Equipped with the productivity tools that keep you going, the S360 is the notebook for those who will not sacrifice function for performance or convenience.Integrated multimedia features, wireless capability and advanced technologies make the S360 notebook your ideal companion for enhanced productivity and entertainment at home, in the office or on the road. An upgraded hard drive and graphics card will improve your notebook experience whether you are using it for business or pleasure. The 13.3" widescreen display and generous keyboard won't cramp your style whether you're on a plane or at a hotspot. The integrated CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive gives you the power to view, play or store the information you need to disc. At 4.2 pounds, the S360 will be easy and convenient to bring with you wherever you go.
Amazingly slim and light, superbly stylish, and packed full of powerful productivity features, the Sony Vaio VGN-S360 is a great traveling companion, weighing just over 4 pounds. It features integrated 54g wireless connectivity and a battery-sipping Intel Centrino processor for long life while on the road. It also offers such Sony technologies as the sharp XBRITE LCD and Smart Display Sensor, which instantly adjusts resolution when you connect to a display or a projector. It also features an 80 GB hard drive, 512 MB of installed RAM, an ATI Mobility Radeon video card with 64 MB of video RAM, DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive, and Windows XP Home Edition (Service Pack 2).
| The Basics - Hard Drive: The 80 GB Ultra ATA hard drive (4,200 RPM) is one of the larger sizes you'll find in a notebook, and it's a big benefit for such an entertainment-centric PC. It offers more than enough capacity for storing documents and productivity software for road warriors. You'll also be able to store a good-size digital audio library.
- Processor: The Intel Pentium M processor is designed specifically for mobile computing, offering a balanced level of mobile-optimized processor technology, good mobile performance, and exceptional value. It features a Deep Sleep state, which helps enable longer battery life by minimizing the power consumption of the processor during brief periods of inactivity. The 1.7 GHz speed is near the top of the speed spectrum for this processor (as of winter 2004), and is on par with a 2.5 GHz Pentium 4-M. It also offers a 400 MHz front-side bus (FSB) speed and a large 2 MB L2 cache. (An L2, or secondary, cache temporarily stores data, and a larger L2 cache can help speed up your system's performance.)
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| Sony Vaio VGN-S360
1.7 GHz Pentium M
512 MB RAM
80 GB HD
Windows XP Home | Sony Vaio VGN-S360P
1.7 GHz Pentium M
512 MB RAM
80 GB HD
Windows XP Professional |
- Memory: The 512 MB of built-in memory (1 x 512 MB, DDR SDRAM) is a good start for power users, and it offers a faster-than-average RAM speed (333 MHz). It has two memory slots, with a maximum memory expansion of only 1 GB (2 x 512 MB), which is a smaller maximum than other entertainment-centric laptops.
- CD/DVD Drive: The combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive can read, write, and rewrite CDs at 24x speed. It can read DVDs at 8x speed.
- Keyboard and Mouse: This notebook has a standard 82-key keyboard and an electro-static two-button touchpad.
 | Screen, Graphics, and Sound
This ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 is a strong video/graphics card for a notebook PC, and it features 64 MB of DDR video RAM and longer battery life, thanks to ATI's Low-K Technology. It's suitable for the high frame rates of DVD movies and immersive 3D PC games and will drive an external monitor that works in tandem with the notebook's LCD. The 13.3-inch WXGA LCD has a resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels. It also offers an integrated audio card with built-in speakers.
Preloaded System and Software
This system comes with the Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 operating system with Advanced Security Technologies, which helps to reduce unwanted downloads and pop-ups while surfing the Web. It also comes loaded with a bevy of Sony multimedia software: Vaio Zone with WinDVD (for watching DVD movies), PictureGear Studio (digital photo), SonicStage (digital music), Vaio Media (network file sharing), and DVgate Plus (digital video). Other preloaded software includes Quicken 2005 New User Edition, Microsoft Works 8.0 (with word processing, spreadsheet, and calendar), Norton Internet Security (with 90-day subscription), and SpySubtract.
