What do you get when you combine a 1.33GHz CPU, a 4200rpm hard drive, 2GB of RAM, and Windows Vista Home in a tiny computer? As Akihabara found out, you get to wait almost three and a half minutes to get on the internet when booting the machine.
To be fair, they loaded McAfee’s antivirus software onto the VAIO P — which I propose is pure insanity – but the fact remains that the decision to include Vista on such a low-powered machine is mind boggling, especially since everything from a hardware design standpoint is truly a sight to behold. The big 1600×768 resolution, the relatively usable keyboard, the take-anywhere form factor, the 3G connection – they’re all wonderful, but the whole getup is overshadowed by sluggish performance. Remember that the idea of a netbook is to be able to open it up quickly, check some stuff, maybe type a few e-mails, and then close it back down.
Broken down, Akihabara found that the actual boot time into Vista was just over one minute, plus another minute for everything to load up into a usable state. Once you start adding stuff like Office, widgets, antivirus software, and anything else that automatically starts when the computer starts, you’re up over three minutes. Here’s a video of the entire boot process:
Of course being the diligent geeks that we all are, any one of us would strip down auto-starting applications to a bare minimum, right? It’d be interesting to see how quickly the machine would run with everything cranked way, way down. It might be even more interesting to see how easy it’d be to load the thing up with XP or some version of Linux.
Sony Vaio P… Performances have a price – The Review [Akihabaranews.com]
I’d like to see how this would perform with an SSD and Windows 7. SSD’s definitely speed boot times significantly, and Windows 7 does make much better use of limited hardware such as found on netbooks.
As currently configured, you have to wonder if anyone at Sony ever used this, however.
I’d like to see how it would perform with a decent hard drive.
The decision of Sony to install Vista on the Vaio P probably has to do with it not being a netbook.
I’m pretty sure that Microsoft now only licenses XP for netbooks, thus why Sony went for Vista.
Stupid move by Sony, not to mention that Vista probably brings the price up as well.
Just get an external CD-ROM usb, and load XP or even better XP Lite onto that machine and see it fly =)
The very first thing I would do is erase everything and install HyperSpace. There is no reason any computer should take that long to get on the internet unless it is infected. Well I guess actually it is infected with both Vista and McAfee on it.
Sony Vaio P Anti-Virus =
C:\diskpart
Diskpart> cleanall
Both the resolution of the screen, and the 2GB of RAM, disqualify the OEM (in this case Sony) from installing XP. This basically leaves Vista and Linux as options. When Windows 7 comes out and Sony can load it on this machine, performance should be much improved. And yes, 4200rpm HD’s suck.
Pssssssssssh, http://lwn.net/Articles/299483/ .
thats exactly the way how it doesnt work. another piece of hardware with os from ms.
please bring os form ipod touch to netbooks with its power-management etc.
It turned out that it takes less than 1 min to boot when Windows 7 installed.
http://japanese.engadget.com/2009/01/11/vaio-type-p-windows-7/
This guy installed Debian (Lenny) but had trouble with the display/LAN adapter.
(In Japanese)
http://noshiro.shigeo.jp/d/2009/01/sony-vaio-type-pvgn-p90hsdebia.html