Sony VAIO PCG GRX670 Notebook (2.0 GHz Pentium 4-M, 512 MB RAM, 40 GB hard drive)

Product Description

Power to Burn - Burn DVDs that is! With Mobile Intel Pentium 4 Processor-M processing power, amazing 16.1" high-resolution UXGA LCD screen, and new DVD-RW/CD-RW drive with exclusive Click to DVD software, the GRX600 Series notebook continues to bridge the gap between notebook mobility and desktop functionality. i.LINK (IEEE 1394) S400 digital interface supports high-speed digital video, audio, and data transfer capabilities among equipped Sony products. The Memory Stick media slot ties together so many different aspects of the digital lifestyle. The center Jog Dial control with back button simplifies the ability to browse, select applications or control preferences. In addition to the Click to DVD software, the VAIO GRX600 Series is packed with wide variety of creative Sony multimedia software tools to help expand personal creativity, as well as professional productivity!

Amazon.com Product Description

One of Sony's fastest notebooks ever, the Vaio PCG-GRX670 incorporates most everything you could want in a state-of-the-art desktop computer, but in a portable package. Distinguished from the top-of-the-line model of the GRX series--the GRX690--only by virtue of its smaller hard drive (40 GB rather than 60), the GRX670 is otherwise a powerful machine ready to take care of virtually all your business and entertainment needs.

At 8 pounds and 14 by 11.5 by 1.8 inches, the GRX670 is slightly larger than some Sony portables. There is, however, good reason for that extra size. Sony has equipped the unit with an enormous 16.1-inch, high-resolution 1,600 x 1,200 UXGA TFT display (the same viewing area as most 17-inch PC monitors). It has included a combination DVD-RW/CD-RW drive through which you can watch the latest motion pictures, burn home movies onto digital media, record and play music compilations, listen to retail CDs, and back up and archive your important files and data.

Sporting a 2 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor with 512 KB of Level 2 cache, a 400 MHz bus, and 512 MB of DDR SDRAM, the GRX670 is built for speed. Sony has complemented the system's powerful engine with a 32 MB ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 video accelerator to make quick work of all but the most graphics-intensive 3-D applications and games.

Sony has packed the system with high-end amenities, including a Memory Stick media slot for Memory Stick or MagicGate media, an i.Link IEEE 1394 interface for fast data uploads from devices such as digital camcorders, three USB ports for plug-and-play peripherals, a TV-out, parallel port, and headphone jack. To ensure you keep in touch wherever you go, the GRX670 features an internal V.90 modem and a 10Base-T/100Base-TX Ethernet interface. Pre-installed software includes Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition and an enormous array of business and multimedia utilities.

Customer Reviews:

Sony Vaio GRX 670 is simply great.......2002-12-18

To bring home the first notebook of my life, I have looked at Dell I 8200, IBM thinkpads A31, Compaqs and Gateways and I ended up getting VAIO GRX 670. ... after rebates there are not too many notebooks out there with a 16.1 inch display and DVD RW drive. The VAIO looks cool and display is awesome for watching movies or playing games. For running applications as a programmer there is plenty of oomph provided with P4-M 2G processor and 512 MB ram. Another important thing is we can upgrade this to 1GB RAM if it is not good enough for running a memory intensive application such as an Application Server for example. The only negative point is the video card is not the latest ATI 9000 but it has the older leader ATI 7500 with 32 MB which should meet all the video demands unless you are a real intensive gamer who plays games that are written using the features enhanced by the ATI 9000 card which costs another 140 dollars more.

I have heard that SONY's warranty does not cover the screen so to be on the safe side I have bought the extended warranty. By the way Sony has provided a lot of cool software for buring DVD's and making movies and the memory stick is a plus if you own other SONY products. The performance has been great when watching a movie or running multiple applications simultaneously. I do not see any need to ugprade the memory to 1GB.

Overall there are so many choices out there but I could not find one that has everything I am looking for in the price range. In the end after looking at this VAIO I I have fallen for it :-) I think this is a good long term desktop replacement.

SONY GRX670 Review.......2002-11-19

I've had this machine since Saturday and I can't keep my hands off of it. This is a truly amazing laptop with the combination of beautiful screen, 2 gigahertz P4 processor and writable DVD drive. I have had various Sony desktops in the past, but this is my first laptop. The screen is beautiful, very bright and sharp. I was looking for a machine to play around with making DVDs of MPEGs from my digital camera and analog VHS tapes that I have all over the place. The new Sony Click-to-DVD software is very easy and reliable. My only negative comment on it is that it hides some of the statistics and error results from you. If there is a problem, it doesn't tell you much, although I realize that it is meant to be very consumer friendly and part of this depends on NOT telling the user all the technical details of codec used etc. The new Toshiba DVD-RW drive is a bit slower than other DVD writers out there (only 1x write speed for DVD compared to 2.4 for most others and 4x for the newest ones), but, it is the only game in town for a laptop machine. It too, is very reliable. I have sucessfully burned data and DVD-video onto Memorex DVD-RW, Memorex DVD-R and Panasonic DVD-R media over the weekend. I am very happy with the 2 gigahertz P4. High processor speed is almost essential for video processing where it can take hours to encode a DVD. Last night I was writing to a DVD-RW (data), surfing and encoding another DVD with Adobe Premiere LE (included with the machine) and still performance was workable, given that the CPU was working over 90%. I was thinking about upgrading from the included 512 meg ram to a full gig, but I don't even think I need to do that. Sony's new Drag'n Drop cd/dvd writing software works very well for writing data to DVD-R and DVD-RW disks (works for CD-R and CD-RW, although I haven't tried that yet.)

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