Official Sony NW Series Owners Thread

Hey everyone...

I've been getting ready to buy a laptop now for a month or two and have really made up my mind that it is going to be a Vaio. Needless to say I've been visiting this section every day now to learn at the knee of all you Sony owners in the know.

I have yet to really see much chatter on the NW series and was wondering what the thoughts were on it. Here is a sample one from Newegg that I'm seeing pop up from Newegg to Best Buy to Costco:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834117908

This seems like a pretty darn good machine to me. I know there are a few drawbacks and I wish sonystyle had a NW CTO, but I've been trying really hard to not go above $850 to $900 on our laptop budget. I'm really torn between the FW 490 CTO and these and am basically playing a waiting game for the price to come down just a bit more in a month or so before snagging one of them.

Have any of you gotten the NW series? Any thoughts so far? Just haven't seen much talk about it and it seems nicely positioned for what you get.

ETA: I guess could I call this the "Official VAIO NW Owner's Thread"?

 

Greetings!

Just bought one for my wife actually. Purchased from JR, we got the one with blu-ray drive for $929, minus bing cashback. Just ran the updates tonight. My initial thoughts are that the size is nice in terms of weight and thinness. Laptop seems very quiet overall, which is always a plus. Display seems nice and contrasty with good color depth. Haven't tested the battery yet, but it's rated to 4 hours. Will post more in a day or so after some more experience with the NW160.

 

I have ordered one for my partner as well, and after seeing it in the shop was surprised at the quality. If you are after a laptop for under 1g, I would put it towards the top of the list.

I will get mine in the next week, if you want me to test anything or take shots, just ask.

 

Thanks guys! Yeah, I would love to hear or see any further thoughts/opinions/tests you guys want to write in here.

Also, darkmage, I had never heard of "bing cashback". If you order through that site, do you get a certain percent back?

 

Hi Uwe,

Yep, bing cashback is the same as microsoft or live cashback. You log into your account, look up the store and shop away. For my purchase at J&R I received 5% back, which is pretty cool.

 

I think that the title should be changed to the "Official VAIO NW Owner's Thread" since I am now about to post a couple of photos of said laptop:

 

Thanks for posting those! I definitely like that laptop and will probably be buying that or an FW sometime very soon.

One quick question for you: One kind of cool thing is that quick web button that brings up a Splashtop Web Browser without having to boot the computer up. I had never heard of that until I started looking into the NW.
Do you know how does security fare on that? If you use Windows Firewal or any other Windows based firewalll I would imagine you would be unprotected using that, right? What do you use, darkmage and what do you think of that feature in action? I think that could potentially come in really handy for my wife, but I was worrying a bit about how secure it was compared to my normal "boot-up" Firefox session.

BTW, I'd change the title if I could, but definitely think there ought to be an *Official* NW Series thread. Can any Mod change the title please?

 

Bump for VeEuzUKY

 

I just bought one of these 4 hours ago! Loving it so far, the size of the screen is awesome and the laptop in general looks great. Still trying to figure out how to use vista though.

 

How about the quick web bootup thingy? Do you have any idea how that works pertaining to security/firewall/etc? I really think that could be a sweet feature for us, but I worry a bit with how secure it is.

 

I ordered one of these too and it came today but no one was home to get it...=( so I have to wait until tomorrow.
I'm very looking forward to this laptop though...I got the $999.99 config off of Sony with BluRay and Centrino 2 (all the others are just Centrino and no BluRay).

How's the heat on this? And the battery life? and is there bluetooth? Because sony doesn't list that as one of the connectivity options.

 

Hi Uwe,

Sorry that I missed your question earlier. Splashtop is a linux-based OS that is embedded in the bios/firmware and so is not susceptible in the way that the Windows OS is.

 

Ah, thanks! I'm imagining it is quite a secure web browser then, correct?

 

Yep, you should be fine buddy.

 

During normal activity, on battery and off, the machine runs quite cool and more importantly quiet! When plugged in and downloading updates like Vista Service Pack 2, the area under the right palmrest and the space close to the power adapter can get relatively warm, but nothing too uncomfortable that I've witnessed. Battery life on full charge with the Vaio optimized setting and just browsing, etc... I got a little over three hours last night while watching a ballgame. No bluetooth that I can see.

 

I bought one 3 days ago... splashtop boots completely up in 15 seconds.

Anyone who is buying one from Best Buy should be careful.... to NOT have the Geek Squad prep it. I bought the last one that my local BB had and it was pre-prepped by the Geek Squad. They didn't charge me extra for it because I didn't want it, but I discovered the hard way that they clobbered the splashtop install. I burned some recovery DVDs and reimaged the machine... all is well now.

The NW is definitely a sweet notebook. I'm impressed so far.

edit: subsequent boot ups of splashtop are now taking about 5 seconds to fully boot.

 

how is the battery life? i read a lot of reviews on best buy and they all said it was really low.

 

I got three hours last night while doing web stuff and it was set to Vaio optimized.

