Sony VAIO VPCEB14N Review

Sony VAIO VPCEB14EN Review

A brief history about my brush with Sony before I start reviewing this gorgeous peice of gadgetry. I’ve been on the lookout for a laptop for a long time for my dad and my sister. Dad firmly believes that since I’ve got my over-the-top desktop, we should not spend that much on the laptop.

Till sometime back, dad was pretty happy with the Dell Inspiron given by the company, so all was well. But, I was convinced we needed something better.

You know the feeling when you want to perfectly balance style and the VFM factor of a product and you search high and dry? Sadly the links you open all point to Newegg or some website abroad which has the product of your dreams with the pricing you would want to see on it. This was the same story with me. I had nothing against Acer or Zenith or any of these companies which sold VFM laptops. But, whether you agree or not, it didn’t excite me like a Sony did.

Everyone’s heard the tag line “It’s a Sony!â€. But it is very true. No matter which VAIO I came across, be it the tiny 10†one or this one I currently bought, there is a finesse and build quality that simply leaves you speechless. Be it the chiclet keyboard or the beautiful screen, every detail is covered and built to perfection.

With that thought in mind, let me start my humble evaluation of this awesome laptop. The specs first:

• 15.5†@ 1366x768

• Core i3-330M @2.13GHz

• 3GB DDR3 RAM (can be upgraded to 8GB)

• 320GB HDD @ 5400RPM

• ATI 5470 with 512MB RAM

• Windows 7 Home Basic (64-bit)

• Gigabit Ethernet (wired)+802.11 n (wireless) inbuilt

• Intelligent touchpad

• Full size keyboard (103 keys)

• Motion Eye sensor webcam @ 640x480

• Instant web access button

• VGA + HDMI out

• eSATA port

• 3 USB ports

• Built in speakers and mic

• Standard array of headphone, mic, SD slot etc.

• 369.8mm x 36.7mm x 248mm (WxHxD)

• Weighs a solid 2.7 kgs.

Okay, enough regarding the specifications. I was so blinded by the presence of HD 5470 that I completely forgot to see many of the special features. We shall touch on all of them in a while.

PS: Also it is to be noted, with a bold marker perhaps, that this entire review has been written on the VAIO. And no, I've not been paid by Sony to write this. :p

[BREAK=Packaging, Build Quality and First Impressions]

I saw this laptop and immediately I knew it was going to be mine. I know that sounds a bit impulsive but the funny part is that I’m not an impulsive buyer. A VAIO had always been on my to-buy list and at this price range it seemed too good to be true.

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The packaging was standard, nothing too special about it. Simplicity is the key word, as you can see from the pics. But, that was not reflective of the beauty inside. This is simply one of the most gorgeous looking laptops I’ve seen in a while, Dell and HP included. Be it the finish on the outside or the keyboard everything was perfectly complementing each other. A very thoughtful and well laid out design.

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And the keyboard is one of the main reasons why a VAIO gets me hooked. I’m a touch typist and hate looking down while typing. My dad’s previous Dell laptop used to drive me nuts. I couldn’t get the key right without looking down at the keyboard. Same is with the Razer Tarantula I got on my desktop. Rugged, but shitty for long duration typing. The VAIO’s keyboard is like heaven for me. I barely commit any typos since the keys are so nicely spaced out. And the feedback is really good. I recently used a Dell Studio and found the VAIO’s keyboard to be much better than the Dell keyboard which was pretty good too. Apart from that, we have a full keyboard which is a bonus for me since I use the numpad extensively. The best part is they have not made the keys small to fit the whole 103 keys. Only the arrow keys are smaller than usual but still more reassuring than the one on Acer 5 series full size keyboard.

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The laptop commands a sense of respect. You cannot treat it badly. I couldn’t think of using it anywhere except on a table sitting upright in a chair. I know it sounds a but weird, but I couldn’t help myself. It is solid. Have no doubts about that. It is not flimsy in any aspect. Feels like it’s carved out of stone. Which brings us to the disadvantage. It is a bit on the heavier side. Actually, quite heavier than you’d expect. I used to easily carry my dad’s old Inspiron in one hand from one room to another. Not a chance with this laptop. Weighs a solid 2.7 kgs.

