Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge

Before I bought this laptop, I went to Best Buy, asked for a Blu-ray disc (they gave me Planet Earth), and unplugged the power from the laptop and watched it. It worked fine, could not tell any difference from when it was plugged in. (Though, keep in mind that the battery might not last the entire length of a blu-ray movie).

By the way, the guy working the computer section told me they didn't have any blu-ray discs I could use to test out this function...but of course the home theater guy had no problems handing me one...but that's a story for a different time.

Hmm, I am hearing the squeaking when I hit the spacebar...it's not terrible, but it is noticeable. I'm betting I get used to it in a couple weeks, if I don't do anything about it.

 

Since the F isn't available with a GT330M GPU in canada, I'm left wondering whether to re-consider the GT310M or not. I have been following the thread and have read that with the 1600x900 screen, the gt310m will be just as capable as the gt330m with a 1920x1080 screen (please correct me if I have mis-understood). I am really in a pickle of whether to buy this unit or not, and am wondering if anybody would advise against it, and for what reasons? I have also been looking at the Samsung r780 and have no idea where to get my hands on one of those in Canada. Thank you immensely for your help and suggestions, I'm trying to make an educated purchase here.

 

Spartan it is all silly talk. The 310 will be fine on either screen. The difference will be GPU performance. Do you wnat to play new PC games? Yes, get the 330GT. Do you want to use autocad or cad style programs? Yes, get the 330GT. Do you want to surf the net, watch movies (HD and not HD) and play older games? 310 is perfect card for that.

Resolution is important, but I have an Intel x4500 driving a HD screen at the moment and it is fine. It is only when I try and game that it hurts. The Nvidia 310 will be around 8x faster then the X4500, so it will be very good.

 

WOW! Wasn't really expecting to be able to play Crysis with everything on very high except with shadows and shaders on medium on my F! It's a BEAST! I'm also averaging around 20-60 fps, it's usually around 23-31 fps though depending on the environment.

 

Well, it would be nice to play recent games on the laptop I do get. I'm still fairly young so I can see it happening. My current desktop doesn't play any games, really.. and that's why I'm trying to be a bit picky with the GPU. This laptop might end up lasting me 4 or 5 years (my desktop is at year 6 now) so I would like to have the i7 for that reason, it's very up-to-date. I have been looking around for another i7 in this $1200 price range, but I come up with the same few every time. It feels like I am going in circles some days.. lol

 

Yeah, as I have said, the gpu is the sticking point for me. I don't play games often, but when I do, I like to play them at high settings. I would want to play WoW at highest settings (can probably do that), and play Dragon Age at fairly high settings (not sure it can do it or not).

Anyone have an opinion or first-hand experience on how well the 330m handles Dragon Age at high settings?

 

If it's the case, then you don't need an i7 DTR like the F in the first place. Get a cheaper, lighter, less powerful notebook with longer battery life & save some money.

 

Yeah, there was a Samsung R580 at Futureshop for $800 with a 512mb 310m, and an i3 processor. One of those weird black/red coloured ones.. I'm not too sure what to think of them yet.

 

Any thoughts on the new Kingston V+ series SSD's?

http://www.kingston.com/ukroot/ssd/vplus_series.asp?id=8

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...m_re=kingston_128GB_v+-_-20-139-109-_-Product

 

Squeaky spacebar? DIY easy fix:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5852864&highlight=spacebar#post5852864

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5851955&highlight=spacebar#post5851955

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5856291&highlight=spacebar#post5856291

 

guys another thing... is my 1920x1080 matte display uses the new LED technology? or older lamp

thanks

 

All F-series use cold cathode flourescent.

 

so no new led display yet

 

Pretty & artsy Samsung R580 video.

 

A good display w/ CCFL is better than a bad one w/ LED and there is a lot of those out there.

 

pretty cool video of the Samsung

 

Do you think they will give the Atheros dual channel capability through a firmware upgrade? I would really like to be able to use my dual channel router.

