…using a Sony Vaio S Series with the extended battery

7:45AM-Bummer. My alarm goes off and I have this saying stuck in my head: I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now I have gum in my head. I knew it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Yah, my Mom used to read that book to me when I was a kid. I can’t help remembering it when I wake up with dread (I have a final today).

8:00AM-After hitting the snooze and getting an extra ten minutes, I roll out of bed and switch on my laptop. It boots up in seconds (one of the things I love about it) and I’m on Facebook, Twitter and into my email before I hit the bathroom. I leave it on and hit the shower.

8:30AM-Taking a quick look at Evernote, it’s time to power down and head over to Starbucks for a short meeting with my group to work on our final presentation in Marketing Communications. As much as I dread going to school in the summer, I love the fact that a) I get a class out of the way while I’m at home for the summer, b) it flies by, and c) it costs a heck of a lot less than my regular classes at Texas A&M. Anyway, after everyone arrives, we pull up the notes for our presentation and look online at the schedule, noticing we are slated to go 1^st  (I hate being first). Since John can’t make the meeting at Starbucks, we use the camera on my laptop and video chat with him regarding some last minute changes in the presentation.

10:30AM– Heading over to the campus library for some study time and a quick review of my notes for the afternoon presentation. I also need to work on the Powerpoint presentation giving it a little spit and polish before we go live. I’m going to turn off the wifi while I’m working and switch the laptop to speed to tweak some graphics and video for the presentation.

12:00PM– Grabbing some lunch before the big presentation at a local deli/coffeehouse. I decided to take my laptop in and use the free wifi to check my email, social media and stream some audio from my favorite radio station online to relax before the stressful afternoon (using my headphones, of course). I switched the laptop wifi back on and changed the performance switch to stamina. Even though I did some heavy duty graphic editing in Photoshop and video editing using Adobe Premiere, I still have plenty of battery life left to use the laptop in class when we give our final presentation. I love the fact that I don’t need to drag the power cord around with me and the laptop is lighter than a textbook, even with the added battery pack. I also noticed that the laptop has a hard drive protection utility that protects the hard drive from damage when it’s moved or shaken. Cool!

1:30PM-Back to campus for my 3:00 Marketing Communications final. Our group is meeting in the library to use a conference room for one final run through. Powerpoint performs seamlessly on the laptop and our slides, along with the video, are awesome. We’re hoping for an A on this project, especially since it’s 40% of our grade. After polishing our presentation and having this amazing laptop to use, I know we’ll hit it out of the ballpark!

2:45PM-Shutting the laptop down to walk over to our classroom and set things up for the presentation.

3:30PM-Our presentation is over and we nailed it. Having this laptop was a godsend (thanks Suzanne!). Everything went smoothly and the added practice time and flexibility of having the laptop helped us to ace this final assignment. I should pay attention to the other presentations, but I decided to log on to Facebook and announce our success!

6:00-Class is over and I have to say our presentation was so much better than all the others. I know the prep time we spent beforehand had a lot to do with it. It’s time to do some celebrating and spend the evening with friends. We’re all pretty stoked about the fact that a) we’re done and b) we nailed the presentation. And imagine this, I still have almost 50% of my battery left!

Since I have the laptop for the rest of the week, I’m going to put it through some serious gaming paces and do some more video editing of my recent sailboarding sessions. My old laptop is slow and bulky so I was happy to get a chance for a “hands on” test drive. Not having to worry about running out of power is a huge plus! Maybe I’ll treat myself to a new Sony Vaio laptop before heading back to A&M—something that’s not only needed but well-deserved after my hard work in class and at my summer internship.

Thanks Suzanne for the test drive AND thanks Sony for such a great product!

(Thanks Ryan for giving us an inside look at your day and taking the laptop through some college student paces!)

Buy a Sony Vaio S Series laptop BEFORE September 17, 2011 and get the sheet battery for extended battery life for only $75 (half off the regular price of $150).

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This post is part of program called “Charged and Ready” by Sony Electronics and Microsoft, where a group of college bloggers have been given a Sony VAIO-S series laptop to test and review.