Sony Vaio EB Series VPC-EB44FX/WI review: Sony Vaio EB Series VPC-EB44FX/WI

There's no denying that Sony makes great laptop hardware. Its Vaio brand is often a go-to choice for design-minded shoppers, and the brand's relative scarcity in retail shops (compared with HP, Dell, and others) makes it desired by those wanting to stand out from the laptop crowd. Add in the fact that most Vaios are in the upper registers of the price spectrum, and you have one of the only laptop lines that can make Apple's MacBook Pro feel populist by comparison.

7.5

Sony Vaio EB Series VPC-EB44FX/WI

The Good

Sony makes some of the best-looking and best-feeling hardware in the industry, which is especially welcome in a budget-minded system such as the <b>Sony Vaio EB44FX</b>. Intel's Wireless Display is included, and optional keyboard skins add a bit of flair.

The Bad

Why, halfway into 2011, is Sony still selling laptops with 2010 versions of Intel's Core i-series CPU?

The Bottom Line

Sony's Vaio line of laptops, including the midpriced EB series, look great and include some high-end features. We just wish the CPU had been updated for the sake of better battery life.

The Vaio E series is one of the less expensive Vaios, and this particular Vaio EB (the reasoning behind the Vaio naming scheme still eludes us after years of study) clocked in at $799, but can be found for $50 to $100 less online. For the sheer quality of the physical hardware you get--this system looks slick and feels rock solid--it's a great deal. However, the EB44FX is sadly saddled with an outdated CPU.

Related links
• Sony Vaio Z 13-inch shows up in Europe
• Sony intros new Vaio E series and C series laptops
• Is Intel's Wireless Display a game changer?

For a laptop released halfway through 2011 to have a late 2010 Intel Core i3 CPU is inexcusable. This isn't just a case of keeping up with the Joneses; the current Intel chips bring not just a reasonable bump to performance, but also significantly better battery life and better integrated graphics. Most laptop makers have phased out the older parts (except, perhaps, for the lowest-end budget systems), and for a midprice laptop such as this, Sony should do the same.

From our anecdotal conversations with laptop buyers over the years, it's safe to say that next to Apple, Sony is probably the No. 1 laptop brand choice for design snobs (a term we use without prejudice, as it probably applies to us). While not as fancy as the high-end Vaio S or Z series laptops, the E series model is still quite a looker.

Our review unit came with a pearlescent white interior, offset by a light gray lid and black base. Sony being a big proponent of laptop colors that pop, several other color options are available, and many current Sony Vaio laptop models can be dressed up with a custom-fit keyboard skin.

These little rubber overlays, which are designed to fit specific Vaio laptop models, come in a wide variety of colors, and cover the entire keyboard area, edge to edge. To hear Sony tell it, these have been incredibly popular, and nearly everyone who buys a Vaio laptop in one of Sony's retail stores walks out with one or two of these $20 accessories.

Truth be told, it's pretty fun to change up the look of your laptop in an instant; the swath of color from the keyboard skins fits the existing design perfectly, and if you choose a complementary color, it can look as if the laptop was designed that way in the first place.

The skins do, however, make the excellent Sony keyboard a little harder to use. They grip tightly, but not quite tightly enough, and the rubber skin moved just enough under our fingers to lead to more typing errors than usual. With practice we did get better, and of course the keyboard skins are entirely optional.

The widely spaced island-style keys have long been a favorite, with full-size Shift and Enter keys. This midsize model also has a full number pad and there's a trio of quick-launch buttons above the keyboard (just outside of the area covered by the keyboard skin). The quick-launch buttons launch a self-help support suite, a Web browser, and Sony's proprietary multimedia software.

The touch pad, though not as large as it could be on a system this size, was especially pleasant to use, thanks to a slightly raised dot pattern that offered just enough tactile feedback. Big left and right mouse buttons sit beneath, and the entire touch-pad package is centered under the keyboard spacebar, which means it sits slightly to the left on the chassis, as the keyboard is offset by the number pad on the right.

