What Is I Cloud

iCloud is network-based Web Operating System and collaborative environment designed to be intuitive, easy to use and fast to learn..

I Cloud

iCloud employs the latest RIA (Rich Internet Applications) technologies like JQuery, AJAX, GWT, JSON etc to deliver its rich and highly intuitive interface.

Now In Cloud World

Being able to work from everywhere, regardless of whether or not you are using a full-featured, modern computer, a mobile gadget, or a completely obsolete PC.

Sharing resources

Sharing resources easily between different work centers at company, or working from different places and countries on the same projects.

privilege of personalizing

In Today's world, every person enjoys the privilege of personalizing almost everything around him. With the advent of the Internet and technology all that is capable of us to personalize our own Desktop and Laptops.

Wednesday 22 June 2011

10 Gmail gadgets to try


There is a powerful but little known Gmail feature that lives in Labs called “Add any gadget by URL.” Once you turn it on, you can add iGoogle gadgets (or any gadget specified by an .xml file) to the side of your Gmail account. While most of these gadgets are built by third-parties and not owned or maintained by Google, they can be super handy.

To install any of these gadgets, follow those steps:
1) From your Gmail account, go to the Labs tab of Gmail Settings.
2) Look for the Lab “Add any gadget by URL.” Enable it, then click “Save changes.”
3) Go to the new “Gadgets” tab under “Settings” and add the relevant .xml address.

Here’s a list of a ten I’ve found worth trying out:

Wikipedia
Look for a specific query right from Gmail.
http://www.google.com/ig/modules/wikipedia.xml


Google Calculator
Make some quick calculations while typing an email.
http://calebegg.com/calc.xml


Note
Add a sticky note to the corner of your Gmail account.
http://www.google.com/ig/modules/sticky.xml


Remember the Milk
If you’re a fan of this task management system, accessing all your “Remember the milk” notes from right within Gmail can be super handy.
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/modules/gmail/rtm.xml


PolyClock
Gives you the time of day for any place in the world.
http://gad.getpla.net/poly/clock.xml


Currency Converter
A real time currency converter.
http://helloworld123---.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/currency-converter.xml


bit.ly URL shortener
Lets you shorten URLs in a single click.
http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/107368512201818821991/bitly-shortener.xml


Chuck Norris fact generator
Displays a different “Chuck Norris fact” every day of the year. http://marsupialmusic.net/stu/scripts/chucknorris.xml


Finally, you might be familiar with the last two gadgets, since they are also available as individual Gmail Labs:

Google Calendar
Displays your Google Calendar agenda right from Gmail.
http://www.google.com/ig/modules/calendar.xml


Google Docs
Gives you quick access to your most recent documents.
www.google.com/ig/modules/docs.xml


You can find lots of other gadgets optimized for iGoogle on this page, and many of them work well in Gmail, too.

Monday 20 June 2011

Flexible Crowd Notebook To Fit Any Application or Intended Use

The Crowd was designed in Germany by Philipp Schaake. It has won the second place under the LIFEBOOK category for Fujitsu Design Award 2011. It features a range of special usage technique together with a slate pattern, notebook design, and also a configuration where the display screen and keyboard are detached. This design plan provides a notebook which can be flexibly driven to fit several application or desired usage. With a stress on the notebook’s rear cover, the most important feature is that the PC is even capable of operating when closed. The design can to adapt to a number of usage set-up from the LIFEBOOK kind for notebook PCs to be introduced in 2013.

Crowd Notebook
Crowd Notebook

Top 8 Smartphones

There are just four carriers, but the number of smartphone options climbs into the dozens–and the market is constantly growing. Want to know which device is the best right now? Here are our top picks–two for each carrier– that will deliver the most bang for your buck.

