Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge

The laptop will be used as an editor, so not being able to connect a firewire or Esata drive with AVI captures made elsehwere is pretty damning. A gaming system otherwise makes a great HD video editor. And having the edge stripes of Asus or in-yer-face aggressiveness of the Alienwares is if anything a bonus for field editing setups. The F11 however lacks nothing needed for editing, except the Alpha-layer capabilties of an ATI card, which at least is provided in software by Premiere and Vegas.

 

So how do I import video from my Canon HV20 to the G73?

 

Ebay?

We agree on the F choice, I was just pointing out some features for other users.

I agree that Asus' decision to remove both Firewire & Expresscard was stupid, one could manage with only one of them.

 

Ref. Asus w/o firewire port, maybe of interest: Pixela Firewire to USB 2.0 Adapter. Model #PIX-UVCD/U1W.



Naturally there is always the option of ebaying your old videocams.

 

FIX FOR SQUEEKY PLASTIC UNDER LEFT PALM AREA

Update: I removed all the the screws securing the bottom plate, and gently seperated that corner exposing the plastic edges in the left palm rest area. I carefully applied a small amount of clear silicone to the both area's "squeeky" edges, then closed and inserted/tightened all screws. NO MORE NOISE! IF you have this issue, this is a fairly simply fix for the novice.

 

Good for you!

What, no how-to photos of the DIY surgery?

No worries about voiding the warranty?

He is referring to a squeak similar to this Acer Squeak video. I think it beats water-boarding.

 

That sounds like the laptop from hell! If I would get one like that I wouldn't be able to send it back for repair because I would have destroyed that thing already.

Seems like there are definitely differences in build quality between the different Vaios. Perhaps it depends on where the laptops are assembled.

 

But it slows down to USB speed. Actually the Canon HV20 still measures up in picture quality to any prosumer camera out there. I think the suggestion is to use a hard drive camcorder and take the drive out and put it in the G73? Otherwise it doesn't matter what type of camera one has, it still can't import to the G73 effectively.

In case there's any doubt, I believe a State of the Art i7 system with SSD drive, decent graphics, AND a full Premiere CS4 suite, for less than $2000, is a real bargain. (I'm talking aobut the F11 I ordered) A full turnkey desktop system would go for TWICE that!

 

I should have taken some photos, but all you have to do is make sure that you organize your screws carefully so you know where they go when you put them back. It's really not necessary to remove all of them, but I did it just to get familiar with the assembly/disassembly.

Doubt they would be able to tell that I had opened it, still they'd have to prove that I screwed something up.

 

My HF 100 uses a SD card & USB 2.0.

One of the newest Canon Vixia HF S21 comes w/ SSD, 2 SD cards & USB only.

 

Just got mine finally! I like! Doing a restore DVDs right now. Once that is done, I will work on cleaning it up. I am not sure if it's my desk or not, but it's not sitting level here when my other laptops did. Like it's warped. Going to try it at a few places, if it is, this is gonna suck.

 

I don't believe the AVC codec is quite as good as the Mpeg2 used by the HV20, though horizontal resolution is a bit higher. And I just like to keep acquisition footage on tape, it's always recoverable.

 

Before doing this, could you write down or attach to your post a screen grab* & report your computer's performance (CPU & memory) using Task Manager w/o other programs running, before & after customization?

See more Manager tips here.

*: Pop-up Task Manager, capture active window with Press ALT+PRINT SCREEN, open a new document in Paint, paste capture. More info here.

 

You bet. It is still doing my DVDs right now, but before I do anything I will take some screenshots for you.

 

As previously mentioned, you need to go into the Vaio Control Centre and turn off the Automatic Brightness feature.

It sets the screen to something daft like 30% in a low light setting...i turned it off and BAM! my eyes!!!
(Actually, it is too bright and I have to drop it to 70%)

Makes a whole world of difference!

btw. EU users...no backlit keyboard, sorry!

matt

 

I've finished with creating the recovery and restore discs and will begin installing programs. Already have Firefox installed.

