Sony Vaio AW Tankbook

Well, there comes a time every 3 years or so that I look at my current rig and decide that I need a change and with me, usually that means, drastic change. The last time this happened I opted to switch from an Apple to a Dell… Which was, to those who know me and my thoughts on Microsoft, shocking…

At the time I felt that I wanted to partake in PC gaming, something that just wasn’t an option on power pc based Apple products. I soon found myself obsessed with Gordon Freeman and “farming Cuda Mish’s” with other “noobs”. What a pleasant new world I was living in…

Since then, console gaming has taken me away from the PC side of things so I decided another change was in order.

The setup that I was going for this time had to be as dramatic as my last switch up… “Laptop” was on the mind and after enjoying the experience of a netbook I wanted to consolidate my computer needs and free up my home office from being so lab rat oriented.

I had 3 brands in my head that I was going to decide upon. A Dell XPS, a Sony Vaio AW or an Apple Macbook. After much careful thought (basically the cab ride into town) I had further narrowed It down to the Macbook and the Vaio.

My needs were simple; photography and occasional gaming. Both could address these needs;

• obviously gaming wouldn’t be a concern with the AW! Its also one of the few laptops with a built in compact flash slot and the Adobe RGB profile out of the box. Im aware this is cosmetic fluff which can easily be implemented or worked around on other systems its just, I really dug that these features were part of the native package and ready to go… It just had photography written all over it… call me shallow I cant defend myself there. (It also didn’t help that the camera system I have also grown to love is featured in many of the marketing materials surrounding the AW, double shallow!)
• the Macbook could be dual booted with XP so gaming was doable and of course photography and Apple are well, photography and Apple…

When It came down to it, dollar for dollar, feature for feature, it became apparent that it was no contest. It pains me to say but there is a lot of truth to the new Microsoft ad campaing. By no means is the AW catering to frugal minded people, its just I could not justify getting the Macbook.

Well Ive been playing around with it for just over a week now and I have to say I am thoroughly pleased with my purchase.

At 18.4″, as a laptop, not using it at a desk can be quite daunting, its not lightweight nor is it easy to just flip open get down to business… But im not a fragile old lady so these were minor gripes compared to the payoff;

• an amazing looking, full HD screen
• great feeling full keyboard… silent keys too, which i like
• Intel® Centrino® 2 Core™ 2 Duo processor
• built-in 1.3 MP MOTION EYE® camera
• 4 gigs of ram
• 320 gig HD
• a BD-R Read/DVD write drive
• and a biometric fingerprint scanner (which, I dunno if youve ever used one, but after registering your finger, the prompt to register another one “just in case something happens” made me want to throw up!)

It came loaded with Vista Premium Home Edition (64bit) which I have been incredibly apprehensive about even touching (was going to throw XP Pro on it without giving it a chance, but was coerced to at least try it out), and I have to say… Vista isn’t all that bad… If you set the warnings off and get over the fact that you can delete the recycle bin, I’d even go so far as to saying it received a really bad rap.

Mind you, I did have to do 2 restores within the first day of using it since I was, with much bravado, installing all the 32 bit software I had onto the thing without thinking (why they even let you install things that will make your OS go ouchy is also strange… but this is coming from a mac guy at heart so what do I know about these things).

For gaming, the included NVIDIA® GeForce® 9600M GT was more than enough for me to get my Left 4 Dead on. For photography… I can confidently say it has no trouble handling every raw file ive thrown at it thus far.

Oh and bonus, it came with 3 Blu Ray movies;

• Casino Royale (which I already had, so I gave it to my twin brother)
• Surfs Up (total score since its a movie i enjoyed, but would never go out of my way to purchase)
• and Hitch (which is probably somewhere in a Ville St-Laurent landfill by now)

Me happy customer!