With the Sony VAIO VGN-P530H (the “Sony P”), Sony continues its long and oddly proud tradition of making overpriced, underpowered, completely useless netbooks. The netbook audience has always been a tiny niche market, mainly targeting people for whom a laptop is too big and a PDA is too small. Given the Sony P’s poor design and limited functionality, it measures up poorly against its competitors (especially since it is more expensive) and is destined to end its shelf life in the bargain bin.

The first hint of potential problems occurs when one looks over the spec sheet for the VAIO VGN-P530H. It features a 1.33 GHz CPU, 2 GB of non-upgradeable RAM, and 60 gigabyte SATA hard drive, and Windows Vista. Wait Windows Vista? On a computer that only has a one-gigahertz processor and two gigabytes of RAM? Believe it or not, yes. That’s where the problems begin, and they only snowball from there.

Before we criticize this computer any further, we should take the time to address its good points. The Sony P has good portability and convenience, and its small size doesn’t interfere with typing and usability. A weight of just a pound and a half prevents fatigue while carrying it. The commercials may say it fits in a back pocket, but we can’t quite do it. We did find it carried well in a purse or briefcase, though. Plus, the outside is nice looking. It’s what’s inside that’s the problem.

The single biggest complaint customers have with the Sony P is that it is simply not powerful enough to run Windows Vista. Microsoft’s minimum system requirements for running Windows Vista is a 1 GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM-although if you want Vista to run any faster than a turtle with arthritis, you need at least 2 GB of RAM. In other words, the Sony P has barely enough power to simply run its operating system. If you try to run any other program on top of that (such as word processing), it system slows down incredibly.

The obvious solution is to remove Vista and install Windows 7 or Windows XP instead, or even to turn the Sony P into a Linux machine. However, this can be pretty difficult. After all, like most netbooks, the Sony P lacks a CD-ROM drive. Installation from a flash drive can be extremely tricky, and to make matters worse, the new video card for the Sony P (the Intel GMA 500 chipset) has no available Windows XP driver, and there are similar problems with Linux. Installing Windows 7, which does have a driver for this video card, may be possible.

The next problem is that many of the useful features of the Sony P, such as the wireless Internet connection, capable of using ethernet, wireless 802.11b/g/n, and 3G Mobile Broadband from Verizon (for a fee), need special software from Sony. Much of this software is only useful on Vista, so switching to another operating system will cost you a lot of the functionality that the Sony P has to offer. Even if you decide to stick with Vista, the OS and all the software Sony has installed take up twenty GB of the fairly small hard drive.

The video card also has another problem. It has no dedicated video memory, forcing it to use up to 760 MB of system memory to do the job instead. This wouldn’t be a problem on some computers, but the Sony P is having enough trouble just running its operating system. This machine doesn’t have enough extra memory to go around, causing flickering, skipping, and slowdowns in DVD video, and rendering streaming video (such as YouTube) completely unwatchable.

The Sony P just isn’t meant to be a primary computer. As a secondary one, portability has been made most important, making this the appropriate netbook for someone who wants a computer to do extremely simple jobs. Inventory or notetaking are going to be this computer’s best tasks. If you want to purchase a netbook for any other purpose, you’re best advised to look elsewhere for more power and lower cost.