Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #601 in Personal Computers
- Color: Silver
- Brand: Sony
- Model: SVS1512ACXS
- Released on: 2012-10-26
- Dimensions: .95" h x
14.97" w x
10.06" l,
4.42 pounds
- CPU: Core i7-3612QM 2.2 GHz
- Memory: 8GB DDR3 SDRAM
- Hard Disk: 750GB
- Display size: 15.5
Features
- Core i7 3632QM 2.2 GHz
- 8 GB DDR3
- Windows 8
Sony VAIO S Series SVS1512ACXS 15.5-Inch Laptop (Silver)
Product Description
The VAIO® S Series 13 laptop offers stepped up performance, all day mobility in a sleek, full-flat design available in a variety of colors. Features like slot-loading optical drive, large clickable touchpad and backlit keyboard are standard. Get even longer battery life with the optional extended sheet battery.Don’t forget Office with your PC purchase. Download Office 2013 instantly with Amazon Digital Software.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
By booshi
I was looking for a machine to replace a MacBook Pro that was horrible at running Linux (see notes on Linux below if you are buying this and considering putting Linux on it). I was considering going with a Lenovo, but if you want a quad-core processor you have to bump up to a machine that is over an inch thick and weights over 5 lbs. As a grad student who is constantly on the move, both around campus and in the lab, I wanted to find something slimmer but just as powerful. I found it in this machine.Pros:Display - Amazing 1080p display, with IPS so that other viewing angles still work well. It rivals the quality of a Retina MBP, and looks much, much better than my lab mate's Lenovo T430.Discrete graphics card - With an NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M LE, with 1GB of memory, it can handle what I throw at it. I work in computer vision, and it handles 3 simultaneous Kinect inputs in real-time, and CUDA works well on it. On the gaming side, I tried my old Guild Wars 2 account, and got ~40fps on medium settings.Full size keyboard with numberpad - I love having my numberpad, and I use it often. Not many laptops tout this but for someone like me it is a godsend. The backlit keyboard is nice as well, and the keys are visible well in the dark even without it due to the fact that the keys aren't black (I'm looking at you, old MacBook Pro).The "assist" button - As I set up my machine to dual-boot Windows 8 and Linux, this button is much. much better than waiting to hit the proper key to change boot sequences/enter BIOS.Design - The machine is gorgeous and has a great aesthetic value.NOTHING IS PROPRIETARY! - A big reason I moved away from Apple. The machine is not locked down in any way, and everything is accessible if you know where to find it.Cons:Bezel flimsiness - The bezel and screen are rather flimsy, but this is handled well if you use two hands on each side when moving it, or one had at the top center. Grabbing it from the sides tends to bend the screen a bit, which is a little concerning.Battery life - I can get roughly 4 hours out of the machine in Windows 8, and 3 in Linux. A little more would be nice but I always have my adapter with me.Notes on Linux:If anyone is considering getting this machine to run a distro of Linux, it works very well. I dual-boot Windows 8 with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Everything works well in Linux with a fresh install, and it only needed a few tweaks any laptop would need. There are two ways to dual-boot this machine: the first is to simply switch between legacy and UEFI boot in the BIOS, UEFI sending you to Windows and legacy to Linux. However, with some tinkering you can leave it on Legacy and use an EFI booting tool to be able to boot from GRUB, which I am doing now.Overall, I'm very happy with this machine, and am currently writing this review from it. It has a fast boot time, good speed, great performance, and a little bit of a wow factor with the design. If the battery life was a bit better, it would be perfect. However, better battery life would equate to more weight so I'd rather stay with a lighter machine.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
By some EE guy
