SonyVaio E-Series VPC-EH1J1E review
The EH1's design can't hide the fact that its Pentium processor is under-powered, and it also lacks USB3 support
The Sony EH1J1E is typical of Sony’s budget laptops. Although it doesn’t come in a range of garish colours (there’s a choice of white, black and dark blue) it has an interesting texture on the lid and wrist-rest: a faceted design like the surface of a large gem. It’s the first laptop we’ve seen for a while with a Pentium processor, in this case a B940 running at 2GHz.
The Pentium is Intel’s budget range, and the B940 doesn’t look impressive on paper. Its two cores aren’t effectively doubled by Hyper-Threading, and it doesn’t support Turbo Boost for brief increases in clock speed. As a result, its score of 30 overall in our multimedia benchmarks wasn’t much of a surprise.
A score of 52 in the image-editing test shows it’s fast enough for single-threaded applications, but the scores dropped to 31 and 22 in the multi-threaded video-encoding and multi-tasking tests, so demanding applications such as HD video editors won’t run too quickly.
Graphics performance is what we’d expect at this price. The integrated Intel GMA 3150 chip can just about handle HD video content, but it wouldn’t run our Dirt 3 benchmark. You might find it runs old 3D games, but newer titles are unlikely to work.
As with many laptop screens, the EH1’s has a glossy finish that makes colours more intense but reflects light sources. If you’re not looking at the screen square on, contrast suffers due to poor vertical viewing angles, so you’ll have to position the laptop and tilt the screen carefully. Overall image quality was average: the backlight wasn’t entirely even and a bit dim.
Its 1,366×768 resolution is the norm for 15.6in screens. It can display all the detail in 720p HD content, but 1080p content will be downscaled unless you connect a suitable external screen. You have a choice of VGA or HDMI outputs for video; the latter can also output audio to AV amplifier. You’ll almost certainly want to avoid using the EH1’s built-in speakers which sound tinny and brash.
The EH1’s keyboard has Sony’s usual Chiclet-style keys, which look smart and have a light action with plenty of feedback for touch-typists. The layout is fairly standard, with a large Enter key, but the left Shift key isn’t wide enough for our liking. Sony has even shoehorned in a four-column numberpad. The touchpad has a rough surface but is responsive, and its two large buttons have a comfortably light action.
The battery lasted almost five hours in our light-use test but, in any case, the EH1 weighs 2.7kg so it’s not particularly suited to a life on the road. It’s not powerful enough to serve as a desktop replacement either, and you can buy the more powerful Packard Bell EasyNote TS11-HR-040UK for the same money without losing out in other departments. In fact, the TS11 also includes a USB3 port which the EH1 lacks, so is a wiser investment.
Basic Specifications | |
---|---|
Rating | *** |
Processor | Intel Pentium B940 |
Processor clock speed | 2GHz |
Memory | 4.00GB |
Memory slots | 2 |
Memory slots free | 1 |
Maximum memory | 8GB |
Size | 370x248x43mm |
Weight | 2.7kg |
Sound | Conexant SmartAudio HD |
Pointing device | touchpad |
Display | |
Viewable size | 15.5 in |
Native resolution | 1,366×768 |
Graphics Processor | Intel HD Graphics |
Graphics/video ports | VGA, HDMI |
Graphics Memory | 64MB |
Storage | |
Total storage capacity | 320GB |
Optical drive type | DVD+/-RW +/-DL |
Ports and Expansion | |
USB ports | 4 |
Bluetooth | yes |
Wired network ports | 1x 10/100/1000 |
Wireless networking support | 802.11b/g/n |
PC Card slots | none |
Supported memory cards | SDHC, Memory Stick Pro Duo |
Other ports | minijack audio output, minijack microphone input |
Miscellaneous | |
Carrying case | No |
Operating system | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit |
Operating system restore option | restore partition |
Software included | Microsoft Office 2010 Starter |
Optional extras | £99; |
Buying Information | |
Warranty | one year RTB |
Price | £479 |
Details | www.sony.co.uk |
Supplier | http://www.sonystyle.co.uk |