Sony Uses Sleek Packaging For Laptop's CD/DVD Drive
In the world of lightweight laptops, the big problem has always been the CD or DVD drive. How do you cram one in and still keep the littlest laptops svelte and light? In most cases, manufacturers simply leave them out, forcing users to employ external drives.
But a few companies, notably Toshiba and Fujitsu, have sold relatively small and light "full featured" Windows portables with the CD or DVD drive built in. Fujitsu recently proclaimed that its new LifeBook P5000 laptop is "the world's smallest full-featured notebook PC to incorporate Intel Centrino mobile technology."
That claim will be short-lived. I've been testing a new Sony laptop that is smaller and lighter than the Fujitsu, yet comes standard with a combination drive for DVD playing and CD playing and recording, loads of memory and a generous hard disk. Like the Fujitsu, this new Sony also uses Intel's power-saving Centrino chips, which help solve the other big problem with really light laptops: battery life.
The new Sony Vaio PCG-TR1A, which will be available in early July for $2,000, is an impressive little machine for the road warrior who hates lugging a heavy computer.
It weighs just 3.11 pounds, and is just 10.6 inches wide, 7.4 inches deep, and 1.44 inches thick at its fattest point. By contrast, the Fujitsu LifeBook P5000 weighs 3.85 pounds and is larger, in cubic inches.
In fact, the Sony TR1A is slightly lighter and not much larger than a Samsung portable DVD player I recently reviewed.
In my tests, the Vaio TR1A performed very well. It handled everything I tried quite nicely and felt fast and sure. There are a few drawbacks, notably a weak keyboard. But overall, this is a very nice, carefully designed laptop that I can recommend for overburdened travelers. It even works great as a portable DVD player.
The TR1A looks nothing like the old violet-colored Sony laptops. Instead, it's metallic gray on the outside and an off-white color on the inside. The screen is relatively small at 10.6 inches. But the small size is offset by a high resolution of 1280 x 768, which crams a lot of information into the available space. The screen is also in the wide-screen shape now becoming popular on laptops and TVs, and it's very bright and very sharp, with high contrast and crisp blacks and whites.
Atop the screen is the laptop's goofiest feature: a swiveling, low-resolution digital camera. I like digital cameras, but this one just seems superfluous. You're not going to wave the laptop around to take snapshots. It may be small for a PC, but it's large for a camera.
The specs on the TR1A are impressive for a machine this size. It has a whopping 512 megabytes of memory, a roomy 30-gigabyte hard disk, integrated Wi-Fi wireless networking, a modem and an Ethernet port for wired networks. There are also two USB 2.0 ports, a slot for Sony's Memory Stick cards, a FireWire port for camcorders or Apple's iPod music players, a connector for external monitors and a PC card slot.
All of this is driven by one of Intel's new low-power Pentium M processors, running at 900 megahertz. This speed seems slow, but in the Pentium M chips, other design features compensate for lower clock speeds; in my tests of typical tasks, the TR1A felt speedy.
Sony has built in some nice design touches. For instance, the speakers are far better than on most small laptops. They are stereo and are mounted at the top of the screen, flanking the camera. The headphone jack uses Dolby sound circuitry and sounds great.
There is a switch for turning off the wireless-network radio -- a handy feature on airplanes. The indicator lights are large and clearly labeled. On the side of the screen, convenient buttons control the volume, magnify the screen image and take pictures with the camera.
Battery life is impressive. I put the TR1A through my harsh battery test, where I turn off all power-saving features, maximize screen brightness, turn on Wi-Fi and run the hard disk constantly by playing a loop of music. The little laptop lasted three hours, 25 minutes. That suggests that, with power-saving on and more normal tasks -- like word processing and e-mail -- under way, the new Sony would likely get nearly five hours of battery life. That's a strong performance that surpasses most other light laptops, and doesn't require a heavy extra battery.
Even when playing a DVD, a task that really stresses the battery, the TR1A did great. It played all two hours, 24 minutes of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," and still had about 30 minutes of battery life left. DVDs looked great on the wide-screen display and played without a hiccup.
The biggest downside of the Sony TR1A is the keyboard. It's not terrible, but the keys feel a bit flat and the whole keyboard flexes when you pound on it. Plus, the Delete key is tiny and you have to hold down a function key to use the Home, End and Page Up and Page Down keys.
Another drawback: The DVD drive is mounted on the front edge of the machine, where it's too easy to accidentally open it.
Overall, the Vaio TR1A is a swell little laptop that's great for traveling.
