NOTEBOOK, CELL PHONE AND UMPC REVIEW

Pretty Pink Notebook Sony VAIO VGN-CS190 JTP

 

 

SONY VAIO VGN-CS190 JTP

 

Make a fashion statement while taking advantage of serious performance with the VAIO® VGN-CS190JTP notebook. Weighing only 5.7 pounds, this notebook boasts an array of entertainment extras including a tricked-out pair of LEDs and a 12-tone music analyzer that translates your music into a colorful LED light show from beneath the trim of the CS. You can control your music and movies by sliding your finger across the lighted, touch sensor A/V slide control. In addition to its eye-catching design, the VAIO CS notebook has the heart of a champion. It’s backed by an Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor using Intel Centrino® 2 processor technology.

I could easily fill an entire paragraph with Barbie references, but the CS190 is anything but a cheap knockoff and its audience is clearly not limited to kids. The design is carefully conceived, because the worst thing Sony could have done is touch it up with floral patterns, splash art, or some sort of pink fabric. It’s not subtle, either. The lid, the palm rests, and the borders around the screen use a reflective coating over their pink surfaces, similar to the technique used in automobiles. The perimeter of the cover is lined with chrome plating, a really nice touch, while underneath the bezel is a bright, glowing LED that indicates when the laptop is asleep or in hibernation. The VAIO logo on the cover isn’t backed by LEDs, though. Had that been the case, one could easily call the CS190 a mock-up of a pink Apple MacBook 13-inch.

The VAIO® CS notebook comes pre-installed with Genuine Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Premium 64-bit. A perfect mix of power and style, the slim VAIO® CS Offering a massive boost in wireless connection speed and range, work and play quicker virtually anywhere within your office or home using 802.11n integrated wireless LAN technology.
You can see deeper blacks, brighter whites, true-to-life color and razor-sharp detail from almost any angle when Watch all your favorite movies in stunning clarity on the 14.1” widescreen display using XBRITE-ECO™ technology. Store your important documents, family videos and pictures on the roomy 320GB2 (5400RPM) Serial ATA hard disk drive and Stay connected to colleagues, friends and family at home or on-the-go with real-time video conferencing using the integrated camera and microphone.

There are other nifty design elements in the interior as well. The touch-sensitive buttons—the playback and volume controls—simulate white scanning lights when pressed. For some reason, it calls to mind the scanning lights on the front grille of KITT, the artificially intelligent car from the Knight Rider series. The keyboard is tastefully decked out in a lighter shade of pink, providing a nice contrast to the palm rests. It resembles the keyboard on the Apple MacBook, in which the keys are raised, with proper spacing in between them. The keyboard, however, is only 96 percent of full size—which is surprising because a 14-inch screen typically can fit a full one. The keyboards on the HP Pavilion dv5t, the Dell Studio 15, and the MacBook are full size. However, the CS190’s slightly smaller keyboard didn’t hinder my overall typing experience.

The rest of the features are typical of a mainstream laptop. There are three USB ports and a FireWire port. The CS190 uses an ExpressCard 34 slot, whereas the Studio 15 and the dv5t house an ExpressCard 34/54 combo slot. And in typical Sony fashion, there are two separate memory card slots for SD and Memory Stick. A 1.3-megapixel webcam is situated above the screen.
Like Apple, Sony is a huge proponent of winning customers over with well-thought-out designs. Both companies’ laptops could benefit from following the lead of the Studio 15 and the Pavilion dv5t on bundling features, and for that matter, Dell and HP could learn a thing or two about industrial design. Nevertheless, the Sony offers a highly configurable, well-designed laptop that would have received a better rating had Sony included an HDMI-out port and quit charging money for its Fresh Start option.

The CS is available in five striking colors including Cosmopolitan Pink, Glossy Black, Sangria Red, Dove White and Matte Black.

 

Source: UMPC-REVIEW