Sony is usually really good at keeping their things new and fresh looking, unlike Toshiba, who has used the same notebook casing for their Satellites since 2001.

PROS:
Fast processor - 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo runs great clock speeds. Not an incredible spike in power from the previous Core Duo, but enough to run an extra program or two, or download something while playing Half-Life.
2GB RAM - Plenty. No need for more. This is a great amount, and will last you for the long haul.
nVidia 7400GT/Integrated Graphics Hybrid - This in my mind has always been an incredible idea. I give large props for Sony for attempting this. Because of this, to my knowledge, this gives Sony bragging rights for having longest running battery in a notebook with PCI-Express graphics. Because of this, the battery life runs between 4.5-5.5 hours! This marathon machine will not get you through a round trip to Tokyo, but it will get you through most of your college classes. Not only that, the nVidia 7400GT, although only 128MB of virtual memory, ran somewhat impressive benchmarks. Nothing groundbreaking, but you can play most games at Medium to High resolutions. I wouldn't attempt anything higher than 1600x1200, especially if it's a highly demanding title.
120GB Hard Drive - Amazing, especially for such a small computer.
Design - Beautiful laptop, small, compact, light. This is the real deal. Sleek and elegant 1.3MP webcam built flush into the casing, and although the trackpad buttons are a little cramped, for those that enjoy the extra security of a fingerprint scanner, will like this.
Dual Layer DVD Burner - Burn discs up to 8.5GB in data. Not new technology, just another reason to justify the purchase. Encoding wasn't miraculously fast, to my surprise, but it is faster than the original Core Duo's by about 10 minutes.
Ports - This has everything you'll need. Also has built in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a Card Reader. USB, Firewire, VGA Port... pretty much anything standard on larger sized cases.

CONS:
No significant differences - My biggest gripe is that they didn't put the 7600GT in here to replace the 7400GT. I can see why they didn't; it would sacrifice battery, and wouldn't be a huge leap, but it would have been affordible enough that it could be done. Sony uses this card in their AR series quite often, so they have mass supply, but because they wanted to make an easy transition, they kept the 7400GT. Also, the screen hasn't been updated. I've seen brighter LCDs in other laptops, something I wish Sony would have done better with; usally I'm much more impressed.
Loud - There is a lot of noise going on with this computer. The fans are loud, especially when you are on Performance Mode (Stamina Mode is slightly quieter). Also, another review complained about loud keys, and although they didn't bother me much, I could see how this would be disturbing, especially during a lecture. When the computer is, as I call "thinking" where the processor is kicked into high gear to compensate for other components, the computer gets to be louder than you'd expect. Note, it isn't like LOUD!, but it is something that wasn't that much of a concern in the previous generation of the SZ Core-Duo series.

BOTTOM LINE: The only flaws in this are nit picky things. If you missed your chance to get the SZ with the Core Duo processor, now is a chance to get the updated version with higher specs. This Vista ready computer doesn't introduce any new technologies, but makes the current ones look great.

Not a keeper
Had it for 2 weeks. Sent it back. Main problem was the fan noise. Fan is constantly on. Sometimes lower speed; sometimes faster speed but always on. I felt like I had a small vacuum cleaner in the room with me. If you are sensitive to noise stay away from this.

I previously used and HP1040 and went back to it. Its fan only goes on occasionally. Rest of the the time it is silent. I also have an Acer with a Core Duo. Its fan stays on but it has a wider vent so the fan is slower and therefore has a much lower pitch than the Sony. The Sony has a small vent so the fan has to ramp up to move more air to keep the CPU cool. I notice that the Core 2 Duo uses 34W of power vs 31W for the Core Duo and 21-27W for the Pentium M's. Maybe all Core 2 Duo laptops will have fan noise? Intel's hot chips are ruining the world! (Exaggeration but...)

Per other reviewers I did note that the keyboard was "clacky" and the battery did move slightly in its slot. I also got an error once where an alert said I had the "wrong battery inserted" and the unit had to shut down. At that point it would not restart; seemed dead. I removed the battery, restarted without the battery; reinserted and it worked ok from then on. Disconcerting though.

Otherwise, it was very fast - especially with the NVidia graphics. Screen was nice. Weight was great (although the power brick in LARGE and I thought a bit weighty - defeats having a light laptop a bit).

Sad that the petty annoyance overwhelmed a basically good unit. Especially for the price - STAY AWAY.

Now, considering a Macbook that I will BootCamp with XP.