Sony VAIO EC Review

Sony VAIO EC

Review Summary:

The Sony VAIO EC is a good (but not great) desktop replacement available for an affordable price.

Pros

• Good screen resolution
• Solid graphics performance
• Reasonable price

Cons

• Average screen contrast
• Poor battery life
• Average build quality

Sony VAIO EC Full Review

 

The Sony brand name is often associated with a premium price tag, but the VAIO E-series laptops are the most affordable notebook PCs available from Sony. The 17-inch VAIO EC, the 14-inch EA and the 15-inch VAIO EB offer mainstream performance and multimedia features for less than $800. Keep reading to take a closer look at the VAIO EC.

Our review unit of the Sony VAIO EC (VPCEC3BFX) has the following specifications:

• Intel Pentium P6100 2.0GHz dual core processor
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 17-inch LED-backlit display (1600x900)
• ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 (512MB)
• 4GB DDR3 (1066MHz) system memory
• 320GB hard drive (5400rpm)
• Blu-ray player/DVD burner
• Bluetooth (2.1 + EDR)
• Ethernet: 10Base-T/100Base-TX/1000Base-T
• Wi-Fi: 802.11/b/g/n
• Standard Capacity Lithium-ion Battery (5000mAh)
• Dimensions: 16.1(W) x 1.2(H) x 10.7(D) inches
• Weight: 7.3 pounds
• Color: Lava Black
• Starting price: $749 

Build and Design
The Sony VAIO EC is a 17-inch mainstream and multimedia laptop from Sony. The E-series notebooks are the most affordable full-featured notebooks in the VAIO product line and you can probably argue that the "E" stands for "Economy class." The laptop body is made of a combination of matte and polished black plastics. All of the plastics feel firm with creaking sounds when you apply pressure to the chassis. That said, given the size of the notebook, those plastics are spread out over such a large area that the notebook exterior bends and flexes under firm pressure. Despite this, we aren't too concerned about the overall durability of the chassis ... particularly since this is a desktop replacement that will rarely leave the your desk. The screen hinges offer enough resistance to hold the display in place yet aren't so tensioned that opening the laptop is difficult.

The screen lid and notebook base are made of matte plastics while the palmrests and keyboard surround are covered in glossy black acrylic. The overall look is fairly understated, but the end result is a clean design. For better or worse, that's the heart of the VAIO EC's style: clean and simple. This notebook will fit in on your desk in your dorm room, your living room, or your office desk. Just don't expect it to turn too many heads based on looks alone.

Users looking to upgrade or tweak the VAIO EC will find plenty to keep them happy once they look at the bottom of the notebook. Sony engineers were kind enough to include two access panels on the bottom of the chassis that allow you to replace the RAM or the hard drive with whatever you want. Our review unit came with 4GB of system memory (upgradeable to 8GB) and a slow 320GB hard drive (more on that later). Most performance-focused owners will probably want to add more RAM and a faster hard drive or solid state drive (SSD) after purchasing this notebook.

Ports and Features
Port selection on the VAIO EC is good but not great for a 17-inch notebook. The system has three USB 2.0 ports, one additional eSATA/USB combo port, a headphone and headset jack, VGA output, HDMI output, Ethernet, and both SDHC card and Memory Stick slots. Given that this is the same layout we've seen on the smaller VAIO EB and VAIO EA, we would have liked to see at least one USB 3.0 or even a FireWire port just to fill the unused space and make owners feel like they get more for the money.

Front: SDHC and Memory Stick slots  and audio jacks	Rear: No ports
Left: Power jack, Ethernet, VGA, HDMI, eSATA/USB 2.0 port and ExpressCard  slot	Right: Three USB 2.0 ports, tray-loading  optical drive, Kensington Lock slot

Keyboard and Touchpad
All of the Sony VAIO E-series notebooks use a Chiclet-style (island-style) keyboard but the 17-inch EC raised the bar with the inclusion of a dedicated number pad. This may only be a major selling point to students and anyone who does regular data entry, but we like to see the extra keyboard space put to use like this on larger notebooks. The keyboard on the VAIO EC is very comfortable for typing with plenty of space between the individual keys to prevent excessive typos. The keyboard tray itself is slightly recessed on the main body of the notebook and this design element works perfectly with the optional keyboard skin ($19.99). The keyboard skin is a form-fitting piece of silicone rubber that helps protect the keys from typical wear and tear as well as providing a spill resistant surface. We took a closer look at that type of keyboard skin in our Sony VAIO EA review if you're interested.

The VAIO EC touchpad feels a little small for a notebook of this size but it features separate left and right buttons in the standard location. The touchpad is multi-touch capable and works with the supplied software to provide gesture-based controls (except for two-finger scroll) inside Windows as well as within some of the VAIO media software. Once again, the glossy touchpad surface was hit or miss among the editors in our office. Some of our staff liked the smooth feel of the touchpad while others wanted a more textured surface. Sensitivity was great out of the box and movement on the X and Y-axis was equalized to prevent ovals while drawing circles on the touchpad surface. The left and right touchpad buttons give off a mildly audible click when pressed with an average depth to each button press.

