Sony VAIO VGN-P11Z/G Netbook

The P series are not the last word in performance. The pointing stick is fiddly, the keyboard is too small for a comfortable experience and although stylish, the plastic of the casing gets scratched easily. So why pay the huge price for such a toy? Well, because even with all its shortcomings, this is the ultimate portable machine for entertainment/communication on the go. Connectivity wise, it's up there with the best and everything, from wifi to HSDPA, works like a charm. The extended battery offers a solid 5:30 hours of continuous playback. The screen quality is stellar. I have never, ever seen such a performance with a high definition movie and, mind you, I am the owner of another Vaio Z series plus a Macbook Pro. Speaking about video playback, you will have a hard time playing even a regular DVD image on it. Don't even consider using the WinDVD that comes as the factory default player! No way, this baby is too slow and the poor CPU performance combined with Vista proves to be a nightmare in use, straight out of the box. This thing is so full, and I mean full, of bloatware, that it takes ages to boot and minutes to execute even the easiest task! I don't know what Sony's software department had in mind but this is definitely the perfect way to kill such a beautiful machine. Three things you can do about it: uninstall most trials and proprietary programs (but there will be plenty of junk left in the registry that will still considerably slow down the machine and there is nothing you can do about it), a clean Vista install with only the basic drivers, or a downgrade to XP. Vaio doesn't offer a license for XP but, once you sort that out, you can download all drivers from their website (well, most, not quite all drivers; some of the functions will not work under XP at all, as, for instance, GPS tracking). With XP the machine is, as expected, a lot faster however, I don't know why, image and sound quality are worse and, paradoxically, the video playback is not as smooth even after optimization. So back to Vista. A fresh install of Vista is the only thing that eventually does the trick. The machine is reasonably fast, boots in a minute, is responsive, all the functionality is there and you have great image and sound quality in audio/video playback.
One more thing: being fanless, the machine gets quite hot in use, especially during video playback or other CPU intensive tasks. The good thing about it is that it is almost completely silent, and that includes the hard drive.
Bottom line: if you want a machine that delivers straight out of the box, if you need performance, speed - this baby is not for you. If, on the other hand, you have the knowledge and you take your time to optimize it, you will get the smallest, lightest, most stylish entertainment/communication platform available to date.