Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony Vaio P11ZQ 8-inch Netbook, Intel Atom Z520 1.33Ghz, 2GB RAM, 60GB HDD, Vista Home Premium (Black)
Sony Vaio P11ZQ 8-inch Netbook, Intel Atom Z520 1.33Ghz, 2GB RAM, 60GB HDD, Vista Home Premium (Black)
See it at Amazon.co.uk for £425.99Average Customer Rating
(3.5 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
Most Helpful First | Newest First | + Share26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
Too small, too expensive, too slow and a waste of your money
(1 out of 5) by Georgie2006 on Mar 3, 2009 (Reading UK)I always buy Sony as you usually know that you are getting quality, although you do pay a premuim for the name. This small 'thing' - not a laptop, not a netbook was such a disapointment that I sent it back. It is impossible to read the screen. I've got fairly good eyesight but wow this does take the biscuit. It is also extremely slow. Granted you can expect a lower performance, but this can't even handle simple things. My other main gripe is that the mobile broadband only works with T-Mobile. If you have a vodafone sim card then forget it. There is no support for this and you cetainly won't get it from Vodafone. Sorry Sony I really can't give you more than a one, infact if there was a zero I would use it. Go and get a Samsung NC10, far superior and £600 cheaper.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
You will have to make it good!
(4 out of 5) by R. Di Napoli on Apr 26, 2009 (London)Sony Vaio P11ZR 8-inch Netbook, Intel Atom Z520 1.33Ghz, 2GB RAM, 60GB HDD, Vista Home Premium (Red)
I exchanged my Macbook Air for this last week. Was well excited about the portability of the Sony Vaio P series and this is definitely its strength: it is small, compact, extremely portable and, yes, stylish! However, when I received it and tried it for the first time, I felt really disappointed: slow, impossible to read on the screen and, perhaps, overpriced. However, I resisted the temptation of sending it back straight away and by working a bit on it and changing parameters in terms of font size, I am now convinced, three days later, that, all in all, I am satisfied with it.
The computer does its job and it is not really too frustrating to wait a bit more for Windows Vista to boot up. All in all, for normal functions like wordprocessing, Internet searching and the like, it is a perfectly acceptable machine. If you want or need to do anything more gimmicky (including video watching), do not expect perfection, as you won't find it... If, like me, you have a more powerful primary computer and portability does matter to you, this is perfect, as it is extremely portable and works well, if you go the extra mile and tweak it a little bit to adjust it to your liking and needs. And, more importantly, you must change your mindset: take it for what it is, a glorified netbook, which can be an excellent travel companion. Once you know this and you are convinced of it, you are fine, like me, now...
I exchanged my Macbook Air for this last week. Was well excited about the portability of the Sony Vaio P series and this is definitely its strength: it is small, compact, extremely portable and, yes, stylish! However, when I received it and tried it for the first time, I felt really disappointed: slow, impossible to read on the screen and, perhaps, overpriced. However, I resisted the temptation of sending it back straight away and by working a bit on it and changing parameters in terms of font size, I am now convinced, three days later, that, all in all, I am satisfied with it.
The computer does its job and it is not really too frustrating to wait a bit more for Windows Vista to boot up. All in all, for normal functions like wordprocessing, Internet searching and the like, it is a perfectly acceptable machine. If you want or need to do anything more gimmicky (including video watching), do not expect perfection, as you won't find it... If, like me, you have a more powerful primary computer and portability does matter to you, this is perfect, as it is extremely portable and works well, if you go the extra mile and tweak it a little bit to adjust it to your liking and needs. And, more importantly, you must change your mindset: take it for what it is, a glorified netbook, which can be an excellent travel companion. Once you know this and you are convinced of it, you are fine, like me, now...
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Screen breaks
(1 out of 5) by Arthur Wyatt on Jul 14, 2009 (London England)Takes a long time to load Windows 7. Cracks have appeared on my screen (Dec 4th) without me having caused any stress or misuse of the product. They radiate fropm a point covered by the surround so appear to be a manufacturing fault - on its way back! SONY WANT TO CHARGE £700 TO REPLACE SCREEN - Should be free as I did not damage it. Shown in advert in somebodies back pocket! I hate to think what damage this would cause! Then £700 to repair
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Good first try, but usability needs more refinement.
(4 out of 5) by Gaurav Sharma on Jun 10, 2009 (London, UK)It feels a bit unfair to say this notebook has a very small display and keyboard. It is after all, probably the smallest lightest notebook available in the UK (640g. It's less than about a third the weight and size of a standard value 13" notebook).
BATTERY LIFE - With the default 2-cell battery, you get about 2-3 hours (perhaps closer to 2 hours in Vista, I'm using Windows 7). However, upgrade this to the 4-cell battery for around £100 like I did, and you can easily pass 5 hours, and with the notebook still weighing around 750g, the utility goes up tremendously. I recommend all buyers go for this option, and am not sure why Sony didn't include it by default (it raises the back slightly but not so much that it looks terrible).
ERGONOMICS - You can't *possibly* expect ThinkPad-like ergonomics out of something this small, and I think Sony's done a great job here, the keyboard is easy to get used to and since I'm used to trackpoints, I didn't miss the touchpad being there either. I was worried about this area but Sony more or less nailed it considering the size constraints - the trackpoint is more "hard and pointy" than "flat and big" like on ThinkPads but it works almost as well...and well, you can't buy a ThinkPad anywhere near this light.