Funnily enough, there are no CDs/DVDs in the box. Not even one. No drivers CD, no OS DVD, no softwares, no nothing. I was hoping for atleast the drivers CD. How much they managed to save by doing this, only Sony knows. But, a really cheap move. I think the drivers from the Sony USA website should work fine, but that’s an assumption at this stage. Could not find anything on the Sony India website too.

Windows Basic is really.. basic to say the least. No Aero even after having a dedicated graphics card. Okay for the novice user, but an upgrade is imminent. Since, I’m not sure about the drivers at the moment, going to create a recovery disk and then only take the risk.

[BREAK=Display and Sound, Keyboard and Touchpad]

The display is a standard 15.5†LCD running at 1366x768 resolution. But, there is only one word to describe the screen – gorgeous. I know I’ve been pretty liberal with the word, but that’s the word that comes to mind. The quality is simply amazing. Be it videos or pictures, the colors are vibrant and consistent.

The speakers are pretty loud and clear. Only get a bit distorted if you crank them all the way up. More than sufficient for 2 people watching a movie or listenting to light music.

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I’ve already spoken great lengths regarding the keyboard and will not reiterate again. But, one word of advice from my side. If you are in the market looking for a laptop, do give this a try. It’s really worth it.

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The touchpad is somewhat different. Instead of the usual polished surface, you get a checkboard patterned touchpad which feels somewhat like sandpaper. But, that improves the experience since you can feel that you are moving the cursor. And it’s absolutely accurate. Has not skipped on me even once. Same is for the scroll bar on the right. With the Dell earlier, there used to be lots of hits and misses. Not with this. Another interesting thing about this is that it recognizes two fingers when you want to pinch and zoom. It works with photos, browsers and other applications like MS Word etc. Pretty neat.

There are 3 dedicated keys on the laptop, namely the Assist, Web and Vaio key.

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The Assist key opens up VAIO care which is a pretty handy tool for the novice user. You can do regular maintenance, schedule it, get updates etc. Useful and simple to navigate and use.

The second key, which is the Web key opens up your default browser when you are in the Windows environment. But it has a greater purpose. This is present to provide you immediate web access without loading up the bloated Windows first. Yes, when the PC is switched off. I tested it three times with a watch and the time it took to load the browser was under 20 secs and closing time was around 5 seconds. That’s not jaw-dropping impressive but it is atleast 4 times faster than the usual method. Moreoever, you get a full-fledged browser with the ability to save bookmarks etc. I was pretty impressed.

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The third key opens up Media Gallery which is the media manager software. Quite similar to Windows Media Center. But offers certain other options and is quite good looking. Offers suggestions for similar tracks on your computer or videos on the web plus the usual media management abilities. Not bad at all.

If you look at the onboard indicators, there is not much going on. Just one light for the power on/off on the right and 3 extremely small indicators on the front bottom side for the battery wireless and hard disk access. No bling here.

[BREAK=I/O Ports]

Maybe this doesn’t deserve a whole page to itself, but I wanted to make special mention of the ports provided on this laptop.

We get 3 USB ports on the right side. All placed towards the user, so no fumbling there. However, they could have been more spaced out as some devices are bigger in size and then there is a fight for real estate. But, there is always the easy way out of picking up a cheap USB extender.

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The left side is all about flexibility. You have a standard VGA 15-pin output so that you can connect it to a bigger screen or projector. You also have a HDMI output, which is an excellent inclusion. Last but not least, you also have a e-SATA port.

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The inclusion of these ports makes you realise how thoughtfully this product was concieved. You got a full-blown media machine on your hands. Again, as earlier, these ports are placed towards the user. Very nice.

For testing purposes, I connected the laptop via the VGA output to the 40†LCD I have. We watched Kung-Fu Panda HD and it ran absolutely without any issues running at the resolution of 1920x1080 (default for the LCD).

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The heat vent is on the left side, away from the user. And this laptop throws out some really hot air. Especially while gaming. You could probably keep your tea warm keeping it next to the vent. Thankfully the battery doesn’t get too warm. So you can keep it on your lap if you are comfortable with the weight. Also, no ports on the backside of the laptop. Which is definitely a good thing.