You may want to jump into the touch-pad settings and shrink the default right-side scroll zone. We've always found it set too wide on Sony laptops, and are constantly accidentally triggering it while moving the cursor.

The 15.5-inch display is one of the few areas where the lower price is evident. The screen resolution is 1,366x768 pixels, which is common enough for budget-to-midprice 15-inch laptops, but the Vaio EB looks like a more expensive machine, so our eyes expect a higher screen resolution. Off-axis viewing was decent, but the screen is so glossy we easily picked up glare and reflections from nearby lights.

As a nice bonus, Intel's Wireless Display technology is included. With it, you can beam your desktop (including video or photos) to any nearby TV with the help of a sold-separately receiver box. It's not quite fast enough for gaming, but for video playback, it's great.

We're always pleased to see an eSATA port in a mainstream laptop, as it's an easy way to get a large external hard drive hooked up, although USB 3.0 is finally becoming more common, and we've seen USB 3.0 ports in even low-end laptops. Interestingly, Sony will be one of the first to use a version of the Light Peak technology behind the Thunderbolt connection found on the MacBook Pro, and you'll find that in the upcoming Vaio Z. And of course it wouldn't be a Vaio without a Memory Stick slot for Sony's proprietary flash memory format.

The biggest problem we had with the Vaio EB was its Intel Core i3 M380 CPU. This is a perfectly fine part for a smaller, less expensive laptop, but it's a 2010 part. In January 2011, Intel moved to the second generation of its Core i-series chips (code-named Sandy Bridge), and with the Core chips we've seen a decent improvement in performance and graphics and a solid improvement in battery life across the board.

To be sure, the Vaio EB worked well for everyday tasks, such as Web surfing, e-mail, and video playback, but, for example, in our Street Fighter IV test it ran at only 13.6 frames per second. A 2011 Intel CPU would get you closer to 25fps (and actually playable frame rates, if you knocked down some of the in-game settings). But having an older CPU isn't a deal breaker. The Vaio still beat Toshiba's budget 15-inch Satellite L655-S5161 in our benchmark tests, even though that system has a newer Core i3-2310M.

Juice box
Sony Vaio EB44FX	Average watts/hour
Off (60%)	0.36
Sleep (10%)	0.94
Idle (25%)	11.76
Load (05%)	45.8
Raw kWh number	48.53
Annual power consumption cost	$5.51

From a midsize laptop, we'd expect at least 3 hours of battery life in our video playback battery drain test. Recent 15-inch systems have found this a pretty easy mark to reach. The Sony Vaio EB ran for 3 hours and 6 minutes in this test, which is unimpressive. But under casual use it would probably run at least an hour longer, and in anecdotal use over several days, we rarely found the battery dying on us midtask. By way of comparison, the Toshiba Satellite L655 ran more an hour longer in our test.

The Sony Vaio EB is backed by an industry-standard, one-year warranty. Support is accessible 24-7 via a toll-free phone line, an online knowledge base, and a Web site with driver downloads. Sony's support sites are clean and easy to navigate, but information about your exact laptop configuration may be hard to find.

Find out more about how we test laptops.

System configurations:

Sony Vaio VPC-EB44FX/WI
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) SP1; 2.53GHz Intel Core i3 380M; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 128MB(Dedicated) Intel GMA HD; 500GB Toshiba 5,400rpm

Toshiba Satellite L655-S5161
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.1GHz Intel Core i3-2310M; 4,096MB DDR3 SDRAM 667MHz; 64MB (Dedicated) Intel GMA HD; 500GB Toshiba 5,400rpm

Asus U31JG-A1
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.53GHz Intel Core i3 380M; 4,096MB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 415M + 64MB (Dedicated) Intel GMA HD; 500GB Seagate 5,400rpm

HP Pavilion G6-1a69us
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) SP1; 2.53GHz Intel Core i3 380M; 4,096MB DDR3 SDRAM 667MHz; 64MB (Dedicated) / 1,696MB (Total) Intel GMA HD; 500GB Seagate 5,400rpm