19. A Hobbled, But Power-Efficient Audio Chip

A High Definition Audio chip from Realtek is built into the Sony TX series motherboards. Nevertheless, Sony's audio drivers support neither bass and treble controls, nor audio effects, even though the Realtek unit is entirely up to those tasks. Sony also elected not to provide a digital audio output, thereby making the special sound functions of this High Definition Audio chipset unusable. At least, Sony does use the energy saving functions of this chip and activates the Intel-developed Suspend feature when the mute button is pushed.

The audio driver offers no audio features, advanced or otherwise.

The two stereo speakers built into these units above the keyboard offer adequate volume for playback of a movie on the laptop, but distort easily and run hot on the treble end of the sound spectrum. The unit didn't include a built-in microphone so we had nothing to test in the sound input department.