Sony's New Vaio PCG-TR1A: 12" Powerbook Killer?

Anonymous Howard writes "Sony has a hot new subnote on it's hand: the Vaio PCG-TR1A. This subnote is packed full of features: integrated camera (still and video), 10.6 inch bright wide-format screen, 900MHz Centrino, CD-RW/DVD Combo drive, 30GB drive, 802.11b, two usb ports, firewire, 3.11 pounds and a magnesium alloy case. The thing looks really cool. For me, it's the first subnote that actually gives me a viable option for purchase instead of a the Apple Powerbook 12". Read a article about it over at Designtechnica. Check out this forum thread that has good pics, other then the stock pics, next to a VPR Matrix 200A5."

Dell has had one for some time too

http://www.dell.com/us/en/bsd/products/model_latit _latit_x200.htm [dell.com]. it's pretty nice, although i prefer the c400 myself. the x200 is just too small.

Re:Dell has had one for some time too

How can this be considered a PowerBook killer when it has no DVD-R option, and EXTERNAL DVD/CD-RW drives as the only possibility for burning cd's? Sure it looks small and light, but the 12" PowerBook has a hell of a lot crammed into it's small package, which is more than I can say for this Dell.

Re:Dell has had one for some time too

How about reading optical disks? (You know, those shiny things software and music sometimes come on.)

12 inch powerbook killer?

I don't see how it can be when it costs more. I purchased a 12 inch powerbook with a superdrive (DVR-R/CD-RW), 802.11g, firewire, 2 usb ports, 32mb nVivida gforce 4 and a bunch of other stuff for the same price as this thing, and the prices for the 12 inch pb have since gone down. I hardly see how its a "killer." Plus, I love how everyone plays catchup to apple. For such a small market share they sure do seem to set a lot of standards.

Re:12 inch powerbook killer?

I agree - no way in hell you can compare a 900 mhz centrino (which is nothing but a gimmick) against a 867mhz G4. Not to mention being able to burn DVD's on the powerbook, 802.11g, better graphics, a bigger screen, and the biggest thing of all - OS X 10.2 Jaguar, with the soon to be available OS X 10.3 Panther.

Catchup?!

Wtf? Sony has had a 10 inch (not 12 inch) entry in the laptop market for years. I've owned mine for almost two years! True there was a gap between the SRX and this thing, but still. It's ridiculous to say that Sony if "following" apple because they released a laptop that's "small" I mean come on. There have been much smaller laptops through history, like the Toshiba Libretto.

Re:12 inch powerbook killer?

You're right, Apple Computers taste horrible, despite all of the "lickability" people talk about. Still, they do look great and kick butt over any other laptop.

(This post written from my sixth limb--a TiPB 667.)

Re:Troll?

Mac zealots are stupid because they think only Macs are worth paying attention to. Windows zealots are stupid because they don't realize that there are things other than Windows. Linux zealots are stupid because they discount anything that's not Open Source. Conclusion? Zealots are stupid. Sony is not following Apple. Apple didn't invent the small and light notebook. They just did it better than anyone else had to that point. This notebook by Sony is nice but I could get a 12" PowerBook for $1399... loaded with the options I'd want more like $1600-$1700.. still considerably lower than the Sony. The metal case is a bit derivative, but it's got a different look from the PowerBooks and I like it (I like the PowerBooks a little bit more, but that's me).

Interesting...

Interesting that Apple's notebooks (and mp3 player) are now the standard others are compared against. A big shift since the 90s...

Re:Interesting...

It's something that I don't understand.

Unless you've bought into Apple's desktop systems, buying an Apple notebook means having to maintain two seperate sets of software to run on your systems.

I look at the Powerbook and shake my head because I have too much fairly good and rather expensive Windows software. If I'm going to run a second software platform (which I do) I want it to be a free software platform. I'm not interested in investing lots of money in applications for yet another properietary OS.

