Sony VAIO VPC-EH35FM/B

Any color you want as long as it's black? Best Buy's website lists the Sony VAIO VPC-EH35FM/B (the /B means in black) for $629.99, along with the EH35FM/P in pink and EH35FM/W in white, but indicates the latter two are sold out at this writing. If you have your heart set on white or pink, the identically configured VAIO VPC-EH37FX is $719.99 on Sony's own site. Even that's not a bad deal for an attractive 15.5-inch desktop replacement laptop with perky Intel Core i5 power, 6GB of RAM, and a 640GB hard disk, as long as you can overlook one cost-cutting measure: Really, Sony, no USB 3.0 port in this day and age?

Design
Measuring 1.5 by 14.6 by 9.8 inches and weighing 5.2 pounds, the Sony VAIO VPC-EH35FM/B is cased in black plastic, with a handsome diamond-embossed pattern on the lid and palm rest that nevertheless picked up a few finger smudges on our test unit. If you don't like the black keyboard, our test unit came with a blue silicone keyboard skin that increased spill and crumb resistance without subtracting from the keyboard's slightly spongy yet comfortable typing feel. There's a full-sized numeric keypad with dedicated Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn keys (although they, the function and Delete keys, and the cursor arrows are slightly smaller than the regular keys), and a medium-sized touchpad with a nicely textured surface and clicky mouse buttons.

The screen resolution is the boilerplate 1,366-by-768 you'll find on most other 15- (and 14- and 13-inch) laptops?for this price, you shouldn't expect the 1,920 by 1,080 of Sony's 4.4-pound VAIO VPC-SE23FX/S ($999 direct, 4 stars) or the HP Envy 15 (2012) ($1,249.99 direct, 4 stars). That's enough for viewing 720p videos from the Web; you can't watch them from a Blu-ray disc because the VPC-EH35FM/B has a DVD?RW drive. The screen is clear and bright, with adequate viewing angles and vivid colors (and no, our eyes couldn't see the difference between the Sony's 15.5- and competitors' 15.6-inch panels, and we bet yours can't either). Audio through the built-in speakers is average.

Features
The VAIO VPC-EH35FM/B doesn't have the WiMAX mobile broadband found in our Editors' Choice Asus U56E-BBL6, nor the Bluetooth technology used to sync a laptop and handheld. But it has two other wireless features: the familiar 802.11n Wi-Fi, which worked fine in our surfing and downloading tests, and Intel's Wireless Display (WiDi) for streaming the laptop's video and audio to an HDTV set equipped with a $100-or-so Belkin or Netgear adapter.

There are two memory-card slots on the Sony's front bezel, one for SD cards and the other for the company's Memory Stick Pro Duo format. On the right side of the chassis are three USB 2.0 ports and the DVD drive. On the left are VGA, HDMI, and Ethernet ports; microphone and headphone jacks; and a fourth USB 2.0 port?we looked for the blue connector or SS (Super Speed) label that designates a USB 3.0 port, but were disappointed.

By contrast, only a grouch could be disappointed that the VPC-EH35FM/B's 5,400-rpm hard drive is an ample 640GB instead of the even more ample 750GB of models like the Lenovo IdeaPad Z570-10249ZU ($699.99 list, 3.5 stars) and Asus K53SD-DS51 ($779.99 street, 3 stars). Sony preloads it with a Mac OS Dock-alike program launcher dubbed VAIO Gate, a couple of photo and video managers, and a scanty 30-day trial of Norton Internet Security.

Sony backs the laptop with a one-year warranty with on-site or at-home service. Best Buy offers a choice of two-year extended service plans: a $149.99 deal that covers normal wear and tear, power surges, a single replacement of a dead battery, and "no lemon" replacement of a system that's required four repairs; and a $269.99 plan with the above plus drop and spill protection.

Performance
Equipped with a 2.5GHz Intel Core i5-2450M processor and 6GB of RAM, the Sony VAIO VPC-EH35FM/B did well in our productivity benchmark tests. Its PCMark 7 performance score of 2,400 edged that of the Acer Aspire TimelineX 5830TG-6614 ($779.99 list, 4 stars) (2,388) and Asus U56E-BBL6 (2,255).

It tied the Asus K53SD-DS51, based on the same CPU, in our Handbrake (1 minute 47 seconds) and Photoshop CS5 (3 minutes 55 seconds) multimedia tests. Only on the graphics front did the Sony's Intel HD Graphics 3000 integrated graphics prove no match for the Nvidia GeForce GT 540M of the Acer 5830TG-6614: The latter posted 58 and 39 frames per second respectively in Crysis and Lost Planet 2 versus the VAIO's 19 fps in each.

The Sony's 44Wh battery proved a slight disappointment, falling just short of the five-hour mark that we consider a fair result for a desktop replacement system (4 hours 53 minutes). By contrast, the Asus U56E-BBL6 lasted 7 hours 42 minutes and the Acer 5830TG-6614 a full nine hours.

Still, before we gripe too much about its battery life or that missing USB 3.0 port, it's worth remembering that the VPC-EH35FM/B is priced $100 or more below most of its competitors. At $629.99, it's a worthy alternative to our Editors' Choice Asus U56E-BBL6 and other top value contenders.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:

COMPARISON TABLE:
Compare the Sony VAIO VPC-EH35FM/B with several other laptops side by side.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/aGrG66RktKo/0,2817,2401985,00.asp

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