We also have a port for the ethernet cable which you can use if you are using a wired connection. It has Gigabit ethernet, so if you have a Gigabit ethernet setup, you can easily expect copying speeds of 35-40 MBps. Gigabit ethernet networks are yet to become common but nice to see that you already have a future proof device on your hands.

Same goes for the wireless adapter. It supports 802.11 n which is the latest and the fastest wireless standard out there. You can expect copying speeds of 7-10 MBps which I tested with my Belkin N router copying from a wired PC.

Just a reminder: You have to have the underlying network to take advantage of these above mentioned speeds.



[BREAK=Performance (Gaming, Battery and General Use)]

Core i3 is a respectable processor when it comes to tackling the daily tasks of any laptop user. The laptop is all that it should be - fast and nippy.

I did not run any synthetic benchmarks but I did all the things that are expected of this laptop. I watched HD movies, did browsing, listened to music, played games and nowhere did I feel that this laptop could have done better when it comes to CPU performance. I’m never going to be using this for video encoding so there is no point in testing how well it can do that.

3GB is more than enough to run this puppy without hiccups. With all the bloatware from Sony and some multitasking from my side, I never managed to reach the 2GB mark, let alone 3GB.

Microsoft, apparently, thinks pretty high of this laptop because it got a cool 5/7.9. My desktop gets 5.9 . I know it’s not a true performance evaluation but still makes me happy when I show it to my buddies with integrated graphics and a 3 score. Before you scoff more, remember what the wise man said.. Geeks will rule the world!

720p and 1080p streaming over Wi-fi was flawless (recall the N discussion I did earlier). For 720p, the CPU usage stayed around 20-25%. For 1080p, it stayed under 40%. No lag, no jitter no audio loss. The experience was more or less like watching it as if it was stored on the laptop itself.

Basically, throw whatever can at this laptop and you still expect it to be standing and it will be. That is pretty obvious from the solid configurations. So, please don’t have any worries on that end.

Coming to the main attraction on this machine – The ATI HD5470 512MB card on it. This was the first thing that caught my eye (after the price tag, obviously). At the moment, except Acer there is no manufacturer who offers this card on a laptop priced so less. This makes the laptop VFM.

Now HD5470 is a decent mid-range card that can run major games at medium-high settings without any issues. Now, if you are not planning to use this as a desktop replacement, it is perfect for those occasions where you have some time to kill and no desktop to kill it with. More than perfect actually.

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Now, I’m a major TF2 addict, as you can see from my avatar. I don’t have the patience to sit through all the long single-player games. So, obviously, TF2 was the first game I tested on this laptop. It ran at medium settings with around 30-45 fps @ 1366x768. There is more tweaking that could have been done but I didn’t get to spend that much time on it. But it runs. And smoothly at that.

Other game that I tested was SF4. It gave me around 35-40 fps @ 1366x768 with the AA off and other details at low-medium. If any of you really want, I’ll install other games like COD 6, Crysis (really now..) and give you the updates. But, I’m pretty sure that it will handle the not-so-taxing games with ease. TF2 has become rather heavy after the recent updating spree that Valve is on. Not that I’m complaining though.

Coming to the battery life. This is probably the only drawback from my side. It could have been much better. On an average the laptop lasts for around 1.5 – 2.5 hours. So, your power adaptor will be a frequently used accessory. I’m not sure whether this is because of the graphics card or just a sub-standard battery but this could have been better. Guess you can’t ask for everything. You have the option to upgrade to an expensive and longer lasting batter though.

[BREAK=Conclusion]

The conclusion to any product purchase should be a simple question. Am I happy with it for the hard-earned money I paid for it?

In this case, it is a resounding yes! Let us have a look at the pros and cons before I give my final pearls of wisdom.

