CF-F9 Any opinions?

I have recently purchased a Toughbook W8 and basically like it.

There are a couple of things that really bug me though:

- Lousy WLAN performance, much worse than with my 7 year old Centrino based notebook
- Limited viewing angle on screen
- No built in microphone (seems normal for Toughbooks)
- Fan does kick in quite often even though there is a ultra low voltage processor (SU 9300) --> found part of the culprit already, the wireless lan card seems to produce quite some additional heat in the case

What I really like on the W8 is the very good keyboard (even though the layout is kind of weird but you get used to it after a day) and the fact that it is really light. In addition, I get easily 7-9 hours of battery life with the screen brightness not even close to the darkest setting!

I stumbled over the specs for the CF-F9 and was wondering whether anyone here in the forum owns one? I would be interested in the fan noise and heat emissions under low CPU and high CPU load conditions. In general if there is a good review of the F9 I would appreciate if someone could post his experiences or links to a review.

I have already tried to find out how to control the fans myself on the W8 but the ACPI disassembly is not that easy to understand as on other notebooks.

Marc

 

i have tested them and messed around with it and man i have to say i actually love it. its nice, quiet, fast, and light to. 2 thumbs up from me. i know the w 8 and it isnt that bad but compare to the F9 oo man F9 will blow it out.

 

Not sure about the fans, but personally I prefer the F9 keyboard - it's that bit bigger which makes it a lot easier to type on.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

I had been playing around with a CF-Y7 which had a low voltage processor (L7800) but the fan was very annoying on that unit when under load. In addition it was constantly on during low load on a low but still noticable speed.

Since the CF-F9 does not have a low voltage processor (for instance one of the UM versions) I fear that the fan could be even louder.

If anyone has more details (for instance about the WLAN performance) please let me know.

 

Sorry I know this thread is old, but just wondering if you eventually got a F9? And if you did, how is the fan noise?

I also own a W8 and feel like the fan is quite loud ...

 

For the money I would go with an F8...it's kinda like the difference between blinking your eye fast and blinking it slow as far as everyday use is concerned and you can get one alot cheaper than an F9. I have had one of each and they are both VERY NICE machines!

 

I have an 18 month old baby...what's a quite room sound like? No actually the machine was very quiet.

 

I`m interested in the "not so popular" S/F/B-series as well, currently favoring the B10 (nice display).
This might be a stupid question, but it`s really hard to tell from images:

Is the F8/9/10 completely made from magnesium? Especially the handle design and front?

How would you describe the display quality (many 14.1" panels have lousy black levels) and what is the typical runtime with WLAN?