1.Apple iPhone 4 (AT&T)

 Apple’s latest smart phone raises the bar for displays, camera quality, and two-way video chat in a remarkably slim and sexy design.
 Read The Review

2.Motorola Atrix 4G (AT&T)

This Tegra 2-powered Android smart phone and its innovative dock make it possible to leave the laptop at home.
Read The Review

3.Apple iPhone 4 (Verizon Wireless)

 Apple's best-in-class design and superior apps paired with Verizon's strong 3G network make for a stellar combination.
Read The Review


4.Samsung Charge (Verizon Wireless)

 The Samsung Droid Charge boasts a gorgeous display, blazing 4G speeds, and longer battery life than the Thunderbolt.
Read The Review

 5.Samsung Nexus S 4G (Samsung)

The Samsung Nexus S 4G brings an unadulterated Android experience to Sprint along with fast data speeds and Google Voice integration.
Read The Review

6.HTC EVO 3D (Sprint)

The glasses-free 3D screen is nifty, but it's the EVO 3D's dual-core performance, smart Sense software, and impressive 4G speeds that make it a winner.
Read The Review

7.HTC Sensation 4G (T-Mobile)

With an excellent design, dual-core power, and long battery life, the HTC Sensation 4G is an excellent T-Mobile superphone.
Read The Review

8.T-Mobile G2x (T-Mobile)

 As T-Mobile's first dual-core superphone, the G2x is blazingly fast and delivers pure Android
Read The Review
goodness.

 

 

 

 

LAPTOP Reloaded

ASUS Lamborghini VX7 Review

Inspired by Italian sports cars, the ASUS Lamborghini VX7 looks good on the outside and has plenty of muscle under the hood.

by Michael A. Prospero on June 15, 2011
3 star rating    Lowest Price: $2,269.97Shop
When you've got a high-performance notebook, why not make it look like a high-performance car? The ASUS Automobili Lamborghini VX7 takes all the internal components of its G53SW gaming notebook--an Intel Core i7 CPU, Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M graphics, and a full HD display--and wraps them with a chassis inspired by Lamborghini's sexy, angular automotive designs. For the premium price of $2,269, you also get 16GB of RAM and a Blu-ray writer for watching HD flicks on the 1080p display. Does this machine live up to the Lamborghini name?

Design

Che bella! That's all we had to say when we first saw the VX7. While the wedge shape of the notebook is not all that far removed from the ASUS G53SW, the lid and rear have been modified to resemble the Lamborghini Murcielago rather than a F117 stealth fighter (as with the G53SW). Instead of a soft-touch matte black lid, the VX7 has a glossy black finish with the Lamborghini logo in the center. As with the car, you'll want to keep a polishing rag handy to maintain the VX7's pristine look. You can also get the lid in orange; given the flashiness of the notebook, we'd choose that option.
Around the back, ASUS has augmented the vents with clear red plastic slots that resemble the taillights on a Lamborghini; it would be far cooler if they were also backlit. The deck of the VX7 has its own styling, too. We love the black leather palm rests, complete with elegant stitching. They not only look fantastic, but are also very comfortable to rest your wrists on.
ASUS Lamborghini Vx7 back view
Other automotive touches include a dark chrome plastic lining around the touchpad and "automobili Lamborghini" written above the keyboard. Even the Power button says "Start Engine." When you turn on the notebook, instead of the generic Windows startup sound, you hear a car revving its engine.
Measuring 15.8 x 12.2 x 1.4-2.2 inches, the VX7 is slightly larger than the G53SW, and, at 8.4 pounds, is 3.2 ounces heavier. Even with the black Lamborghini-accented messenger bag that comes with the VX7, you still wouldn't want to carry it around for long.

Heat

After streaming a Hulu video for 15 minutes at full screen, the Lamborghini VX7 remained cool: The touchpad registered 80 degrees, the space between the G and H keys was 88, and the middle of the underside was 90 degrees. The vents at the rear of the VX7 really do the trick.