This notebook rocks! Definitely an upgrade from the 4 year old Dell Inspiron that my sister let me borrow from time to time. Although I did get pretty adept at using my ps3 controller and browser. lol

Love the keyboard. There is a small amount of flex in the keyboard, mainly on the far left and right sides, although I don't really notice it while typing normally (I do have a light touch - quick and nimble fingers). I have to press rather firmly to get an appreciable amount of flex. The spacebar does squeak a bit, but only when pressing the right side, and not every press. I'll try removing and reseating it if it doesn't go away with use. The fan hasn't kicked in while browsing. It did come on when I was creating the recovery discs. I guess I'm used to the loud fan on my sister's Dell, which struggles mightily, because the fans on it were easily twice as loud as the vaio.

The text size is so much smaller than I'm used to, though I can read it easily enough. Definitely going to try out No Squint.

Overall, I'm very pleased and this is within the first hour of use. Hopefully things will only get better.

 

Here are the befores.....I don't have the afters till I do some cleaning.

 

I have a quick observation on the vaio f that I've been wondering about.
I went to bestbuy to look at the notebook before I bought it to get a feel for how it would be.
On the model in the store I noticed the lid seemed to flex and wobble as I opened and closed the laptop. It made me wonder about build quality but I went ahead and purchased a CTO from sonystyle anyway.
Well I received my unit expecting it to have the same flex/wobble when moving the lid but instead it was nice and solid. It opened and closed without any flexing or wobbling.
I post this to see if anyone else checked out a in store model that did this but ordered their laptop from sonystyle and found out that it was more solid than they expected.

 

melody master I have the hv20 and this is the reason i am getting the f11.

 

NoSquint is a great addon for Firefox, but for the rest of the UI, you could try scaling the UI to 125% & 150% using this method described by Microsoft Win 7 help:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-CA/windows7/Make-the-text-on-your-screen-larger-or-smaller

Note that this method keeps your LCD @ his native resolution where it is at it's sharpest.

 

Can someone tell me how big the system repair disc will be?
As in, how many megabytes or gigabytes it will be?

 

I installed this profile and right when I did the top border of firefox changed from a sky blue to a gray. Is this normal? I'll leave it for a while before I make a final judgement. At some point I hope to pick up the spyder software myself and create some profiles for various lighting conditions.

Thanks for the profile.

Edit: Does this profile appear on other user accounts or just mine?

 

I inserted mine into the drive, clicked properties and it said 157MB.

This reminds me about burn speed. I didn't notice an option to set the burn speed when creating the 2 recovery discs. Is there an option?

 

Well when I look at my box of tapes vs. pocket external HDD & backup... and speed of access to scenes. And no motor nor heads to clean.

Funny, I got the F because I need CPU power to crunch the AVC format.

 

Two for the recovery discs and one for the system repair disc.

 

I edited my post above as I initially thought the poster was referring to the recovery discs instead of the repair disc.

The repair disc is 157MB. Had I known that I would have used a CD-R instead of a DVD-R.

 

@Viking Quest
@Joe Bleau


Thanx a bunch for the info guys.
I really appreciate it.

 

I can't get the emoticons to work when pressing the left touchbar. I'm using Firefox 3.6. Only added Adblock Plus and NoScript so far. Am I doing something wrong?

 

Thanks for the links. I haven't changed from the default power mode on the laptop. I'm just wondering if anyone else has encountered this issue.

 

Yes, it was about the repair disc and not the recovery disc.
Thanx for the info, as I also didn't want to waste a dvd by mistake either.
I appreciate your input.

 

Just copy & paste the code, but clicking works for me. Maybe your F is broken?

 

What startup programs can I kill via msconfig that aren't necessary?

I'm too lazy to type them all out and I couldn't find the page that had info on capturing a screen shot. I now how to do the print screen method and then use something like image shack to post the screen shot, but I thought someone here posted a quicker, easier method.

 

Okay, I got my replacement F. Quiet as a mouse. I'm not noticing any flex on the keyboard but then again I don't hit the keys that hard. Had it running about 5 hours while I created recovery discs and loaded apps and it stayed nice and cool. The screen is a bit of a bother (I've been using matte for 3 years) but no worse than any other laptop screen. My AW had limited viewing angles too. The anti-reflective coating is a lot like what they out on eye glasses but once I got used to it, it didn't bother me. The machine is incredibly fast when plugged in. Also, if you get (or have) the blu-ray player, there's a Corel update waiting to be downloaded through Vaio updates. No dead pixels, squeaky keys, whining, etc. Hope that gives some of you some hope. Here's what I got...the HDD got the lowest score at 5.9.

