Sony Vaio CB35 Unboxing and Review.

Introduction- Hello guys, this is my first ever review, so treat me liberally :p. This lappi has made me wait for more than a year and half. And I kept on researching about the various options of my future baby monster, and my career seeder, then finalized this one :).

Coming to laptop, Vaio needs no introduction. You feel something premium by just holding it in your hands, and that’s how I’m feeling now :cool2:. Sony has been known for its overpricing and to some extent I agree with this. But this piece is something which kind of breaks this age old belief. My aim was to get a balanced laptop with some of the ineluctable features, which included a backlit keyboard and 7200rpm HDD, and this Vaio fitted perfectly.

Finding the best deal- This was a hectic task. Sony site quotes it for 54.99k, Sony showroom quoted 53.99k, the best I could bargain in my city (Bhopal) was 53k. To my surprise when I asked a dealer in Patna, he quoted 51.7k without any bargain :O. But I got one offer which was very hard to resist. It was from letsbuy. See the maths-

MRP- 53,340

Coupon- 5% flat

Final cost- 50,670 INR appx.

And that too with a WD elements 1TB 2.5” USB 3.0 free, which is worth 5.3k as of now! :eek:hyeah:

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Plus a 200 rs discount coupon was also given as diwali gift. :cool2:

So Net cost- 45,300 appx ! What more could I have asked for. :)

Unboxing - I ordered on 24th night, and letsbuy mailed me shipping info on 26th night. My shippment came to Bhopal on 1st Nov, but due to courier company's pathetic service, I had to go and get it personally! :mad: (Aramex sucks). I felt so miserable about my laptop after watching the pitty condition of goods kept there. Anyways, packaging was fine as per HANDLE WITH CARE standards. It took me a good 5 min to open it.

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Manuals, papers, reciept.

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Jai Vishwakarma Bhagwan Jee & Career God too :p :D

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Built - Sexy, this is the first word which I uttered on first glance of my black hot chick! The laptop is pretty well built with a full gloss finish which is sadly a finger print magnet, but I keep rubbing it with my hanky to make it shine :D. The lid is stiff and firm. Keyboard is chiclet style with backlit which is the real beauty of this lappi. The keys are ultra-smooth to touch and slide. Some may find it too smooth to type, but it helps me a lot to type fast. The backlit light is bluish white which is very cool. The touchpad is a bit left aligned which is not liked by some people, but it helped me in typing without resting my wrists on the touchpad as it happens on conventional touchpads. Also the touchpad is too smooth to roll the fingers on. I wish it was a bit less smooth.

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The screw was a bit loose there I guess, as a gap was left and I was able to press it, though it posed no serious worries.

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Specs

Processor – Intel Core™ i5-2430M 2.4 GHz up to 3.0 GHz

RAM – 4GB * 1 DDR3

Graphics - Radeon 6630M 1 GB/Intel HD3000

HDD – 500GB SATA 7200rpm

Display – 15”6, 1080p (Vaio display plus)

Keyboard – Chiclet Styled, Backlit :cool2:

1.3m HD web cam powered by Exmor

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The left panel has ports as charging, LAN, exhaust fan, VGA, HDMI, USB 3.0, USB 2.0 respectively (L-R).

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The right panel has audio ports, 2*USB 2.0, DVD drive, Kensington lock (L-R).

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The front panel has Multi Card reader, usage indicators, Wireless on/off switch.

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Connectivity – IEEE 802.11 b/g/n*7, Bluetooth 4.0 + HS

Display – The LED backlit 15”6 inch boasts of true 1080p which is very crisp and color reproduction is fantastic. The screen glow is fabulous even with half brightness, but a bit too glossy and reflective.

3/10 Brightness

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Performance – This is the real test of this piece to be actually called as baby monster.

Windows Experience Index

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Graphics score was a let down, I guess it was using HD3000 rather than 6630M and there's no way I could assign WPE to use 6630M, though I could assign other applications which graphics to use. It should have been somewhere 6.7 as 5650 scores similar, and 6630 is a faster clocked version of the older 5650.

Update: Discrete graphics score.

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CPU benchmark

1)Cinebench R11.5

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2) Super Pi M 1.5

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3) SiSoft Sandra

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USB 3.0 speed

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Graphics benchmark

1) Unigine Engine

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2) 3D Mark 2011

1080p performance-

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720p performance-

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HDD Benchmark

1) HDtune Pro

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Battery - Battery backup is definitely good, I guess 3hrs+. But charging is too slow. It took nearly 3 hrs to fully charge the battery, still not 100%.

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The bottomline is that, as I expected the laptop to be, it satisfied me very well. I got my all expectations fulfilled from this baby monster :).

