Chadi

I'm looking for a powerful 13.3" or 15.4" laptop. I'm mainly looking at Sony Vaio because I have one now, its sleek design is the nicest out there.

Questions:

1.

What's faster, Sony's nearly 1.2GB hybrid Nvidia/Intel shared video memory or Nvidia 512MB dedicated video? I'll be doing a lot of multimedia / gaming.

Sony VGN-SZ670N 13.3" (Nvidia 831MB shared / Intel 358MB shared)
Sony VGN-FZ190N5 15.4" (NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GT 895MB total).
newegg.com shows the 15.4" model as 895MB total, yet Nvidia's site shows 512MB total. Is this hybrid / dedicated?

2.

Is there a way to trick the max resolution to something higher? I do not know why, but Sony's laptops only go to 1280x800 max. I'd like something higher than that.

3.

Anyone know about over clocking Intel laptop chips? :)

I'll be running Vista Ultimate w/ Media Center, 4GB memory.

TheMatt

1. It depends on what GPU the 381 MB chip is. When using the nVidia chip the Intel chip will be disabled. Either GPU however will not be able to use 512 MB of RAM because of the limited memory bandwidth.

2. You can't make the display a higher resolution without ordering a screen with a higher resolution. I think this trick you are thinking of is on CRTs which can have a higher resolution than the computer usually comes set at.

3. Because of the incompatibility with the 945PM/GM chipset, overclocking has largely been unsuccessful, however, the 965PM/GM shows more promise. I haven't had any experience with overclocking this chipset however so I can't say for sure how it would turn out.

If you want, I can look for some more laptops. Sony laptops sometimes have higher quality parts, but they are a real pain to service. While you may not be servicing them, things like upgrading the RAM or replacing the hard disk can be more difficult because (for example) you have to go under the keyboard to get at the hard disk and one stick of RAM on some models.