I guess if I had an unlimited amount of money to spend, the Powerbook would be worth considering. But then if I had an unlimited amount of money I would get an IBM PPC based laptop to run AIX and/or NetBSD on.

Re:Interesting...

"I'm not interested in investing lots of money in applications for yet another properietary OS."

Hmm... Open-source Darwin core... X11... More "open" technologies than you could shake a stick at... Loads of great built-in languages... Freely available ports of tons of great Unix apps... Exactly what is so "proprietary" about Mac OS X that is scaring you away?

Re:Interesting...

Exactly what is so "proprietary" about Mac OS X that is scaring you away?

It should be fairly obvious, but people seem to not notice.

Mac OS X only runs on a single source of hardware. That makes it extremely proprietary.

Re:Interesting...

If it's the cost of software keeping you back, I have to ask... why? If you play by the rules, you'll (generally, according to most licenses I've seen, anyway) have to buy separate copies of your existing apps for the laptop anyway; if you don't play by the rules, and duplicate the ones from your desktop to use on the laptop, you could just warez the Mac versions as well. Either way you'll probably wind up paying about the same for your laptop's apps regardless of platform. Just a thought...

(I do of course realize, though, this doesn't apply if you play by the rules and also get those essential apps bundled with the machine on one platform but not the other, and it also doesn't apply if the apps you want/need aren't made for the Mac and there are no equivalents that can open & save the same files.)

Re:They're not.

Just the Mac-heads here do that.

With story titles like "Powerbook Killer?", wouldn't you expect the Mac-heads to defend themselves?

Power comparison

A 900 MHZ Centrino really doesn't compare that well to a 987MHZ G4.

Battery Life.

extra long battery life, estimated at 2.5 - 7 hours

That's a pretty wide range...

Re:Battery Life.

2.5 if the laptop is on.

7.0 if it's off.

Re:Battery Life.

They should never have put in that red "Off"-light.

900MHz Centrino

Sony used to use Transmeta chips in their subnotebooks. This can't be good news for TMTA. It's good that Linus could read the writing on the wall, but I feel bad for their other employees... facing unemployment in this economy. And, let's be honest, even if they do find work elsewhere, few companies have as much potential as Transmeta had.

OSX On Sony?

Hard to believe. It's going to be hard to be a PowerBook killer without it.

Re:OSX On Sony?

Actually, for lots of us, (one could say 'for the rest of us') OSX is the Powerbook killer. It might be a cool OS platform, but since all our Adobe apps, etc. are the Windows versions, etc. etc. the fact that the Powerbook only runs OSX kills it as an option. Where binary OS lockin is concerned, why switch from one lockin (Windows) to another (OSX)?

Re:OSX On Sony?

Actually, Adobe allows cross-platform upgrades on selected software titles. If you have PS7 on the PC and decided to switch to the Mac, then just call up Adobe customer service.

You will have to sign a "Letter of Destruction" promising that you will destroy your PC version of the software and fax a copy to Adobe before they ship you your CD.

I did it, and only paid for shipping for Adobe Photoshop 7.0...

So you CAN switch without costing yourself an arm and a leg. As for MS products, that's an entirely different story, but then again, you also have OpenOffice for OS X as an alternative.

Re:Now let's be honest here

Okay, so the original poster's point was that he already warezed those programs for Windows, and the Mac versions are really hard to find on Kazaa.

Seriously. If Apple went out of their way to create a vibrant warez scene for all the third-party OS X apps, they would sell much more hardware. I've seen worse business strategies.

-Graham

You haven't looked very hard

Hmm... you obviously haven't looked very hard [fujitsupc.com].

A Question

Seems Slashdotted--Here are some pics [sonystyle.com] from Sony.com [sony.com]

Not so much a comment as a question...

What has really set the Vaio apart from ye olde everyday laptop was the interesting addition of the integrated still/video camera. Are there any other manufacturers out who do this? Also...is it really usable as an integrated camera?

