Sony VAIO VPC-EB11FX/BI 15.5-Inch Laptop (Black) Review

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(More customer reviews)I've had my Sony Vaio VPC EB11FX in white/silver for a few months now, and I can say its probably the best laptop I've ever purchased.
I have a strong Apple background, having owned a powerbook, macbook, and macbook pro with core 2 duo. The switch back to PC was due to my needs for Windows environment as well as a numeric keypad. The Vaio invited me back to the PC side with a warm welcome.
For $650 my Vaio VPC EB11FX came configured exactly how its listed on this amazon page. I couldn't find any other laptop that met my criteria with the price i was okay with:
Chiclet Keyboard
Numeric Pad
excellent 15" screen
good specs for capable and smooth multimedia playback and light gaming
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Aesthetics:
The look and feel of this laptop may not inspire you, but it is well thought out with 4 USB ports (1 of them is a USB/eSata port on the left) as well as a quality touch in the way the screen sits out and below the level of the computer. The screen is 15.5" and while its not 1440x900 resolution like on my previous macbook pro, I don't feel deprived of the extra pixel detail. The screen is bright, colors look great when viewing pics and vids, and blacks LOOK black and not a shade of grey. This alone amazed me. It could be the glossy screen that causes colors to appear stronger, as this is the first glossy screen i've owned. The backlight is CCFL, not LED, which I say would only benefit me in that it does not use mercury. Oh yeah, the built-in webcam works well with the easy to use webcam companion software thats included.
When closed, the laptop looks much thinner than it really is due to the two tone combination of white and black for the mainboard. At around 5-6 lbs the weight is what you'd expect with other laptops with 15" screens.
Performance:
This laptop just blazes by with Windows 7, which has its merits and very little to complain about comparing to OSX. With the base Core i3 and integrated gfx, Aero looks awesome and is buttery smooth. I constantly run Chrome Web Browser with many tabs, itunes, IM chat, GIMP, and video playback all at the same time, and I've yet to see the machine hiccup. I dip into the 4gb of memory with 1gb left free usually. I have not deliberately tried to test the limits of my machine, but mind you, its likely able to handle whatever casual/multimedia tasks you can throw at it for daily personal use, school, or at the office.
The machine comes with great conveniences such as the ASSIST and WEB button which help you run maintenance/solve issues and quickboot to web without windows running, respectively.
Cons:
Aside from the confidence I have in the looks and performance of this laptop, I must include that I have very few qualms overall.
-Battery life is a meager 2 hours doing light web browsing. Watch a movie with full brightness and I'm not sure you'll get an hour and half. I could care less as I always have it plugged in.
-The trackpad could use better software (I wish it could scroll with multitouch ala Apple and Asus laptops). The included functionality for the trackpad is powered by Alps, and it isn't up to par IMO. The multitouch gestures available are Flick, Pinch Zoom, and Pivot Rotation. Yawn. Just give me scroll with two fingers and I'm happy. Maybe I will come across software/driver that can let me do this. For now, scrolling up and down with the right end of the trackpad will suffice. Aside from this, I do run into a few rare instances where I am moving the cursor around and suddenly the cursor hangs or jumps erratically. This could be due to particles on the touchpad that is interfering with my touch, but just FYI anyway.
-Speaker quality could be better and overall louder, but I use earphones or play music through my B&W Zepellin via airtunes most of the time.
-Viewing angles of the screen is horrid. I expect this with any screen coming in a $600 laptop. Show me a $600 machine with IPS panel, then I can blame Sony for the viewing angles. Until then, this is the best of any comparable price range. The bottom line is the screen will be fine for you but may suck for anyone else joining in from an angle.As you can see, the nature of the issues I've reported have a minimal impact on my computing experience, mostly because they aren't that big of a deal aside from battery life. If you are looking for battery life, look elsewhere.
The Sony Vaio VPC EB11FX is the laptop you want with a bright screen you don't need to squint your eyes on. It is competently fast with daily tasks and multimedia playback. Your hands will thank you as it is a delight to type on and doesn't scald your lap like other laptops (APPLE, anyone?). And considering I have not run into any software glitches, BSD and the like, I'd say Sony has a smart, quality 6 lbs package for anyone on a budget looking for their next laptop that will last them for years to come without a hitch.

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