Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge

Microsoft Win 7 help:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-CA/windows7/Make-the-text-on-your-screen-larger-or-smaller

"You can make the text and other items, such as icons, on your screen easier to see by making them larger".

 

Yes, I've already tried that, but everything is too small still. Skype is not affected by these settings As google chrome does (although it's kinda a well-known sort of bug). I guess most of the other software I use will look like this (haven't finished installing all of em yet).
Anything that get's "magnified" is way too blurry even with the XP style button on ((

 

Could you define noisy?

If you have a iPhone, you could measure the noise emission in db for $.99 & report here. Check this post.

It's a Core i7 after all so some cooling needs are to be expected.

 

"Yes, I've already tried that, but everything is too small still" - how about reading glasses?

Follow the link in the article, you can re-scale the LCD's resolution but will loose sharpness. Glasses are better.

"Skype is not affected by these settings" Ya, that sucks, I researched Skype, it's stupid but they don't offer scaling. Many older people requested that simple function, it's on their to-do list. So when I use Skype, I also use my reading glasses.

For browsing with Firefox, check the NoSquint free add-on, works great.

 

Yeah, NO fan noise would be cause for concern.

I can often hear the fan in normal use, if there is no music or TV going, but, it's nothing close to what I would call noisy. Any music or TV and I can't hear it.

When I compress video, I would say the laptop is borderline noisy, but, then, I'm pushing the CPU at 90% or greater for an extended period of time. And even then it's not noisy, just sounds like a solid gush of air being pushed out. As soon as I drop the load on the CPU, the fan chills out again.

My MacBook Pro is pretty quiet, I can rarely even hear the fan. But, then it's only a Core2Duo 2.4GHz with 3MB cache and DDR2 667 ram. The i7 has four cores, 4 hyperthreading cores 6MB cache, and DDR3 1333GHz ram. It's just a hotter chip.

 

@count_schemula

Thanx for the spyder profile.
Looks great on my screen.

 

@ count_schemula, I'm sure you've got an iPhone, give me your email & I will send you $0.99 via Paypal so you could buy the Decibel app & report your noise emission data.

I can't believe that only sheep did it so far.

"...it's only a Core2Duo 2.4GHz with 3MB cache and DDR2 667 ram. The i7 has four cores..." Just like my Ninja ZX-11, at idle it's smooth but when unleashing the 150hp, watch out!

 

The funny thing is that I don't use glasses for reading (I've got nearsightedness, so I only use them for driving) and I've never ever had any difficulties with reading/seeing small stuff when needed, but fitting a fullHD into a 16.4" is nothing but a mere marketing, so I find it very uncomfortable. It's literally too small. Maybe it's not that small on a AW 18" screen... In Lightroom I have to sit REALLY close to the screen to see the 1:1, 1:3 buttons - they'r tiny

Am I the only one experiencing this kind of problems?

 

Android

I'm not nearly the Apple fanboi I used to be.

If there is an Andoid app, I'll buy it.

 

Android Decibel: http://www.androlib.com/android.application.bz-bsb-decibel-jmpm.aspx

 

When was your last visit to the eye doctor?

Lightroom support: Change the interface font size or the panel end marker: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Lightro...8.html#WS88729289-96E7-4b5c-B113-47F8154BEE27

Is your search engine broken?

Now zoom in your photo @ 100% & do the same with an other laptop with a lower resolution. Any comments?

 

If i'm going to use google to search for increasing font and other stuff every time... It's a real headache for tuning 30 GB of software Damn, I hate marketing more and more each day

PS. I hope Sony's going to make a new AW analog...

 

Found it, not sure it's reliable?

No real info on how to calibrate it.

I was in the 50-70db range just sitting in the room.

I'll mess with again tomorrow.

 

I can take it off your hands if the price is right.

Jokes aside, you have a point. People should check what a 1080p 16.4" looks like to see if the OS UI is too small for them before ordering.

See DPI (Fineness) of Displays with data about the different screen size & recommendations. The F 1080 has 134 DPI.

