Sony VAIO SA3 Series VPCSA3AFX/BI 13.3-Inch Laptop (Jet Black)

This machine has a solid, all metal construction, with the only plastic being the keys and the bezel surrounding the screen. It is quite fast with a 2nd gen core i CPU and an AMD 6630 GPU. Keyboard is one of the best I’ve ever used, and easy match for any thinkpad, and backlit to boot. The 1600×900 matte screen is bright and very clear, but lacks color depth and contrast for any kind of high quality, color accurate display.

Other reviews have referred to it as flimsy but honestly, this is a pretty solidly built machine. Pressure on the back of the lid produces no distortions in the display, the base is very very stiff, especially for such a thin machine. Overall this machine reminds me of the T4x series thinkpad I used to own, but with a much brighter screen.

The speakers are terrible, even for a small 13″ machine.

Linux compatibility has some issues that will hopefully get ironed out. Nothing that makes using it unusable, but a few things like the trackpad not having any suitable drivers, and really poor battery life (under linux) that make it a questionable choice if Linux on the go is your primary reason for using this machine.

I have used my laptop for a few days now and put it through some different trials. I tried videos, no problems, the only thing I wish could of been a little better was the sound of the speakers, but that’s just the style of the laptop, it’s hard to concentrate on both light and slim and at the same time have insanely large speakers. Next I inserted a few CD’s including a movie which played perfectly and very clear, again the speakers are loud enough, just a little high pitched. You can always plug in a set of aux speakers if you wish. I installed a couple simple action games to make sure they would load and play and again no problem. I miss the old Sony power switch on the end of hinge, now it’s like most other laptops positioned directly above the number keys. One more adjustment I had to make was getting used to a dedicated dvd eject button above the number keys again. You can’t just push in on the dvd play door any more. Not a big deal and once I get use to it I’ll be fine. I really like the 1600 resolution option on this particular model, if your wondering about text size, my philosophy is that you can always turn up the zoom of the page to 125% and most web pages still fit on the screen. The keyboard is nicely backlit and the keys have enough space between them so you don’t hit two at once. I only wish with the new hinge setup that it didn’t have that plat in the rear of the laptop, it’s centered and runs better than half way across and sticks out a bout an 1/8″. Not a big deal, but again, I liked the old style Sony hinge better personally. The new hinge cover is finished nicely though, looks like brushed metal. All of the input/output connections, except for the dvd player are on the right side of the laptop, I prefer this because it’s easier for me to remember what side it’s one. There are 3 indicator lights in the front left and look nice. There is a cap key light above the numbers. The laptop feels well made to me and I have no regrets.

Purchased this laptop because its basically the only machine out there with the combination of features I wanted, and it costs less than a grand to boot.

-Backlit keyboard – very difficult to find in this size, much more effective than the little thinklight on Thinkpads
-Hi resolution 1600×900 screen – just try find this feature outside of Dell enterprise workstation models
-USB 3.0 onboard
-Fingerprint reader
-Dedicated Radeon graphics – seems like nearly every PC is using the crappy Intel HD integraded chips in their 13.3″ and smaller models
-Aluminum unibody – I’m really confused by the reviews describing this laptop as “flimsy” or claims that its not actually metal

Have been using the machine for about a week now and its simply impressing me at every turn. After uninstalling the bulk of the Sony bloatware, Ive got it setup quite cleanly rather than doing a full clean windows install (as mentioned by another reviewer who was having difficulty).

Runs every game I’ve thrown at it in native resolution (1600×900) so far, including BF3 and MW3, which is jawdropping. Having a portable gaming system thats this svelte is going to make traveling a heck of a lot more enjoyable. It quite simply blows the doors off my last “thin and light” acer timeline.

All in all, a good purchase and a happy camper. Thanks Amazon for a great price versus the Sony website!

Sony VAIO SA3 Series VPCSA3AFX/BI 13.3-Inch Laptop (Jet Black)

I bought Sony Vaio SA3 it very nice laptop and i love it,
I love the battery life in STAMINA, it is up to 4 hours
and very light and i love the material of the case..

Really I love it

Thank you amazon

I recently purchased a custom Sony Vaio SA–VPCSA390S-LBOM–with sheet battery. The computer arrived early and works great. But, the sheet battery won’t lock on the back as it is supposed to do. It took more than an hour on the phone with the technline staff to get them to agree to do anything about it. They sent a replacement. The replacement doesn’t lock, either. I asked to return the sheet battery for a refund and was told–after spending over an hour on the phone again with the techline and customer service–that Sony
can’t/won’t allow return of just the battery. I have to return the entire computer and battery for a full refund and start the ordering process over. So, I recommend you skip the sheet battery or purchase it at a store where you can try it first to make sure it fits. And, should you need techline support, get your beverage of choice, find a comfortable chair and prepare to sit back and wait for a long time.

I looked at all similar units in the 800 to 1200 price range, and chose this one for the keyboard ease, backlight, and robust construction. It is substantially made, mostly of aluminum/magnesium alloy, and the matte display is outstanding. Other units had the gloss and the glare is quite distracting. You pay a bit more for the Sony name, but it is worth it. It has the usual bloatware, but not overly intrusive, and one can disable these pesky bits easily. It is remarkably light, yet not flimsy in the slightest. I’m using it in my surgical office for electronic records, CT scan image review and other fairly processor intense tasks and the i5 handles all quite rapidly. I did up the RAM to 8mb, and that was $14 well spent! Got mine from 42nd street photo in NYC, and all is well. I would recommend it highly.

I own the SC version of this rig, which i got from best buy at the time this model launched, the price drop has been amazing and am considering getting this one just for the improved graphics and higher resolution, for those who are in doubt ive had mine since june and apart from a bit of fan noise and Some HD issue were the Laptop wouldnt detect it, it worked fine, these issues have all been taking care of with bios upgrades, one thing we lost is SATA 3 compatibility as they removed it from the bios, i expect this to return soon enough in future updates, i use mine for work, watch blu rays and occasionally game on it, even though mine has an inferior Video Card to this model, right now im thinking o buying the SA3 and giving my SC to the wife, or maybe ill wait for a more updated one with the new Radeon Mobility chips. Overall a great lappy in this form factor, and i liked mine so much im thinking bout upgrading it to the next submodel!!!

Sony VAIO SA3 Series Laptop has great battery capacity, especially with the external battery attached. I don’t know exactly how many hours, but I know that it’s longer than seven hours. This computer is light weight and extremely portable. It feels solid and seems durable. I could probably drop it a number of times without breaking it. And I can turn it on and off easily. There’s no long process of “firing it up” or down. In a coffee shop, in a not-so-great neighborhood, I can simply turn off my laptop, take it into the restroom with me, and then turn it back on again when I return to my table. This takes almost no time at all. But there’s one thing, however, that I dislike immensely about my purchase. And that’s the fact that, for some reason, there’s an automatic zoom feature on my laptop that zooms in on my documents and makes them appear huge, much too large, or else microscopic, much too small…and every possible size in between. It’s almost impossible to type with the text changing sizes like that. And each time it happens I have to stop what I’m working on and reset the zoom feature. I’m sure there’s a way to disable this feature, but I’ve been busy and I haven’t yet discovered it.