Sony VAIO CR21S/P Laptop
Advantages Fast, looks good, comes in a variety of colours
Disadvantages Expensive, mouse can sometimes play up
Detailed Rating
| Speed | |
|---|---|
| Look & Feel | |
| Memory / capacity | |
| Comfort & Portability | |
| Robustness & Durability | |
| Ease of use | |
| Range of Extra Features |
more
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Why I brought the laptop
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~
The Look
~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
The screen
~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~
Keyboard
~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~
Speakers
~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~
The Mouse
~~~~~~~~~
The mouse pad is beautifully fit into the case and has two buttons, where the surface looks interesting. Sometimes you need to apply sufficient force for the buttons to react. Furthermore, the clicking noise of the buttons is relatively loud.
One annoying thing about this is sometimes when you are typing and your mouse is on the screen or even when you move it out of sight, it skips all over the place, in the way of you typing and it interupts your concentration.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Shortcut Buttons
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the bottom of the keyboard under the mouse are 4 buttons - Play/Pause, Stop, Rewind and Fast Forward which can be used to control Windows Media Player and any films or DVD's tha are watched.
These come on a chrome silver finis meaning they are relatively sensitive to various traces of use.like small scratches etc.~~~~~~~~~~~~
Playing Games
~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Games the laptop comes with
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~
Ports etc
~~~~~~~~
On the right hand side on the laptop there is a DVD/CD drive, it is in a good position and easy to use. When you put a CD/DVD into the drive it automatically loads for you.
The laptop also comes with a memory card slot, located on next to the DVD/CD drive but I have not yet used this.There is also a port to plug in speakers and a microphone if you wish located on the left hand side on the laptop at the front.
~~~~~~~The laptop comes with an intergrated wireless feature, which can be turned on and off which a small silver switch on the left hand side. It could be easy to knock though, so be careful when using it. One problem with the wireless I found is that you have to switch your computer off fully for the wireless to work when you start up again, not on standby or hibernate as it will not work. It took me ages to work out why the wireless had suddenly stopped working, but as soon as I only restarted fully it worked again.
~~~~~~~The laptop comes with an intergrated camera and webcam, which is great, not having to worry about plugging webcams in and trying to make sure they are in the correct position. It is located at the top of the screen in the centre. It is small and descrite. There is a button above the keyboard called capture, which you press to activate the camera, this automatically loads it and you can see yourself on screen, you can also change the camera to movie mode and create a film also. The camera is a 1.3megapixel but for 1.3megapixels it takes good quality photos, my mobile phone is a 3.2megapixel but the intergrated camera on my laptop is much better quality. It is very simple to use and relocate photos after they have been taken.
~~~~~~~~~~~The laptop is equipped with an Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 CPU with 2.0 GHz and an integrated video chip by Intel, a Graphics Media Accelerator X3100. This is a typical office equipment with sufficient reserve capacities for applications like Office, Internet, DVD, etc.
In addition it comes with a 160GB hard disk (5400 revs/min), whose access time and transfer rates are passable and which also provides sufficient capacity for your music and video library.2 GB main memory guarantees a smoothly working Windows Vista. Apropos, Windows Vista Home Premium is already pre-installed on this laptop and after some configurations you can immediately start using the laptop. It stores plenty of data without causing the laptop to run less efficently.
~~~~~~~The laptop comes with 2GB RAM (short term memory (Random Access Memory). This is relatively high spec for this price laptop and having this amount of RAM helps the computer run quickly and it's noticely smooth when running multiple programs.
The hard drive has 160GB which is easily sufficient to store a large variety of music, videos and other data.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Speed & Reliability
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The laptop runs really quickly, without freezing or crashing, even when you are doing several things at once. You are able to do lots of things at once with the laptop even slowing down or struggling at all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~As Windows Vista is only a small part of the laptop and not necessarily to do with the laptop, I will only talk about a few things about Vista which I think are particularly good or bad and give you a quick review on it.
Windows Vista is one of these things that people seem to love or hate. I personally love it although I am still getting used to using it, having used XP for so long now! There are a few things I don't really like which include programs not having a menu bar for File, Options, Tools etc which most usually have. It makes using some of the programs difficult. The button which you would assume to be turn off when you go into file to shut down, is actually only stand by and you cannot set shut down as the main option, which is annoying.The menu is easy to navigate through, easier than XP I think, rather than having to click on one thing and sort of dragging on it, Vista just keeps it in the same column.
The laptop comes with a Google toolbar that is displayed in small on the right hand side of the screen, I believe this is a feature of Vista rather than the laptop. This toolbar is really useful and not like the annoying ones you collect on your internet page.It displays a clock, a round one which hands, but incase you're like me and don't like reading those clocks, there is still the time in digital in the bottom right hand corner like usual.
