Andrew Gluck's Blog

I love my computer. It’s the best computer I ever had.

No, I’m not pulling your leg. I mean it. I really do have a computer that works well.

Sure once in awhile it crashes or can’t stop processing. But I’ve had this Sony Vaio Z690 for about a month now and it’s the fastest, lightest, most reliable laptop I’ve ever owned. Of the seven laptops I’ve owned in the last decade and 10 or 15 that we’ve bought for employees of Advisor Products, this machine is by far the best.

The key is that this machine has a 256 gigabyte solid state hard drive. While conventional hard drives that spin often develop mechanical problems, the solid state drive is like one big piece of flash memory. It has no mechanical parts and doesn’t spin. So it runs much cooler and faster.

Booting up my last computer, which had a 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo processor took about 3 or 4 minutes. This machine, which has a 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo Processor boots up in under 90 seconds.

Another factor in its speed is that it is using Windows Vista Ultimate, which is the 64-bit version of the program. All other versions of Vista are 32 bit. In fact, the 64-bit version of Vista has gotten a bum rap. I had no problems finding 64-bit device drivers for any of my hardware. Maybe I just got lucky.

I bashed Vista in a column about six months ago after colleagues who bought and installed it on new computers had problems. As a result of my experience, I hereby retract, renounce, and rescind my fatwa against Windows Vista. The operating system surely remains a sore spot for many, but if you buy a speedy machine—at least a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo with at least 4 gigabytes of RAM—the operating system works better than XP.

This is my fourth Sony Vaio. I switched from Dell laptops about five years ago after repeated hard drive failures. I’ve also had some problems with the Vaio laptops’ hard drives, but they’ve been more reliable than the Dells or Gateways I used to own. Vaios are more expensive than other laptops, but they are worth it.

The Z690’s keyboard is similar to the MacBook Pro. The keys are raised. Unfortunately, it is not backlit. But the keyboard is far more solid than any other laptop I’ve had. The others can’t even be compare to this.

The size and weight of this machine is also great. It’s a widescreen with 1600 by 900 resolution on a 13.1 inch screen, and it weighs about 4 pounds with the extended life battery, which can last up to about eight hours.

The only problem is the cost of this laptop. After adding two docking stations (for home and the office), the extended life battery, Office Professional 2007, Vista Ultimate 64-bit, and a three-year onsite service contract, the list price was more than $4600. Fortunately, it was on sale and the Sony sales person gave me a good deal. So I saved about $800. But it was still expensive.

Still, the time I’ve saved being able to boot up fast, not waiting for my hard drive to stop spinning, and being able to pop up all applications immediately has been well worth the extra money. I love this computer.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 15th, 2009 at 8:18 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.