I hope I included all the points to make this review "complete". Any suggestions and comments are welcome. :)
 
Nice review, now get rid of the vaio bloatware and other trial softwares which are loaded by sony, also extend the warranty to 3 yrs by paying just 2.5k :)
 
Congo dude. Excellent price you paid for the lappy. I got the CB15 @ some 53k back in July without freebies.:(

Except the processor, both models are identical. Guess Intel decided to discontinue its older SB i5 lineup so all current models are getting upgraded including Apple Macbook.

The point you mentioned in one of the pictures flexes in my laptop too, so that's a design fault in all units. Also, if you look carefully, the right button in the touchpad is little raised as compared to the left one. Keeping these minor faults aside, its a great laptop with good build quality.

Coming back to the GPU part. Check if your Catalyst Control Center has an option to manually switch GPU. It should be named "Switchable Graphics Method". You can set to always use 6630M while on AC power.

If this option is not present, you'll need to (unofficially) update you BIOS. See this post of mine: http://www.techenclave.com/reviews-and-previews/the-sony-vaio-cb15-review-188512-4.html#post1906327
 
RS4 said:
Nice review, now get rid of the vaio bloatware and other trial softwares which are loaded by sony, also extend the warranty to 3 yrs by paying just 2.5k :)
Thnx mate, I will do those soon, also getting extended warranty on monday :).

pauldmps said:
Congo dude. Excellent price you paid for the lappy. I got the CB15 @ some 53k back in July without freebies.:(

Except the processor, both models are identical. Guess Intel decided to discontinue its older SB i5 lineup so all current models are getting upgraded including Apple Macbook.

The point you mentioned in one of the pictures flexes in my laptop too, so that's a design fault in all units. Also, if you look carefully, the right button in the touchpad is little raised as compared to the left one. Keeping these minor faults aside, its a great laptop with good build quality.

Coming back to the GPU part. Check if your Catalyst Control Center has an option to manually switch GPU. It should be named "Switchable Graphics Method". You can set to always use 6630M while on AC power.

If this option is not present, you'll need to (unofficially) update you BIOS. See this post of mine: http://www.techenclave.com/reviews-and-previews/the-sony-vaio-cb15-review-188512-4.html#post1906327

I had seen your review long ago mate. I guess there is option to switch graphics as you said. But it didn't worked in Windows performance index test. FYI the newer CB35 model comes with 3 changes-

1)2430M processor

2)Bluetooth 4.0

3)Upgraded BIOS to solve gfx switching problems.

OT- Why did you get banned at TDF?
 
^^ That;s not my review, BTW.

The GPU option does indeed increased the WEI score for me. For HD6630M, I get 6.7 in both Graphics & Gaming Graphics score. But I get 4.7 & 6.1 when using Intel HD, that means either you have a better Intel Graphics in the processor (if Intel is being used) or your HD6630M is lower clocked than mine (if AMD is being used).

Can you please confirm ?

On the other note, I'd rather not discuss my banning from TDF. I had a huge row with that kid named "Ico" having his way on the forums over other member's wishes.
 
UPDATE: Added discrete windows performance index scores and 3D Mark 2011 benchmark scores.

@pauldumps- I also got 6.7 in both graphics test. Check this for your clarification of my HD3000 version or any other detail.

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PS- The battery life is best as far as I've seen on any laptop I've used. :) :clap:
 
#jugga

can you please test if playing older games like AoM is possible on the full HD screen without black bars?

or does the game run in a window?
 
#jugga

can you please test if playing older games like AoM is possible on the full HD screen without black bars?

or does the game run in a window?

I don't have AoM, but after my net will be activated in 3-4 days, I'll download and report to you after testing.
<
 
#aka911 I tested AOE 2.0, its running fine, not in window, but not also full screen as its max resolution support is upto 1280*1024. No black bars or anything like that, but when in game menu, cursor becomes in 256 color mode (only cursor), but its not at all an issue. It becomes fine as a new game starts. Any more help?
<
 
#aka911 I tested AOE 2.0, its running fine, not in window, but not also full screen as its max resolution support is upto 1280*1024. No black bars or anything like that, but when in game menu, cursor becomes in 256 color mode (only cursor), but its not at all an issue. It becomes fine as a new game starts. Any more help?
<

#aka911 I tested AOE 2.0, its running fine, not in window, but not also full screen as its max resolution support is upto 1280*1024. No black bars or anything like that, but when in game menu, cursor becomes in 256 color mode (only cursor), but its not at all an issue. It becomes fine as a new game starts. Any more help?
<

Thanks for testing it out...

If you still have the game installed can you do the following:?

> Right click on the game shortcut and edit the "Target" as shown in the picture..In place of 1333 x 768 please input the default res of your screen

> For ex please check out this pic

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some more general queries:

1)Btw how did u remove the bloatware? Did You just uninstall them/Or formatted the hard drive?

2)Because I got a new E series yesterday and all they provided me was a set of 3 recovery disks.. No OS Disk was provided as such... Also is Using Revo uninstaller safe to remove bloatware?

3)Lastly If I lose the recovery disk , Is there some sort of recovery partition in the hard drive?
 
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