哪款笔记本电脑是您的理想选择？
在轻型笔记本电脑的世界里，CD或DVD驱动器总是个大问题。你怎样才能塞进这样一个驱动器，同时让笔记本电脑依然那么轻巧？在大多数情况下，制造商们乾脆置之不理，迫使用户采用外接驱动器。
但有几家公司，特别是东芝公司(Toshiba)和富士通公司(Fujitsu)，已经推出了带有内置CD或DVD驱动器的笔记本电脑，它们比较轻巧，配备了"功能齐全的"Windows操作系统。富士通最近还宣称，该公司新推的LifeBook P5000笔记本电脑是"世界上体积最小但功能齐全的笔记本电脑，并且还融合了Intel Centrino移动技术"。
但这种说法很快就会不复存在。我测试了索尼公司(Sony)的新款笔记本电脑，它的比富士通的产品更小、更轻，但配备了一个能播放CD和DVD的驱动器，以及大容量的存储器和一个硬盘驱动器。像富士通一样，这款电脑也采用了英特尔公司(Intel)的节能型Centrino晶片，这种晶片解决了困扰笔记本电脑的另一个大问题：电池寿命短。
索尼的这款电脑名为Vaio PCG-TR1A，将在7月初问世，售价为2,000美元。对于那些憎恨身背笨重电脑在路上穿梭的人来说，这可是个不错的小机器。
它的重量仅为3.11磅，长10.6英寸，宽7.4英寸，最厚处为1.44英寸。相比之下，富士通LifeBook P5000的重量为3.85磅，体积更大，像立方体。
事实上，Sony TR1A比我最近看到的三星电子(Samsung)便携式DVD播放机还要略轻一点，体积则略大一些。
在我的测试中，Vairo TR1A的表现非常出色。它能很好地完成测试，准确而及时。当然也存在缺点，特别是键盘较差。不过总体上，这是一款经过精心设计的很不错的笔记本电脑，所以我可以向不堪重负的旅行者们加以推荐。即使作为一个便携式DVD播放机，它的表现也很棒。
TR1A看上去与索尼以往那些老式的紫罗兰色的笔记本电脑完全不同。它的外壳是散发著金属光泽的银灰色，里面是乳白色。它的荧幕相对较小，只有10.6英寸，但128x768的高分辨率抵消了这一点，高分辨率能把大量信息放到有限的空间里。这款电脑采用目前在笔记本电脑与电视产品中都很流行的宽荧幕，明亮清晰，对比度高，黑白分明。
荧幕顶上有个很可笑的东西：一个转动的、低分辨率的数码相机。我喜欢数码相机，但这个看上去似乎很多余。你不会摇晃著笔记本电脑来拍照。如果是电脑，它不算大，但对相机而言，它可不小。
对于一个体积这么小的电脑来说，TR1A的配置很不错。它的内存大得惊人，为512兆，硬盘为30千兆，还有Wi-Fi无线网络，一个调制解调器和一个用来连接有线网络的以太网端口。它还有两个USB 2.0接口，一个为索尼的Memory Stick卡配备的槽，一个为便携式摄像机或苹果公司(Apple)的iPod音乐播放机配备的FireWire端口，一个用于连接外部显示器的连接器，以及一个电脑卡槽。
所有这些功能都是由英特尔公司新推出的低耗能的Pentium M处理器来驱动的，它的运行速度为900兆赫。这个速度似乎很慢，但它的其他特点抵消了这个缺点。在我的常规测试中，TR1A的运行速度相当快。
索尼的一些设计很精致。例如，它的喇叭远远好于大多数笔记本电脑上的配置。这些喇叭是立体声的，而且放在荧幕的顶端，数码相机的两侧。耳机插孔采用了杜比环绕音路，因此音像效果非常棒。
还有一个开关可关闭无线电广播设备，这是飞机上的便利功能。显示灯很大，标志清晰。在荧幕一侧，还有方便旋纽，可控制音量、放大荧幕图象，以及用相机拍照。
电池寿命也给人留下的深刻印象。我对TR1A进行了严格的测试：我关掉了所有的节能功能，把荧幕的亮度最大化，开启Wi-Fi功能，并启动硬盘，不断播放音乐。这个小小的电脑运行了3小时25分钟。这表明，如果采取节能措施，并在正常工作的情况下，如进行文字处理和收发电子邮件，它的电池寿命可能接近5个小时。这种出色表现了超过了大多数笔记本电脑，因此它不需要又大又沉的电池。 即使在播放DVD时（这种任务通常很耗电），TR1A的表现也很好。它整整播放了2小时24分的"哈里．波特与魔法石"(Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)，还剩大约30分钟的电量。DVD在宽荧幕上的播放效果很不错，没有中断现象。
TR1A的最大缺点是键盘。它的键盘不算太差，但按键感觉平平，而且当你敲击键盘时，整个键盘都会动。此外，删除键很小；你不得不按住功能键，使用"Home"、"End "以及"Page Up"和"Page Down"按键。
另一个缺点：DVD驱动器被安装在电脑的前端，一不小心就会被打开。
总的来说，Vaio TR1A是款非常棒的笔记本电脑，很适合外出携带。
