Rating: 
Summary: take my word for it
Review: I bought Sony Vaio PCG-K13 a few weeks ago. I have been impressed and throughly satisfied for the following reasons:
1) It has a fast processor, P4 2.8 GHz which completely satisfies serious computational needs.
2) Attractive display. The screen has a coating which seems to enchance the color quality thus the webpages look rich. Also, when the screen is viewed from an angle and not right from front, it does not turn negative unlike most of LCD displays.
3) Comes with a 512 MB RAM. This makes the applications fast to open and run.
4) For a Sony quality, a price tag of $1400 is worth it.
5) Has an inbuilt LAN wireless card for wireless connectivity.
6) Sturdy body, can sustain some banging and rough handling.
7) Comes with a Sony memory stick slot. So if you are using a Sony PDA or a digital camera, it's very handy.
8) Comes with many Sony registered softwares and a partitioned hard drive.
9) Has a cool feature, "Sony recovery wizard". If something goes wrong, data can be backed up and the computer can be set to "factory setting".
And.....what's not good...
1) The AC adapter is ENORMOUS!! It's more like a BRICK than something sleek. But a small one can be bought at a Sony store.
2) 7.5 lbs is too heavy to carry especially at the airport.
3) Battery typically lasts only 2Hrs (under normal use) and takes quite a long time to charge.
So, at the end, the pros dominate the cons. It's worth it, IT'S A SONY!!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent low-end budget notebook
Review: I bought Sony Vaio PCG-K13 a few weeks ago. I have been impressed and throughly satisfied for the following reasons:1) It has a fast processor, P4 2.8 GHz which completely satisfies serious computational needs.
2) Attractive display. The screen has a coating which seems to enchance the color quality thus the webpages look rich. Also, when the screen is viewed from an angle and not right from front, it does not turn negative unlike most of LCD displays.
3) Comes with a 512 MB RAM. This makes the applications fast to open and run.
4) For a Sony quality, a price tag of $1400 is worth it.
5) Has an inbuilt LAN wireless card for wireless connectivity.
6) Sturdy body, can sustain some banging and rough handling.
7) Comes with a Sony memory stick slot. So if you are using a Sony PDA or a digital camera, it's very handy.
8) Comes with many Sony registered softwares and a partitioned hard drive.
9) Has a cool feature, "Sony recovery wizard". If something goes wrong, data can be backed up and the computer can be set to "factory setting".
And.....what's not good... 1) The battery is ENORMOUS!! It's more like a BRICK than something sleek. But a small one can be bought at a Sony store.
2) 7.5 lbs is too heavy to carry especially at the airport.
3) Battery typically lasts only 2Hrs (under normal use) and takes quite a long time to charge. So, at the end, the pros dominate the cons. It's worth it, IT'S A SONY!!
Rating: 
Summary: Donot buy this Notebook
Review: I donot like this Note book.
1)It is too slow. It takes atleast 5 mins to open the hotmail page while using a 11Mbps wireless Lan.
2)The system hangs too often. It takes too long to open any application.
3)The customer service is poor. The customer service representatives do not respond to your requests.
Rating:
Summary: Wi-Fi problems known to Sony and Unfixed
Review: I have been having intermittent wifi problems. Meaning the connection drops and does not reacquire. This is a known problem with the LAN-Express AS 802.11g component that is used (check a google search for sony laptop intermittent wireless failure) in the machinebut Sony will not acknowledge that there is a problem. They invite me to send in my laptop for a month but I can't do without it for a month. I'm stuck.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent buy with a superior lcd screen.