Pros:

1. Sony build quality, brand value and ruggedness.

2. Gorgeous display.

3. Full sized keyboard and very responsive touchpad.

4. ATI 5470.

5. HDMI + e-SATA port.

6. Dedicated Web access button.

7. Core i3.

8. Windows 7 Home Basic.

9. Fantastic price.

Cons:

1. Pathetic battery life.

2. Windows 7 Home Basic.

3. No driver disk. Zero.

4. Gets a bit hot. Same for the adapter.

5. A bit on the heavier side.

It’s pretty obvious that I’m in love with it. Maybe because the battery life is not a deal-breaker for me. It is going to stay at home for most of the period and my dad/sis are going to be the main users. In all fairness, I did not know about the battery life and it should have been better. But it’s not going to affect me that badly.

Second bit, which I find more amusing than the low battery life is the omission of any DVDs whatsoever. How can they sell the laptop with a geniune OS but no DVD? I’m not aware whether this the standard with all Sony VAIO laptops but it is really unpardonable from my side. Now I think I understand why the sales guy was so adamant that I create Recovery disks ASAP. Smart fellow.

Apart from the above 2 glaring issues, there is not much to complain.

The laptop cost me Rs 38,000 plus a Sony VAIO laptop bag and 9 other free accessories. For the price, there is absolutely nothing to complain. Great going Sony.

The final decision regarding the purchase is what the person looks in a laptop. All the points have been laid out to the best of my knowledge, pick and choose!
 
^^you seem to be a linux fan. Thats good :) But the laptop will come with a genuine windows 7 OS, so do you want to dual boot it ? Even I will be trying out Ubuntu 10.4 when its released, that one seems to have some good eye candy, and I like eye candies....:D

(OT: Just my personal opinion, if you are comparing sony and acer, then go for Sony, don't want to justify my statement though)
 
yes, i have installed Kubuntu 10.04 beta1 with dual booting win7 on the acer i bought and working like a charm.

if i get another laptop for myself/mom it will most likely be the sony E-B12 (mainly due to better keyboard) with extra 2gb RAM which should end up being about 2-3k more than the 4gb acer... and will leave its win7basic on there by mostly run kubuntu 10.04 only. if i have budget in a few weeks/months i will go for the full HD model B16 with ATI 1gb video :)
 
^ I'm pretty sure that you are not buying it with gaming in mind (I think) because the 5650 is not enough for full-blown HD gaming. But yeah, 1920x1080 is sweet in itself. :)
 
correct, no gaming needs, just full HD screen would be nice to have for my looking at lots of text/code and also for the occasional movie watching. so need to think hard about what to do (whether to get the sony or something else with full HD screen but lower end GPU) :D

btw, now that you have had a chance to use this for few days.. how is the temperature levels with moderate usage (browsing maybe movies but not gaming) for extended periods? i know battery life may be a little on lower side but that is not my concern... do you think there is a need to get a laptop cooler at all?
 
HOW TO INSTALL WINDOWS 7 WITHOUT THE DRIVERS CD

Planning Stage

All of us who have gone ahead and purchased this laptop have been irritated by the fact that no Windows 7 DVD or drivers CD has been provided. This irritated me even more because even after having a dedicated GPU I couldn't run Windows Aero. Yeah, I know that's shallow but it looks pretty :p

So anyways, I took the bold step and started my tryst with destiny.

Firstly, I did need the drivers because a lot of drivers are propriety Sony and we know Sony likes to make everything according their own specs. There is one excellent software we use in office called Driver Genius . What it basically does is capture the drivers present in the Windows installation. Extract them from the system, so to speak. Then you have options of keeping them in a folder or making an autoinstaller.

I like the autoinstaller part. What it means is that it creates an exe with all the drivers in that single file. One click restore.

PS: This is a paid software but I got to use it because we have a license in office. I just had to run it once.

Now, I ran the program and it produced an exe that was around 67MB in size. My main concern were the drivers for HD 5470. I was pretty suspicious as to how they managed to fit in graphics drivers in 67MB. But, there was nothing else to do at the moment because it was recognizing the GPU in the Driver Genius page.

So, I went ahead with it and stored it on the separate partition. You can store it in a pen drive also if you want. Much safer.