Keyboard and Touchpad

ASUS Lamborghini Vx7 keyboard and touchpad
ASUS Lamborghini Vx7 backlit keyboardJust like the G53, the VX7 has an island-style keyboard that's backlit and comfortable to type on, but it could be better. The keys themselves are nicely spaced and have good travel and feedback, but the right Shift key is undersized, and the number pad and arrow keys are smaller than they have to be. Also, we noticed a bit of flex, similar to the G53.
The 2.75 x 1.75 Synaptics touchpad on the VX7 felt slightly small for a notebook of this size (it's the same size as on the G53), and its mirrored surface had a slight amount of friction, but we were able to execute multitouch gestures easily. The trapezoidal, chromed mouse buttons below were large, and provided snappy feedback.

ASUS Lamborghini Vx7 full viewDisplay and Audio

With a resolution of 1920 x 1080, the Lamborghini VX7's 15.6-inch glossy display provided bright and crisp visuals. We could pick out individual leaves while playing World of Tanks and individual strands of hair when watching the 1080p trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. However, we did notice a bit of noise in the darker areas of the screen, and colors did appear muted at times.
We liked that we could automatically change the color temperature by pressing the middle button on the upper-left of the deck. However, viewing angles were somewhat limited; images started to reverse at 45 degrees on either side.
The small speakers in the top middle of the VX7's deck produced loud but tinny sound. Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days" and Kanye West's "All Falls Down" had almost no bass. Even when we were playing games, explosions didn't have the chest-thumping boom we were looking for. The THX Trustudio audio manager did little to help.

Ports and Webcam

The left side of the VX7 has a tray-loading Blu-ray drive and two USB 2.0 ports. The right side houses HDMI, one USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 port, Ethernet, and headphone and mic ports.
ASUS Lamborghini Vx7 Front Port View
ASUS Lamborghini Vx7 back view
ASUS Lamborghini Vx7 Side View
ASUS Lamborghini Vx7 side view
The 2-megapixel webcam on the VX7 can take photos at up to 1600 x 1200 pixels and capture video up to 640 x 480. While a little on the grainy side, the webcam picked up details such as the stripes in our shirt as well as a bright orange cup sitting on the desk behind us. Using ASUS' LifeFrame utility, we were able to make fine adjustments to the picture quality, including brightness and contrast, and could even add fun effects, such as a virtual pair of sunglasses or a black eye.
ASUS Lamborghini Vx7 Webcam Screenshot

Future Disk Drives

A Preview of Future Disk Drives

A prototype disk drive based on phase-change memory can outperform an off-the-shelf flash hard disk .

A new type of data storage technology, called phase-change memory, has proven capable of writing some types of data faster than conventional flash based storage. The tests used a hard drive based on prototype phase-change memory chips.
Disks based on solid-state, flash memory chips are increasingly used in computers and servers because they perform faster than conventional magnetic hard drives. The performance of the experimental phase-change disk drive, created by researchers at University of California San Diego, suggests that it won't be long before that technology is able to give computing devices another speed boost.
The prototype created by the researchers is the first to publically benchmark the performance of a phase-change memory chips working in a disk drive. Several semiconductor companies are working on phase-change chips, but they have not released information about storage devices built with them.
"Phase-change chips are not quite ready for prime time, but if the technology continues to develop, this is what [solid state drives] will look like in the next few years," says Steve Swanson, who built the prototype, known as Onyx, with colleagues. It had a data capacity of eight gigabytes and went head-to-head with what Swanson calls a "high-end" 80 GB flash drive made for use in servers.
When it came to writing small chunks of data on the order of kilobytes in size, Onyx was between 70 percent and 120 percent faster than the commercial drive. At the same time, the prototype placed significantly less computational load on the processor of the computer using it. It was also much faster at reading data than the flash drive when accessing blocks of data of any size. The kind of large volume, small read and write patterns that Onyx excelled at are a hallmark of the type of calculations involved in analyzing social networks like those of Twitter, says Swanson. However, Onyx was much slower at writing larger chunks of data than its commercially established competitor
Onyx was built using prototype phase-change chips made by Micron, a company working to commercialize the technology. The chips store data in a a type of glass, using small bursts of heat to switch sections of the material between two different states, or phases, that represent digital 1s and 0s. In one phase, the atoms of the glass are arranged in an ordered crystal lattice, in the other they have an amorphous, disorganized arrangement.
Onyx's performance springs from the much simpler process of writing data to a phase-change chip compared to a flash chip, which stores data as islands of electric charge on chunks of semiconductor, says Swanson. Flash chips cannot rewrite single bits of information—1s or 0s—on demand. Instead they have to erase data in "pages" of a fixed size and then go back to program in the desired data. That  limits the technology's speed. "It requires a flash memory device to have software keep a little log as it goes along of which data is correct," says Swanson. "With phase-change memory you can just arbitrarily rewrite what you need."
Sudhanva Gurumurthi, who researches computer architecture at Virginia Tech, says the San Diego project is a valuable demonstration of the true capabilities of phase-change memory chips. "Much research has simulated how they would perform, but this gives insights into complexities a simulation can't capture," he says. But it will be the price of the technology that will determine when it becomes a competitive technology, says Gurumurthi.
Gurumurthi's research suggests that using phase-change memory in combination with flash memory could see the new technology reach the market earlier than the day it is cheap enough to be used in dedicated drives. Simulations showed that adding a small buffer of phase-change memory to a flash-based drive could simplify the process of writing small chunks of data, the kind of operation where flash performs least well. "We found it significantly improves performance," says Gurumurthi. "That might be enough to offset the cost of adding a small amount of phase-change memory."

