Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge

Sorry it's iphone quality for the time being, I'm at the office. i'll take more after work or if I can sneak in a few shots...we've got to revise some designs that need to go out today.

 

Thank you very much for sharing.

It's awesome!!


If You can post also the side and back

 

more please

 

It looks nice in silver.

Thanks for the pic!

 

This is the grey version right? with the darker outside?

Grtz Jan

 

finally a picture.. but yes, we need more angle view =)

 

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/249/dsc0436p.jpg

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/8726/dsc0437g.jpg

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/1112/dsc0438.jpg

 

oops! sorry...need to fix the size

 

Any one noticed that there is some price reduction on sonystyle.com?

Any idea how long this will last?

 

No whine at all !!!!!!!!!!! it's pretty silent...that or i'm deaf.. (hope it's the former!!!)

 

SO how is it really with F series: are they silent ( no whining noise and silent fans ) or just no whining noise? I love this machine but silence is absolute must for me. Right now Samsung R710 P7450/4GB/9600GT - and this one I consider silent but I need to buy a new one and there are so many contradictions about this new SOny F. Really how loud are the fans f.e during Photoshop ?

 

Unfortunately it's one of those subjects that's so subjective. What's loud to me is quiet to another person.

I've had a thinkpad t500 and macbook pro in the recent past. Both were as close to silent as you can get. The Sony F is louder than both, so right now it's loud to me but it's all relative.

I also need more time with the machine. Of course the fan is gonna blast when you're gaming. I have yet to launch Visual Studio or Photoshop (which I have not installed).

If your #1 priority is a dead silent machine, I would recommend a Macbook Pro. Otherwise, this machine is great.

 

Well for my unit, it does run warmer than my FW590 throughout but it's not uncomfortably warm. Contrary to past posts, my fan noise is pretty low and intermittent. (setup to high performance) and i'm in a quiet room and i'm also pressing my ear up to the laptop. No whining noise at all (knock on wood but i'll give it a few days. this issue might just kick in later) I have the 820Qm by the way.

I've already started to install applications. So far so good.
Screen seems to be the same as my FW.
Build quality is the same as the FW.
Keys are spaced apart just like the FW. it's amply spaced apart.
The lid finish is smooth and gunmetal grey - i need to get a new bluetooth mouse to match the lid. I have the matte black vaio mouse.

 

Hey guys.

I've been trying to play a game, and it uses WSAD, as most games do. My zoom key is Z, and when I am holding W and D and press Z, Z does not work. Does anyone know how I can solve this problem? It's quite annoying


[update] I changed the zoom key to left control and it seems to be working. A bit annoying but I guess it will take some getting used too. Does anyone know if it is possible to make W, D, and Z keys work at the same time?

 

I take that back.. the F's screen needs to be adjusted in comparison to the FW. I am showing much deeper blacks in the FW. There seems to be some layer of light that's somewhat washing out the blacks on my desktop wallpaper which is black. I'm undecided on the viewing angle as well. It seems the the FW has a better range...

 

Oh! That's beautiful! Gorgeous! I'm glad that I ordered the grey version after all. I was kinda liking the Black, but no... Hopefully mine will arrive Friday.

 

Yes, and Sonystle.ca has gone UP in price. My build is about $110 more, but I can't completely recall where the price has changed.

 

argghh...i don't know.. it might just be getting the right viewing angle...

 

Thanks for the very complete answer! I feel better Actually I'd like to play to strategical games so I guess there will not be any problem (even if the speed is quite low).
Yeah I hope it too for BFBC2, I have the first one on Xbox 360, very good

 

E-mailed Sony Insider about the whining noise in the F Series and they have contacted me today to say that they will investigate and publish something soon. Having some more publicity clout should help Sony release a statement or even better, a fix!

 

@ To no End: wile your first photo showed a nice building behind you, it got me worried about glare as I want to use the laptop for photo editing.

I'm also worried about the 16:9 aspect & loss of vertical pixels realestate compared to 1920 x 1200 16:10 for example.

