Official Sony VAIO AW Series 18.4" Owners thread

Is it quiet? Always quiet, or on and off? Is fan noise audible in a quiet room?

 

The fan kicks on when it is being pushed hard but it is not very loud at all. It is a very soft sound/volume.

 

I just purchased a sony vaio AW-190 custom and was wondering what notebook case I can use with it. Sony's laptop case is sold out everywhere

Thanks for any advice

 

I was also wondering what notebook case could be used with the AW series laptops. The Sony Style Canada magazine shows the VGPAMB1A Universal Carrying Case as accessories for both the AW and FW series computers. Unfortunately, at the Sony Style Canada website it says: Compatible with VAIO notebooks up to 17".

Does anybody know if the VGPAMB1A universal carrying case would fit the AW series notebooks?

 

http://www.hlaska.com/17_LAPTOP_BAG?colorItem=14

I ordered this on Thursday, should be arriving today or tomorrow. In any case, I asked the store owner if it would fit my laptop. They said the measurement of the inside seam for the width is 17.1", just 0.1" shy of the 17.2" of the AW width, BUT, they said the depth and height exceed the laptop by quite a bit, and as a result, there is at least another 0.25-0.5" give for the width. I will let you guys know how it works out with it.

Also, there is a Targas 17" laptop bag that has 18" width measurements on the inside seam that is plenty of room for this.

 

Hi all

I'm seriously considering buying the VGN-AW11XU/Q Sony Vaio (in the UK, this is the premium RGB model). The laptop comes with 2 x 64Gb SSDs and 1 x 500Gb 4200rpm drive and I can't help thinking that the 4200rpm drive will slow things down. Does anyone know if it's possible to switch the 500Gb 4200rpm HDD for a pair of 320Gb Western Digital Scorpio 7200rpm units? I'm confortable with fitting the hardware but am concerned that the Sony BIOS might have been 'crippled' to disable the RAID hardware or that the RAID hardware might not be on board at all.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Could anyone please tell me how well does it perform in Warhammer Online at native rez of the screen and if the screen is glossy or matte.
Thanks.

 

All AW screens are glossy EXCEPT for the expensive LED/AdobeRGB screens which are Matte. (Thx Glashub)

Haven't played Warhammer, but a 9600MGT should be able to play that game.

 

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but from my understanding, the SSDS are in RAID and will be where applications and the OS are installed and run from. The 500gb drive is just for storage. If this is the case, there should be no performance hindrances.

 

Snarff, there is a lot of confusion about the screens and I may be wrong about the Titanium 190 screen (I think it's glossy) but I can tell you from quite a bit of time examining the black AW 190 that it's screen is matte. It looks like a true matte to me i.e no reflections rather than a glossy screen with a great anti-reflective coat.

 

Sorry Glashub. You're absolutely right. I was in autopilot at the time, and have amended my original post. The top-of-the-range LED/AdobeRGB is the only matte screen in the AW lineup.

 

I have VGN-AW190JAH from Newegg.com. I ran Warhammer online max out on everything on native resolution without any lags in scenarios. The special event with tons of people only have a little lags. I ran over 6 hours without a single CTD. However, when I am downloading something and have other program running at the same time, the CTD begin to happen like every 3 hours. It did get a little hot at the heat sink vent though... I swear my screen is matte, and in the sonystyle store here in San Diego, the two screen on AW120 and AW170 looks the same to me.

 

Yes, the SSDs are in RAID and used for OS and apps but I work with a lot of large data files which I have to transfer around my drive. I don't think that a 4200rpm drive is going to cut it so was wondering what I could do to improve it. I guess I could straight swap a 320Gb 7200rpm drive for the 4200rpm drive if I thought it was slow. I'd rather have a smaller, faster disk.

 

Wow, that Hlaska 17" laptop bag costs $195 (according to their website). They list the dimensions at 17" x 3.25" x 12.5", while Sony Style lists the AW laptop at 17.2"(W) x 1.45 - 1.56"(H) x 11.4"(D). Yes, the width is the big concern with this bag. Please let us know how the Hlaska bag work out for you.

Were you able to get any deal on this laptop bag?

 

Yeah, its a bit expensive, but then again, its really well made and I love the style on it compared to the other ones out there. Hauling an 18.4" laptop should not come at the expense of style!

I will let you know if it fits or not, if it does fit, I can get a discount code from them for you. Should be able to get a 10% discount off it

 

You're welcome, snarff. Thx for the props.

Artimeis, again I may be wrong but as I'm quite enchanted with a matte laptop screen I really looked at the 110 and 120 at Fry's. I saw the reflections of the overhead lights but they were very subdued. The black one I looked at at Sony did not reflect the lights. But heck, I looked at so many laptops I'm beginning to doubt remeberances...so take anything I write with a grain of salt.