Review: I have found the Sony Vaio PCG-K13 to be an excellent compromise between a desktop replacement and a laptop. Weighing in at 7.3 pounds, it is fairly portable, and sports an excellent 15" screen. Sony engineers developed the X-Brite LCD technology which allows for a very sharp, bright display that rivals other displays employing SXGA technology. The 64 Mb. ATI Radeon 1GP video adapter provides the graphics quality. On display at a national computer store, the PCG-K13 stood out among the other laptops for brightness and clarity. The PCG-K13 employs the Fujitsu MHT2040AT 40 Gb. hard drive which is whisper quiet. I have to press my ear to the computer to hear any rotational or seek activity. Likewise for the system fan, which is equally whisper quiet and keeps the computer case cooled nicely. These two factors help provide a very calming computing experience. Ergonomically, the keyboard and electrostatic touch pad couldn't be better. The large keyboard incorporates full size Enter, Shift, Control (2), Tab and Backspace keys. Keytouch is quiet with good tactile feedback. The touchpad requires very minimal pressure to operate, and the left and right control buttons are large and well placed. Three USB ports, one Firewire port, a parallel port, external monitor port, PCMCIA slots (2), and standard audio ports are provided. No serial port - USB replaces that. The negatives? One is short battery life, understandable when feeding a 2.8 Ghz. Pentium 4 processor. Squeezing two hours from the battery would be the most you can expect from this unit. For me, however, this is not a problem - I am rarely away from an AC outlet, and having Pentium 2.8 Ghz. speed makes up for the battery life. Secondly, nearly 5 Gb. of hard drive space is used by the recovery partition. Rather that supply a recovery CD-Rom, Sony forces you to burn nine disks to provide the recovery set, or purchase a DVD recovery disk from them. You can then recover the 5 Gb. partition for your own use. Lastly, the 512 Mb. Ram is shared with the ATI adapter, leaving 448 Mb. for system use. Still, system performance is more than adequate. I would highly recommend this computer for someone wanting an above average mainstream laptop for general computing and perhaps some moderate graphics (Photoshop) work. For gaming or highly detailed design work, you would need to look elsewhere. At $1399.00 US, with promotions occasionally offering it at $1249.00, this is one laptop well worth considering.
Rating: 
Summary: Affordable laptop
Review: I think the VAIO PCG-K13 is a great product from SONY. More importantly, its affordable. Here are some of the positives and negatives that I noticed: POSITIVES:
Fast 2.8 Ghz processor
512MB DDR RAM
533Mhz system bus.
All these make it a pretty high end laptop. NEGATIVES: (These may be applicable to all K-series laptops) 1. 7.3lbs heavy 2. The AC power adapter is exteremly big and bulky. To make the laptop lighter and more attractive, SONY probably transferred some power supply components to the AC adapter. 3. 1024x768 is the maximum available screen resolution (I really wanted to be able to get 1280x1024 after paying $1350) 4. The XBRITE technology makes things worse in fluorescent/white light (like in the libraries) because the screen is very glossy. There's a huge amount of reflection from the LCD screen which reduces screen visibility. 5. NO PS/2 or SERIAL port. (only 3 USB ports. I would love to have a PS/2 port for an external mouse/keybd) 6. NO Floppy drive (I personally care less about this though)
Rating:
Summary: I love this laptop!
Review: I've had this laptop for about 6 months now and absolutely love it! I lug it with me to school and any wi fi spot in town and this computer has never given me any problems. The clarity of the screen has to be seen to be appreciated and the size is just right...not too small..not too thin..just right! The AC adapter is a little bulky but I use a Targa Lap Top backpack to lug it around and everything fits perfectly! I've always had success with the Sony brand and when I spotted this laptop..I loved the appearance and the features..you have plenty of processing speed and a DVD and CD burner combo to boot! DVDs play flawlessly and CDs burn with no problem..2 2.0 USB ports on the side provide a lot of convenience and any peripherals you need to attach is as easy as pie! I'm very happy with it!!
Rating:
Summary: Nice computer - LOUSY service
Review: I've owned this machine for three weeks now, and I have some mixed feelings.
I need this for work, but for my personal use, give me my Powerbook any day of the week. I like the computer screen. Very bright indeed, and very clear. The sound is terrific, plenty of USB ports, and an iLink port (Firewire) are available, as well as a monitor output and a parallel port. At 512 MB of RAM, memory is a little on the small side, especially in light of the fact that the VGA card uses some of it. Now, Sony support is easily the most disappointing ever.