My criteria for the laptop I wanted involved a conflicting set of specifications, which resulted in few options. Till this very day, I have yet to find another laptop being sold which comes as closely to matching my criteria as this one. Basically, I wanted a powerful machine I could be productive on, which was simultaneously light enough to carry around (and pretty enough to look at). After first buying a Dell XPS15 (L521x), and later deciding to return it, I have been very pleased with this laptop, especially after installing a SSD (Crucial M4 256GB, btw).Pros:Display quality - At 1080p, of the IPS sort, there's almost nothing negative that can be said about this display. Some users have noted that the reds appear orangish, but for me it wasn't noticeable. I may have been either lucky or this just wasn't high on my priority list. The colors are vivid and the viewing angles are spectacular - comparable to my Thinkpad X61 Tablet, which also had a high resolution IPS display. 1080p set the real bargains apart from the phonies (aka most ultrabooks and their pathetic weaksauce resolutions).Dedicated graphics - GeForce GT 640m 1GB. While it uses the slower VDDR3, but gaming on this laptop (I play SC2) has been no problem for me. In addition, there is a bios mod floating around which doubles the speed of the GPU (from 500MHz to 900MHz, with no increase in temps or voltage), though the actual performance difference was not noticeable to me.Backlit keyboard with numpad - I felt that the numpad was one of those infrequently used, but very necessary when needed devices, and this laptop comes with one. It was perhaps the largest factor in weeding out most laptop candidates from my consideration (judge me if you want). The keys are chicklet style, which was a first for me. Adapting to it wasn't that big of a deal.Size and Weight - this is just about the lightest and thinnest laptop that had all three of the previous criteria. It is 4.4lbs and less than an inch thick. Previously, the Dell XPS15 was also less than an inch thick, but was 5.7lbs or more. In addition, the viewing angles on the Dell was quite a bit poorer.Accessibility and Upgradability - the battery, hard drive, and one stick of RAM are easily accessed. This made it very convenient to upgrade to an SSD and to slap more memory in. Same thing can't be said about most ultrabooks. Ultrabooks = 150% marketing - 50% qualityCons:Battery life - this is the biggest deficiency for this laptop. I would have preferred it to be 5+ hours, but at <4 hours, it's ok, but not great. Had there been another laptop with all of the above with a longer battery life, then I may have gotten it. But, there wasn't.Build quality - as most reviewers have noted, there is some flex in some areas like the screen and the keyboard. In comparison, the Dell was solid. It was a solid block of aluminium. However, I have never had a laptop go bad on me before (and I've owned more than 10 in the past), so I'm fairly confident that I can keep this laptop from breaking. However, this laptop does seem quite delicate. It's definitely not made from Thinkpad stuff, though the Thinkpad soft surface scratches easily.Other:Aesthetics - the design of the laptop is very nice. That's all there is to it. Sony is always good at looking good, but in the past they were charging too much for shoddy stuff. For this laptop, though, it seems to be quite a bargain. If there was something I needed to gripe about, it would be that the one I got (black) has a rather rough finish, compared to the silver.Bonus software - now I wasn't expecting this. In the past, I would always do a fresh re-install of my computer as soon as I got it to rid myself of the bloatware. But, I kept the software for the Thinkpad, and have done the same for this laptop. It's not bad. What really surprised me was that Sony had preinstalled a "Inspiration Suite" software package that included audio and video editors. I just spent the last few days playing with it, and looking up the prices, it's around $100 of free, useful software.As I surveyed the scene, I was primarily shocked that Sony was the only vendor that provided me a product for all my needs at a reasonable and affordable price (I got the whole thing Open Box for less than $1k - including the SSD, but even at $1k, it's still good). Sony used to be associated with charging a premium for the brand name, but it seems that with the way things have gone, they are getting more competitive again.Edit: this laptop seems to be the updated version for Windows 8. I had gotten the Windows 7 version. It seems not much has changed, but the bios mod doesn't seem to work with the Windows 8 version. Another thing about Sony is that they like to lock things down. Another reason I have not liked buying their stuff. Guess I got lucky with this purchase which they just happened to leave the bios available for tinkering.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
By Babloo