Sony Notebook??

Have you *EVER* tried to load a different OS (as in what did not come originally on the system) nto a Sony Notebook?? You will tear your hair and generally feel like throwing out the notebook... ou will find no drivers or support on their site or it, and contacting Sony will give you a response of "It did not come with that OS so we do ot support it"

I am not talking about putting Linux/BSD or Solaris (what I am thinking??) ... just a Win2k or something.

Plus their position/membership/stance on DMCA,RIAA et. all makes me want to spend my money elsewhere...

Re:Sony Notebook??

Well...yes. I just did so last Friday. I have an old PCG-C1VN (the original Picturebook) with the Transmeta 600MHz. It came with ME preinstalled (worthless). I have run several different Linux distros on it. On Friday I reformatted it and installed W2K as I just got a T-Mobile wireless Internet card (only works on Windows...out of the box) and wanted to use it on my smallest laptop. Went to Sony's sight and clicked on the link for Installing W2K on the PCG-C1VN. Had all the drivers, and all "special instructions" for such things as installing the drivers in the right order (dependancies in effect) and getting W2K to allow the odd (1024x480) resolution. Lots of drivers to download, but no real problems. Works great with my T-Mobile card. All that said, it isn't the most useful notebook PC in the world...I much prefer my Thinkpad with SuSE 8.2.

ER

Re:Sony Notebook??

I don't know about other models, but until I dropped it and broke the screen after 3+ years, I was very happy running Red Hat, then Debian and then Gentoo on my Vaio PCG-XG9. I found support for pretty much everything but the WinModem. A single anecdote does not a dataset make, but hey, you asked "Have you *EVER* tried..." and yes, I have. Successfully.

I use a Vaio with SuSE 8.2

Have you *EVER* tried to load a different OS (as in what did not come originally on the system) nto a Sony Notebook?? You will tear your hair and generally feel like throwing out the notebook...
/blockquote

I use a Vaio with SuSE 8.2, and I feel your pain. For the most part my Vaio GRV550 has worked great. And while I'd *like* to get another Vaio and run SuSE on that, I probably won't. Sony makes good notebook PC's, but they don't make *great* ones. To say this new Vaio model could be a "Powerbook killer" is pretty dammed insulting to the Powerbook, considering some of the crap that Sony pulls with respect to incompatible hardware. Also, you're right, they're support is horid if you don't use the OS distro it shipped with.

And the Centrio chip? How the hell could this vaio be a powerbook killer when the chip in it has essentially limited (read nonexistant) support for any non-MS OS (esp Linux).

I'm sorry, Sony's going to have to do better or I'm going to look elsewhere - maybe IBM or Dell.

VAIO no-way

I recently sold my Vaio after owning it for less than a year. Memory had problems, seemed slow and just did not live up to expectations. I recently bought a Mac PowerBook G4, my first Mac laptop and I am extremely pleased with it. Airport Extreme 802.11G works flawlessly with my Linksys router using the G standard, I have Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, PhP and host of other apps installed all working flawlessly. If you're looking for a great UI with unix under the hood look no further.

Switched!

Seems you forgot the last sentence of your comment... perhaps I can help?

I'm __________________ and I'm a __________________ .

(fill the blanks)

12" vs 10.6"

How can this thing be better, when the screen is 1.4" smaller? Heck I think 12" is too small, but 10.6"? Geez can anyone even read /. on that? :)

Linux support

12" Powerbook killer... err except that all Apple hardware is very well supported by linux... whereas the Centrino 802.11b isn't supported at all. So your fancy subnotebook is going to have an 802.11b card sticking out the side.

Unless you want to run Windows that is, in which case you have bigger problems. :)

Well it's slashdotted ...

But yeah there's a little problem with calling it a "powerbook killer" for one, it doesn't run Mac OS. That would be a key component for it to "kill" the power book's notebook share. Plus lets face it there are many laptops for many needs. Many things come into play when purchasing a laptop and best bang for the buck seems to be the #1 reason people actually buy laptops.