 

Did you fart?

 

You're lucky you HAVE the F...ing computer you want. In Canada right now we can't even GET the F11 with GT330 and 1920 X 1080. Hey, if you don't want the computer, I'll give it a good home...

I'm really annoyed at all these whiners who return the F11 because the keyboard has a squeak, or it makes fan noise when its running hard, or "the font is too small." Jeesh!! It's a good notebook at a good price, people!

 

Can you see Russia from Canada?

 

I don't complain about the fan or the keyboard or whatever - I'm mostly working in a lab sorrounded by 100-decibel producing lasers and other noise sources, so I barely hear my fan even at it's max. Neither I'm saying that the laptops sucks or whatever. But I guess most people would agree that fullHD is too much for a 16.4". It looks awesome on my dad's 25" lcd screen - that's were it should be used. FullHD on a 16.4 is pure marketing as everybody is abscessed with HD stuff. You won't find a single new mobile phone without HD support in a year! That's rather ridiculous as most of the marketing stuff is (like plunging a 12 MegaPixel CCD into a "1x1 mm matrix" on a poin-and-shoot cameras).

Having my "old" SZ3 standing nearby with it's 1280x800 on a 13.3" screen I would say it looks way sharper that F when observed at the same distance (which means that I'm relatively closer to the F screen than I should, as it's bigger)! And I'm not kidding. In all the other terms the laptop is awesome I guess I should rather complain about the software not supporting hi resolution on small screens...

 

It gives best results for HD video without rescaling, (HD is an important part of my use for the system) and fonts can be scaled up, and anyway the font is the size of a book's smaller typeface standards, I can read it fine. As for buttons on programs that DON'T scale like Skype there's always Win7's built in magnifier, and Move to Button Mouse settings.

(edit) and I'm not picking on you, throughout this thread there have been ridiculously inconsequential complaints, which just made me think "oh well" - until the poster then goes on to say he's returned the laptop because of that squeaking "K" key or whatever! The squeak goes away after use, but the poster doesn't even ASK before returning..

I agree the problem with the mic buzz is probably due to lack of shielding. Again, my early build, which probably hadn't yet met assembly line cost reductions, did NOT have the morse code, and the fan was silent even ramped up, you could just hear the air rushing.

 

Fonts small = laptop back

me too

Is there something You don't know or discover?

Ah-ha!! That's the thing you 'don't know', You ride a buzzing bee instead of a motorbike!

If it has more than two cylinders it's probably broken

If You want sound then pick a "Motorbike"

Joe, You make me cry..

..hope he wasn't again sitting on his head!!

 

I don't know. It's fine for me. Sharp, but still perfectly readable. I probably wouldn't have bought the F series if it was 1600x1200 or something. I need the desktop space.

I come from the 18.4" AW series at 1920x1080 and haven't once thought about the size difference since I got the F - the fan noise, now that's a different story.

The 1920x1080 screen on the 13" Z series, yes, totally overkill and too small on normal settings. But on a 16.4" screen, that's pretty much a sweet spot for me. A lot of lower resolution screens seem unnecessarily blown up now. Like the SZ series screen, but especially external ones.

 

I heavily disagree and am willing to wager that a significant number of users on this thread would not have purchased it had it not been for Full HD. This is a multimedia Blu-Ray equipped notebook for entertainment/video/photo editing. The target market seeks 1080p. You can order a CTO with a lower-res if you so choose.

I for one absolutely love the screen and the text, windows buttons, all applications are functioning and perfectly viewable without any adjustments whatsoever. 16.4" is the perfect size for me, avoids the bulk of the 17+ while still providing plenty of space. Can't fault it.

 

Thumb up!

 

As for HD editing, you'r totally right. I agree that if you'r into it, you just need fullHD no matter the screen size... But I've been looking a laptop with best possible display for photo-editing. HD is also a good thing here, as it's hard to fit a 23 MPx image onto a 1280x800 screen (in this sense, I'd prefer a 3:4 screen, btw). As I'm not a professional photographer, I have to do a lot of other stuff with a laptop, so it's not just the resolution that counts in my case.

