Review of Sony VGN-SR19XN
Posted by Ronan | Filed under laptop, technology
I’ve had Dell laptops pretty much from day 1. I like Dell, you get value for money but Dell machines were never the prettiest of laptops. Recently I got my light as a feather (1.9kg) stunning Sony Vaio laptop.
The first thing you notice on picking up the laptop is that it’s light but yet very sturdy - it’s not made with flimsy plastic (which I often felt Dell laptops were ). Opening the lid you noticed something borrowed from Apple. It has a mac’esq keyboard which I love - I suffer from stubbyfingeritis which means I mash and bash most keyboards. Not so with the Sony. The keys are very well spaced out and I haven’t hit a wrong key yet!!
The screen is insanely thin - but with metal back it feels solid and cool to the touch. There is no catch or lock for the screen - it simply closes and stays closed. With a 13.3inch widescreen it’s plenty big for most things.
The mouse pad is sweet - although I would like the mouse buttons to ‘clunk’ a little less. The fingerprint reader works well and can double up as a means of scrolling through pages - although the mouse pad has the right hand side and bottom edge as a scroll bar so I don’t use the fingerprint reader much.
The motion eye camera and inbuilt microphone is clear with skype/gtalk - people haven’t notice much of difference.
The one thing I love is the eery green power button in the hinge - very cool..very distinctive.
- it flashes orange when the lid is closed or in standby.
Elsewhere around the chassis it has the usual wifi on/off switch, SD flash card reader, pro magic reader, 2 usb ports, vga out (no digital out - booo), headphone & external mic, modem and ethernet port (hidden behind a plastic cover!)
Software:
It comes with Vista Business and it runs fine but I’d rather XP over Vista any day. Also bundled is Adobe Acrobat 8 which would normally cost 200 euros. You get a trial of 60 days of office which is more annoying than helpful. But even more annoying than office is mcafee antivirus. I hate mcafee so it was the first thing to be removed.. how can Mcafee consistently produce software that cripples every machine?? I was happy to find out there was no real other bloatware apart from mcaffe.
The only downside I’ve had with the laptop is I keep pressing the cd eject button when I pick it up - this should have been a slotin CD type drive.
All in all a super laptop. 4.5/5 stars!
Tags: cool, review, sony vaio, vgn-sr19xn
in darkness - let there be light
Posted by Ronan | Filed under innovation, random, technology
wow - the hour goes back and BAM it’s dark at 5.30! I cycle a lot and past experience tells me - darkness and cyclists doesn’t go hand in hand. In fact cyclists and traffic, regardless of light conditions, are locked in a never ending war. Often the cyclists win the battle by scooting past traffic and jumping lights, other times traffic wins, like the occasion last Friday when a white van trying to pass a car turning right squeezes me into the curb and knocking me off.
So what can we cyclist do to be more visible? Well wearing bright luminous jackets with reflectors is a start, having lights is also a must, but there is something missing that will make drivers notice you and give you the space you have the right to occupy. I started searching around the various sites for the answer (secretly hoping not to find it). I’ve found it here at the James Dyson Award. Reactiv by an innovator Michael Chen.
The jacket uses an accelerometer that senses movement to change the colour of the LEDs in the back from green (accelerating) to red (braking). It has amber LEDs in the arms which are activated by a tilt switch behind the elbow. These light up when the arm is lifted, indicating the cyclist is about to turn.
It should be for sale by Christmas .. if you come across it - please let me know!