 

You're right that the Adobe LED RGB screen has the matte screen, but the gloss screen on the mid-range 1080p Full HD Xbrite is not very glossy at all, especially when compared to the other gloss screens from HP and Dell. Not sure why, but maybe Sony put some anti-glare coating on it.

 

Why would anyone want to haul one of these babies around? Surely will not be a frequent occurence else maybe one should revise one's choice of computer?

 

I have a Lenovo X300 as well (13.3"), and its well clothed too. I don't intend to haul the AW around often, but when I do, its nice to have something that can fit it

 

I'm still undecided but if I do buy a AW series it will be coming with me on holiday to Oz at Christmas

 

Thank you, xtrykr.

 

For those of you looking for bags, you may also check out www.ebags.com. It's a bit expensive for my tastes, but I hear their customer service is great, and if you don't find a bag that fits your laptop, they're willing to custom make one for you. I've read accounts of people in the Z thread who were able to do testing for their bags to make sure everything fit the Z.

 

Been very slow in reponding to questions on the AW11XU/Q...

p.laver - - There is no Dolby control panel that I can find on the AW. There is a reference to selecting Dobly digital in the sound options/set-up.

Can you please tell me how I work out if the HDMI port is 1.3 rather than 1.2?

Also, I am afraid that I don't know how to go about answering your question regarding what Dolby Home Theatre will play back. Any tip on how I go about working this out for you?

foldertree - this laptop is very, very quiet indeed. I can't hear a fan at all. The only noise I have detected is from the CD/DVD/DB drive when it initially spins up a disc, and end then its just a faint hum

I tried installing a demo of Unreal Tournament 3 at the weekend. I turned up the graphics etc to the max and then ran the game. It ran flawlessly without jumping or crashing. This laptop is super quick.

I also had a chance to hook it up to one of my Dell 27inch ultra sharp displays. The display and laptop ran quite happily together on dual display mode, the laptop with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and the display at 1920 x 1200. The audio was also running through the screen and into a Pioneer AMP without problems.

I just love this laptop and feel like a dog with two ***** every time I use it Hopefully the excitement will wear off soon...

 

They have a "Find a Laptop Bag" feature. I put in the dimensions of the AW series computers (17.2" by 1.56" by 11.4"). They have 11 bags that will fit the AW notebooks.

 

Something I forgot to mention earlier....I was disappointed in the sound of the speakers until I found the Dolby Control Center in the Programs menu. Adjusting those settings made a big difference.

 

Hi all. New here and hope this isn't answered elsewhere, but I'll apologize in advance if it has been.
I'm seriously considering getting the VGN-AW190 Premium Configure-to-Order. However, I had a few questions.
If I get the minimum amount of RAM (2GB) is it relatively easy to install two 4GB SODIMMS after I receive the notebook? My wife has an SR model with only 1 2GB stick and was thinking I'd put the 8GB in my AW and add the left over 2GB stick to hers. Its the same DDR2-800 memory.
If I want to perform a clean install, can I just buy a retail Vista DVD and install that after completely wiping the installed hard drive?
Are the hard drives replaceable? I'd like to get one of the new Intel X-25M 80GB SSD drives and put that in place of the hard drive that comes in the AW, possibly even add the drive so there are two. Is this possible? Never tried mucking about with a laptops innards before...I'm capable, but don't want to mess with the insides too much other than removing a cover or something like that. Would this void the warranty?
Thanks!

 

I have a question. I tried to lower the screen resolution a tad lower and any setting below max looks blury. is that normal?

 

nevermind found out about it under the nvidia section

 

1680x1050 looks pretty sharp. But yeah, anything less, and you'll get plenty of pixel blur unfortunately, thats the way lcds however.

 

Yes, that sounds normal, but how blurry is it getting? An LCD display is clear and crisp at its native resolution. If the LCD display is not at its native resolution, the display will have to scale the image which results in the blurry image you see.

 

Could you post a screen shot of the Dolbly Control Centre

 

I ran my 3dmark06 and my score was around 5000 and was wondering if you changed the nvidia settings or drivers from when you got your laptop? My driver date is July 2008 but on sonys website they have driver date October 2008.

 

fugazi70: I did not tweak anything. My drivers are also from July, and my gpu was manufactured on June. I did however, have the laptop raised slightly above my table, so there's lots of air space on the bottom to allow the laptop to cool off faster, not sure if that will significantly affect the scores, but yeah, hehe.

 

P.S. I was running Gears of War at 1920x1080 without any problems last night, frames were ranging between 25-35 with medium quality, no AA. It is fully playable at 1440x900 with frames between 35-60 with all medium.

 

So does *ANY* black model have LED backlighting? And *ANY* grey model uses CCFL?

I've seen people say the AW190 uses CCFL, but the higher end customizable config of it is black.

Were you running the exact same OS? I'd guess it's either that, or you'd need updated drivers from Nvidia. Because the GPU is the same, except clocked a bit faster, and someone on here has mentioned it runs Gears of War at a crazy resolution smoothly.