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| Connectivity and Expansion Slots
The VGN-S360 has an integrated 54g wireless LAN that's compatible with 802.11b and 802.11g networks. You get a good offering of connectivity options, including both USB 2.0 and i.Link (Firewire): - 3 USB 2.0 ports for connecting a wide range of peripherals--from digital cameras to MP3 players
- 1 FireWire (also known as IEEE 1394 or i.Link) port for connecting digital video camcorders and other peripherals
- 1 VGA monitor port
- 1 PCMCIA (or PC Card) slot (Type I/II, 32-bit)
- 1 headphone jack
- 1 microphone jack
- Memory Stick media slot, compatible with Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro
It also has an integrated 56K modem (V.90) and an RJ-45 LAN network port (for a 10/100 Gb Ethernet connection to networks and DSL/cable modems). Dimensions and Weight
One of the lightest notebooks around, the VGN-S360 weighs just 4.2 pounds. It measures a tiny 12.3 inches wide, 8.85 inches deep, and 1.39 inches high. | 
The S360 features a full suite of software applications, including SonicStage, which enables you to listen to, manage, and transfer your music library.
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Power
It's powered by a lithium-ion rechargeable battery (PCGA-BPS2), which can run between 2 and 6 hours.
What's in the Box
This package contains the VGN-S360 notebook PC, rechargeable lithium-ion battery, AC adapter, and operating instructions. It is backed by a 1-year limited hardware warranty.
1 Awesome
First, I have to say that I have a customized S-Series notebook from Sonystyle.com and not this particular configuration. It's more or less similar, though. I have more RAM, a DVD Burner and Bluetooth. My wife bought one last month after a year of laptop envy and is equally pleased with her configuration. Point: the core components here are solid.
I have personally never owned a laptop that was consistently as reliable as this one. Yes, there is fan noise but it's nowhere near as loud as some reviews make it out to be. To answer another reviewer: there are 2 USB ports and 1 Firewire port. I benchmarked all the hardware using Norton Utilities (yeah, yeah) and everything but the speed of my DVD Burner came up with excellent ratings.
The Xbrite monitor technology is great for using this laptop under high sunlight conditions outside. I also use it for Photoshop and feel that, despite its size, the 13" screen is ideal compared to the pixilated, grainy appearance of most other LCDs. My only major complaint about this laptop is that it does not have a DVI output for connecting it to something like an Apple Cinema Display. It does, however, have a standard RGB monitor output that works fine.
The chassis is light and very sexy. Along with the new Sony T Series latops (midget versions of the S series) I can honestly say there is no better slim notebook for Windows users. I also own a 12" Apple Powerbook G4 that I use for travel and, despite its reputation for being the sexiest of the ultra-lights, I still much prefer my Sony S.
The Intel 2200 Wireless Lan is really great for using wi-fi hotspots. A friend has a lower end Intel Wireless LAN and can rarely even detect hotspots that my S-series simply connects to automatically.
If you mainly want a light computer for wireless internet, iPoding, running business apps and editing digital photos, the canned configuration offered by Amazon.com will do fine. If you want to really trick out the guts of one of these, go to Sonystyle.com.
One word of advice I can offer to anyone interested in any version of this laptop is: buy the extended life battery (sold separately.) It's worth every penny. My G4 goes through two whole battery cycles in less time than it takes my extended life Sony battery to run down once. It's like the energizer bunny on steroids.
2 fan is problem
This is one of the best laptops I've had....BUT...the fan can drive you crazy! I cannot take this to the library because people might think there's a race car in the computer - that's what it sounds like and it's constant and annoying! Sony says on their support site that the issue is "under investigation" so I didn't want to wait for the results and returned this beauty...
3 Questions for owners
Two questions for current owners of the S-360 only:
1) A reviewer listed it as having only (2) USB 2.0 ports but the specs list (3). How many?
2) Another reviewer was turned off by fan noise. Do other users experience the same problem?
4 Screen Size
Hey. If you are worried about the size of the screen (13.3W) being too small, don't worry. It's big, even to watch dvds from far away too. For others who are away from this laptop it seems small and they might think "What a tiny screen". But for you it will look perfect and big, trust me. The 14 inch screens are s too squared shaped, the 15s inches laptops are so big that makes it ridiculous, and the 17 inch are good if used as desktop replacement or for video editors.
I am a college student, I take it everyday with me to class, WOW it's so light and thin that people wouldn't even notice you're handling one. You could fit it inside a folder. Battery is awsome at least LEAST 2 and a half hour.
All my friends about 30 of them uses a 15.2 inch screen laptop, they look too big it's ridiculous. Like when using Internet Explorer there's a big space between the IE software size ocuppying the screen and the borders. It's like "Hey man why bringing something like this if you aren't going to use the screen fully.
Well thats it folks, hoped I could at least take away the preocupations of people wanting to buy the Sony VGN- S360 and being worried about it's size and features. If you think buying one is taking a big risk, than take it.