Component: Vegas Pro 9.0
Component: Intel® Core™ i7-820QM processor (1.73GHz) with Turbo Boost up to 3.06GHz
Component: 16.4" VAIO Premium Display (1920x1080) with NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 330M GPU (1GB VRAM)
Component: Fresh Start
Component: No additional Office Software
Component: Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.0
Component: 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3-SDRAM-1333
Component: Blu-ray Disc™ player/burner
Component: No additional AntiVirus Software
Component: Keyboard Backlight
Component: Standard Capacity Battery
Component: Black
Component: No Engraving
Component: Genuine Windows® 7 Professional 64-bit
Component: 500GB Hard Disk Drive (7200rpm)

 

Don't even say/type that. That's bad mojo. I'm using Firefox 3.6. I tried dragging it using the left touchbar and right-click, copy image location and in both instances all you see is the code after clicking preview post.

 

slrosenfeld's monitor profile, see attached file in his post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5784440&postcount=1572

 

Capture active window by pressing ALT+PRINT SCREEN, open a new document in Paint, paste capture, crop & annotate to taste, save image. More info here. When you post a message > Go Advanced > Manage Attachments. Browse your computer, select image & Upload. Eh voila, a piece of gateau!

 

That's the profile I installed.

 

Are you talking about adding emoticons to your posts?

Don't "copy image location", just click on them or: click emoticon or copy the code made of letters & signs in the [ More] section: ":twit*chy:" (w/ *) = What is "the left touchbar"?

 

Thanks Joe Bleau. I've actually done this before using print screen and paint, but didn't know how to post the screen shot on a forum without using a host.

On another positive note I got the emoticons to work after allowing notebookreview in NoScript, which was required to upload the screen shot. Killed two birds with one stone.

OK. So which unnecessary startup programs can I kill?

 

A drawer full of MiniDV tapes is no hardship. I started doing portapack with the 1/2" open reel Sony Rover, then 3/4" Umatic with a Sony VO4800 and JVC KY2000 camera, and the best of the footage shot with THOSE systems are still here, on tape. (The EIAJ1 footage has been dubbed to 3/4", for which I have a component dubber.) Will digital AVC footage still be around, easy to find - or play - 30 years from now?

(edit) I've also still got my Betacam, and some tapes, but I never had a playback machine.

My current editor is a Q9450 with CS1. HD footage is editable but it's a real kludge, mostly done with scripting and shareware. So the F11 will be a TRUE HD editor with its Premiere CS4. It's both a hardware upgrade and the new dedicated editor. I'll be real happy when the system arrives some time this century... :SLEEP:

 

Good, now you need to learn how to crop all that useless white space.

A good read: Black Viper's Top 8 tweaks for a faster (and less annoying) Windows 7 PC. Note about "Number Two": I prefer to keep System Restore, for newbies it can be a lifesaver. BTW, create a restore point before tweaking.

In the bottom of that page: "Note: Do not use msconfig to stop services. It basically is "disabling" a service. Use the above procedure and set to "manual" instead for testing purposes".

Maybe more info than you want about optimization & Services, but he is very good: Black Viper's Windows 7 Service Configurations.

 

Does anyone know why the volume is so low when playing a Blu Ray movie? I had all volume settings up to max, but it was still much quieter than sound from games, internet, etc. I think it has to do with the WinDvD program but has anyone ran into this problem before or found a way to increase the volume for this program past 50?

 

I don't know, but I'll probably won't.

Well it's digital so it's only numbers. Pixela imports the AVCHD from the camera to PC as .m2ts and you can edit w/ Sony Vegas directly or import to Premiere Pro CS4 and save as any format you want.

I know I can't play my Sony analog 8mm tapes as the Sony Digicam I got after that was not backward compatible & now I'm using tape-less HD digital.

