‘Ello. I’ve acquired a second Vaio. They’re calling me Geek Girl at work. I’d like to know which is the newer unit to aid my decision on which one to keep and which to sell. They are

PCG-TR5GP
- camera, not working but fixable
- 1GB RAM
- deeper, but about 0.5cm thicker

VGN T17GP/S
- DVD writer
- 768MB RAM
- thinner but about 1cm deeper

Apart from the above differences both units are much the same (screen, hard drive etc). External ports and controls are in different places, keyboards are different, but either would be fine.

I’m figuring I should be able to transfer either the RAM or the CD/DVD drive to maximise my goddess status among the geeks at work.

So ... can anyone tell me where to find out the relative ages (production dates for example) for the above?

The T17GP/S wasn’t available here in the Uk but spec and style wise it looks to be the same or very similar to T1xp/s

have a look at this link, is it same as yours ?

http://www.technoworld.com/laptops/Sony_Vaio_T1XPL.htm

If yes and it were me depending on condition and assuming they both worked fine I’d always keep the TR, but to answer you question the T is newer than the TR but not by much considering you have one of the last TR’s

As far as I’m concerned the TR is better made, tends to be more reliable, and loooks neater. (the T1 / T2 and later TX have possible motherboard issues thought to be CPU unsoldering itself from the mainboard). It also has 512mb of ram soldered to the board so if this ram goes faulty you can’t remove it or fix the mainboard (at least not economically).

If you want to improve the performance of the TR in the future have a read through the SSD HDD thread…

BladeRunner - 08 October 2007 01:49 PM

have a look at this link, is it same as yours ? http://www.technoworld.com/laptops/Sony_Vaio_T1XPL.htm

Thank you. The T17 is physically the same, although my unit lacks Bluetooth. Like you, I tend towards the TR, but it would be nice to be able to swap the DVD drives over. I assume this is possible but will have to explore the practicalities.

Your help is appreciated!

The drives can be swapped but it’s not as simple as open up and change over. It can be done, I know because I’ve done it but the drive itself needs to be disassembled to swap over the optics & electronics…not for the novice so depends on your confidence/ experience I guess.

Alternatively you could keep an eye out on eBay for a DVD burner for TR (UK TR5MP had DVD burner as standard)

The camera is a TR weak point they all fail eventually I must have had over 20 TR’s now buying repairing and selling them, (mostly from user caused damage, dropping / spilling liquid etc), and of the 20 only 3 cameras worked… now 2 work. If it’s important you can buy from Sony (nextronics) iro $150 usd or look for UVC11A Vaio web cam on eBay, (they come up every so often), and use the CCD inside. Not quite the same component but it will fit and work, again I’ve done this with 3 UVC11a’s

BladeRunner - 08 October 2007 04:56 PM

The drives can be swapped but it’s not as simple as open up and change over.

Thanks again for letting me benefit from your experience. Neither the camera nor the DVD burner is critical, to be honest, although both would be nice (the camera more so). I’m handy enough inside PCs - I worked at the technical end of broadcasting for a time - but always approach new challenges of this type with trepidation.

I am, however, quite keen to progress down the solid state drive path in due course. Are Memory Sticks bootable? It occurs to me (money being no object in my dreams) that one could use both a solid state 64GB drive and an 8GB Memory Stick and have a fairly grunty unit.

I’m not sure I want a grunty unit, mind you. My boyfriend’s bad enough.

BladeRunner - 08 October 2007 04:56 PM

The camera is a TR weak point they all fail eventually ...

Is there really any point fixing it then? I have an external 2MP camera which will probably do for most things. Of course it hogs a USB socket and one has to carry it around separately. Hmmm.

I’m really enjoying my TR. It’s a sweetie. I’m particularly enjoying the hibernate feature. In fact I didn’t actually power it off completely for about four days, during which time I loaded a number of new drivers (reboot later please) ... and couldn’t figure out why some of the peripherals didn’t go yet! I’m shamed.