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Laptop with dual battery capacity
 
 


March 24, 2003

xfdws LAPTOP-WITH-DUAL sked Emerging Markets Datafile

March 24, 2003

NEW STRAITS TIMES-MANAGEMENT TIMES

MALAYSIA

ENGLISH

Laptop with dual battery capacity, NEW STRAITS TIMES-MANAGEMENT TIMES

ASIA WorldSources, Inc. 322 MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE 2ND FLOOR, NE WASHINGTON, DC 20002 COPYRIGHT 2003 BY WORLDSOURCES, INC., A JOINT VENTURE OF FDCH e-Media, INC. AND WORLD TIMES, INC. NO PORTION OF THE MATERIALS CONTAINED HEREIN MAY BE USED IN ANY MEDIA WITHOUT ATTRIBUTION TO WORLDSOURCES, INC.

SONY VAIO PCG-GRZ20 NOTEBOOK Manufacturer: Sony Corp Enquiries: Sony Malaysia Sdn Bhd Vaio Customer Hotline Malaysia (Tel: 1-300-88-1233) Price: RM6,888 SONY'S products have a reputation for stylish design. Whether you like or not its products, it's hard not to be bowled over at how cool the casing looks.

One case in point is the Vaio PCG-GRZ20. This grey, black, and purple desktop replacement tips the scales at more than three kilograms. Its case dimension is a throwback to a time when huge notebooks were commonplace.

It's solidly constructed, and benefits from an unyielding metal lid designed to protect the screen when the notebook is being transported. One of this notebook's most distinctive features is its expansive 15-inch screen.

The Vaio PCG-GRZ20 relies on the highly capable ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 graphics accelerator with 32 megabytes video memory to drive this big screen at ultra extended graphics array (UXGA) resolution (1,400 by 1,050). While that leaves lots of room for working in two or more programs, fonts and graphics sometimes appear quite small.

The contrast and colour gamut are noticeably better than any other liquid crystal displays (LCDs) we've seen. Black level is outstanding.

Sharpness is about the same as other LCDs, but there is no visible pixel structure. We love the screen and it's going to make it hard to give it back to Sony. With 4X AGP ATI Radeon 7500 Mobile Video card, it is more suitable for gamers or power users who would not mind utilising the extra battery life to play games while on the road.

The unit comes with an 86-key Qwerty keyboard (three-millimetre stroke and 19mm pitch) and electrostatic touch pad as a standard. The keyboard's quick access function buttons are placed in a convenient position, allowing easier access and navigation. The touch pad is fairly sized and sensitive enough to be comfortable to work with. The demise of the floppy drive is really getting underway now, so we weren't all that surprised to find that despite its huge size, the GRZ20 doesn't have one. If you still need to use it, you can buy Sony's external universal serial bus (USB) floppy drive separately.

For some, the size and weight of the Vaio PCG-GRZ20 will be offset by its top-shelf components. You can choose from one of Sony's ``ready-to-ship'' models that range depending on the features.

This Vaio includes Pentium 4 mobile processor at 2.4 gigahertz (GHz). It can also function as a great portable player for digital versatile disc (DVD) movies, especially models with the 15-inch display.

Movies look crisp on the big, bright screen, and a pair of speakers above the keyboard delivers relatively good audio. But you won't find quick-launch application buttons above the keyboard or anywhere else on this notebook, an odd omission for a system in this class.

The first notable thing about this unit is its amazing battery capacity.

Loaded with the average workload applications (word processing, Internet, etc), the battery life (when fully charged) is about four hours, which is more than enough when you are on the road or away from the fixed power source.

The other amazing fact about this model is its dual battery capability.

If you are going to be on the road and expecting to use your laptop for more than three hours before recharging, you can remove the standard optical drive that comes with the unit and use the expansion slot for a second battery (dual battery) to extend your battery life. By doing this, the time you can use the laptop without recharging is another four hours.

With the prolonged battery life, you can afford to wind down a bit and watch a movie or two, play a game or listen to your music while still having more than enough resources left to complete almost any project no matter how demanding it is.

Additionally, if you are planning to be away from the fixed source of power for more than extended periods of time, you will quickly learn to appreciate the long-lasting power capacity of this model.

As far as standard features that come with the laptop, they are quite on par with the competition if not exceeding some of the competing units.

The Vaio PCG-GRZ20 offers three USB slots. You'll also find an iLink (FireWire) port, connectors for a modem, Ethernet, an external monitor and a printer port, jacks for audio-out, a microphone and headphones, two Type II (one Type III) PC Card slots, and the obligatory MagicGate Memory Stick slot.

You won't, however, find a PS/2 mouse/keyboard port, serial port or wireless networking built-in. The audio chip and speakers are quite average. They are decent from laptop user's perspective, having in mind that some quality and quantity of the sound will be lost to accommodate the portability which is a necessary feature for any laptop.

The sound produced is acceptable enough for general mobile executives and gamers while on the road.

All in all, we are happy with the Vaio GRZ20, and many should be considering it a viable option.

Copyright 2003 NEW STRAITS TIMES-MANAGEMENT TIMES all rights reserved as distributed by WorldSources, Inc.

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