by Galina Sudareva
03/08/2005 | 02:24 PM
There are things to be loved at first sight. You’re looking at it, fumbling it with your fingers, and are already absolutely sure you won’t be disappointed with it later – you are even ready to excuse some drawbacks and certain inconveniences. If it’s at all possible to apply this word to an unanimated object, I’d call this love, especially if this feeling is reciprocal. I could name a hundred of such love affairs – with various things, from cars to trivial articles of clothing.
<%BANNER[article]%>When the Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP arrived to our test lab, I almost had a crush on it. Small, thin, light, stylish and elegant are the epithets that can be deservedly attached to this notebook which is going to be reviewed here.
The Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP notebook has elegant and exquisite looks. The black case with the manufacturer’s logo and the model’s name in the center of the lid (the letters VAIO made of shining metal) has a slightly elongated outline due to the use of a non-standard diagonal of the LCD matrix (13.3 inches). That’s why the notebook looks like a documents folder of A4 format or smaller.
The lid is quite conveniently and sensibly a little shorter than the bottom of the case, so as to make the system status indicators visible even with the lid closed. The top panel of this portable computer differs in color from the case: it is light gray with a slight effect of silver.
You don’t have to fumble for a spring-loaded latch to open the Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP – there’s no such thing here. You just lift the lid and set it at a convenient angle. When closed, the lid is held with a small magnet built into top of the screen bezel. The widescreen 13.3” LCD matrix with an aspect ratio of 16:10 and a maximum resolution of 1280x800 has good viewing angles, contrast and brightness, and renders colors excellently. You can control the screen brightness (and the volume of the sound, too) by pressing appropriate functional keys. The setup range is quite wide: 8 grades of brightness and 20 grades of volume. At zero brightness you can still see everything well.
The LCD matrix of the Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP uses anti-flicker coating intended to reduce the reflection and refraction of light. But I think this coating only adds more mirror flares and reflections, so you can use the screen as a mirror if necessary.
On the top panel, above the keyboard, you can see a row of buttons and indicators: a rectangular Power On/Off button (with soft green highlighting), Num Lock, Caps Lock and Scroll Lock indicators, and two quick-launch buttons (they disable the sound and switch to the external monitor by default, but you can reprogram them on the S Button tab of the Sony Notebook Setup utility to launch any application you want).
The two stereo speakers located near the display hinges are sufficiently loud and give your OS and applications a powerful and clear voice.
The indicators of the status of the system are on the right of the front panel, so you can see them regardless of the position of the lid. The indicators are made as highlighted symbols. They include:
Next to the indicators there is a wireless on/off slider which enables/disables the WLAN interface.
The keyboard of the Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP is made of opaque black plastic; the letters are painted with white – they are rather hard to read in a dim room. The functional keys are marked out with blue (press and hold [Fn] to use them). The keyboard layout is typical for a notebook: the Del, Ins, Print Scrn and Num Lk keys are in the top row, next to the functional keys. A numeric pad and two Windows buttons are available. The cursor keys are separate from the keyboard’s mainland and have a smaller size; the arrow keys are combined with the PgUp, PgDn, Home and End keys (available as you press and hold [Fn]). This keyboard is overall handy, comfortable and functional.
The touchpad has the color and texture of the top of the case, with the touch-sensitive area being a bit sunken down. The touchpad comes with two buttons (with a rather quick response) instead of the mouse’s left and right buttons. Unfortunately, there is no additional button or joystick for scrolling text, which would be a very handy feature.
An optical drive, a card-reader (supports MS and MS Pro formats), the above-described indicators of the system status, and vent holes are found on the front panel of the notebook.
The following is placed on the left side of the notebook:
The right panel offers the following:
The connector to the battery bay is located at the back of the notebook.
On the bottom of the Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP you can find the cover of the memory and miniPCI bays, the battery bay, the connector for a dock station (or port-replicator) and more vent holes.
The following table summarizes the communicational capabilities of the Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP notebook as well as its physical characteristics:
The small box the Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP comes to you in doesn’t promise too many rich and variegated accessories.
So, you receive the following with this notebook: an external power adapter (it’s rather small), necessary documentation, a user manual, a leaflet with the notebook specification, a license for Microsoft Works 7.0 with an ID number, booklets with licenses on the use of the software and tech support with addresses of the service centers.
There is no bag here for carrying the notebook, although it would make a very useful accessory.
The Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP features a software bundle which is both extensive and varied. It includes such useful titles as:
I would also like to single out such programs as:
Two interesting utilities also need to be mentioned:
The table below describes the technical characteristics of the Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP notebook:
The Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP is expected to work often on its battery and use wireless network connections. The support of the Wi-Fi protocol (IEEE1394 802.11b/g) and the Intel PRO/100 VE adapter contribute to this purpose.