Finally, do you have to re-scale the OS to be able to comfortably read the type @ 1080p. Does-it loose sharpness when re-scaling? I'm thinking the 1600 x 900 native resolution could be more appropriate for a 16.4" screen...

 

Forgive me, but the laptop is sitting in front of a modern window with blinds, why on Earth would a 19th-Century cornice be BEHIND the camera?! It's a Windows desktop. And the sceen looks very good.

 

Hahaha the screen is off and reflecting the manhattan bridge

 

damn the F looks mighty fine in grey/silver. Got mine in black though

 

There has indeed been a price reduction, and I just saved $200, even though my Vaio F had already shipped! I just called SonyStyle customer care, said that the price on the laptop I ordered had gone down and I wanted to receive the new lower price. She looked up my configuration, compared what I paid to the current price for the same configuration and happily refunded $215 to my credit card. Thanks ikkru.

 

That fixes the issue where the Canadian version was actually cheaper than the US, even more so if the relative dollar value is taken into account.

 

That wallpaper looked like somewhere in France, or actually I know a building in Toronto that looks like, the old courthouse. The air conditioner kinda ruins the composition though.

 

Me too! Would really appreciate if you could tell us what DOES NOT work with karmic64! Thanks

 

"Hahaha the screen is off and reflecting the manhattan bridge" - To no End.

 

I could be wrong, I don't see the power light...

 

To no End posted the photo he took, so he should know.

 

Yes.. The computer was off in the first pic. That's pure reflection to whats outside my office. Whats behind the computer is a sheet of suspended glass etched with frosted stripes. We use them as dividers between workstations.

 

I'm new here and considering this notebook. I just posted in the "which notebook should I buy" forum. I've never owned a notebook. Would the noise from the fan and the buzzing noise be loud enough to interfere with movie watching? Also, how warm does this machine get when sitting in your lap for 2-3 hours? Uncomfortable or reasonably cool? I also noticed some people mentioning that the screen wasn't very bright. What kind of quality could I expect from watching a movie and browsing the web considering that? I realize that this is subjective but I'm new to notebooks and don't want to go wrong. Thanks.

 

This thread has taken a strange turn...

 

- meaning?

What's wrong about asking this to actual owners?

I live in Costa Rica and a US friend will bring me a laptop in 2 weeks. I can't return the product if I made a bad choice.

Honest feedback from owners not trying to justify their shopping decision is invaluable to me.

 

Not you, the debate about background/reflection. Perhaps I've completely misread it all as I did skim bits but a few seem a bit ... weird...

 

I don't have the laptop, but IMHO its always better to get a higher resolution screen because if the fonts or images are too small, you can ramp up the screen dpi to get larger graphics. This isn't possible in reverse - say you have a 1600x900 screen and you want more screen real estate - you wouldn't be able to scale it up to 1920x1080. Also, the 1080p screen comes with the better graphics card, which you won't be able to replace in the future. So basically, I would recommend the 1080p screen (especially if you're worried about screen real estate). I will update you in about a week (or sooner, if the product gets here faster ) with my opinions.

In terms of your second question, I don't like this whole 16:9 thing that companies are going with either, but it's a trend in the entire industry and there's not much we can do about it.... I'm not sure there are too many alternatives which still have the 16:10 ratio.

 

The consensus on LCD is that they are sharper at native resolution. I would like to know how the F11 fares with Win 7 either by changing the DPI or by re-sizing the OS as described here:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-CA/windows7/Make-the-text-on-your-screen-larger-or-smaller

From that page: "You can also make text appear larger or smaller by changing your screen resolution, but if you're using an LCD monitor or laptop, we recommend that you set your screen to its native resolution to avoid blurry text. This is the optimal resolution an LCD monitor or laptop screen was designed to display based on its size".

The 1080p does not give you any more surface, it just makes everything smaller so you can see more stuff on the screen. I don't care about the extra cost or the minimal 310 vs 330 difference, I need sharp & no overwhelming glare to edit photos, hence my questions...

 

It's sharp but it does have glare. The anti-glare treatment was underwhelming. I'm coming from an AW that was matte and had no glare. I really enjoyed that laptop. May those who stole it burn in hell. There i feel better.