While this may be cool (wouldn't know can't read the article), let's face it people will sacrifice weight, size, and battery life for a cheaper model that does the same thing. UNLESS they are walking around with the thing, or travel a lot, or have a particular breifcase they'd like this to fit it. Believe it or not I've seen someone buy a new laptop because it was the right "size" of the breif case they had grown quite accustomed to.

12" is hard to read at a res bigger than 1024x768 as well. I really don't see this thing killing anything as there are so many laptops on the market now that no one can decide on one "ultimate" laptop.

Price, price, price

Apple's 12" Powerbook [apple.com] costs $1,600 ($1,400 for students), while the new Sony Vaio [designtechnica.com] is expected to cost around $2,000. Even with the cheaper price, the Apple laptop gives you 10GB more hard drive space, and a larger screen, and OS X as well. The only advantage I see is the weight difference, as the Sony weighs 32% less than the Apple. As long as you don't have trouble lifting 4.6 pounds, go for the Apple. :^)

Shhh!

The powerbook is more expensive! Macs have to be more expensive, or what would the trolls complain about (Greater ease of use? Longer battery life?)?

Untapped Market?

It seems to me there is a largely untapped market for notebooks. As I shop for one I am looking for a small, lightweight system with a long lasting battery. What I am NOT looking for is a 1Ghz+ system. I do not want a laptop that replaces my desktop but instead one that accompanies it. 500MHz is plenty for something that I would use for word processing, listening to music, and browsing the web. As processor technology improves you'd thing the long battery life and other features would make a great combination with older processors but I never see that. The only choice is to buy an old laptop but it's big and bulky and usually used. On top of that the cost savings isn't enough to warrent such a device. Why don't I ever see something like this: Pentium III 500MHz 20GB Harddrive 128MB RAM 12 inch screen 4lbs or less And some crappy 4MB video for $500 I'd buy one in a heartbeat. I just want something portable yet more capable than a PDA. I don't want to replace my desktop.

linux-sony mailing list

Not sure if this one runs Linux but anyone else running Linux on Sony Laptops should check out the linux-sony mailing list [returntonature.com].

12" Powerbook killer?

This VAIO costs $700 more than a 12" Powerbook. Show me a Mac user who actually wants a Windows machine, or better yet, wants to pay *more* for one?

uhh... Don't forget about support

Have you ever tried to call Sony's support desk? I have a pretty sweet little sony R505-ELK. It has been a really great machine, until I started loosing sectors. So I called them up to get a warentee replacement. They told me... and I quote... "That's only a couple megs! You have a 30 gig drive. That doesn't come close to meeting our criteria for failure." They went on to explain that they would not replace the drive until it was completely nonfunctional.

So. Please keep this in mind before you make the leap. Dell and Apple have high support ratings for a reason. Your laptop WILL fail at some point. Make sure you pick a company that honors thier warentees. Although as of late, Dell has been getting pretty bad too.

Is it really worth it?

I've just this weekend completed installation of muLinux [sunsite.dk] on an old 25MHz 486SX laptop with 8MB of RAM and a 500MB hard drive that I got for free (because the previous owner thought it was trash). It weights about 4 pounds, and has a TFT color 640x480 screen. I'm now browsing the web, reading email, and SSHing into my server with it. It's very usable.

I have to wonder why so much perfectly good equipment goes to waste, while people lust after new machines, so that their CPU idle time can go from 99% to 99.5%. Especially among the ./ geeks, who probably have top end machines already.

Seriously people, if you want to play a game, get a game console. If you want some REAL fun, install Linux with just a floppy drive. :-)

Firewire?

Knowing Sony, they're probably going to be those crippled (as in no power supply wires) iLink ports. I can't tell from the linked pictures. If so, you can forget about using Firewire to charge an iPod, or using a bus-powered hard drive.