 

Is it normal for their to be a feint, blurred pink hue around text and images when holding the up or down arrow, causing the screen to scroll quickly?

 

No!!! It should be a blurred violet hue. Maybe your F is broken or your monitor colors are skewed?

 

Where can I find a file or image that displays a solid color on the entire screen? I want to try various colors and/or the best color to see if there's any bleed or uniformity issues.

Edit: I found full screen color images when searching for dead pixel tests.

 

Are you still trying to find defects on your F?

Free & very good but since you don't have a hard copy to compare to, you will not know if the colors are correct NEC Test Pattern Generator 1.0.

Note that you can use Paint & create images 1920 x 1080, fill them solid colors & set as desktop background.

I've never seen a notebook review so far where the brightness distribution was perfectly even. Here are for example some screen grabs from these reviews: Dell Studio 1747 and MacBook Pro 17" which has a very high display user ratings but is much more expensive then the F.





So some unevenness is to be expected, within a reasonable range naturally.

 

Hehe... I'm hoping not to find any. I did find various color images - black, white, red, green, blue - and displayed each on the screen. Didn't notice any dead pixels but there are two noticeable darker spots about the size of a pea on the far lower left and right corners. I had noticed them when I first turned on the vaio, but they are almost obscured with the task bar and icons. On a full black screen the lower portion of the screen, about 1 1/2 inches in height is lighter than the surrounding black.

When displaying the images I really noticed how washed out the colors were with my screen vertical. Didn't really notice it when browsing due to mostly white backgrounds. Placing the screen at a 10-15 degree backward angle resulted in much more vibrant colors and a brighter screen. I was able to lower the screen brightness from 70% t0 50%, with 50% still being brighter using the new screen angle.

I tried the NEC test pattern and noticed the same bleeding on the lower part of the screen on the images with a black background. It's like a white light is trying to shine through. The Nokia test pattern isn't compatible with Windows 7.
On a related note I noticed screen brightness jumps from 50% to 70% to 100%. There's no way to set it at 60%, 80%, etc?

 

I can give You the @5400 hd and some linux hassles for the backlit, we have a deal?

'cause they thought You were making up Your mind..

Gotcha!!

not at all

It does, I watched Wall-e with my daughter on the bed and I've been able to lok at the forum a little bit before and after it

As I've previously said it does this in violet (I told purple firing just to explain to photographers) in mine with the calibrated ICC

Shall I hate or love You?

Can You please use italic when kidding and bold when not so that I can still smile and get worried when needed?

 

hi guys i have a question.. i lve in the uk, should i get an american model or a UK model? they uk model works out to be £1080 and they american £1200 with customs and vat.

american version is VAIO F VPCF117FX/B.


the uk version is Sony VAIO F11 S1E/B

the only diference that i can see between the two are american has backlit keybrd and 7200rpm as a pose to the uk's 5400rpm.

eveyrthing else is the same graphics card. and all that. which do you guys think i should get? the american version comes with international warranty for 1 year aswell.


p.s i didnt quite catch what was said here about the differences in the screens for USA and Europe.

 

As far as I know, there is no biometric protection on the F-series. I know that the Z-series has it but the F does not. I have never used fingerswipe etc on any of my prior machines, even though my HP/Compaq 8710W comes built-in with the finger-swipe mechanism (even though our company has not opted to use it and thus it is not turned on).

I guess that means using old-fashioned passwords to protect the F !

 

The US full-HD screen is glossy, while the EU gets a full-HD "premium" screen option that is Matte, in addition to the full-HD screen option that is glossy.

 

First pro review of the VAIO F I had, as I also mentioned in my minireview the fan noise is a problem, and the reason why I returned mine:

http://translate.google.com/transla...otebook.25324.0.html&sl=de&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8

 

"Only 2 USB" - then it's not an F model.

 

Just a few words on the displays. I am still waiting for the Premium Black F to come to my country and get it but I have a MacBook Pro 17 Matte Unibody (facelift), FW, the "old" 1600x900 Z and a TZ.

