Sony EA

Introduction

The 14-inch laptop. It’s sort of the awkward 1st cousin of the 13 inch laptop, or the runt in the family of 15 inch laptops. Looking at the Sony line, the 14inch EA may be the missing link between the 13 inch and larger screen sized machines. The EA is the little brother to the 15.5 inch EB. A majority of the features will likely be the same, with maybe a few compromises for portability.


Specs
Intel 
i3 M370 2.4 GHz
4 GB RAM
13.6 x 1.07 X 9.4
14 inch screen
5.2 lbs
Integrated HD graphics
starts at $599.99
Outside
It looks like the Sony Vaio EB, but a little smaller. Just a heads up, I’m going to be saying that a lot. The exterior is identical in material. The overall feel is the same, except it does feel a little denser than the EB, but noticeably lighter. Compared to the Macbook, it is a little heavier by .3 pounds. This from comes from having a 14 inch screen, versus 13 inches. I’ll go more into depth about the customization options for this machine later, but it is available in a ridiculous amount of colors, 8 to be exact. Any option other than gunmetal black costs $50 extra. Personally, I’d go for the gunmetal black option anyway.
I have to say, the port placement is very unique to any laptop I have seen (obviously ignoring the identical EB). Apple for example keeps all of its ports on one side (except for the Macbook Air) and the super drive on the other. Other machines arrange ports for a desktop setting, such as having USB ports in different locations so they are available to peripherals on all sides. Instead, the Sony EA sort of groups the ports in groups relevant to the situation in which they would be used. The front and right side ports are going to be more likely used on-the-go, while the left side ports are going to be more likely used on a desk at home.
The front ports are situated almost identically to every Sony Vaio with the memory card and memory stick slots on the left, with the headphone and mic in on the left. Moving to the right side of the machine, there is an astounding three USB ports in a row. As much as I would like to think it would be ideal to have USB ports scattered throughout the machine, it is nice that every port on the right side is USB. This means no more having to turn the machine around to make sure you’re plugging in your iPod in the correct port. Behind the USB ports, sits the optical drive. A DVD burner is standard, but it can be upgradeable to a BlueRay Drive, or even a BlueRay burner. My model came with a BlueRay player.
The left side consists of the power and the less used ports. Starting from the back, it has the power, Ethernet, VGA, HDMI, eSata, and Express Card slot. Of these ports, the power will be the most often used port, while the others would mostly likely be more used by someone with a desktop kind of setup. The eSata port is for fast external hard drives, express card slots are rarely used today, and the HDMI port is mostly for large TVs and nice LCDs. The average user is likely to use only two, maybe three ports on the left side of the computer.
Inside

