Canon Puts Efficiency On Press
A bona fide thin-and-light laptop, the attractive silver VAIO VGN-S470P runs 12.3 inches wide, a hair over 9 inches deep, and about 1.5 inches thick--about the size of a double issue of Vanity Fair. Weighing 4.3 pounds, it's certainly portable enough for regular travel, even with the blackboard-eraser-size two-prong AC adapter that adds an extra pound to the package.
The keyboard is less than full size, but it's comfortable enough even for extended typing sessions. Though the touch pad and the mouse buttons are small, we found them adequate to work with; the touch pad has a side strip for vertical scrolling. There aren't many multimedia controls here; besides two tiny programmable buttons that sit above the keyboard, the VAIO VGN-S470P makes do with key-combination shortcuts for volume and brightness adjustments. It runs relatively quietly and coolly, and although we noticed warm spots on the right palm rest and the underside of the unit, they weren't a deterrent to working for long stretches at a time.
We really like the VAIO VGN-S470P's 13-inch wide-aspect display; it has excellent contrast, and its 1,280x800 native resolution offers the perfect amount of detail for the size of the display. Two small stereo speakers sit just above the keyboard; they lack the low-end boom you miss without a subwoofer but otherwise sounded loud and clear.
A business-class machine through and through, the VAIO VGN-S470P has all the essential ports and connections and nothing more. The left edge has LAN and modem ports, a VGA out, microphone and headphone jacks, and a slot for a Type II PC Card. The optical drive (in our case, a multiformat DVD burner), the handy wireless on/off switch, and the memory-card reader (which can read only Memory Stick modules) adorn the front edge. The right edge accommodates two USB 2.0 ports (we wish there were one more, and that they weren't clumped together) and one four-pin FireWire port; a plastic piece covers the ports when not in use. Sony throws in a typical software package, including a few commonplace disc-burning apps, a VAIO-branded backup solution, and the VAIO Control Center utility for adjusting various system settings.
Priced at $1,799, our test unit was outfitted with a very solid array of components. Built on a 1.73GHz Pentium M processor, our VAIO VGN-S470P came with 512MB of 400MHz RAM, an Nvidia GeForce Go 6200 graphics card with 128MB of video RAM, and a big 80GB hard drive spinning at a rather slow 4,200rpm. Outfitted this way, the VAIO VGN-S470P performed quite well in CNET Labs' benchmark tests, turning in a better performance than the previous model, the VAIO VGN-S260, which was running a slightly slower processor. The VAIO VGN-S470P also ran a bit faster than the $2,099 Toshiba Portege S100 and significantly faster than the much less expensive $1,199 Averatec 4200, which had an inferior set of components. You'll have no problem working with multiple windows, watching DVDs, or running standard productivity apps on the VAIO VGN-S470P.
You can expect to get roughly three hours of battery life on a charge--about average for the thin-and-light category, but less than we like to see. Mobile professionals looking to spend more time away from the wall socket should consider the $1,484 Gateway M250 and a big 12-cell battery.