I cleared the hard drive in order to upgrade to Windows XP professional (it came with Home edition), and realized too late that there were no drivers included. Even hours of surfing as well as ordering the backup DVD (they sent me the wrong one) did not provide me with a driver for the ATI video card. It was simply unavailable, even the Sony driver site didn't have many drivers. (for that matter, I couldn't find support for this specific laptop, even amongst hundreds of other models). Eventually I wound up using an unsupported third party, but nevertheless excellent driver (Radeon Omega, for those of you desperately looking for a VGA driver) One other complaint, well two. The wireless-g card stops working intermittently. I called Sony tech support (my only recourse in spite of buying considerable extra protection), and they had no clue. They walked me through an install of the card, and simply said 'well, can you get on the Internet?' When I said, yes I can for now, they treated the problem as solved. My other problem was frequent Blue Screens of Death, to which tech support simply replied 'can't help you there!' When I asked if I could read the minidumps (MS's way of documenting the error), they simply said 'you can't read those.' -- I'll take that with a grain of salt. However, they did recommend I upgrade my memory. After all, I was using Excel and Internet Explorer at the same time. So I am left with a nasty taste in my mouth about tech support. Unsolved mysteries, blue screens, missing drivers, and wrong DVD's in the wrong language being sent to me. Oh, and being fobbed off by technical support after sinking some hard-earned cash into a rather dear protection plan. Being both a Mac user as well as a PC user, I can see how the much more expensive Powerbook pays for itself in some ways. On the whole, the Vaio is decent, but it sure isn't great, and the support is atrocious. A final word on support: Sony's web site is a nightmare to wade through, an endless, frustrating jungle that makes one want to bang one's head against a wall, screaming 'why, why!!'
Rating:
Summary: The pros just barely outweigh the cons...
Review: It looks like Sony is really stretching for cash on this one. While it does boast a nice 2.8Ghz P4 Soket 478 FCPGA2 Northwood Processor at 533mhz FSB. No real extra code functions included, like Hyper threading. Just the standard MMX, SSE, SEE2. 512MB (256MB X 2) of (SODIM) DDR PC2100 RAM. SODIM is generally what you expect on a modern mid range notebook, however SODIM os very slow and really drags down the performance, it doesn't help that the ram is also made by one of the most low branded memory company's in business, infenion. Now theoretically because the processor has 533Mhz FSB you should be able to handle SODIM PC2700 and you can, however Sony only ships with 2100. My recommendation is go to Kingston and buy some high quality SODIM modules at PC2700. It helps quite a bit. It can be expanded up to 1GB Battery life is utterly pathetic. One hour at best using low brow applications... The desktop based P4 sucks power like no tomorrow. The AC Adapter is horrendously bulky and the battery adds quite the load to an already heavy notebook. The screen is absolutely beautiful and boasts some of the brightest, sharpest and most clear cut colorful images on a notebook screen in this price range. However after one week after purchase, I already have a dead pixel! The software sweep included is nice, however, sony likes to squeeze every penny and doesn't include a recovery dvd or cd set. However sony does include some spyware /adware chocked apps as well like Real Player. My suggestion is to completely wipe the stock home and do a fresh install of Home or Pro, considering all the drivers are now available on the web. I should mention that when I first purchased this notebook they went and I was forced to order a recovery dvd from sony. The RADEON IGP345M is a decent card, however ATI's catalyst drivers doesn't support it, so other than the shipped drivers, your only other choice is the omega series, witch out perform the shipped ones anyway. What I find extremely irritating is the 64MB that makes up your video card is hared by your physicals ram, so stock wise you really only have 408MB of physical RAM. The BIOS isn't associable rather, so you can't configure how much ram is actually shared. It does support dual displays, but with the shipped drivers the alternative display can only achieve a max resolution of 1024x768. Other than web browsing and some small Photoshop projects the card is utterly useless. Enough of the bad, on the flipside, the processor is fast despite HT, the keyboard is big and comfortable, the electronic touch pad is nice and responsive. A plethora of IO really delivers in external devices, usb 2.0, Firewire. The speakers are loud and adequate for notebook speakers, the speaker output sounds decent as well. A PCMCIA slot, Sony memory card slot and a surprisingly powerful intergraded wireless antenna. Lets not forget the built in 10/100 and every useful Printer Port. The rest of this notebook is pretty much standard issue, the 40GB is about what you expect to pay and is quite speedy for 4200 RPM and the CD/DVD burner is pretty high quality from QSI. I also really like the idea that the RAM, Hard Drive and Video Controller and completely user upgradeable. Very smart! Did I mention is looks VERY SEXY. A nice silver paint job gives a strait forward futuristic look. The final verdict is if you're a skilled computer user this would be a decent buy for a midrange desktop replacement. The pros just barely outweigh the cons.