 

@Glashub: that's exactly my dilemma, AW's screen surface & anti-glare vs. size, power & price of the F11. If you have the 1080p, when re-scaling, does it loose sharpness?

 

The glare is pretty obnoxious. Coming from a series of anti-glare laptops it really bothers me. Does anyone have any experience with anti-glare films for laptops? I haven't been able to find any sized to this screen.

I don't rescale the screen because I'm used to the small text size and want the extra real estate. At one pont I had a Dell with a 15" 1920x1200 screen. Other people often comment that they can't read it when everything is so small. I haven't really noticed the difference in screen size compared to my last 17" 1920x1200.

 

I guess it's really up to personal taste then - font size is such a subjective thing. I, for instance, have no problem with small fonts, while my friends complain about the small fonts on my screen.

I can give you some raw numbers, but that's probably the only objective advice I can offer now. Sorry: The 1080p screen has a pixel density of about 130ppi, while the 1600x900 screen has a ppi of about 112. To give you some comparison, an average 19" monitor running at 1280x1024 has a ppi of 86, and the 30" apple cinema display has a ppi of about 100. A wacom cintiq I regularly use has a ppi of about 124, and the fonts (to me) are just about perfectly sized on that when read from about 1-2 ft away from the screen. So basically, the higher the ppi, the smaller the fonts will be. However, the image will be DRASTICALLY sharper and more crisp.

It's really a matter of personal choice. As far as the gt 310 and gt 330 go, however, I would highly recommend that you go with the 330m. Although there's only one difference in number between 310 and 330, the 330 will perform much better in terms of editing photos, especially with upcoming GPGPU stuff.

Again imho it wouldn't hurt to get the 1080p screen, but it's down to a matter of personal choice. Hope this helps

 

Have anyone tried to run heavy tasks (like coding) with big IDE (Visual Studio 2008, Netbeans, ...) on battery power yet? Will it be ok? I'm afraid it will make performance degradation.

I'm deeply concerned about that CPU throttle now, because my work requires running IDEs smoothly at school without AC adapter.

 

There is a lot of "plastic" flex on the bottom of the BD drive BTW.

 

Thank you guys for your comments about the screen, keep them coming. If I could choose the 330m card & 1gb memory with the 1600 x 900, I would but it's not offered.

I checked with my CRT & 120 DPI is too small for me but I have XP & was wondering if the OS UI scaling with Win 7 was better.

There is a good table for screen size vs. DPI here (16.4" screen; 1080p 134 and 900p 112 DPI):
http://www.notebookcheck.net/DPI-Fineness-of-Displays.1310.0.html

@ flumbo: The problem with anti-glare films is that there's no free lunch & you loose between 8 to 12% luminosity depending on the type, see the bottom of this page about "Transmittance" (besides probable lost of contrast & sharpness):
http://www.photodon.com/c/LCD-Protective-Films.html

Your land does not get any bigger if you put a smaller house & pool on it so that "extra real estate" argument with 1080p vs. 900p for a given screen surface makes me smile.

"I haven't really noticed the difference in screen size compared to my last 17" 1920x1200" - the extra scrolling with the loss of vertical pixels does not bother you?

 

yes there is flex especially where the numberpad begins. I'm not too crazy about this but it's not a deal-breaker.

 

woot! thanks for the pics. It looks great in black! Just out of curiosity, what do the assist and vaio buttons do?

 

Someone replies my below question plz.

 

assist goes directly to vaio care
S1 defaults at vaio control center but it can be set for these other options:
muting
max brightness
presentation setting
vaio help and support center
media center
thermal control strategy
vaio control center
color mode setting
vaio power management viewer
magnifier
automatic brightness setting
desktop organizer
Application launcher (which you can specify)

 

I run my screen at native. I can read the text fine. Just make sure that in explorer, the zoom is set to 100% ('page' drop down menu tab). I believe it defaults at 75% and that makes text unreadable.
I increased the 'fonts and other items' just as you've posted in the control panel and the desktop icons started to look fuzzy. Doesn't look too great.
I don't have all my applicatins installed yet though. Will try out if your concerns are true once I get them loaded in.