Sony Vaio Laptop Widescreen Version By KLKwid on Dec 10, 2008 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

Well, as some of you have read, my HP died again.... If you have read that review, please read the update at the end-I rated it pretty well, but when the second one died in about 2 months, I would love to retract that review and tell everyone what a bad experience it was!!

With that in mind, I'm a little hesitant to tell you about this laptop since I haven't had it long enough for it to fall to the same sort of fate!! So far so good, though-the Viao is a pretty good computer. The cost was a little higher than the other models similar to it, but it seems to be a good sturdy model and it has held up very well so far.

This one is the VGN-FW250J. It came with a 4GB hard drive and 350MB memory. (Did I say that right or was it backwards??) The keyboard was the first thing I noticed-it's got raised buttons instead of they typical style. I was wary of this at first, but once you get used to it, it works extremely well. The sound on the laptop itself is lacking, but serves the purpose and isn't too bad considering it's not really made as a sound system. The resolution on the screen is NOT as good as HP-it's fine once you get used to it, but it does not have that crisp edge feel to it. I like the widescreen version-it gives you more work room, especially since it's attached and made for this system. (int he past when I've gotten a wide screen for a desktop, I'd have trouble configuring it correctly because a lot of the desktops aren't made to work with certain screens and vice versa) It has an attached webcam that I have not used yet-the webcam feature creeps me out a little, actually-it makes me wonder if someone can be looking at me!! LOL! This laptop comes with Vista, as all of them do now unfortunately. The clerk at the store tried to tell me that once Windows comes out with some patches and updates, Vista should be a better system-hasn't it been out long enough for that to happen yet?? So far I haven't had any major problems with Vista. It's more of a nuisance than anything. One interesting thing with the Sonys is they come with a different version of AOL that I didn't know was available. It's ok, but I think I'm going to switch back to the old version because this one is DRASTICALLY different and honestly a little hard to use.

Overall, this seems to be a good laptop-I'm keeping my fingers crossed, though! I never know what to expect anymore!!