Rating:
Summary: The pros just barely outweigh the cons...
Review: It looks like Sony is really stretching for cash on this one. While it does boast a nice 2.8Ghz P4 Soket 478 FCPGA2 Northwood Processor at 533mhz FSB. No real extra code functions included, like Hyper threading. Just the standard MMX, SSE, SEE2. 512MB (256MB X 2) of (SODIM) DDR PC2100 RAM. SODIM is generally what you expect on a modern mid range notebook, however SODIM os very slow and really drags down the performance, it doesn't help that the ram is also made by one of the most low branded memory company's in business, infenion. Now theoretically because the processor has 533Mhz FSB you should be able to handle SODIM PC2700 and you can, however Sony only ships with 2100. My recommendation is go to Kingston and buy some high quality SODIM modules at PC2700. It helps quite a bit. It can be expanded up to 1GB Battery life is utterly pathetic. One hour at best using low brow applications... The desktop based P4 sucks power like no tomorrow. The AC Adapter is horrendously bulky and the battery adds quite the load to an already heavy notebook. The screen is absolutely beautiful and boasts some of the brightest, sharpest and most clear cut colorful images on a notebook screen in this price range. However after one week after purchase, I already have a dead pixel! The software sweep included is nice, however, sony likes to squeeze every penny and doesn't include a recovery dvd or cd set. However sony does include some spyware /adware chocked apps as well like Real Player. My suggestion is to completely wipe the stock home and do a fresh install of Home or Pro, considering all the drivers are now available on the web. I should mention that when I first purchased this notebook they went and I was forced to order a recovery dvd from sony. The RADEON IGP345M is a decent card, however ATI's catalyst drivers doesn't support it, so other than the shipped drivers, your only other choice is the omega series, witch out perform the shipped ones anyway. What I find extremely irritating is the 64MB that makes up your video card is hared by your physicals ram, so stock wise you really only have 408MB of physical RAM. The BIOS isn't associable rather, so you can't configure how much ram is actually shared. It does support dual displays, but with the shipped drivers the alternative display can only achieve a max resolution of 1024x768. Other than web browsing and some small Photoshop projects the card is utterly useless. Enough of the bad, on the flipside, the processor is fast despite HT, the keyboard is big and comfortable, the electronic touch pad is nice and responsive. A plethora of IO really delivers in external devices, usb 2.0, Firewire. The speakers are loud and adequate for notebook speakers, the speaker output sounds decent as well. A PCMCIA slot, Sony memory card slot and a surprisingly powerful intergraded wireless antenna. Lets not forget the built in 10/100 and every useful Printer Port. The rest of this notebook is pretty much standard issue, the 40GB is about what you expect to pay and is quite speedy for 4200 RPM and the CD/DVD burner is pretty high quality from QSI. I also really like the idea that the RAM, Hard Drive and Video Controller and completely user upgradeable. Very smart! Did I mention is looks VERY SEXY. A nice silver paint job gives a strait forward futuristic look. The final verdict is if you're a skilled computer user this would be a decent buy for a midrange desktop replacement. The pros just barely outweigh the cons.
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