Fast access: This prototype hard drive made using phase-change memory chips can read some data faster than a commercial flash hard disk.
Credit: UCSD



Web Pages Load Instantly

Google Makes Web Pages Load Instantly

The Chrome browser will soon silently fetch pages as you scan search results so that they load without delay.
Need for speed: 
Google is ready to make waiting for Web pages to load a thing of the past—at least for those pages found using its search engine and the company's Chrome browser. As a user peruses the list of results returned in response to a query, the browser will fetch and load in the background the page it considers most relevant. If a person does click that result, the page will load instantaneously.
The new feature, called Instant Pages, will appear in Chrome and Google's mobile browsers in "coming weeks" but can be experienced today in the developer version of the browser, or later this week in the beta version (the Chrome browser is automatically updated). A video showing the new feature in action has been posted on YouTube.
"We all have broadband, but loading a Web page is still nothing like flipping channels on your TV," said Amit Singhal, Google's head of search ranking, when he announced the new feature today at an event in San Francisco. "We will not be happy until loading a page is as fast as flipping pages in a magazine."
A year ago, Google introduced Instant Search, which loads results live as a person types into the search box. Google studies show that by reducing the time it takes to enter a query, the feature shaves two to five seconds from most searches, said Singhal. He added that Instant Pages could shorten the process of searching for and loading a Web page by a further five seconds.
                                      
The company wanted to improve the search experience but realized that speeding up its servers would have negligible effect, Singhal explained. When Google receives a search query, it takes on average about 300 milliseconds to calculate the results and another 400 to send them back to the user's computer. However, it typically takes a person 15 seconds to decide which result to click on and a further five to load a typical Web page.
"In cases where we are confident which result you will select, we are folding the five seconds into the 15 seconds," said Singhal. When Instant Pages algorithms predict with sufficient confidence the most relevant result, they instruct the browser to start downloading and loading that page in the background right away. Users looking at the search results won't notice anything new unless they click the result that was preloaded—in which case it will appear instantly. The feature currently only preloads a single page, said Singhal, although it may include other pages in future.
Other Web browsers could also employ Instant Pages, because Google has released the necessary code for all to use. "We are opening up the code because we want other browsers to implement it—it is good for the users and for the Web," said Singhal.
Other browsers have already implemented a similar feature known as pre-fetching. This, however, downloads just the main body of a Web page, while Google's preloading technology fetches every object on a page and renders it ready for display, even running the JavaScript needed to run sophisticated Web apps, said Peter Linsley, a product manager for Google search.
As the same event, Google announced that users would soon be able to enter search queries on laptops and desktops via speech, a feature previously introduced for use on phones and tablets.
Another forthcoming feature will make it possible to drag an image into the search box instead of entering text. Google's machine-vision technology will analyze the image to find Web pages with images of the same thing. A demo of this feature showed how a decade-old holiday snap could be used to discover the name of the place in Greece where it was taken.