SPEED - I went in with expectations that things such as Web browsing and Youtube etc would be fine on the Atom CPU on this thing, comprimising speed for size makes sense, but admitedly was a bit underwhelmed, sometimes things do feel a bit *too* slow and you wish you were back on your fullsize 13-15" notebook again. It's not a deal breaker though - Office 2007 runs just fine and it *is* usable, just don't expect silky smooth webpage scrolling that you're used to on your "full speed" computer.
SCREEN - This has to be the notebook's biggest weakness. 1600x768 sounds great on paper, until you realise just how *tiny* it makes everything. If you've seen their previous T series 11" notebooks, recall that those were 1366x768 on an 11" screen, and if you think *that* was small text, you're in for a nasty surprise when you try the P1. The word "microscopic" keeps coming to mind and I can't see how anyone can use Windows on it at native DPI settings. To resolve this you can tell Windows to run at higher DPI (making text, windows etc bigger, 150dpi starts to make text bearable) but this brings with it a whole host of problems (weirdly formatted webpages, install dialog boxes that are chopped off the screen, further slowdown as the weak video processer is stretched to render such a high resolution desktop) and the whole feel of the operating system just feels flakey and unoptimised. I'm really not sure what to make of it in the end - images do look amazing on it but what use is that if you sacrifice usability. Perhaps a 1280x600 resolution would have worked better (1024x600 like on the netbooks wouldn't work since this notebook is longer to fit the width of the keyboard, which is fair enough). Sony went overboard on the resolution. Portable users don't need crazy high unusable resolutions, they want something compact and practicle.
So, at the end of the day, 5/5 from me, had they gone with a more practicle more fiddle-proof display option. But I can't really complain about the rest of the system, it's as good as notebook you can get in this size, can be handled like a paperback and can completely change your usage cases when it comes to portable computing, so Sony should be applauded for at least getting their foot through the door and producing something very different from all the other relatively chunky Atom notebooks.
BATTERY LIFE - With the default 2-cell battery, you get about 2-3 hours (perhaps closer to 2 hours in Vista, I'm using Windows 7). However, upgrade this to the 4-cell battery for around £100 like I did, and you can easily pass 5 hours, and with the notebook still weighing around 750g, the utility goes up tremendously. I recommend all buyers go for this option, and am not sure why Sony didn't include it by default (it raises the back slightly but not so much that it looks terrible).
ERGONOMICS - You can't *possibly* expect ThinkPad-like ergonomics out of something this small, and I think Sony's done a great job here, the keyboard is easy to get used to and since I'm used to trackpoints, I didn't miss the touchpad being there either. I was worried about this area but Sony more or less nailed it considering the size constraints - the trackpoint is more "hard and pointy" than "flat and big" like on ThinkPads but it works almost as well...and well, you can't buy a ThinkPad anywhere near this light.
SPEED - I went in with expectations that things such as Web browsing and Youtube etc would be fine on the Atom CPU on this thing, comprimising speed for size makes sense, but admitedly was a bit underwhelmed, sometimes things do feel a bit *too* slow and you wish you were back on your fullsize 13-15" notebook again. It's not a deal breaker though - Office 2007 runs just fine and it *is* usable, just don't expect silky smooth webpage scrolling that you're used to on your "full speed" computer.
SCREEN - This has to be the notebook's biggest weakness. 1600x768 sounds great on paper, until you realise just how *tiny* it makes everything. If you've seen their previous T series 11" notebooks, recall that those were 1366x768 on an 11" screen, and if you think *that* was small text, you're in for a nasty surprise when you try the P1. The word "microscopic" keeps coming to mind and I can't see how anyone can use Windows on it at native DPI settings. To resolve this you can tell Windows to run at higher DPI (making text, windows etc bigger, 150dpi starts to make text bearable) but this brings with it a whole host of problems (weirdly formatted webpages, install dialog boxes that are chopped off the screen, further slowdown as the weak video processer is stretched to render such a high resolution desktop) and the whole feel of the operating system just feels flakey and unoptimised. I'm really not sure what to make of it in the end - images do look amazing on it but what use is that if you sacrifice usability. Perhaps a 1280x600 resolution would have worked better (1024x600 like on the netbooks wouldn't work since this notebook is longer to fit the width of the keyboard, which is fair enough). Sony went overboard on the resolution. Portable users don't need crazy high unusable resolutions, they want something compact and practicle.
So, at the end of the day, 5/5 from me, had they gone with a more practicle more fiddle-proof display option. But I can't really complain about the rest of the system, it's as good as notebook you can get in this size, can be handled like a paperback and can completely change your usage cases when it comes to portable computing, so Sony should be applauded for at least getting their foot through the door and producing something very different from all the other relatively chunky Atom notebooks.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Surpassed all my expectations - superb
(5 out of 5) by Andreas Iacovou on Aug 22, 2009 (London)I was almost put off buying this after reading some of the reviews on here and other sites but I'm so glad I took a gamble! This is one of the most amazing looking devices I have owned. I've been looking for a netbook / mini laptop for ages and have tried variants from Asus, Samsung, Toshiba and HP. All were ok but all had a deal breaking flaw (they wern't small enough and /or usable). I will admit the Sony can be a tad slow with Vista at times, but it just needs some tinkering. Remove all the rubbish, install an anti-virus that doesn't use all the available resources, use readyboost, and wait patiently for Windows 7. If you want a truly mobile device for internet browsing and basic usage this is ideal. It looks stunning, feels great, and works perfectly. I have one gripe, thats the battery life with the standard battery - not great. Solved by getting the extended battery package. You can also now get this with £150.00 cash back from Sony and free Windows 7 upgrade - Happy days!!!