There is a little news column, feeding you all the latest news, which regularly is updated, it provides a link that you can click on, if you want to find out more about the story.Underneath the news section there is a slideshow of photos, it is a slideshow of the sample photos that Vista provides, which is of wildlife and nature, but you can change this slideshow and update it with your own photos if you wish, or you can have a selection of both.
Underneath that is a little notepad, where you can write yourself a note, I find this extremely useful, as I am always going onto the internet, to find several things, and after the first thing I always forget what the other things were, which gets really frustrating.Underneath that there is a google search bar, so instead of you having to load internet explorer, you can type what you want into the search bar and it will load it for you.
If you are not connected to the internet the google search bar and the news section will not work.The toolbar is always on show when you have a webpage or program apart from games displayed. This can easily be made larger or smaller or even removed.
~~~~~~~~~The laptop says if the laptop is left unplugged that the battery will last over 3 hours, but I have not found this to be true, even when you are barely doing anything on the laptop, I would say whilst doing a reasonable amount of work on your laptop - having one or two webpages open the laptop will last just under 2 hours unplugged. It takes quite a long time to fully recharge, so I tend to keep the battery plugged in if I am working near a plug. When your battery is running low the laptop comes up with a warning and runs on a standby method, which helps to reserve the battery and I must say I find it lasts quite a long time on this. If you do lose the battery life whilst you are working it saves the page or program you are in in the place you last left it when you turn the laptop back on. Although this is useful, to help prevent you loosing work, overall I would say that the battery on this laptop is not that good.
~~~~~~~~The laptop comes with a bluetooth feature which I think is fantastic and really useful, you are able to send files from other computers to your laptop, phone to laptop etc and it is quick. You need a password and the user on the laptop has to accept the file they are being sent, so you can deny it if you do not know who has sent it to you. When the accept box comes up, it does not tell you what the file is called but tells you what file type (mp3 etc) the device is trying to send, and who it is from. If you are in doubt you can just deny. You can disable to bluetooth function
~~~~~~~~~In idle and office mode and also with Internet applications, the fan stays quiet and hardly audible all the time. Although, you can clearly hear the fan under load, the noise of the laptop is not at all disturbing. It is only if you are sitting in complete silence you may sometimes hear it.
~~~~~~~~~~~The surface temperatures of the laptop do not get hot. The bottom and also the top side of the Vaio always get warm as this is where the processor and fans are situated, but they do not get too warm at all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The laptop comes with a free 60 day trial of Norton 2008 and Microsoft Office.
The laptop also comes with the following programs:VAIO Music Box
Skype
VAIO Recovery Utility 2.6
Google Picasa
Microsoft Works 8.5
Google Software Pack
Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0
Roxio Easy Media Creator 9
Sony Click to DVD 2.6
WinDVD for VAIO 8.0
Microsoft Windows Media Player 11
Adobe Acrobat Standard 8.0
Sony SonicStage Mastering Studio 2.4
Adobe Reader 8.1
Windows Media Centre
Big Fish Games Centre
Google Earth
Internet Explorer
Just incase anyone is interested in the technical information of the laptop, here it is:
Platform Technology: Intel Centrino Duo~~~~~~~
Warrenty
~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Price & Availability
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
Conclusion
~~~~~~~~~~
Attention, this is the first review from this author
Instead of giving a negative rating, consider:

Help this member by giving your advice

Report fraud (for example plagiarism) or other issue with the review to the Ciao support team
Add your comment
loki23 28/04/2008 14:27
Complete review. How it should be done!
rachael23 24/04/2008 18:38
great review, E worthy x
XTubbzX 17/04/2008 13:07
great review which deserves an E hope vh is alright for now i will be back to re-rate at a later date
yassarikhan786 26/03/2008 17:36
|
allbatteries.co.uk
|
Shipping: £0.00 Availability: D3 |
|
3M Vikuiti Privacy Filter for Sony Vaio VGN-CR21S/L Vikuiti privacy filters for laptops protect the data on your screen while you are working on private documents in public places. A Vikuiti privacy... |
amazon marketplace electronics
|
Shipping: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days |
|
Power Supply AC Adapter Sony 90W for Sony VAIO VGN-CR21S/L High-quality Delta power supply- Output: 4.7A / 19.5V - Input : 100-240V ~1,3A/ 50-60 Hz - with function LED- incl. Power cordPlease note that the... |
amazon marketplace electronics
|
Shipping: £4.50 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days |
Great review with pretty much everything anyone would want to know about the laptop covered... definitely 'E' worthy