Just one more thing, the guy below says the fan is too noisy, well it's a little if used for too long. But you wanna know something, who cares. People say "Oh I'm going to go nuts with the fan's noise" like if something really bad is happening, BIG DEAL.
5 Fan Noise
Many positives have been said about this computer and I agree it has many positives, BUT a big negative can bring its whole appeal down: the fan is tooo noisy and it is operating most of the time even when set to "Level 1 (quiet)". Stores are very noisy and thus you cannot detect the noise then, but wait until you are at home or the office and then the noise will drive you nuts. I have owned laptops from Gateway (3), HP (4), Dell and Apple and I had never experienced levels of noise that even get close to this VAIO.
6 GREAT LAPTOP
I'm a college student and I've been using this laptop since the beginning of this semster and its just great. Its fast. The keyboard size is perfect. The WiFi wireless is a great plus and gets connection pretty much everywhere. The screen is really clear and I haven't had problems with glare. Plus, I always get comments from friends about how pretty the laptop is. Its a great laptop.
7 Gotta love it!
I got my VAIO s260 stolen, so I ended up buying the s360 as a replacement because I liked this series so much. The only differnece I can see is the 80Gig upgrade, which is more than enough. I love the design for this laptop. The keyboards are perfect size, and is light enough for me to carry to class everyday without breaking my shoulder. It goes great with the Roadwired Advanced case.
8 The Best Laptop Ever!!!!
The video card, harddrive, mobile tech, speed, weight/size, battery life, and so much more make this the ultimate laptop. God bless Sony for creating such a perfect laptop.
9 Great Notebook
I recently bought this notebook 1 month prior and absolutely love it. There are no dead pixels and the screen is great for movies. So far I haven't been bothered by any glare from the screen. The notebook is very light and portable. The screen can seem a little small especially compared with a nonwide screen 14 or 15 inch laptop but it is very sharp and you get used to it. There are no other notebooks in its weight and size class with the ATI 9700 video card which will let you play most of the recent games. Even if you don't play games, subcompact notebooks that use the old Intel integrated graphics won't be able to use the future version of windows as it will require direct x support. The new Intel 900 graphics card does but is not as fast as the ATI 9700. Battery life is great depending on the settings. Routing surfing will give you around 4-5 hours depending on the screen, volume, wifi, and processor settings. The other 15inch screen thin and light notebooks feel heavy afterwhile especially with all the accessories. Some people have had fan noise issues but I don't notice it, it may be per system.
Cons- All the software is preinstalled which is useless. There is no windows OS cd, you can make a set of windows recovery cds from a hidden partition on the harddrive which will reinstall the system to its factory state. There is no S-video out. Only 2 USB ports. The harddrive is not an easy upgrade but some people may notice a difference going from a 4200rpm to a 7200 rpm drive but I didn't notice much. Also to use Page up and down you need to use the FN key which is a little annoying for fast scrolling. It's possible to upgrade the CPU and harddrive but I'm not sure how the heat will affect the system in this small form factor. Also this baby uses the sony memory slot which very few people use. An SD slot would be more useful. You can see dust accumulate on the screen easily. sony support is also poorly rated though I haven't used it. It also uses micro dimms which are expensive. 512 mbs will run you around 120 dollars.
If you get this system-These are some things you must do and have.
1-Make a recovery set of CDs and buy windows xp to do a clean install which you cant with the recovery cds. Windows home is fine unless you are going to use this for a university or corporate network. All the drivers can be installed with the recovery cd without installing all the other crappy applications that was included.
2-Downloading tune xp to optimize windows. Also check out black viper's web site(you can google it) to disable certain windows xp services that slow down memory. Delete unused fonts to make windows load faster.
3-Get an optical mouse. The two best are the microsoft notebook optical mouse and the Logitech V500 Cordless Notebook Mouse USB
4-The belkin LCD cleaning kit which contains a 2 sided brush, 1 for dust and the other for applying the isopropyl alcohol solution to clean the screen.
5-At least 1 gig of memory.
6-Open office which is a freeware office utility sweet which is smaller then ms office and has most of the essential features. Version 2 is still in beta but is about to be released which has improved functions. Only con is powerpoint is not as beefier as microsofts.
7-DVD shrink, which lets you store dvds on the harddrive to save battery
8-antivirus
9-adaware, spybot, spywareblaster, post it notes lite
With the 250 rebate, this baby is worth it. Fujitsu is another alternative with a great screen as well but their small notebooks don't have the good video card. You probably don't need this much power if you are just going to do internet, word processing, or powerpoint but dont skimp on screen quality as you will regret it.
