Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge

thanks for the pics/feedback mp . I'm thinking about getting one to replace my Z1ra, which I've had for well over 4 years now. I saw on the laptopmag review (the only review out there so far) that the trackpad supports multi touch. Is this true?

 

anyone know what the mpixel for its webcam?

 

If you turn off the computer and look at the screen, can you see yourself? if you can't, then it's matte, did you get the premium screen?

 

Until yesterday when I saw Sony's new offers, I've intended to buy a Dell studio xps 16" exactly like the one you returned. Why you took this decision? Does not the Dell worth the money? I know it has that 16" full hd edge to edge RGB LED display. Isn't the display much better compared to Sony's LCD? Does Sony have LED lcd too?

 

Hm I just read in the other F thread that the gt 330m is barely better than the ati hd4650. Eventhough the latter would be good enough but still...releasing a new model which will probably be used for the next 2 years with a very litle improvement in graphics is a bit disapointing.
I know sony isn't really a gamers brand because they want us to buy their ps3 and are directed towards the bussines and multimedia market, but such weak improvements do push game fanatics like me towards brands like asus, eventhough I'd love to have such a nicely designed sony laptop, their looks are timeless.

 

Sony uses double lamp CCFL instead of LED.

I haven't seen the Premium F screen yet, but even the non premium Full HD screen is close to (or as good as) the RGB LED. According to Notebookjournal.de the Sony screen is actually brighter and has higher contrast.

 

I also read that sony's 'old' screens are so advanced they still outperform the 'new' current led technology screens xD

 

Where did you read that?

 

I don't know where he read it but the (well respected) German magazine C'T came to similar conclusions.

Notebookcheck reviewed the FW screen here:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Sony-Vaio-VGN-FW51MF-Notebook.23709.0.html
Except for the illumination distribution on that particular unit it's a very good screen.

On Notebookjournal.de both Dell RGB LED and Sony FW Full HD got 3.5 out of 5 stars. Average notebook screens get 1.5 stars.

Notebookjournal and Notebookcheck both use a lot of measurements in their reviews.

 

So as you said, 3.5 would mean more good than average?

 

To give you an idea, the Macbook Pro 17 and Sony Z also scored 3.5 stars. Those are often considered to be the best notebook screens.

But the rating is just a rating, it has it's limitations.

You can find all the numerbs on Notebookcheck.com and Notebookjournal.de

 

But is the F's screen good enough at Full HD?

For playing multimedia and a game like World of Warcraft and doing some simple graphics designing

 

Sure......

 

Okay then, that's all that matters

I don't want the best screen in the world

 

thank you very much for the feedback and photos, appreciate it.

 

Please report back after heavy use in regards to the palm rest area getting too hot or not. As long as it doesn't get too hot I'm ready to order and then I can only hope for quick processing like some of you guys.

 

So guys, please help me choose... Should I choose the Vaio (core i7 @ 1.6, 6gb, gt 330 @ 1GB, 500 GB @ 7200 rpm , DVD+-RW, 9 cell battery, backlight keyboard) or the DELL studio XPS 16 (same cpu,ram and hdd, ati 4670 @ 1GB,full hd RGB led 16" screen,backlight keyboard,9cell battery)? The Studio it's more expensive, doesn't have a numpad, the display has 0,4" less, but look's better and has better speakers (2.1). As I've heard, Vaio's speakers are weak and poor in bass. Oh... and ati 4670 is better than nvidia gt330...

 

The dell studio xps has overheating issues due to bad construction where the vent gets blocked when you open up your screen.

 

I have not found a single notebook where the speakers were truly satisfactory from a performance standpoint and that is a built in drawback, when one is after portability.

If you want better performance from the speakers, you are always better off getting some portable external bluetooth capable speakers than relying on the tiny speakers that they build into slim notebook computers. JMHO, of course.

 

If you are into gaming and like leather on your laptop go with the XPS.

If not, go with Sony.

If I'd buy a computer that expensive I'd like to have SSD by the way. The performance difference with HDD is huge. Far greater impact than a fast CPU has. Or 6GB RAM.

 

Does anybody know if the large capacity battery is longer in the back, or is bigger under the notebook, and lifts the back?

 

I'm not into gaming, but I like to know that my notebook can do anything, even run new games smoothly. I think it's to soon to buy a SSD, I can upgrade in the future...

 

If you are not into gaming there is no point in selecting between both GPUs. It won't make any difference to you.

 

All I wanted to say is that I'm not a gamer, but once in a while I install some new titles and play a couple of hours...

