Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge

What does sonystyle say about it? Most likely it is just a typo.

Otherwise, the only reason for such insanity could be legal reasons.

 

Again, RELAX. For about $30 likely, U.S. Postal Service shipping, you can return the computer and order exactly the features you now know you want. It seems to me your only problem is whether you want to try out the one that is arriving shortly, or to send it right back and order what you want. And since Sony considers the two operations to be independent of each other, you could order what you really want right now and use a credit card.

Here are the details: http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...d=-1&identifier=S_BrandShowcase_Customer_Care

So, again -- just thank your stars that this is Sony and not Dell where you would have a 10% (I think it's ten) restocking fee in addition to the return shipping. Also remember: Some Master Cards and also AmEx have their own insurance on new purchases for the first 90 days so you likely wouldn't need to insure the package on its return. But using USPS will save you money over FedEx, etc.)

 

Well there goes another potential laptop. I would be driven nuts by the squealing.

 

They don't say anything about it.

Hopefully it's a typo among the few floating around, like the 500GB 5400rpm hard drive for a ~$500 premium

Good news is that the canadian f-series customization page is currently down. Hopefully they'll fix some details.

 

It's a potential problem with any new notebook. I just received my F11 and it runs perfectly.

Speaking of HDDs, I popped in an Intel X-25M SSD and it boots fast. I didn't order the machine with an SSD because I couldn't track down what brands Sony typically puts in their machines.

But jeez, what a difference SSD makes. For anyone not too sure about SSD, go with an Intel X-25 G2. Arguably the best on the market for the money and I've yet to have one fail or even slow that noticeably over time. Not bad for MLC.

 

My Best Buy told me that the new Sony Vaio F series will not be out until this Sunday, the 17th. They are not even on the Best Buy website yet.

 

So you have no noise? Secondly how many HDD can be fitted, is there room for two?

 

Sony employs Samung SSDs in their laptops - but not the version that Samsung sells retail but a customized version for Sony. However, like with all such products, this F-series might not be sourcing its SSDs from the previous vendor employed by Sony (Samsung) and might have gone with a different supplier.

 

There was no noise when I booted with the regular HDD, no whines, she ran quiet. There is room for one HDD, which might be a drawback if you're wanting to run RAID, I suppose.

Samnsung, eh? If they're customized for Sony then it's hard telling what kind of quality/performance they'll get.

 

BestBuy Canada or the US? I asked the rep at the local BestBuy here near Toronto and they were only vaguely even aware of a "new" Sony series.

I cancelled my order for first the old CW from a pre-Christmas sale, then a VF590 from Boxing Week. The F-series is almost twice my budget limit., oh well. To justify the purchase it's both an upgrade to my home computer and the new video editor. It had better be damned good.... :wink:

Based upon the comments in THIS forum I decided to take the plunge and just ordered one from SonyStyle.ca (by phone with a rep with whom I've dealt before for other equipment.)

i7-720QM
Windows 7 Professional
Grey
4 Gig DDR3-SDRAM1333 (6 gigs is a quantum jump in price)
500 Gig 7200rpm (I'll buy SSD later...)
Blu-Ray Disc read AND Write.
Vaio Premium display (1920X1080) G211P 1Gig
(It's been suggested that the G211 is a real card number for 256 Megs or 512Megs Vram, but that's it's a 300-series for 1 Gig)
Keyboard Backlight
Standard battery
Fresh Start
Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 (At $345 that's the bargain of the year!)

VPC-F1190-Built-To-Order (F2NBSP10-LBOM)

$1863 cdn with federal and provincial taxes, with free Express shipping and $120 discount.

 

how did you setup the ssd? Copy over the recovery partition or use recovery dvds?

 

That 500 gig is an SSD. The 512gig at $1200 is a raided SSD, much faster.

 

Bestbuy US. It seems like all the bestbuy stores down here in Miami, FL have them - and they are selling like hot cakes. They sold out before my eyes. Someone before me bought 4 of them and then this couple but the last one.

Luckily the next nearest store had 7 of them. When I went again this morning to exchange mine they too had sold out.


Try the sonystyle retail stores in Toronto. The sony store here had the $1,199 VPCF112 model in stock.

http://www.sonystyle.ca/html/ss_location/sonystyle_store_map.html

 

Copied over the recovery partition using an external HDD.

 

You should let us know exactly what the GPU is, if it's actually the 330 or this weird G211P I can't find any information about.

Good luck.

 

Here is another one.

Core i5 520
500 GB Serial ATA (7200 rpm)
6 GB 1066MHz DDR3-SDRAM
1920x1080+ webcam
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 330M 1GB
Blu-ray Disc read and write
backlight keyboard

Now I can't wait!!

 

i5? Optional Webcam? What country are you in?

 

That it may be a crummy GPU is the reason I held back from ordering. It would have been nice to play an hour of Fallout3 while stuck in a hotel room between conference days. I ALMOST got the AlienWare with GT360 that had a one-day discount of $800 recently. It would have been equally good as a media presentation unit and editor, but it's hard to get a BluRay drive on a Dell.