I measured the temperature of the notebook with an infrared thermometer as it was passing the Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 test and got the following results: 28°C top, 30°C at the output of the cooling system, 32°C bottom.
I tested the Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP notebook in Microsoft Windows XP Professional with DirectX 9.0 installed. I disabled the network and power-saving services, antivirus software, audio subsystem, screensavers and error messages before the tests. The computer was tested at the maximum resolution of its LCD matrix (1280x800) and at the maximum screen brightness setting (the notebook refused to change the screen brightness after I had adjusted its settings before the tests – the utility that’s responsible for changing the screen brightness must be non-operational at such settings).
Our tests:
I used two power modes in my tests. First, I selected the Always On power mode for the maximum performance and the shortest battery run-down time, and then I switched to the Max Battery mode for the maximum battery run-down time.
The Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP has good results in synthetic SiSoftware Sandra 2004 and PCMark04 tests which determine the performance of the system at large and of all its subsystems in particular. When powered by its own battery, the notebook is 2.5 times slower than when it’s attached to the power grid. To check out this fact in more detail I ran ThrottleWatch 2.0 which can report the current frequency and voltage of the central processor. I took the measurements in two modes: Always On and Max Battery.
So, we can see that the clock rate of the CPU goes down from 1597MHz to 599MHz and its voltage from 1.34V to 0.988V when the notebook works on its battery. This explains the significant performance hit that occurs when the notebook is working on its own.
The results of SiSoftware Sandra 2004 and PCMark04 are listed below:
The performance is good, but the test of the graphics subsystem would abort, producing an error massage. But apart of that, the rest of the results are quite objective.
Business Winstone 2004 and Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 tests are most important for the Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP, since this notebook is intended for comfortable and stable work in office and multimedia applications. These benchmarks run scripts of various real applications (several at a time). The results follow:
The Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP feels more confident with office applications, having a higher score there – you can see that clearly when it works on its battery. The same numbers are represented in the following diagram, for people who prefer to think visually:
The use of a discrete graphics controller ATI Mobility RADEON 9200 32MB in the Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP, although it is not the fastest chip on earth and is equipped with a rather small amount of graphics memory, allows playing 3D games and working in 3D graphics applications. So, the graphics benchmarks are going to produce interesting results. First, here’s what 3DMark 2003 3.40 has to say:
The performance isn’t record-breaking, of course, but quite satisfying for a notebook. The graphics subsystem couldn’t run the fourth game test, while the results of Fill Rate and Pixel Shader tests don’t practically differ irrespective of the notebook’s power source. For the comparison’s sake, below are the results of 3DMark 2001 SE Pro, at different graphics quality settings:
Then, I tested the notebook in Quake 3 in two graphics quality modes:
The performance of the notebook is about 77 percent higher with the low quality settings, because it is the graphics subsystem that bears the main load at the high quality settings rather than the system at large.
The diagram below helps to make a visual comparison:
The results of my testing the notebook in Unreal Tournament 2003 are expectedly average. The performance of the computer was 1.5 times lower when it was working on its own battery.
And the diagram:
Next, I measured the battery run-down time of the Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP with the help of Battery Eater Pro 2.50 in three test modes:
So, this notebook can last on its own battery as long as 2 hours 34 minutes in the classic mode, 4 hours and 4 minutes in the reader’s mode, and 2 hours and 55 minutes in the DVD watch mode – at the maximum screen brightness.
I think that’s really good. Considering that the notebook ideally suits the definition of portability and seems to be made for work in the field, these numbers only add it more appeal.
The conclusion arises naturally after my examining and testing the Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP. The subjective comes first: I’m very impressed with the design of this notebook. Its functionality and ergonomic qualities are not forgotten, either. Everything is in harmony and intuitively in its place. Some people may cavil at the limited number of input/output ports, but I think there are enough of them here. If necessary, you can purchase additionally a dock station thanks to the available port-replicator.
This notebook delivers enough performance for work in office and multimedia applications as well as in 3D graphics processing suites and games (but not for the latest games which are sometimes too hard even for a serious desktop machine). With the numerous preinstalled programs the Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP is ready to work right out of the package. You don’t have to install any more programs.
So, the VAIO VGN-S2HRP notebook from Sony is a housewife’s dream, born to bring pleasure. Of course, there’s a certain misbalance in the price/performance ratio, but having worked with this notebook for a while, I should say it’s worth its money!