Xtreme 64

Optimus Technology

NVIDIA Optimus Technology
Chart
NVIDIA Optimus Technology
Like a Hybrid car seamlessly transitions from gas to electric, NVIDIA Optimus technology automatically optimizes your computing experience so you can keep working without interruptions.
  • Experience longer battery life and amazing visuals without having to manually change settings
  • Watch a HD movie, surf the web or play top 3D games knowing that you’ll get the long battery life you need and the performance you expect from NVIDIA
GREAT BATTERY LIFE AND GREAT PERFORMANCE. IT’S THAT SIMPLE.
NVIDIA® Optimus™ technology intelligently optimizes your notebook PC, providing the outstanding graphics performance you need, when you need it, all the while extending battery life for longer enjoyment.
NVIDIA Optimus Technology
Key Benefits:
  • Optimus technology is completely automatic allowing you to experience longer battery life and amazing visuals without having to manually change settings.
  • Behind the scenes and with no interference to what you’re doing, Optimus seamlessly figures out how to best optimize your notebook computing experience.
  • NVIDIA graphics you’ve come to expect, with more than 10x better performance¹ with NVIDIA® CUDA™ technology, allowing you to enjoy your applications and games without interruption or worry.
    The best notebook experience
    THE BEST NOTEBOOK EXPERIENCE
    Learn how it automatically manages battery life
    and performance to provide you with the
    best notebook experience - whether you’re
    watching HD movies, surfing the web,
    or playing top 3D games.

Friday 17 June 2011

Sony Vaio YB review

Sony Vaio YB review – affordable AMD powered Vaio, with ups&downs

Posted in Reviews, Sony by Mike . 2 Comments
I’ve always been a fan of Sony’s Vaios, a line of notebooks that can be considered a dream for every geek. However, Vaios used to be peppery priced, so only available to a bunch of lucky ones. I said used to because things changed in the last years, with Sony launching netbooks like the Vaio M and the Vaio W series.
And now there’s another one, the Sony Vaio YB, a device meant to combine the mobility of a 11.6 inch mini laptop with the power you would need for all your daily apps, multimedia and even some games.
The Vaio YB is in fact the first Sony laptop to come with AMD Fusion hardware. The new AMD mobile platform impressed so much that even Vaios now house it and the results are quite impressive.
In the rows below you’re going to find a couple of things about the Vaio YB, a laptop that has in pros and cons, like the title of this post says. You’re also going to find a pretty thorough video review and pictures, so scroll along for the details.
But first, let’s take a look at the specs on this mini notebook:
  • AMD APU with E-350 dual-core Zacate processor clocked at 1.6 GHz + AMD 6150 graphics
  • 2 GB of memory (upgradeable to 4 GB)
  • 320 GB hard-drive
  • Bluetooth 2.1, Wireless N
  • 11.6 inch 1366 x 768 px glossy display
  • chiclet keyboard, cramped trackpad
  • small 39Wh 3500 mAh battery
  • measures 202.8 x 25 x 290 mm (11.4 x 8 x 1.25 inches) and weighs 1.46 Kg (3.2 pounds)
  • Windows 7 Home Premium OS
And now that we know what to expect from the Vaio YB, let’s jump into details.
Sony Vaio YB - 11.6 inch laptop with AMD Fusion hardware
Sony Vaio YB - 11.6 inch laptop with AMD Fusion hardware

The video review

Those of you not really interested in all the buggers, please check out the video review. More details however will be available in the written post you’ll find below.