 

F series up for pre-order at Laptopshop UK.

http://www.laptopshop.co.uk/cheap-sony-f-laptops-lf1.htm

 

I just got off the phone with their order desk to inquire about this G211P chipset. He informed me that it is NOT a typo on the web site and that it is the "new chipset" that they are putting on the motherboards. He said that I would likely not be able to find any info on it because it is so new.

I guess I'll wait to hear what others get for graphics performance/benchmarks before I order one.

 

i cant wait mine is on fedex scheduled delivery this fri!

 

If it's like the 210 then it has only 4 shaders. However it may be clocked higher, or have a wider memory bandwidth. One thing it definitely would have that the 210 doesn't is 7.1 and LPCM audio over HDMI.

After problems in the past that VAIOs have had with Nvidia mobile chipsets, WHY is Sony putting laptops out into the field with brand new Nvidia parts?

Maybe since Canada is a smaller market than the US or Europe they're using us as guinea pigs...?

 

Arghhh!!!! mine's on Fedex delivering to the office on Tuesday. I guess it'll be quite an unproductive day at the office

 

Oh I don't think it'll break down STRAIGHTaway.. (I know what you mean..)

 

Yep, nVidia's definitely not the same company it was even a couple of years ago.

 

The model with i5 I think is for all Europe, I'm in Italy

the webcam is not optional, was only listed that way in the order summary that I partially pasted

 

That kind of sucks (for me). I was a little disappointed not to see a webcam as an option when I configured mine. Even my netbook has a built-in webcam. Oh well.

 

I spent such a short time studying the F-series before ordering that I only really made sure it had essentials, - the i7 of course, Esata, HDMI, Bluray recording, 1920 X 1080 Adobe RGB, - that I'm sure there are all sorts of pleasant surprises awaiting when I turn it on, software controls for instance. I didn't know it HAD a webcam at all.

 

If one chooses to get the i7 720QM, could that be upgraded to an i7 820QM with stability down the road? Just wondering because I may just go pick up one at BestBuy. I've taken apart my Vaio's in the past and it looked like last Duo Core could just be lifted off after turning a screw. But would the system just detect the change and run with it?

 

Any tips from the pros here on what to do first? My F is scheduled for delivery this Friday and I'd like to make sure I do any and all prelim stuff on it before I start installing, removing and customizing it. I know right off the bat I should make my recovery discs - anything else?

 

Anyone else have this issue with there F11, my left barrel where the A/C charger goes in is a little bit loose. Wobbles around a bit. Is this a big deal? Brand new laptop, hmm...

 

Definitely not a good omen, is it, especially on a brand-new laptop ? I am waiting for mine to get to me on Friday and keeping my fingers crossed that there won't be any issues with it.

Even if there is a whiff of an issue with it, I won't take a chance and it will go back directly to Sony.

 

It's interesting how many of us in this thread have the exact same post count as each other, 7, 8, 9 and so on. We've all come to Notebookreview.com for the first time, drawn in while looking up information on the F-series and being excited about the model and wanting to share goodies, even though we've pretty well all had previous notebooks.

 

Do you mean the plastic surrounding the contacts is a bit loose? That's not a concern, the socket is mounted securely by the metal tags of the terminals, the plastic is just sort of snapped in. Also a poor fit between the female plug and male socket is common with these connectors.

 

This is laptop #4 (on the way) in the last two months, the previous 3 went back - all had significant issues.

 

Does anyone know if the european F series has a back-lit keyboard?
cant seem to find it on any website.

 

Its may be in The Netherlands, not yet at Sony, USA.

 

Can you give a few more details. It must be more then only copying the recovery partition.
Did you simply copy the bootsector (including partition table) and recovery partition? Was the SSD size identical to the hard disk size?

 

You can clone a HDD to another one (or SSD) with Acronis True Image, free trial version.

It's easy. They don't have to be the same size.

 

that's me

 

I too am awaiting any update on the availability of a backlit keyboard in Europe (UK).

I've sent an email to Sony Style asking when we can expect to see this appear in the UK store. No answer yet though.

 

in the livechat 2 different people stated me that it is with backlight.

but I still found really strange that it's not mentioned anywhere both in the sony and sonystyile sites.

and also I've read that other people (in an italian forum) also from the livechat have been told that it had no backlit keyboard

also about the screen they told different things, lamps, led.. one when I've directly asked him "the sceen backlight is with lamps or led" even told me "yes, 2 ledlamps"


really soon (I hope) we are going to discover all

 

LED screens, backlit keyboards... you would have thought Sony would have put the full specs up after over a week since the announcement...

 

I'm returning mine, the squeaking noise is driving me insane! It's such a shame, because I really love the specs on this thing, but on my god I cannot deal with the constant squeaking noise!

 

Do you think it's a common problem? Haven't you already had this problem? Weird that no reviews have mentionned it yet you've had two F11s with the squeaking...

 

I only have one F11 with the squeaking. Do you think I should try an exchange instead? I just hate having to go back and forth with these things, when my current Lenovo and TZ serve me okay

 

Yes I understand it's not nice to have to send it back, but I think you should. It's a shame to miss out on such a nice laptop.

 

They just called me and told "F series has no backlit keyboard, only the S serie does" :-(

 

That is not correct, take a look at 1:23 minutes in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miC8fYSyjV4

 

The F in the US has a backlit keyboard. The questions is whether the European F has it too.