The Sony MDR-SA5000 headphone was their flagship headphone for a number of years, and fought for that title with several headphones that overlapped its release including the MDR-CD3000 (biocellulose diaphragms like the MDR-R10 legend), and the Qualia 010 (which honestly appears quite similar in design, but with some material changes, and tuning changes). It was…
Tag: IRL
IRL Review- Sony VAIO F1 Desktop Replacement Laptop
IRL Review- Sony VAIO F1 Desktop Replacement Laptop- The F1 is probably one of the most exciting laptops I have ever reviewed. Just kidding- its kind of forgettable. It falls along the long lineage of the F series, dating back to my early years in undergrad when the FS series came out and stole my…
IRL Review Sony VAIO AW Desktop Replacement Laptop
IRL Review Sony VAIO AW Desktop Replacement Laptop- The VAIO AW is a model I lusted after for some time- certainly I had always had a fascination for ultraportables far more than mainstream and desktop replacement laptops. This most likely stemmed from me absolutely hating heavy laptops – in undergrad, I spent many hours walking between…
IRL Review Sony VAIO X Ultraportable Laptop (ULTRAULTRAULTRAPORTABLE)
IRL Review VAIO X Ultraportable Laptop- Years ago while perusing Notebookreview.com and reading Laptop Mag’s advertisements from Sony, I ran across the VAIO X505. The X505 was an absolute mind blower of a machine- in a time when everything was Pentium 4 (with hyperthreading!) with HUGE heatsinks, and barely anything portable was with a dinky…
Throwback IRL Review Sony Cybershot DSC-R1 Digital Camera
IRL Review (in real life) Sony CYBERSHOT DSC-R1 camera- The R1 was released in 2005 when digital cameras were really starting to pick up speed. I was sitting in a classical Greek mythology/literature course wondering if I should drop the course/reading the syllabus that had absolutely nothing I was interested in, and perusing DPreview.com when the…
Sony SRS-X9 IRL Review
Disclaimer- my X9 is broken slightly so this review is not totally fair haha Sony SRS-X9 IRL Review (In Real Life)- Wow its been anothe long stretch since my last post….like back in 2016! So this X9 is a unit that’s been sitting on my shelf for some time. I was really into the thick of…
Sony VAIO Pro 13 IRL Review
Sony VAIO Pro 13 IRL Review- The Sony VAIO Pro 13 is Sony’s answer to the Macbook Air 13 (with a Pro 11 targeting the Pro 11). Weighing 2.3 lbs, its much smaller in weight compared to the 2.96 lb Macbook Air 13, and incredible in that 3 years later, it still holds its own against…
Sony VAIO TZ Ultraportable Laptop IRL Review
VAIO TZ IRL Review-The Sony VAIO TZ was Sony’s premiere ultraportable laptop, before the term Ultrabook came into existence. At this point in time, the netbook was all the rage- netbooks were tiny, very portable, and extremely cheap. They were also totally underpowered. They were so underpowered, that eventually, they died off, and the market…
Sony XBA-40 IRL Review
Sony XBA-40 Earphone IRL Review- The XBA40 (XBA being eXperience Balanced Armature) earphone was Sony’s flagship earphone before being succeeded by the XBA-H3 Hybrid earphone, and eventually the XBA-Z5. It succeeded the XBA-4, which itself had succeeded the MDR-EX1000. What’s the history here? Sony initially started with single dynamic driver earphones. Most companies use this-…
Nikon D90 IRL Review
Nikon D90 IRL Review– The Nikon D90 was my first major foray into a serious large sensor camera. Prior to this, I had been dreaming of a large sensor camera for years. My previous cameras were all small sensor cameras. Previously, I had been mostly with point and shoots. My enthusiast venture started with the…
Sony 18-105 F4 OSS Lens IRL review
Sony 18-105 F4 OSS Lens IRL Review- The Sony 18-105 F4 OSS is one of the cheapest G lenses available. For those who are not aware, G lenses are supposed to be Sony’s higher end line up. this is difficult to decipher how Sony breaks this line up down, because they also have their Carl Zeiss…
Sony DSC-V1 Cybershot Digital Camera IRL Retro Review
Sony DSC-V1 IRL Review- Announced in 2003, the DSC-V1 was Sony’s second from the top model (sitting under the DSC-F515/505), and a spiritual successor to the DSC-S85. The V1 was meant to be a powerful portable digital camera, vs a gigantic behemoth, like the DSC-F828 I just reviewed. Its competitors would have been the P series…
The Forever Student Blog 