I also played with Sony's Portapak (B&W) which was a breakthrough in portability at the time. No need to go to the gym after using that thing all day. For you kids, here is an image from this site:

 

Why not then the G73's elephant-eared sibling? An interesting yet weird thing-a-ma-jig by Asus and Bang & Olufsen that would SURELY solve all audio issues on a laptop.

Carrying it though might be a different story?

Asus NX90 below

 

I've been lurking in this thread for weeks, and I really appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts and advice on the F Series. I don't have the technical expertise of many of you, so I'm hoping I can ask for some advice.

I recently had my apartment broken into and almost all of my computer-related equipment was stolen. As a result, I've got to replace a laptop and an external HD. The Best Buy configuration (VPCF115FM/B) is almost exactly what I want, with the exception of the 5400 rpm HD. I was thinking I'd purchase it along with a Hitachi Travelstar 7200 rpm HD and a Vantec NexStar 3 External Enclosure from Tiger Direct. I'm planning to clone the 5400 rpm hard drive to the 7200 rpm one, and install it in the laptop. I'll use the 5400 rpm one as an external drive.

Value means an awful lot to me right now, so I'll settle for some inconvenience as long as it means more bang for my buck. Here's where I'd appreciate some advice:

Is there any reason that you'd advise against purchasing this system from Best Buy? I understand that Sony has addressed the noise issues that many in this thread have reported. Do units that are being purchased directly from Sony Style have a hardware fix that the Best Buy units won't?

I've cloned hard drives before, but only secondary drives on my desktop, which was also stolen. Is it any trouble to clone the primary hard drive off of a laptop to an external drive?

I appreciate any information you can provide. Thanks.

 

I'll answer your question, even though we have some previous questions that haven't been answered yet...

Buying through BB will allow you to gethe rewardzone points, you'll probably get $30 in coupons and that's free just ask for it. You can get a good ADH and regular plan, though I don't care much for non-adh, anything else I can do myself. You will pay heavy for it anywhere though, so ADH isn't for everyone. You'll pay near the same amount at the sonystyle site so take into consideration that if you want gray or a certain option you can go there, but you'll pay more if you want the 6gb of RAM, if you can go with 4 for now, it might be cheaper. Also, you pay a 15% restocking fee if you return it, which I think is bull. Why buys a PC for a week and returns it on purpose, all the hassle...Hurts everyone that honestly gets a crappy product that may not be right for them. It's $1350 at BB + tax, it's probably around 1200-1400 at sonystyle + tax, and if you are a student or professor or wait for a sale you might get it cheaper.
It's a toss up. Hope I helped you out a little. Best buy would be easier to deal with problem-wise, 'cause you can just go in there and say "Hey, this doesn't work right, my product is broken/ I got a problem" whereas with SS you have to contact cust. support through online chat and phone.

 

@cpick

hope things pickup for you.

As far as I know, there is absolutely nothing wrong going with BestBuy. I almost bought one myself since I had returned my first F and didn't like the wait especially since Sony temporarily pulled sales right after. Ultimately I went with SonyStyle again so I could spec the heck out of the machine and i'm not so keen about upgrading later on (apart from a new SSD once the price goes down)

If you like the BB spec, go for it. The F is powerful enough for most. That and you get yours immediately.!!

Edit: what Zebra3 said is true. Keep in mind that restocking fee

 

By the way, is it possible to haggle for a better price at BestBuy??

 

Yes, I have successfully haggled at BB - but it's hard to do. You have to butter up the salesman first. Get them to like you, then you have got a shot. Make the salesman feel smart, etc etc. Then when they go to the manager to ask for your 10% reduction or whatever, they are on your side.

Some things you may be more successful on - Pay full price for lappy, but get them to throw in "optimization" for free.

Or ask about open box items.

Good luck. I was able to get an upgraded unit that had pre-burned recovery disks and system optimized by geeksquad (although I replaced HD with SSD, so it didn't really matter, but it was nice to have the recovery dvd's already done - probably saved me 1-2 hours and some hassle).

I have haggled price on open box items at BB, and on store display models after they discontinue a model. Got my tower speakers and stereo receiver this way. Never be afraid to ask for a discount.

 

Wow..good to know