One thing to note here is that the drivers were for Windows 7 Home Basic 64 bit edition. Drivers don't vary from one Windows 7 edition to another but they vary from 32 bit to 64 bit in most cases. It is very clear from this that you need to have the fresh 64 bit Windows 7 DVD (I installed it with a pen drive. Much easier) ready. 32 bit does not let you restore the drivers with Driver Genius. It has another drawback which we will see shortly.

The fun begins

So, I installed the Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit edition the usual way. One thing to take care is to leave the other system partition and the OEM partition as they were. In my case, the OEM partition was around 15GB. You can boot into that by pressing a certain F8 or F10 (I forgot) and a custom recovery console opens up which allows you to restore your C: drive. I don't know if it works now or not .

I fired up the custom exe I created earlier and it started restoring all my drivers one by one. Took around 15-20 mins. Then it asked for a restart. After restarting I was dismayed to see that in the Device Manager, the display adapter was Intel Generic, which is supplied with Windows 7 itself. No sight of HD 5470.

Graphics Graphics Graphics

Then, with crossed fingers I went to the Sony USA website and searched for the different E-series models. Came across one VPCEB190X which had specifications similar to my laptop. But it has not been released yet.

So, then I went to the drivers and support page and looked up all the VPCEB models. I short-listed one VPCEB14FX and saw that they had driver downloads available. Even HD 5470 :)

If you note carefully (I did :p), when you get to the ATI HD 5470 driver download page from the above mentioned link, there is a link to see other models compatible with this driver. VPCEB190X was on there.

Second thing to note carefully was that these drivers were for Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit edition. See why we need 64 bit Windows 7 now?

So, I downloaded the 226 MB driver file and installed it. Voila! My HD 5470 was now being recognized in the Device Manager. But, like a never ending Hindi movie (Race comes to mind), there was another twist. I still could not enable Aero. The error message was that this graphics card does not support Aero which left me like this :huh:

Then again I remembered that Windows 7 was smarter than what I assumed it to be. I promptly went to Windows update and checked to see if any updates were there for my graphics card. YesssSir, there was one 20MB update!

Quickly downloaded, installed and restarted and Aero was on in full glory!

Cleaning up after

There was still one unknown device showing up in Device Manager. There was one update on the VPECB14FX page I mentioned above called "Original - Sony® Firmware Extension Parser Device Driver" which required "Original - Sony® Shared Library" as a pre-requisite to be installed. Downloaded and installed both and the unknown device error vanished.

Now the downsides (actually still haven't been able to give time to do enough R&D so, still finding a solution).

Post war mess

The special hotkeys (blue Fn key + keyboard key) for brightness and volume are not working at the moment. I don't miss them a great deal but yeah, have to find a solution for that.

Secondly, the splashtop browser is also not working. Says that the Web Access application needs to be installed. Dad doesn't even know about it so no pressure from that front but have to look that up too. Rest everything is working fine. According to the battery meter in the system tray, the battery life has gone up too.

With the Wi-fi off, Aero off and brightness down to second last bar, it was showing 3 hours and 80% remaining. That's more than 3.5 hours with 100% :O

But still have to check it out with real world tests which I will do today, so don't start blaming me if you get less. :p

vishalrao said:
btw, now that you have had a chance to use this for few days.. how is the temperature levels with moderate usage (browsing maybe movies but not gaming) for extended periods? i know battery life may be a little on lower side but that is not my concern... do you think there is a need to get a laptop cooler at all?

No, without gaming the lappy runs pretty cool. But I recently read the review of the Cooler Master notepad cooler here on TE itself which costs around 1400 bucks and am really tempted to get that. But, is it a necessity? I don't think so.
 