Lifting up the screen reveals an extremely similar layout to the Sony EB. The screen is obviously a little smaller than the EB’s, but it actually has identical resolution to the baseline EB(the EB on the other hand can be upgraded to a 1080P screen while the EA cannot). What these means is that this machine has the same number of pixels as the EB series, so because the EA has a smaller screen, it will look sharper than the EB.
Moving down towards the keyboard. Instead of having two designated speakers, Sony uses more a “soundbar” kind of look that has speaker grates along the entire top of the keyboard. Instead of having multimedia buttons, Sony has three feature filled buttons. One of these days, I’ll come up with a clever name for them, for now, they will be called the “Sony buttons”. The first one is labeled “Assist”. It is sort of a “I need help now” button that instantly opens Sony’s online support application. The right button labeled “VAIO” opens Sony’s media center. It’s a pretty good program to displaying multimedia, I’m not in love with it, but it is nice for displaying photos and videos.
Now the middle button is my favorite, it is labeled “WEB”. Have you ever turned off your computer, and then immediately realized that you needed to look at one more thing online, or look up an address in an email, or just something minor that you need to be online for? On pretty much any other computer, you would have to turn it on, wait for the login screen, wait for Windows 7 to load, and then wait for chrome or Mozilla to pop up. Sony ingeniously provided the EA (and the EB) with the awesome function of being able to go on the internet without having to turn your computer on. It uses a separate operating system that is completely from windows, probably even uses a flash memory system, and is just an internet application. It doesn’t have any bookmarks, or favorites from when using Windows, but you can easily log into gmail, facebook, or anything like that. This is an awesome unique feature that helps makes this a great computer
The keyboard is pretty much the standard Sony keyboard, same feel as the Sony VAIO X and EB. The EB on the other hand has a full number keypad on the side, while the EA does not. It’s a chiclet keyboard (island keys), which is pretty standard across consumer laptops. It’s full-size and very comfortable to type on. What the keyboard lacks is multimedia keys. This isn’t a deal breaker, but considering that the EA can be upgraded to a BlueRay player and has a multimedia display software button, you would think it would assumed that maybe the “F” keys could also function to play/pause movies.
The touchpad is decent. It isn’t as great as the Sony Vaio Z, and two-finger scrolling is not smooth. It is identical to the EB except that it is centered which makes it much more comfortable to use.
Performance
The base specs with an i3 and 4GB of RAM, and the ability to stream full 1080P content through the HDMI port make it no slouch. At the same time, it is nothing to write home about in pure processing speed. On the other hand, if you deck it out upgrading all the upgradeable options, you have a very high performing gaming/multimedia machine that will have similar speeds to the Sony Z, Sony’s highest end laptop. The level of performance will vary directly with what specs you select.
My model came with a BlueRay player, so I was able to test that ability. One of my friends had recently purchased Inception which came with a BlueRay version, and a DVD version, the perfect test in my opinion. I tried the DVD first, and then the BlueRay version at identical scenes to compare. I actually found that the software you use to watch the movies has a much larger effect on the video quality, than the difference between the BlueRay and DVD. So make sure to try out all the includes players to see which one you like best. The BlueRay version looked a little sharper, but that may have even been because I was looking for differences. Considering the screen is a pretty close to 720p and is only 14 inches, this is not a big surprise. On the other hand, playing through the HDMI port to a 50 inch LED TV at 1080p was a much different story, as the BlueRay player looked much better. What is nice about BlueRay players is that they copy the entire movie before it starts, so the disc does not have to spin. So the big pluses about using BlueRays is that the computer runs quieter for you don’t hear the disk spinning during the entire movie, which keeps the disk safer, and may even improve battery life.
The speakers were kind of a letdown. I really was expecting them to be more powerful and a little clearer. Hooked up to my Logitech speakers the EA sounds great, but I expected more out of the built in speakers.
Sony Coolness
Brand loyalty is something that always has its perks when it comes to Sony. Sony catches a lot of flak for their creations not working nearly as well with other companies’ products. I’ve used Sony headphones that don’t work well with my iPhone, yet worked great with Sony computers, and they even invented the Sony Memory Stick to counter the industry standards Compact Flash and Secure Digital cards. What is the advantage of using a company that doesn’t work well with others? It typically works very well with the devices it is designed to be used with.
The Sony EA works very well with any PS3 hooked up to an internet connection. At my friend’s house, I quickly set up the EA to work the PS3 on two levels, Bluetooth and over the internet. Connecting the EA to the PS3 using Bluetooth enables you to seamless use the EA’s keyboard and trackpad to control the PS3. This makes surfing the net, using Netflix, or just changing settings a much faster and easier experience than using a controller. Connecting to the PS3 using Remote Play adds a unique and free feature to the Sony EA. When both machines are online, no matter how far the distance, any multimedia on the PS3 can be accessed remotely.
This means you can have access to Gigabytes of files without have having to clog up the EA’s hard drive.
Recommendation
This computer is in a very interesting position. Its 14 inch screen makes it not exactly an ideal desk laptop, but still not exactly an ideal travel size. At the same time, it still fits very comfortably on the lap, and is more comfortable to travel with than a full size 15-inch laptop. Personally I see it as someone who is on the move with it 25% of the time, and works at a desk the rest of the time. The standard battery life is pretty weak compared to something like the Macbook, but a large capacity battery ups the battery life to an OK 5 hours on default settings. This computer is not for the road warrior by any means.
On the other end of the spectrum, this can be one powerful computer. It can house an i5, up to 8GB of RAM, a high end ATI graphics card. With the highest upgradable options, it doubles the price to about $1600. At that feature set this kicks the crap out of the 13 inch Macbook Pro in pure performance, and similar to the Dell XPS 14. What this doesn’t compete with the XPS is in sound quality and volume.
Sound and battery life aside, the Sony Vaio EA will provide all the power you need, given you pay for what you need. Using it as a BlueRay player for a large screen TV is great possibility, as is the pretty portable body ready for anything you can throw at it.

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