Setting the panel font size in Lightroom to large worked great, but I still have a couple of programs with no such option. This is the only thing that disappoints me, but I know see that it not quite fair to blame sony

As for the screen, a friend of mine just showed me his new one from ebay:


Side-by-side comparison showed that it's superior to F screen when it comes to vertical angle of view. I was quite amazed! Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to make some pics, but I'll try to do it a bit later... I now wonder if there are any bigger lenovo laptops with such displays?..

Why did you chose to switch from a bigger screen to a smaller one? ))

 

@ ilfuca: that's a really nice machine!

"If it has more than two cylinders it's probably broken" but we were talking about a quad core. BTW my kid brother rides a Ducati.

You need a girl that really loves you to sit on that for 600km in one day. Anyway, sadly the ZX-11 is in a garage in Canada, too big for Central America. DR350 single core gets me there @ the present:



---------

I agree with qbot in a way, a lot of users would be better served by a 900p, but not me.

 

Portability - and it's basically just a better laptop. I prefer a smaller, sharper image over a bigger laptop with the same resolution. As long as everything is still readable and at a comfortable size.

The difference for me is huge. I have a messenger bag with laptop compartment. But the AW didn't fit and had to go into the main compartment. It was basically full with little space left in the front for the charger, cables, etc. The F fits into the laptop compartment perfectly, while I could still fit a couple of big books inside the main compartment plus the front.

 

Talking about big books:



I wish they would make one for the F: BookBook.

Sure beats the Neoprene sleeve look.

 

http://www.docs.sony.com/release/VPCF110_series_QSG_EN_ES.pdf
This is the right manual

 

I wonder why are there no laptops with Hydis displays? Just took a second look at my friend's one (I've fixed the link in the post above): it's truly amazing and has close to 90 degrees vertical view angle! Lagom.nl tests show NO any gradients in color at all! Although I don't have a camera with me, I'll make a few shots from my phone to share

 

Last OT

I' was only trying to put a fight with You but actually I also ride 4 cores bikes for 'other purposes'


http://img261.yfrog.com/img261/1971/fuca1rg8.jpg


And for Ducati's I had a 996 but was toooo sadly stolen to me, still

 

Or the stealth air packet messenger bag...



http://www.zath.co.uk/stealth-laptop-sleeve-postal-envelope-bag/

matt

 

As for the F premium display comparison with HYDIS display:

Vaio is to the right. Although these pics are taken from my phone (HTC HD2) the Lagom viewing angle test is not affected much. At lest the conditions are similar
One can clearly see that HYDIS gives perfectly even gray picture while VAIO is far from that... I guess if you run the same test on a professional desktop display you'll see just the same as with HYDIS...

P.S. There just should be something wrong with these HYDIS - otherwise they'd been widely used on some pro-grade laptops, I guess. Maybe it's the colors... The one I saw was used on a linux system with no color management

 

Does anyone know if the Fresh Start version come with the Arc soft magic-i visual effect or just the webcam companion 3, My daughter really wants the extra software but it is 39.99 to download it. It is already installed on the model without Fresh Start, I called Sony 3 times and no one seems to know,
Thanks

 

Hey does anyone know of any laptops in the same price range as the vaio F series (1200) with better graphics??????

 

Yes. Fresh Start removed most the Vaio software. I have Fresh Start and it had everything but I noticed alot of that extra stuff from Sony missing.

 

I just called Sony and requested a RMA for my laptop I just got in a week ago and waited a month. Not happy with it. Performance has been good, but my biggest issue and its the most important thing I needed, was the screen. I did the spyder adjustments, it helped, but it is still washed out, and viewing angles are terrible. I have owned and seen many laptops over the past 6 months, and this is by far the worst one.

Uninstalling all my software as I type this. Sony, get with the program and put RGB LED screens in this laptop. Otherwise you have a great laptop!

I ordered a XPS 16 with everything + some I had on the Sony for cheaper. Since Dell fixed their throttling issues finally, it seems to be the better machine now.