 

hey darkmage,

thanks for the heat update! my first laptop was a Lenovo IdeaPad Y450 and the heat was too uncomfortable for me, because I'm quite sensitive to heat and I don't like anything that gets warm. I returned that one after a week, and I hope this laptop doesn't disappoint me too (I returned the Ideapad for more reasons than just the heat, although that was the biggest reason).

 

I haven't tried any of the features, or even know about the features actually =P. I purely bought it because it was so cheap and it had everything I wanted. Plus it was the sexiest looking 15" I found apart from the MBP.

 

If heat is an issue for you then I suggest adding the bulk of your media (music, videos, photos) as soon as possible and starting Windows Media Player and VAIO MusicBox. They each have content search indexing services that scan your system to catalog media. There will also be a significant number of Vista updates as well.

Load it up and let it run for a good 24 hours with minimal usage to get the system up to date and indexed. While it was doing the updates and indexing the device did get pretty warm, but now that things have settled down (virtually no background disk activity) it runs amazingly cool and quiet.

 

has anyone did any gaming on their NW? I wanted to get one but I wasnt sure if it was good enough to handle Sims 3.

 

For Sims 3 it should be ok, since the gpu isn't that intensely used. i wouldn't expect the greatest of quality though. if you're thinking of playing any FPS games though I wouldn't recommend the NW.

 

Do any of you have keyboard covers and/or screen protectors? If so, which one do you use? I bought the silver one with a white keyboard and don't really wanna get it dirty =P

 

I just got mine a few hours ago and I'm loving it! I'm planning on installing everything right now, then migrating it all to a new 500GB hard drive and installing that one into the device. Right now that hard drive is formatting on my other computer and it is taking forever, so I'm just seeing what I can get done.

The heat isn't too bad at all - gets slightly warm but nothing to really bother me so far. The battery is only said to last about 2.5 hours which isn't that great (I have the discrete ATI graphics config)....and if it isn't good enough, well I can always order a bigger 9-cell battery later.

Keyboard is excellent - I usually make a lot of typos but on this keyboard I seem to make a lot less of them. Not sure how I feel about the trackpad - I'm glad its not glossy like some of the HP trackpads, but it's also slightly tricky to use, and they don't show you that the side and bottom areas are scroll bars.

I'll post back later with some more impressions but so far I'm quite happy with what I've got.

 

Cool dude! The NW is a sweet laptop.

 

Well I've finished installing all the new programs for the laptop (and uninstalling 20 of the bloatware crap Sony preinstalled) and I'm on the new hard drive now, so I'm just waiting to transfer all my music and videos and pictures and whatnot. And I've been trying to sort out these wireless connection problems I've been having with Vista. Updating the wireless drivers seemed to work, but I don't know if it will hold. Then again, the internet connected almost immediately after the driver update...that can't be a coincidence.

I'm still rather disappointed in the battery life, seeing that I get under 2.5 hours with this laptop when I was hoping for at least three...so maybe I will order a secondary battery. darkmage, you have the ATI graphics config right? How are you getting 3 hours from yours?

And by the way, these mouse buttons are too stiff for my liking.

 

UPDATE: Battery life

I ran a DVD rundown battery test today, under the power mode "Power Save", except modified so that the computer would never sleep and the display would never turn off. Brightness and volume were set at 100%, WiFi was disabled, and I closed down all programs in the background that might try to access WiFi or be a significant drain on battery life.

The DVD was The Phantom of the Opera, and my NW ran for 1 hour and 51 minutes before going into hibernate. I'm not terribly impressed but at the same time I'm not too disappointed or surprised. Plus, if I had been using headphones and turned down the brightness I might have been able to finish the movie (which is a rather long movie at around 2.5 hours).

I will be downloading some synthetic benchmarks this week and running them to see how this NW compares to other laptops out right now, along with a full review.

 

Looking forward to it....thanks!

 

I've running on power saver mode and that gets me right around the 3hour mark but I'm only doing web browsing and email, so it's a light work load.

 

hm that's weird because with wifi on, just doing surfing the computer only estimates 2.5 hours remaining at full charge, and it just goes down as i work. i guess i'll have to actually use the thing for 3 hours at a time i guess...which i can't really see myself doing for awhile at least.

 

UPDATE:

Review is posted!! Please take a look and tell me what you think!!

 

Well, apparently I'm bumping an old thread, but there's no "Official Owner's Thread" for the NW. I was wondering about the $650 NW model on Newegg. Not only was the price-point pretty great, but the specs also list a resolution of 1600x900. This resolution isn't listed on Sony's website, so is it a misprint or what? It's a good deal either way, though, right?

 

im looking at the same deal for my brother, input on it would be appreciated

 

If you are interested in playing games this is not the one. The drivers for the Intel 4500 GPU stink and most modern games need a dedicated GPU, get the version with the 4570 (moderate performance) or the 4650 (FW).

If no gaming is anticipated this deal is fine.

Cheers,

 

this is just for my brother for school. He's in that $500 budget range but a bit more to get this than some junker HP or Dell seems like a really good deal

 

I took the bait. The laptop will be used only for web surfing and word processing. I HATE glossy plastic, and it seems Sony is the last bastion of hope for people like me--this design for $650 makes it worth it.