Sony support

Since I've experienced Sony's so called "support" I've decided to never buy a Sony product again. My girl friend had problems with her Sony Vaio FX802, so we sent it in and it came back unrepaired. I had to beg them to pick it up again, btw. the hotline is not free in Austria, even if you still have warranty. This time I added a very detailed description on how to reproduce the error, however, the technician ignored it and called my girl friend to complain in a very harsh tone that the notebook was not defect. I talked to the technician and could convince him that it was in fact defect, and after 3 more weeks we got it back (they exchanged the motherboard). However, when putting it together again, they forgot the screw that fixates the DVD ROM... had to provide one myself. Facit: My girl friend bought a new notbook that was significantly more expensive than others, believing that Sony's support would be better than the support of no-name manufacturers. She ended up waiting 1.5 months for her notebook.. in the meantime, it had of course become significantly cheaper. I'm now thinking about buying an Apple Powerbook. Can anybody tell me about his experiences with Apple's support?

My experience with Vaio has been miserable

The Vaios I have seen had what amounted their own version of Windows. They seem to have funky BIOS, hardware, and drivers. In my opinion, Windows Update slowly destroys the machine as these goofball drivers become less and less compatible with the new DLLs you get from Microsoft. I wonder if the word "Vaio" is perhaps Japanese for "disaster"? Sony makes alot of great products, but the Vaio is not one of them. Check Usenet; see just how satisfied the customers really are. Then buy some other brand, any other brand. You really can't do much worse.

Vaios look cool, and we have a few PHBs who fell in love with the style and (lack of) weight, but they are a total nuisance for the support staff. Our travelling people occasionally gripe about the weight of their IBM Thinkpads, but at least they aren't calling headquarters with show-stopper events in the field.

Apple Vs. Sony, price by price

the new sony:

900MHz Centrino
512MB Memory
30GB Hard drive
802.11b
10.6" TFT
3.11 Pounds
~$2000

867MHz PowerPC G4
640MB DDR266 (128MB built-in & 512MB SO-DIMM)
40GB Ultra ATA drive
SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
AirPort Extreme Card
Keyboard/Mac OS for SuperDrive - U.S. English
12.1-inch TFT Display
$2048

128MB more memory, 10GB more hard drive, faster processor (almost even on bare clock speed, even!) and has OS X with UNIX goodness out of the box, and a larger display by more than an inch. for about $48 more.

and this is a powerbook killer how?

sure, the apple is a bit heavier, but 4.6 pounds is still damn light. Also, do you think the sony really is going to last 7 hours on a battery? i know my 14" ibook has lasted more than 6.

Apple cringes in fear...

Uh, yeah. It looks like a Powerbook, and it's 12", this obviously spells DOOM for the whole line. Right. Anyway, like between September and November probably, we're going to see more G5 products being rolled out, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a Powerbook in there.

Killer? We haven't seen the tip of the iceberg yet. Come 2004 I'll be posting from my 64 bit notebook. I'm sure I won't take a second look at this Sony after today.

nope

4.6 lbs [apple.com].

Re:3.11 Lbs

Nah, I think it's closer to a very large multiple of the weight of all the Weapons Of Mass Destruction the US has uncovered in Iraq.

Re:3.11 Lbs

1 pound = 453.59 g. Ergo, 3.11 pounds = 1.41 kg.

Re:3.11 Lbs

I've been carrying a Vaio Z505 for about three years now, and have never once been in a situation where I was away from home and needed the optical drive. I just don't install software when I'm working or surfing at a coffee shop.

And flimsy? What, do you mean it's flexible or something? Sony shipped laptops with metal (magnesium alloy) frames long before the "tibook" came out.

That said, I'll be picking up an iBook soon... but I sure wish they would shave a few pounds off it by leaving out the optical drive.

Re:3.11 Lbs

No need for anything external except a flppy drive.
and a paper tape punch/reader while you're at it.