Sony VAIO VGN-T140P/L Notebook Review

Features and Specs
Intel's newest Pentium M ultra-low voltage line of chips, packaged with the 'Centrino' integrated wireless
architecture, finally enabled laptop manufacturers to make viable ultra-portable systems based on the Pentium 4 CPU.
The Pentium M's tiny profile and better performance/power usage ratio has brought the world of tiny laptops much
closer to the mainstream.
The VAIO VGN-T140P/L sports a 1.10GHz Pentium M '733' Ultra low voltage processor. Based on a 90nm process, this
chip uses a 400Mhz FSB and like all 90nm process Pentium M chips, comes equipped with 2MB of level 2 cache memory.
The Pentium M is the fastest currently available in Intel's 'ultra low voltage' mobile line and should provide
plenty of grunt for this tiny laptop.
Like other Pentium M processors, the clock speed does not truly indicate the amount of work it can do relative to
traditional desktop processors, so don't let that scare you off. The Pentium M is the reason that Intel decided to
drop the Gigahertz measurements from its processors and switched to a meaningless 'Performance Rating' figure
instead.
The Intel 855GME chipset provides connectivity with the Centrino architecture. The ICH4-M Southbridge handles the
integrated video courtesy of Intel's Extreme Graphics 2 chip, and a fairly standard array of I/O abilities which
we'll detail a bit later. As you would expect, it also supports a good set of power saving abilities which work in
concert with the processor to save precious battery life, typically by dropping processing speed down substantially
when on batteries. More on this later also.
The VAIO notebook ships with 512MB of DDR memory, 64MB of which is shared with the onboard video. The memory can be
expanded up to 1GB in total, though there is only one SODIMM socket. A smallish 4200RPM 40GB hard drive provides
storage. The Intel Extreme Graphics 2 engine provides excellent image quality and DVD playback, along with some
(mostly theoretical) 3D support.
For older 3D games (from a few years ago) it should be adequate, for current games it is extremely poor. This VAIO
is not intended to be a portable gaming machine, so don't even bother trying to use it for that.
The Lithium-Ion battery snaps into the rear of the notebook (model VGP-BPS3), and carries a capacity of 7.4V /
6600mAH. It weighs about 0.66 pounds, and according to Sony figures, will offer a run time of about 4-8.5 hours with
a full charge.