Exterior, design, build quality

Being a Vaio, you would expect the best from the YB in terms of exterior and construction. And it’s not bad, but not that good as I personally hoped. This mini laptop is covered in a matte plastic casing which is actually quite prone to scratching (managed to scratch the lid badly in the few days I was playing with it). Of course, the fact that this plastic is matte is a plus, but feels overall quite cheap for a Vaio and it even squeaks when grabbing it firmly.
Still, don’t get me wrong, the quality is high, just not as high as on previous Vaios I’ve got my hands on. And of course, we do have to keep in mind that this is a budget laptop and that’s probably why Sony had to go with this kind of plastic for the exterior.
matte plastic used for the casing, but prone to scratches
Matte plastic used for the casing, but prone to scratches
Design and overall line of the YB is similar to most other Vaios on the market right now, with the rounded hinge and Vaio branded hood, as you can see in the pics here in the post. So not much to add there, the YB is as stylish as a Vaio can be.
And we also have to point out that this notebook is lighter than other AMD powered 11.6 inchers on the market right now, weighing only 3.2 pounds (but that’s mainly because of the smaller battery included, as you’ll see further down).

Ports and connectivity

There’s pretty much all you’d need on this one in terms of ports, including video output (VGA, HDMI), 3 USB slots (only 2.0), SD and Memory Duo card readers, LAN, Wireless N and Bluetooth 2.1 . There’s even a Kensignton lock and overall ports placement is good, although those 2 USBs on the right side are kind of close together and may be difficult to use at the same time.
The pictures below should tell you more about ports layout on the YB.
Front: Card readers, Wireless switch and Status LEDS
Front: Card readers, Wireless switch and Status LEDS
Right:
Right: headphone, mic, 2x USBs, Kensington Lock, LAN adapter and Power button
Left:
Left: PSU, VGA, HDMI, cooling vents and one USB slot
Back: battery and hinges
Back: battery and hinges
Bottom: easy access to battery, memory and hard-drive
Bottom: easy access to battery, memory and hard-drive
With the back cover opened: access to HDD and the two memory slots
With the back cover opened: access to HDD and the two memory slots

Keyboard and trackpad

There’s an island type keyboard on the YB, similar to what we saw on previous 13.3 and 15.6 inch Vaios. However, keys are just too small (and some of them are greatly undersized, like the right Shift and the arrows keys) and flat, so typing feels somewhat uncomfortable, although they are properly spaced. Plus, they are a tad noisy, especially that hefty big Space key. So not bad, but definitely there’s room for improvements, especially if you consider that most 11.6 inch laptops have bigger keyboards and the one on this machine seems like borrowed from 10 inch netbooks.
Cramped keyboard and trackpad
Cramped keyboard and trackpad
Trackpad is unfortunately even worse. Sony’s design leaves a lot of room on top of the keyboard and almost none below, so the trackpad is cramped. It does come with individual right/left click buttons and supports multi-touch gestures,  which is something we appreciate, but there’s simply not enough space to actually make this touchpad comfortable to use daily.

Display

Not much to say about the display, there’s a standard 11.6 inch LED backlit screen on this one, with 1366 x 768 px resolution and a glossy finish. Color quality is great and images are nice and crisp, but viewing angles are not that good, although well within the limits of this class and comparable to what competition actually offers.