So, how's with the large battery, it stands out of the case?

 

Obviously you can configure your F-VAIO on Sonystyle.

What is better:

- 4 GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM (2 x 2048 MB) or
- 6 GB 1333MHz DDR3-SDRAM (1 x 4096 MB + 1 x 2048 MB) + 100 EURO

Short asked: are the 2GB more RAM worth 100 EURO?

Pro:
- you get a 4GB-bar, later upgrade to 8GB is easier (change the 2GB-bar with 4GB-bar)
- effectively you get 2GB more RAM

Contra:
- no Dual-Channel capability
- (more) expensive
- 4GB are "at the moment" enough for most work

 

@ mauro99, what do you do with your computer? what applications? how many at once?

 

What is the ideea with fresh start when you configure your notebook on sonystyle.com? And why is it available only with windows 7 pro?

 

Out of curiosity -Is dual channel architecture a standard feature in the motherboard technology for the FW and F?

EDIT
Sorry - Never mind i just checked with CPU-Z and it notes it as dual.

 

It's available with all of them for me

Your PC may be too Pro and Sony detected it

 

Fresh start gets rid of all the Sony Software and trial software on the machine, so it'll come with a 'clean' install of windows. Sony used to be really bad with clogging up their new machines with cr*p but I've heard it's not as bad as it used to be. Windows Pro because I assume they want you to spend more for the privilege of not having their trial software...

 

The 1645 is power throttled with a 90 Watt Power adapter & it needs at least a 130 Watt with the software fix the "UncleWeb" provided. Although that "fix" does remove the crippling restriction - especially when gaming, I don't believe that anyone believes that Dell will really do the right thing & completely fix the Bios AND send everyone 130 Watt adapters... they are actually refusing requests for them by customers.

My Keyboard was also defective, (10 keys no longer work), and it took a lot of work to stop the random crashes & video crashes. In a word, as many others have said... Just say NO to Dell.

 

Quick question for someone who knows - would there really be that much of a difference between a 7200rpm HDD with large RAM and cache, and an SSD?

 

Yes it's huge. I've owned several laptop with HDDs and SSDs. It's not just booting and launching but everything becomes faster.





Full Review: http://www.laptopmag.com/review/storage/intel-x25-m-g2.aspx?page=1

In general I see a lot of people spending money on too strong CPUs and too much memory, while ignoring their hard drive choice. They're putting money in the place where it matters least.

If you want to get an SSD better do the upgrade yourself. Sony tends to overcharge and not pick the fastest SSDs.

 

I am not into photo editing, mainly will use it for watching hd movies/trailers, surfing, burning a blu ray, moving big files (1gb-10gb) from hdd to external hdd and stuff like that.

Why is that essential for my question?

 

It's essential because with your usage pattern you won't benefit at all from 6 GB over 4 GB.

If you were into heavy photo, video editing and running VMware there may have been a point in getting 6 GB.

 

I had a SSD on my Dell SXPS 1645 before I returned it & yes the performance of the machine is very fast. I just decided that I didn't want to pay an extra $500 to have it on my Sony F11.

 

IMO its another way for them to get the $50 they said they'd stop charging.

 

I agree that SSDs will provide an immediate performance boost and they punch well above their weight grade, when it comes to sheer performance.

However, as you pointed out (and also pointed out in a terrific amount of detail in the Anandtech article) there are a ton of SSDs available in the market with WIDELY varying performance, exacerbated by the fact that SSDs are an evolving technology.

In my opinion, SSD prices and technology will drastically improve over the next year or so and it will be very common to get 512GB or even 1TB drives that are faster than the fastest drives available currently. In a couple of years it will mature and these very same drives would be available for a fraction of what they cost now.

Going by that, I prefer equipping my F-series with a reasonably fast HDD (say 500GB 7200rpm) at the outset and then upgrade to something like a 512GB SSD in a year's time. Hopefully by then the prices would be more reasonable, and technology would be a lot more stable.....and as a bonus, my "aging" F-series will get the effect of being equipped with a turbo-charger, mid-life.

 

All manufacturers charge more for Windows 7 Professional, and for people like me that need the XP emulation, and a clean computer - it works.

 

I belatedly realized that they only offer the "Fresh Start" option with Windows 7 pro. While speccing out my machine, I chose 'Windows 7 Ultimate', which did not offer the fresh start option and I mistakenly assumed that since the F-series was just being launched, maybe the "Fresh start" was not available yet.

Of course a couple of days after the order was placed, I realized my mistake but it was too late !