 

I got the laptop today--sadly, it is the ordinary 1366x768. It looks great but came with an incredible amount of junk. In fact, it seems even more bloated than my SR was, so I really just want to install Windows 7 RC1 on it. However, I don't know how to preserve the Splashtop browser. Could anyone point me in the right direction? I couldn't see a separate partition for Splashtop, and in fact, it appeard under the list of programs to uninstall in Control Panel. How can I preserve Splashtop while doing an OS intall?

 

I have the VGN-NW130D and I'm happy with it so far. It's one of the better entry-mid range systems I think. I was initially looking for a FW but in this price range the FWs had the exact same CPU with no dedicated GPU and a slightly bigger hard drive, so I opted for the NW. It would be jolly if it had the 4650 but oh well! The keyboard is really nice and the computer is light for a 15" laptop. I wish it would idle at a lower temperature (it idles at 50 degrees celsius) but under stress it limits heat quite well maxing out at 68 degrees.

T6500 Core 2 Duo
ATI HD 4570 (512 GDDR3)
4gb Ram
320 GB hard drive
No Blu-Ray

 

Can anyone comment on the different models of the NW series and mainly the dimensions and weight?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9370129&type=product&id=1218093002019
Best Buy lists the VGN-NW150J/S for $830 but says
Product Height
1.5"
Product Width
14.2"
Product Weight
6.4 lbs.
Product Depth
10.6"

While on JR http://www.jr.com/sony/pe/SON_VGNNW150JS/
VGNNW150JS is 800 and lists specs as
Dimensions (Approx.): 14.6"(W) x 1.2"(H) x 9.8"(D)
Weight (Approx.): 6.0 lbs. (with standard capacity battery)

6.0 lbs vs 6.4lbs and a quarter inch here or there may seem small but they add up to me.

 

Anyone else experiencing a battery drain problem? After a week or so of non-use, my laptop started up with only 67% battery life. And is it just me, or is this computer kind of slow? I have the HD 4570 version by the way.

 

I think I am going to get a NW series laptop.

Anyone know a good place to buy it with some bing cashback?

I wish we can get it in 1600x1200 and at least has a bluetooth module.

 

Splashtop is not on your hard drive whatsoever. Not sure what it is you saw in Control Panel. Installing Windows 7 RC1 was the first thing I did.

You can even swap out the hard drive (I have a 500GB one installed) and Splashtop will work as per normal.

It's actually installed in a (read-only?) 512MB chip on the motherboard. You can't change it in any way.

 

Hi all - I was initially looking at a HP Pavilion or Dell Studio but the Vaoi NW series has got my attention recently - looks like a very decent spec for the price, especially with the blu-ray config. I'l looking to buy when laptops come pre-loaded with Windows 7 and the Vaio NW is a definite contender.

Any more user comments - positive and negative? Any input appreciated.

 

I just got My Sony Vaio NW yesterday. It's the $699 NW from staples and I love it. It's got style and power. I'm glad I chose this over all those other poor contenders, hahaha! Anyways, anyone who buys a NW won't be displeased.

 

man i love the design of this notebook. WIth an i7 and a better graphics card this would be my perfect laptop. the hunt continues

 

Anybody know where to find the Windows 7 drivers for the NW15G? I just installed 7 but my brightness hotkeys aren't working.

 

Does anybody know where I can find some reviews of the newer models of these notebooks, the only reviews I have found are of the older models (as far as they can be considered old). I am planning of buying the model with the blu-ray drive later this year.

 

Bought mine on the 10th of October for $1380 AUD including 2GB extra RAM, discounted extended warranty, two laptop bags. Just upgraded it to Windows 7 yesterday, ran alot better than when it ran Vista. Unfortunately I was disappointed when one week later they dropped the price by $150 AUD, and then another $100 a week right after that.

I have only one issue, which is the patch for the network adapter patching it up to version 1.4. The problem is that after I patch it, the adapter just won't connect to any wireless network at all. Anyone else have this issue?

I have another question, does anyone know how to get VAIO Recovery Centre back after you upgraded to Windows 7?

 

I bought mine (NW130) about a month ago when Buy.com had it for $749. I actually had intended to buy a Macbook 13-inch, but when I looked at the $1,000 Macbook vs the Sony I just could not spend more for it. The NW series is more like the Macbook Pro, in my opinion, especially the 130 with the added video card.

I've enjoyed it, works flawlessly. At first the Web button was soooo cool, but I have found that it's easy to just leave the laptop plugged in and run Windows, shut the top and set it aside. In the morning I reopen the like and bam, I am on.

The Slashtop app is a disappointment. There should be a way to upgrade it. If there is, I don't know it.

This weekend I created an 18G partition and installed Linux (Ubuntu 9.04) and that runs crazy fast on this machine. It also works very well, so I plan to use it a lot.

When (or if) my Windows 7 upgrade arrives, I may do a clean install since I have zero data on this laptop at this point.