The display of the MacBook 17, compared to all mentioned VAIOs is a HUGE dissapointment. I actually had the glossy version first but it was useless at any light. This thing is very bad for the eyes. Then I got the matte, put it next to the Z and the FW and let me tell you - huge disappointment. The backlighting is uneven and when is heats up it gets even worse. The colors are simply not so rich as on the VAIOs. And there's a very high frequency noise comming from the LED backlight.

The best laptop screens I've ever seen is the 1600x900 on the Z and the top version of the AW.....and my benchmark is a 30" EIZO.

 

I'm not really sure that the first point is true.

still I'll get the EU version, for the backlit keyboard You trade a better screen matte adobe rgb colour vs glossy one, a better wifi card Intel 6200 dual channel and the awesome premium black colour

 

Thanks to all the contributors in this thread. It's been a great source of information as I've set up my BestBuy (US)-model F115FM/B. It's a great laptop overall (though I wish it had a GeForce 360M), and the build quality is impressive coming from a Gateway P7811-FX.

I have one problem, however:

I've got Fedora 12 (rawhide) up and running with full 'nvidia' driver acceleration (195.30 nvidia driver) after exporting the EDID to a raw file. However, I'm having one issue: I can't seem to get xorg (or nvidia twinview) to recognize an external display connected via VGA (haven't yet tried HDMI). I've tried a few different methods, from adding a second display notation to the "ConnectedMonitor" string, to allowing nvidia to auto-detect the second display.

If I grep 'dmesg' for any activity when the display is hotplugged, I get nothing.

Any tips?

 

If anyone has ordered the F11Z1E via dabs.com, I've just received the following email:

 

How did you guys get a 15% discount? I ordered an F from Sony US and after reading through this forum, I wanted to change my configuration and also get the discount. So I called in. The lady said she could only go up to 5% and there was no way she could give me 15%. She also said they weren't under commission so if she could give me 15% she would cause it's not money coming out of her pocket. Frustrating!

 

Be warned. I had to return my first F11 back to Sony Style. But it had the Vegas Pro 9 option. It comes with the video editing part of Vegas Pro 9 but not the DVD Architect 5.0 for burning BDs. It is not the bargin you think you are getting. And the DVD Architect 5.0 is not sold separately.

Now they may have changed the option to the full product by now. But I didn't order the option on my second try.

 

Thanks. I was driving myself a little batty trying to find something I assumed would be there. I guess I'll try roboform. It's an app that automatically fills password fields with unique passwords and al the user has to remember is one password. My partners have used it for years and really like it. Got good reviews too.

The F is a strange animal in the way that its positioned. But I do like it. I just don't know what Sony is thinking sometimes. But then again I've worked with Microsoft for years and that company does things that seem irrational. Maybe ways of multi-billion dollar companies are beyond me.

And I think you'll like Vegas Pro. I use the word "think" because I'm still trying to figure out how to use it.

 

I received my new F11 last evening. 720-CPU, 330-GPU, 1080 screen, 6GB, BD-burner. It's great so far.

I was up late burning repair and recovery disks, calibrating my screen and installing apps. I was worried that MS was going to give me a hard time about installing Office again, but no issues. I found something else interesting. I have a favorite old program called Picture Publisher from Micrographix. They sold out to Corel years ago and the program is no longer supported. I figured that Windows 7 was going to be the death of it. And after installing it it didn't run. But I learned a trick. Right click on the shortcut and select poperties and the compatiblity tab. Then I chose the Windows XP SP3 mode and clicked disable visual themes and run as administrator and the program runs great. I learned this trick from some gaming sites. BTW, I only have Windows 7 Home Premium. This trick does not require the full XP emulation found in higher end Windows 7 products. Very cool.

Thanks to all who helped me get my new F to where I want it.

 

Good news about the screen even for the gnomes*

As I said before, I retrieved the settings for the European screen from Matt and I put them on my win7, has He fully explained.

Do I want them also in Ubuntu?

