Today marks a month of usage for my TX610P, purchased on my brand-new expense account at work. :D This is my fourth VAIO in 5 years, with an SR17K, TR2A, and S170 preceding it. I’ve been keeping a log of usage impressions and here’s a semi-coherent writeup.
The performance boost over the TR2A it’s replacing is noticeable, with a 200MHz clockspeed bump, an additional 1MB of L2 cache, and an extra 1GB of RAM. My S170 does most of the heavy lifting, but the TX holds its own on most tasks I throw at it.
The display is very nice, and is brighter than the other three machines, probably due to the fluorescent tubes on those aging. Colors are a bit ‘cold’ as previously remarked, but a little tweaking in the Intel GMA Control Panel got things to where I liked them. The slimness of the display is amazing, even managing to outdo the one on my Titanium PowerBook G4. The thin bezel around the screen looks nice, much better than on the T and TR. With the little bit of extra resolution, 16:9 material like a lot of TV shows I record look great with no black bars to speak of.
Design-wise the TX is very slick, and it’s amazing that it actually weighs less than my optical drive-less SR17K. The PC Card slot has an insert that fits the contours of the body, but when you remove it there’s a spring-loaded door that closes over the opening. The only quibble I have is that I pulled the Cingular WWAN antenna out and the hole looks bad. Sony should have included a plug for those not using the feature and not wanting the rubber antenna attached all the time. The optical drive eject button is indeed tiny, but I can easily hit it with my pinky nail or a pencap. Pretty much a non-issue since 90% of the time I use the big eject button by the power button. Speaking of the power button, it lights up a bright green and is a bit distracting in a darkened environment. The touchpad feels nice and smooth, and it’s much better than the postage stamp sized one on the TR.
Heat and fan noise were two concerns I had before purchasing, but luckily neither were as bad as I was expecting. In terms of fan noise between the four VAIOs I own and use, the SR is the loudest, followed by the S, then the TX, and the quiet champ is the TR. The TX’s fan likes to cycle, and it’s definitely not as quiet as the TR’s fan, but it’s not annoying. I frequently use the laptops on the bed or floor, and the TR definitely gets hotter in the front left area. The TX also gets hot, but not to the same degree. With the machine in 600 MHz mode, the temperature gets to 60 degrees C and the fan cycles but keeps it at or around that temperature, even on a pant leg or the bed. The hottest it got was 64 degrees, but most of the time it goes between 59 and 61. Plugged in the fan runs more and the temperature can rise to 74 degrees C, depending on what I’m doing.
Does anyone remember the old-school VAIOs where you could prop the back part up, exposing more vents to aid cooling? That was pretty neat, and one thing that worked a little for me was to partially pop out the PCMCIA slot insert on the TX, which opens up the slot, allowing for slightly better case ventilation. I can’t take credit for this though, as a nice CS rep named Steve suggested it when I called in to get some replacement rubber feet. The fan doesn’t run as often, and Centrino Hardware Control reports temperatures that stay around 58-59 degrees C.
This machine, like my TR before it, is primarily used on battery power, and the stamina doesn’t disappoint. I get a solid 6 hours with WiFi and Bluetooth on and the screen at half brightness. The extended battery is ugly, so I just picked up an additional standard battery. New features like the SD slot and AV Instant Mode are nice to have, but I haven’t really made much use of them yet. Sony was nice and shipped me a set of Recovery DVDs, so I now have a full 55.8GB to play with after deleting the recovery partition.
For me, it was a good upgrade from the TR, and I’m glad I didn’t wait until Yonah next year. The added performance, lower weight, and extra features were welcome, though I think the Centrino platform has stagnated a bit recently. As a side note, my TX is a 2005-11 build. Following are a few pics of the four VAIOs…
