Needing advice: Buying Sony VAIO VGN-TX3HP/W or
waiting for TX4 Platinum

TX3HP/W:

Micro Processor Intel Core Solo Processor Ultra Low Voltage U1300 1.06GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 533MHz FSB

Memory 512Mb DDR SDRAM (512MB on board, 1 slot free, 1.5Gb Max) (planning to upgrade to 1,5 GB RAM)

Windows XP SP2

OR:

TX4: Platinum:

Core Solo U1400 1.20 GH

Memory: 1GB (planning to upgrade to 2 GB RAM)

Windows Vista Home Premium

I am thinking of upgrading from my TX1 (white) to one of the two machines presented above.  I am very uncertain about the pros of Vista at this moment of development. My use is mainly text editing, internet surfing, dvd viewing and some lighter photo editing.

I am afraid of the TX4 (white) being too slow with Vista. Perhaps it is better to go for a TX3 (white) with Windows XP SP2, before it will be discontinued? Or more futuristic: Perhaps wait longer for a TX with Dual Core 2 late 2007 (hopefully), but I think I will not wait for so long.

I will probably go for a max RAM of 1,5 GB for TX3 and max 2GB for TX4.

Some advice from the many much more technically qualified people in this forum?

Why are you upgrading to a newer TX? Only because of Vista? With your uses, your current TX and XP are just fine, I don’t see why you’d want to move to Vista, at least not why just yet.

I would seriously wait it out since your current setup is 100% fine for your needs and wait until Vista gets better, more fleshed out and perhaps Sony releases a newer addition to their T series.

I say you’d be wasting your money upgrading to one of these newer TXs just for Vista, Vista will NOT make doing your current tasks any better and these newer TXs will not run Vista that much faster than even your current TX. You will NOT notice much of a difference and this is not worth it especially for all the money you’d pay to upgrade, you’d make a very bad decision if you ask me.  :(

Thank you so much for the informative advice. Yes, You’re right, one main reason for my wish to upgrade is the new features of Vista (for example the aero). But it might not be worth it, as you suggest. There are, however, also two other reasons for my wish to upgrade from my TX1 (white): The keys around the space bar and the space bar itself on the TX1 are not working properly: They need an extra hard push to react in about 80 persent of the times I use them. (I think this is a weekness that is only particular to my own machine, and not the model.) And also, there is the light leaking from the bottom of the screen, that has been reduced in newer models, I have read.

I have also heard of the light leakage being improved on the newer TX models.

As of right now, running Vista will most likely only take up more resources on your computer than with running XP and giving you maybe a little more eye candy if anything really. Of course, I am a lifelong Windows fan, used it all my life, ever used any other OS but Vista right now looks extremely underwhelming.

For your uses, your current TX and Windows XP are perfectly fine for the uses you listed you’d be doing with your laptop. The newer Core Solos will give a bit more performance and battery life but I would only go that route for instance if I could trade in my current TX and $200 for a newer TX for instance, which I’m sure is not your case.

I highly highly advise you keep your TX for now, be happy with it, these sort of things get outdated oh so painfully quickly I fully realize and sympathize with you.

I also know that XP has been out for 5 long years and getting a new Windows OS must be quite exciting to immeditaly go and try out but Vista for now is nothing that great, it will not improve your productivity one bit at all. You would only be wasting your money.

I would wait at least until later this year when Vista has improved naturally and newer notebook technologies come out, making for even more exciting
ultraportables from Sony and other companies. Enjoy your TX for now, use it up and then when something revolutionary comes out and not just a very very minor evolutionary upgrade, then ditch the TX.