Obviously was not immediate (icm profile is the Microsoft version of icc) and Googling a bit 'seemed quite difficult, in fact it took me a bit far from the eeeeasy solution. ... I guess it depended on version of the old kernel, missing packages and in our case because xcalib ** was not available for x64. Then I also found infos about LittleCMS or other solutions but at the end I found out that everything was quite simple, the program will be found in the repos and can be simply installed with synaptic.

In detail, for those not familiar synaptic System> Administration> Package Manager search xcalib, select it and with the right button and click Install and then apply. Nothing could be easier. (try to find and install a program in win, will it be that easy?)

Unfortunately xcalib does not have a gui, so it must be used by the terminal, but it really doesn't mind since it's so easy.

You have to download the attachment file and unzip it (sadly we can't upload tar.gz here) where you want (let it be a comfortable place to reach, in the example I've used my "username" folder).

Then open the terminal (Applications> Accessories> Terminal) and run the following command

and you will see the new settings!

If You ever don't like those settings there is no problem, at the next login you will have the default one.

Then what? Well, if you are happy with the "new" screen You just have to add it at startup

Ok, ok, I'll tell you also this one. To start it when booting: System> Preferences>Startup (boot?) Applications under the tab Boot Programs click Add

It opens a new window, just fill it up, under name put whatever you want (I put Calibration Adobe) just anything useful to remember what it is if ever you want to disable it. Then on the command one simply put the command posted above (xcalib.....), last one at comment put Fuca is God then click Add and then Close and you've done it!!!


* I guess it's the same for KDE
** Http://xcalib.sourceforge.net/

 

Okay, how is one expected to burn blu-ray then? The Amazon version which is Vegas Pro 9 has the DVD Architect. Why would Sony sell a crippled product CTO without disclaimers? Maybe one could buy Movie Studio 9 and its DVD Architect?

 

Hi ilfuca,

No, I don't get any graphical glitches around the mouse cursor with my Spyder 3-calibrated screen. If you applied my profile and it does not work, please follow the instructions to revert back to the standard Vaio profile that I included in the zip file.

matt

 

Try Linux for F11 project: http://code.google.com/p/vaio-f11-linux/

 

hey guys, simple question: about 1080p not being the best for the 310M card, cant one get the 310M with 1080p, then setup the display to 900p, and if one ever needs 1080p the it can be changed in the settings?

 

@RSCO is kind of correct regarding Vegas Pro 9. I just got off the phone with Sony. I hate when companies do morally gray things. The version in the Sony CTO will burn to blu-ray and DVD but without menus. Only as a full movie. However, I did resolve the issue but it cost me another $184. PM me if you got Vegas Pro 9 and want to know how to resolve the issue.

Thanks for the "heads up" RSCO!

 

i just bought an Intel X25-m G2 160GB SSD....it'll be here tomorrow...tonight I prep for the clean install.

Weee

 

It's not the mouse, it's the window itself when being moved or scrolled fast

Don't worry I know how to revert and still I'm happy with it till now (I plan to do mine someday) since I took the hassle to port it also to linux

Ah, It almost doesn't does it in Ubuntu (the violet thing!)

BTW You got a rep from me for that

 

The simple answer is: a LCD is always best @ native resoltion.

From FAQ Native Resolutions and Image Scaling. An other interesting article to understand why: Native Resolution.

 

Got mine yesterday. What a great laptop. Very good build quality. Luv it. No problems. That is all.

 

@ Joe Bleau: Thx a lot man, figured you guys wouldn't be talking bout it if it were that simple

 

I am considering buying a Vaio F11 with an SSD. How do I decide between the 256 GB offering by Sony and a 160 GB Intel X-25m G2? (I am concerned more about performance and reliability than I am about capacity and price, although the 256 seems like a good deal if both drives are somewhat equal in performance and reliability.)

 

Thanks for the link! When Google Code is back from maintenance and allows posting, I'll start contributing my tips there as well.

 

anyone know why sony keeps moving the date up for the f series?