My First review on the Sony laptop that I owned.. (My first Personal Laptop too)... To start with... I had been looking around for a Laptop around 1K.. and been doing a crazy search.. Looked at Ideapad, Dell, Asus, HP. I wanted to go for a laptop with higher resolution and not with 1366.. as I found that resolution is primitive and felt we need to step up.Only few laptops met from the above.. all on similar price range.. Was about to go for Dell 15Z but after reading reviews with issues with Wifi took a back step and with HP Spectre giving some positive vibes.. but had dropped with some bad reviews from Friends.. who had bad experience with HP.. Finally I found this Sony Vaio.. which had all the qualities that I had been looking around.Had 1080P Resolution, 8 GB with Core i7 2.2, 750 GB and Nvidia 1G Graphics card and DVD Burner (Could not get BD from Amazon).. Though this Model did not had any reviews gone through other Vaio S Series reviews and finaly voted for this.Coming to this Laptop few good things to list1. Its Pretty light in weight 4.4 Pounds.. And its cool2. Picture quality is Pretty cool3. Keyboard is cool.. its backlit and no issues with the Trackpad. I hear occasional Squeaks.. which was as listed by few other Sony Vaio S series folks4. Battery life is pretty decent.. I worked on the laptop for about 3 hours or little more and the batter still showed 1 and half hours.. so a decent 4 and half hours..Pretty sure the battery might drain little faster if you watch movie or games.. (And am not a Gaming freak.. So I cannot comment). So who are Gaming freaks can go for Extra battery sheet which I heard from reviews gives a solid battery life to laptop.5.The laptop does not make sound nor gets heated up.. I used for close to an hour on my lap.. but did not feel it to become extremely hot.. it was under regular standards.. So that is a big plus point.6. Build quality is good..7. Assist button to guide you to recover to Factory settings.. and having a Restore point will make things work smarter.Now Coming to some drawbacks..1. The Screen is little delicate.. you can feel the Flex, which I felt Sony should have put some extra effort in making it sturdy enough.. I had a look at few Laptops costing 1K.. and the Screen looked little sturdy. Might be to loose weight sony made it little delicate.. Else it would be exceptionally good.. So I take away one star from here.2. The audio is ok.. Though it said Dolby.. Am not that impressed with it.. (I need to do some more tests on that)... I heard the Dolby sound on the Kindle Fire HD.. its amazing.. and compared to that.. the Dolby on this.. is thumbs down.. Honestly. Also one cannot expect more than that on a laptop.3. Camera.. This is a drawback on all the laptops.. though they boast HD.. the quality is bad.. I can see the pixels floating around when you sit under light.. and the camera expects a Very Very good lighting to have Crystal clear image.. .. So I would give 3 Stars out of 5 for the Camera..4. with 2 weeks in the purchase... I got vew Sony Vaio updates.. and one of the update screwed up the things on my laptop..(Am not sure what caused, as during the installation I was working with sony suport guy with skype issue) with some trouble and furious chat with Sony team, I had to do go back to My factory settings location.. So any update to install from Sony is scaring me.. The refresh option on the Sony enabled me not to access the C Drive.. said I don't have permissions.. that left with more Frustration..5. You can see slight gap above the Sony logo on the Screen.. its not hindering your work.. but with the price you pay you don't expect it to be present and.. Sony being master of Perfection.. you definitely expect to have things with perfection.. So not sure how Sony missed these few things.. I wish they take care from their findings.Few things that I observed.1. The boot up time takes 25 Seconds to show up the windows screen and from there another 12 seconds to Windows tiles.. So total of 35 to 40 seconds to show up Windows tiles.. Some times the time bumps up.. as Some Sony software might be running in background (This is when you install some new Item)2. The shutdown of actual windows takes flat 3 to 5 Seconds.. but to completely turn of the PC it takes another 12 to 15 Seconds.. (This might be again Sony Vaio software, that might be collecting data).3. The Restart takes similar amount of time.4. With upgrade and Restart usually take 2 to 3 Minutes.5. The regular boot up end to end takes close to 15 Seconds..Over all if you don't have the Sony Software Windows 8 is a magic.. they out did the shutdown and Re-start..Am still getting adjusted to Windows 8..its cool.. and will take time to get adjusted to it.. The way we had time to adjust to Windows 7.. But good work by MS..One thing that I observed is we need to be careful in stalling apps or software in windows 8 as its been heard that any incorrect will cause your windows 8 corrupt.Over all am finding the laptop to be good in working.. and enjoying it.. I will provide more updates as I keep install few more Windows stuff.This is a good laptop to go for..
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