Should you buy SONY VAIO P in India? – VGN-P25G/N, VGN-P23G/W, VGN-P13GH/Q, VGN-P15G/R
4 Jul
SONY launched its first netbook mini-notebook in India a couple of months back. Even though SONY has entered a bit late into the netbook game, it still had the *courage* to launch their mini-notebooks at a pretty high price of Rs49,900 (~$1000) for the entry level model of VAIO P (VGN-P15). All the models comes with Vista (except for one model) and 2GB RAM as standard.
The entry level model (VGN-P13GH/Q) comes with a Hard Disk (60GB) and Vista Basic. It also comes with a slower Atom processor (Atom Z520 @ 1.3GHz) as compared to the processor that comes in the usual netbooks ie Atom N270 or Atom N280. In India, it is available in white and black colors and costs Rs49,990
Another model that SONY has introduced in India is VGN-P15G/R, which is similar to the previous model, but comes with Atom Z530 processor that runs at 1.6GHz. Vista Home Premium comes installed instead of Vista Basic. It uses a 64GB SSD instead of 60GB Hard Disk. It is available in black, green and red colors. It costs Rs64,000.
Another model that was later launched in the month of July is VGN-P25G/N, which sports the zippier Z540 that runs at the clock speed of 1.86GHz. Other than that, it sports the same 64GB SSD and comes with Vista Home Premium. It comes in gold, red and black colors. This is most expensive VAIO P costing Rs69,990.
Along with the launch of VGN-P25G/N, SONY also introduced a Windows XP version, known as VGN-P23G/W, which comes with Atom Z530 CPU that runs at 1.6GHz and comes with 80GB Hard disk and just 1GB RAM. Why 1GB RAM? Blame Microsoft for that as it does not allow manufactures to sell Windows XP computers with more than a gig of RAM. Sad part is that the RAM is soldered on-board on all VAIO Ps and thus, you cannot upgrade the RAM at all. This model costs Rs49,990 and comes in black and white colors.
Screen of VAIO P is both good and bad. ‘Good’ in a way that it has great resolution of 1600×768 and ‘bad’ in a way that all those pixels are squeezed into a small 8-inch display. This requires you to have perfect eyesight.
Keyboard is the heart of VAIO P. It features a great chiclet keyboard which resembles the ones found on the recent Macbooks and some other Sony VAIOs. The keyboard feels great although you may a get a little annoyed with that small right shift key. It takes some time to get used to small shift key, but after some time, you won’t have problem typing on it.
Performance
The entry level VAIO (P13) is barely able to run Windows Vista due to its week processing power. It is so low powered that it can barely run full screen video without any hiccups. Anyway, the VAIO P is not meant to be gaming machine. It is a great device to carry around. Since, it is so small, it can be taken anywhere with you.