My understanding is it's easy to access the RAM and replace it yourself.

Yes, though I'm not clear on what your options are in terms of generating restore DVDs, and then reinstalling the OS on a new hard drive (particularly if it shipped with a RAID config and you don't want that). I'd prefer not having to buy a second copy of Windows! But...yeah, it'll definitely work with a regular retail DVD, as long as you gather the drivers you need. (And someone's confirmed the drives are user replaceable.)

Yes, it's best to keep the resolution at it's native setting if possible, as LCD (and Plasma) screens only really do one resolution. Everything else gets scaled to that resolution-so to an extent the quality of the scaling is dependent on the graphics hardware doing it. Though I've actually noticed it's LESS obvious in games than it is at the Windows desktop, I guess because you know how razer sharp text is supposed to look.

 

Geez...yeah, that higher end AW190 custom config isn't bad. Much cheaper than the AW170, while supposedly having the LED backlit screen.

Hmm...very tempting. Lets you buy a spare AC adapter too, which is nice. No bag available for it though! I seriously have no idea what you'd put this in! It's REALLY hard to fine bags for many 17" notebooks.

Also...I wonder if this would hold up to Folding @ Home full blast whenever it's on? The larger size is promising...

 

I have seen the mid-range AW120D twice now at a Best Buy store. It has the Xbrite-FullHD display. The screen is glossy, but when I looked really carefully, it appeared as though there were little bumps. I guess the purpose of that is to reflect the light in different directions. I didn't touch the display so I don't know if they were actual bumps or if it is just a coating that looks like a lot of bumps.

xtrykr, do they look like little bumps on your AW120D display? Is the screen flat to the touch (if you dare touch the screen of your new AW120D )

The screen is not too reflective. I couldn't really see my face in the screen. If I wore a baseball cap with a bright white front, I could notice the white a bit, but it wasn't too white/bright/annoying).

I compared this to the new MacBook which is extremely reflective and I could easily see myself. The bright white front of my baseball cap reflected back far too much light.

 

Same, my brother has the new MB and that thing was literally a mirror in pretty much all conditions!

I did touch the screen of the AW120D, there are no bumps, no reflections. Actually, the only time there is any reflection is when the monitor is turned off, and even then, its barely noticeable

When I touched it though, it didn't feel like a glossy screen, it felt matte, but very polished or something.

 

Okay, correction, the Sony AW120D is a glossy screen (just compared it to my 19" samsung lcd which is matte). The color saturation, contrast, and brightness is by far superior on the AW120D. That being said, it does not reflect much, if not at all because Sony did not use glass like the new MB and MBP does. I also think this is why the other laptops from HP and Dell may be more reflective too is due to the glass like material they used, while Sony has this matte like substance on their glossy screens.

 

Hey guys, just wanted to say the laptop fit into this bag! It also fits the powerpack just fine too. Adding a mouse into might be a bit a little difficult but yeah, otherwise, the essentials will fit

http://www.hlaska.com/17_LAPTOP_BAG?colorItem=14

P.S. This bag is appointed with 100% italian leather, its feels real freaking posh man!

 

...........

 

As far as I know, you can't download drivers from Nvidia's website for the 9600m

 

I've been too busy to run any tests yet, but I have noticed one thing: the text on this Adobe screen is superb. I am amazed at how crisp and clear stuff is on it.

Raid array is working fine. I have 2x320gb drives that came set from the factory showing as one 640gb drive in Windows. I'll probably change that to a mirrored raid setup sometime in the future, but that will mean reinstalling everything. I should have thought about that sooner.

One thing I miss from my Macbook Pro: backlit keyboard.

 

Thank you.

 

Out of curiosity, why are you selling your 17" MacBook Pro?

 

Technically no, but you can force Nvidia's reference drivers to install, and it'll probably work just fine.

 

I usually get a new laptop every 1 to 1.5 years. I have switched back and forth between Mac and PC for the past few years. I do it to have something different, but mostly so that I can keep up on how to use both platforms. I am a PC computer tech, so I don't need much help on the PC side, but I haven't paid as much attention to Vista as I should have.

All that said, if Apple had given the 17" Macbook Pro the same new design as the 15" models, I would have bought that instead. Still, the AW is one sweet machine.

 

Where can the reference drivers be found? Nvidia's website doesn't give any download option when I tell it I have a 9600m.

 

I'm HOPING they're going to do something better for the 17" model, and that's why it's not here yet. How about an upgraded GPU (FINALLY) and Blu Ray? Oh well, I can hope...

Just Nvidia's normal reference drivers. You can just "force" install it through the device manager. Seemed to work just fine on a Macbook Pro at any rate. It even still new it was a mobile GPU. It's possible there could be heat related issue, depending on the notebook model, I suppose.