Performances

This is probably the aspect most of you were looking for in this review: how does the Vaio YB with an AMD Zacate APU inside actually perform? For me, this is the first laptop on the new AMD config I get to test and was expecting to be somewhat similar to the Asus 1215N with dual-core ATOM and ION in terms of performances. But it’s actually even better.
Windows runs smooth even with Aero ON all the time and the little thing can multitask. Just don’t throw too much at it, this is still a low power configuration.
In terms of graphics, it impresses even more. 1080P multimedia content runs very well, both self stored or streamed (Flash clips from Youtube). Streaming services like Hulu or Netflix run great as well.
As for gaming, I do have to say I’ve tried Fifa 11 and COW Modern Warfare 2 on this one and managed to play them smoothly, on native resolution (1366 x 768 px), although with details set towards minimum. Still, this is better than I could get on the 1215N and don’t forget these are recent games, older titles like WOW, Counter Strike or Starcraft should run even better.
So the YB with AMD inside is for sure a compact multimedia companion, as it can run all kind of video content (and outut it via HDMI as well) and modern games as well, with details dimmed down.
I’ve also ran a couple of benchmarks and you can find the results below.
Cinebench 11.5
Cinebench 11.5
3DMark Vantage Entry
3DMark Vantage Entry
PC Mark Vantage
PC Mark Vantage
All in all, don’t think this is a power horse, not at all. But AMD’s platform really managed to bring the amount of CPU and graphic power most of us would need on a standard compact laptop in this class, all these while keeping power consumption and prices down. So Kudos for them for that, this is something we’ve been expecting in a while.

Battery Life

One of the main reasons people buy a mini laptop is portability and you really can’t get that one without proper battery life. And here’s where the YB really fails badly.
Because Sony only installed a 3 Cell 39 Wh 3500 mAh battery on this notebook, you will get only up to 4-5 hours of life tops. And actually less during everyday use. I managed to score:
  • nearly 5 hours while typing with Wi-Fi OFF and screen dimmed to wards 40%, with no music playing in the background
  • around 4 hours on everyday use basics, typing, chatting, listening to some music, watching some clips, with Wi-Fi ON and Screen at around 50%
  • around 3 hours while playing a 720p HD clip with Wi-Fi OFF and screen at 80%, using the speakers
And that’s not bad, but other 11.6 inch laptops can do a lot better. Even my 1825PT Acer tablet is at least 25% superior and other AMD Fusion powered notebooks outbeat it even  more.
So the problem is actually the size of the battery like I said, just too small for what this one would need. Not to mention that it takes forever to load, like on all Vaios launched in the last years.

Audio, noise, heat and others

Can’t say audio quality is impressive on this one, but can’t say the speakers are too bad also.
The EyeSight webcam placed on top of the screen is decent as well, even in low light conditions, but once gain, nothing impressive.
During everyday use, the Vaio runs fairly silent and cool, although the fan does kick from time to time and HDD’s cranks are easily noticeable when using it in a silent room, during the night. The good part is that not much changes when playing a game or running an HD clip, except for the fan running most of the time, but you won’t notice it at all cause there’s the sound from the game/movie covering it anyway.

Price and availability

As I said from starters, the Sony Vaio YB is one of the most affordable Vaios on the market. This config we have here goes for $550 in the States and around 500 euros across the pond, so that’s for sure a competitive price.
It is already available in most online and offline shops and can be found in a couple of different color options or can be upgraded with extras (like more memory, matching accessories or even SSD storage). You can find it discounted on Amazon, at $509 and you also get the upgraded version with 500 GB HDD and 4 GB of memory for only 50 bucks extra.
One of the best priced Vaios on the market
One of the best priced Vaios on the market

Bottoms up

If you want a Sony Vaio for your everyday tasks and some multimedia use, this is the one for you, especially if you are on a budget and crave for a light and compact laptop.
However, if you’re looking for the best 11.6 inch device around 500-600 bucks, I’m afraid this is not the one, as other notebooks manage to outperform it in terms of finishing quality, ergonomics (keyboard and trackpad) and especially battery life. And I’m talking about both devices with AMD Fusion under the hood, like the HP Pavilion DM1z and the Lenovo ThinkPad X120e, but also devices powered by Intel ULV hardware (see the list of best 11.6 inch mini laptops for details).
Vaio YB is overall a fair option, just not the best
Vaio YB is overall a fair option, just not the best
All in all though, the Sony Vaio YB ain’t bad for sure. But it just lacks the details to be the perfect choice, unless of course you really want that to-die-for Vaio Logo on the hood of you compact notebook…

 
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