Again, I just wish this touchpad was physically larger given the size of the screen and the rest of the notebook.

Screen and Speakers
The Sony VAIO EC has a glossy 17.3-inch display with LED backliting and a 1600x900 screen resolution. This is better than the 1366x768 screens used on many budget 17-inch notebooks, and Sony allows you to upgrade the screen to a full 1080p model (1920x1080) for an extra $100. The display in our review sample features a relatively average contrast ratio of 223:1 with good color saturation. Brightness is fine for normal indoor use as the screen showed a maximum brightness of 252 nit in our test lab. That is more than bright enough in most indoor environments and some outdoor use but the screen isn't quite bright enough to make outdoor use enjoyable under direct sunlight. Although the screen is glossy it isn't as reflective as the many consumer laptops that offer "edge-to-edge" glass displays that are prone to severe reflections.

The stereo speakers built into the VAIO EC are relatively unremarkable and are driven by the the default Intel High Definition Audio in the motherboard chipset. I was a little shocked that Sony didn't take advantage of the larger chassis and put a subwoofer inside the EC similar to what most 17-inch multimedia notebooks have today. Audio performance is fine for a general purpose laptop, but they suffer from a shallow range and lack the depth of bass that we see in 17-inch multimedia notebooks and even the 15-inch Dell XPS 15.

Performance and Benchmarks
When you start shopping for an affordable 17-inch desktop replacement for less than $800 you'll discover that most of these laptops provide roughly equivalent system performance. One way that Sony tried to shake things up (and make things more affordable) was to offer the VAIO EC with a relatively high performance dedicated graphics option and use that to power multimedia while using lower cost processors like the 2.0GHz Intel Pentium P6100 dual-core processor. Sony now offers the EC with a range of higher performance Intel Core i3, i5, and i7 processors, but you can still find VAIO EC notebooks in retail stores that use the older processors.

Our review sample of the Sony VAIO EC handles most applications and multitasking duties just fine, but we did notice a little extra lag during application switching and launching despite 4GB of system memory. In addition, the 320GB hard drive included in this configuration is a slower 5400rpm model which makes system startup, and loading massive files a bit slower than notebooks equipped with 7200rpm hard drives.

Still, most consumers will find that even our weaker test configuration of the VAIO EC provides more than enough power for basic computing activities.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

PCMark Vantage measures overall system performance (high scores mean better performance):

3DMark06 measures overall graphics performance for gaming (higher scores mean better performance):

CrystalDiskMark storage drive performance test:

Heat and Noise
While the heat output from most modern general purpose notebooks is a minor issue, we take the time to measure external chassis temperatures anyway. "Lap burn" is a common complaint among many average consumers who use their notebooks as "laptops" for hours at a time. During normal usage (low or idle CPU activity) the VAIO EC stayed reasonably cool to the touch. The plastics on the top and bottom of the chassis never reached unacceptable temperatures and the only area that came close to dangerously hot was the heat exhaust ... and you should be smart enough not to press the vent against your leg anyway.

Fan noise was moderate compared to similarly-sized notebooks with integrated graphics. While idle the fan inside the VAIO EC was either inactive or extremely silent. After prolonged use or after being stressed with high-performance applications like video editing software or benchmarking tools the system fan kicked into high gear and was loud enough to be noticeable in a quite office or classroom environment.

Battery Life
If there is any significantly underwhelming feature to the Sony VAIO EC it has to be battery life. Modern notebooks with integrated graphics and standard batteries shouldn't have any trouble providing more than four hours of battery life in a continuous use situation. In our tests with the screen brightness reduced to 70%, wireless active and refreshing a webpage every 60 seconds, and Windows 7 in the "Balanced" power mode, the VAIO EC stayed on for just 2 hours and 48 minutes. That's not bad at all compared to battery life from older Intel Core 2 Duo based laptops, but newer notebooks like the Toshiba Satellite A665 and Dell Inspiron 17R are delivering much better battery life thanks in no small part to the newer Intel Core-series processors.

Battery life test results (higher scores mean better battery life):

Conclusion
After spending several weeks with the VAIO EC my overall opinion is that this is a good notebook for a reasonable price. Our review unit is one of the older configurations that is still available in retail outlets (including many SonyStyle brick-and-mortar stores found in shopping malls), but newer configurations offer better processors for a starting price of $750.

It's a shame we couldn't test one of those newer configurations, because the slower Pentium-class processor and slower hard drive in our test system proved to be less than impressive. On the bright side, the AMD ATI dedicated graphics give this desktop replacement notebook all the power it needs to handle multimedia applications and some modern games.

The build quality feels a little weak in spots, but the Sony VAIO EC makes a fine multimedia notebook if you're on a budget ... and it's even more impressive if you buy the newer configurations.

Pros:

• Good screen resolution
• Solid graphics performance
• Reasonable price

Cons:

• Average screen contrast
• Poor battery life
• Average build quality

Individual Ratings: *
Software & Support 
Upgrade Capabilities 
Usability 
Design 
Performance 
Features 
Price/Value Rating 

* Ratings averaged to produce final score