Sei said:
^ I'm pretty sure that you are not buying it with gaming in mind (I think) because the 5650 is not enough for full-blown HD gaming. But yeah, 1920x1080 is sweet in itself. :)

hey sei,so you mean that smooth gaming is not possible on it @ medium settings??i can sacrifice 2 play @ lower resolutions but it should not hang or stutter:(i am considering Sony VPC EB16FG/B for buying.but i am confused with acer 5740g.would gaming on acer 5740g @ 1366x768 and gaming on Sony VPC EB16FG/B @ 1366x768 be same ??as far as i know cpu have minimum role in graphics intensive calculations.so i3 330m v/s i5 430m would not be much difference.and i have read somewhere that sony underclocks its gpu..how true is that??can you confirm same about your VPCEB14N's ATI 5470 .
 
techgear said:
hey sei,so you mean that smooth gaming is not possible on it @ medium settings??i can sacrifice 2 play @ lower resolutions but it should not hang or stutter:(i am considering Sony VPC EB16FG/B for buying.but i am confused with acer 5740g.would gaming on acer 5740g @ 1366x768 and gaming on Sony VPC EB16FG/B @ 1366x768 be same ??as far as i know cpu have minimum role in graphics intensive calculations.so i3 330m v/s i5 430m would not be much difference.and i have read somewhere that sony underclocks its gpu..how true is that??can you confirm same about your VPCEB14N's ATI 5470 .

I tried TF2, SF4 and NFS:MW. All ran smooth. No stutter at all. Tell you what, I'll tweak the settings till they are completely smooth and will post the exact settings here.

@vip: Will post by tomorrow, i.e. Sunday.
 
what is the battery rating ?? The poor battery life is the result of discrete graphics that sucks 15W . The atheros Ar9285 is one of the most power efficient cards but has a mediocre performance of 150mbps
 
Hey Sei,

Firstly a very nice review. I am also planning on buying the same laptop and your review has been extremely useful.

I have one question for you though. I have read that ATI 5470, comes with switchable graphics, that allows you to change between the integrated Intel graphics chipset or the ATI Radeon 5470 as and when you require. If so when using the laptop with the intel graphics you will probably get more than 2 hrs battery backup. But I am not sure of these details.

Can you tell me if this feature is present in your laptop. If so then it will be very useful for me and others who want a discrete graphics but are worried about the depreciated battery life.
 
Thanks man i too have VPCEB14EN and the only issue is no drivers provided on dvd also thanks for telling the compatible laptop drivers i just installed windows 7 x64 ultimate and everything is working fine.Also the hidden partition thing sucks i deleted it and found all my other drivers using their hardware id's but i was not getting the driver for 5470 as amd does not support Sony OEM drivers.But this post helped me to find it.
 
^ You're welcome. By the way, the Sony India website has also made the driver downloads available on the site itself. Guess they also read this review. :p
 
I'm sorry if its asked before... I didn't check 4 pages
The laptop cost me Rs 38,000 plus a Sony VAIO laptop bag and 9 other free accessories. For the price, there is absolutely nothing to complain. Great going Sony.

I'm getting for 38,990 here from Sony Showroom which I checked, he opened the box for me so that I can see it in my hand myself.. but bloatware setup took lot of time :p

I would like to know what accessories you got ? and is white available anywhere ? because I cant find someone selling in Delhi..
 
I got cheap china-made ( but pretty useful ) accessories like USB cooling pad, USB speakers, USB light, lock, USB vacuum cleaner (this was useless), USB LED light, USB hub and one more thing I can't remember right now. And no, IIRC, the sales guy said that white is not available at the moment.
 
Can you tell me about the switchable graphics of ATI 5470. How does this work and how much more battery life will it give when switched to the intel chipset.
Any further info on this will be very useful.
 
Sei said:
You would expect that but all the drivers were not working out of the box. Especially the ATI 5470.

Right now I'm trying to get the drivers for the special Fn key shortcuts, except that, all is working now. Will post a work-around to install fresh Windows 7 when I'm able to get that working.:)

Are you able to get the Fn keys working ?? I just formatted the lappy and installed windows 7 pro with all the drivers..I got the Fn keys working :hap2: :

Download all sony drivers for Windows 7
Install Vaio event service
FileName: VAIOEventService.zip
FileSize: 5,911,732 bytes

Reboot

Install Sony Utils
FileName: SettingUtilitySeries.zip
FileSize: 8,794,415 bytes
Reboot

Install Sony shared Library
FileName: SonySharedLibrary.zip
FileSize: 1,465,492 bytes

Reboot and it should work...Do post your results :eek:hyeah:

Code:
http://www.sony.co.in/support/download/388962/product/vpceb14en
 
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