PCG-FX

PCG-FX220 booted to the Windows 2000 desktop

PCG-FX

Overview

The Sony VAIO PCG-FX is a series of mid to high-end notebooks manufactured by Sony between February 2001 and November 2002.

Evolution of the PCG-F, they were some of the best models of the 2001-2002 VAIO lineup.

They were offered in a 14.1" or 15" form factor, both having XGA TFT displays.

Made mostly of brushed aluminum and plastic, in grey and light blue, they were acclaimed upon their release because of their style, portability and build quality.

Product tour from Sony website of the PCG-FX 2001 lineup

On the other hand, many reviewers complained because of the difficulty in accessing the internal parts, especially the hard drive. Less-experienced users were obliged to send the notebook back to the vendor in order to change or swap parts.

They had some of the most powerful CPUs and GPUs of the market, that made them true replacements to a desktop, keeping them in the same category of the predecessor PCG-F. They were shipped with many audio and video editing programs, like Adobe Premiere and Sonic Foundry Sound Forge, and also some photo editing applications like Adobe Photoshop Elements.

The battery quality and duration were very good for the time, and they supported also dual-battery operation for an even better battery life.

They were made for two years, the main difference between those was that the 2001 ones had Intel processors, while the 2002 versions had AMD ones.

Sony made many some variations of it, changing the CPUs' models and clock speed.

Detailed Specs

Processor: Celeron 600MHz, Pentium III 900 MHz, 1GHz (2001 versions); AMD Duron 800MHz, AMD Athlon 4 1GHz, AMD Athlon XP 1400+ 1.4GHz, 1500+ 1.5GHz (2002 versions)

Graphics: Intel 815EM with up to 11 MB SDRAM (2001 versions); ATI 3D RAGE Mobility-M1 8 MB SDRAM (2002 versions)

RAM: 32 or 64 MB (expandable respectively to 160 MB and 192 MB, 2001 version); 128 MB SDRAM (expandable to 256 MB, 2002 version)

Display: 14.1" or 15" XGA 1024 x 768 (SXGA 1400 x 1050 for the 2002's top-range) TFT LCD screen

Storage: 2.5" Ultra ATA/66 (IDE)

Battery: Lithium-Ion with dual battery operation support

Weight: 14.1": 2.9 kg (102.2 oz / 6.3 pounds); 15": 3.4 kg (119.9 oz / 7.4 pounds)

Original OS: Windows XP Home Edition; Windows XP Professional (models with "P" suffix); Windows 2000 Professional (models with "K" suffix)

MSRP (estimation): 1400 to 2200€

Daily Usage Today

These devices, due to their specs, cannot handle web browsing or running modern programs today.

Something more can be done with the Windows XP-shipped models, for example basic web browsing, thanks to many modern programs developed for that OS.

They can be used, in all the versions, to write text (they were shipped with Microsoft Office), play old games, or to import, convert, and edit very old photo, video, or audio footages, maybe in order to convert them into a more modern format.