 

I have audio issue with F11 when i connected to TV using HDMI.
The blu-ray video is fine but audio is coming in the laptop instead of TV.
I do see my Sony tv is listed in the laptop audio device after i plugin HDMI but still audio is coming in the laptop.
How do i switch audio from laptop to TV when connecting thru HDMI ?

 

Dell's offering in this price range have ATi 4xxxx graphics.

They also tend to offer some nice screen upgrades.

Look at their Studio line.

It's a Dell though. I'm not a Dell hater, but it's hard to get excited about buying one.

 

ok, IF I return this laptop to BB this weekend, this will be the reason why.

The vertical viewing angle might be hard to live with.

Bottom is a 2008 MacBook Pro 17 inch with an LED screen.

I find myself moving the screen back and forth on the Sony a lot to try and stay in the sweet spot.

Pics are from my crappy cell phone camera, but they are accurate enough.

 

Exactly. I have been moving mine and trying to get a good viewing angle is hard. When I have it in bed, and laying on my side, I can't view it worth a crap. While my other two laptops I had work and my old Macbook Pro Late June 09 (sold for work software I needed to use on a Pc), worked great.

 

The screen is not great. It's good enough and in the sweet spot very good. But then I'm coming from an AW RGB LED 18.4 inch. However last night I'm lying in bed while my wife is looking at shoes on Zappos on her $400 Asus laptop...it has an LED and the screen is noticably better. I take the netbook and move it from angle to angle and it's great...just like the AW. I gotta ask myself why they can put a great screen in a $400 netbook but not in the F11. Having said that I'll keep the laptop because I need one and what else is there right now? I can't go Dell and HP after reading so many complaints....it would be an act of wishful thinking I'm sure becuase I have preety bad luck when it comes to laptops. My Sony SR crashed 2 days ago during a siomple Sony BIOS update. It's now a paperweight.

 

As for those HYDIS displays having an enormous viewing angles, they can only reproduce 50% of Adobe RGB (or NTSC, which is almost the same, as I understand) - that's the drawback. See this for details.

 

Both Sony Support and Corel told me to run my recovery discs or purchase a new serial number.

booo.

 

I agree, in the sweet spot, the screen is pretty damn nice looking. But I'm talking about moving my head mere inches seems to mess the view up. That seems more distracting than the gamut right now.

It's hard to watch a movie on this thing.

Can anyone confirm that the US 1080p screen has this super gamut? I kind of heard it was only on the euro models?

Sharpness, clarity, horizontal viewing angle are pretty good.

It's def not as bright as either of my 2 year old MacBook Pros, and the vertical viewing angle is not even comparable. It's not even close.

I'm trying hard to love this laptop. But I do have a real concern over living with this.

 

Hello,
I've recently purchased a Sony F11S1E from the Sony centre in Selfridges, London and there seems to be a problem with it. The laptop has gone into hibernation mode / shut down several times whilst I was still using it (once while I was surfing the web, another time when I was using iTunes for example). I took the laptop back to Sony and they replaced it today, but this new laptop has gone into hivernation mode twice today. Is there a problem or am I being paranoid? Anyone else experienced the same?

 

Dell fixed their problems on the XPS 16. You might want to consider it again.

 

Two different laptops is kinda weird.

Are you on battery? It might have an aggressive sleep set-up?

 

@nizmoz What about the heat issues?

 

Doesn't sound normal at all. I am naturally assuming you are running from a consistent power source. Strange you'd have the same issue on two brand new laptops. What applications have you installed apart from iTunes? Were you actively using the PC or watching a video on the web / left iTunes running?

Mine is a UK CTO model and it exhibited somewhat odd behaviour vis-a-vis sounds from the speakers and general sluggishness till i did a clean install of Windows 7. After that it has behaved very well.

 

To what I am reading, there aren't any heat issues anymore with the BIOS update as it makes the fan run all the time on medium setting now. MACbook Pros have the same type of vent setup and they work just fine.