 

Anyone know why the drivers aren't on sonystyle.com? I want to do a fresh install of the OS as I just got my F11 and would like a clean copy of windows but for some reason sonystyle.com doesn't have the drivers. Any ideas?

 

Exactly my strategy. I wouldn't mind paying say 200EUR for a really fast 500GB SSD but currently the prices are just to steep.

And, I think memory does matter but besides usage pattern it also depends on the OS. On linux, the more memory the better because unused memory will be used as a cache.
The first thing I noticed when I installed linux years ago was that my computer was so much more silent. Running my current laptop (A215M) now on windows produces a lot of hard disk noise (and keeps on producing it) which is simply unnoticeable on linux. That is why I think that with 8GB on linux, the difference between SSD and a regular hard disk will not be that significant, apart from initial startup of applications perhaps. because it will simply run everything from memory.

 

Yes, my remarks were meant for Windows.

 

Wow, that's disappointing... I don't understand that - it would be great for Sony to just offer the "Fresh Start" with all versions, but maybe that would be too easy for the consumer.

 

We all make mistakes. That's why as I've gotten older I've made it a practice to stay in the moment, do what's in front of me, and to stay focused. Admittedly, its a work in progess.

 

Anything unusual to report?

 

I just moved from a Vaio TZ to a F series, and holy crap what a difference it makes!! Strangely, the TZ screen is noticeably better than the F's in terms of brightness and contrast. However, I really like the high resolution of the F for programming. Performance is, obviously, a massive step up. Windows 7 was already pretty snappy on the TZ, but on the F it's just blazing fast. Build quality of the F is also better, which is surprising considering the TZ's premium positioning.

I wasn't even planning on getting a new laptop, but I saw the F at BestBuy for $1249 and there was only one in stock, so I just jumped at the opportunity. I'm graduating from college after this semester, so I've been considering moving over to a larger laptop for some time now. The TZ has served me well through college but I'd like some more performance now that mobility is less of an issue.

Specs of mine;
Core i7 720
1080p
500gb
Geforce 330M ( is with NVidia's naming?)

By the way, does anyone know how to keep the keyboard backlight on without having to cover the light detector? It seems like there's no manual override for the automated backlighting.

And one more thing, does anyone else find the high-pitched CPU noise obnoxious? I miss the old "clicky" CPU noises that were lower pitched.

 

You've got the wrong site. Sonystyle is basically a sales site. Go to the full site -> sony.com. Under Support you will see Drivers and software. You can find every iteration of the F series for drivers. When I tried a few minutes ago, Support wasn't responding, so they may be doing maintenance.

 

NVIDIA® GeForce® G211P GPU (1GB VRAM)

anyone know anything about this graphics card?

seems to be pretty low-end to me

I'm pretty annoyed that the Cdn version is stuck with it at the moment.
Why would they stick that one in while the US have the 310/30...

 

I just purchased my VAIO F series from BestBuy. Surprisingly they had, by far, the best deal. This thing is a beauty on the outside and beast within.

Here are the specs ..

i7-720QM
6gb @ 1333mhz
1080p premium monitor
500gb 5200rpm HD
Blu-ray drive (just the reader)
backlight keyboard
MODEL # VPCF115FM /B

all for $1250. The same setup on the online store went for a little under $1500.

Now a few issues and comments.

First the bad news. My biggest issue has been with a squealing sound. Its not loud, but it is distinct and quite unusual for a notebook (Its louder than my desktop). Its very annoying in quiet settings and can definitely be heard by others. Worst of all it does not seem to depend on whether the HD is being accessed or on high CPU usage. In fact it can even be heard while idling.

Upon requesting an exchange, the geeksquad guy sent to "verify" my claim, initially said nothing was wrong with the system. When I insisted that he take it to a quieter room where it can be heard, he agreed and said it had a failing HD.

Well the point is that the newly exchanged system has the same exact noise. I'm going to let it run for all night to see if it goes away. Perhaps the temperature fluctuations has had some effect. I have 14 days to return it. I wouldn't mind trying another system.


As for the good news...this system is plain and simply BAD . Last night I extended it on to my external LCD and ran a movie loaded on an external HD on media player, youtube on google chrome, two tabs with HULU on IE, and installed Matlab, ALL SIMULTANEOUSLY, with absolutely no slow down what so ever. Extremely responsive.

The taskmgr CPU usage graphs at first showed half the cores dormant. But as i opened more apps, the load was evenly distributed among the eight threads with an overall cpu usage of around 37%.