Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge

Just curious as to where the new models are listed. Is it something the general public can view or do you have connections? Thanks.

 

Ok -- got mine last week. Specs below. I had a YELLOW STICKER on the side of the Box -- i don't know what this means. I know NHMike says green is good, but what am i to make of the YELLOW??

I CAN report that i have NO NOISE ISSUES; NO SQUEAKY SPACEBAR; AND I CAN VIEW THE SCREEN FROM ALL ANGLES WITHOUT PROBLEM. The screen is somewhat more glossy than my TT or Z.

Was grateful for a 15% discount -- had to buy 2 year extended warranty plus neoprene case. Hell, would've bought it anyway!! The rep at Sony could already see in her system that i was an owner of a CTO TT190 and a CTO Z540.

If anyone wants to know anything about the machine feel free to ask.

Thanks to everyone on this board for their opinions and set up help. I installed the Spyder settings one of you posted and it made all the difference in the world. Thank you everyone.


Product: US-VPCF1190X-LBOM
Component: No Additional Video Editing Software
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: No additional Photo Editing Software
Component: 6GB (4GBx1 + 2GBx1) DDR3-SDRAM-1333
Component: Blu-ray Disc™ player
Component: No additional AntiVirus Software
Component: Keyboard Backlight
Component: Large Capacity Battery
Component: Black
Component: No Engraving
Component: Genuine Windows® 7 Professional 64-bit
Component: 320GB Hard Disk Drive (7200rpm)
Quantity: 1
Description: VPCF1190X Configure-to-Order
Date shipped: 02/04/2010

 

oh, right, I was talking to tcklim, who in his video said he did not care that he could not tell if he had a CCFL or LED backlight, and that's true when the laptop is new...

 

wow...I really have to say that the difference between the vertical viewing difference between my US screen and Tcklim's EU matte screen is like night and day. While my new F11 screen is much better than my last F11, it nowhere achieves what the EU screen does.

It looks the same viewing straight on but it seems like the issue other owners are having with their US screen happens when they shift slightly and there seems to be a loss of clarity. In this new screen of mine, that does not happen in light backgrounds or lighter colors but it does not play nice in darker colors where a shift creates an oversaturated look.Still in this regard, my new screen achieves a better angle than my first.

THe EU screen definitely is better.

 

Run! Get away from the laptop as quick as possible!



Or read this post & chill out. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5901671#post5901671

 

For all we know, there may be nothing to the different color stickers other than they just use a sticker of any color as an easy marker for sales people to know "this unit has A, B and C applied." We probably shouldn't read into it anymore than what I was told by the Sony Tech last night. A yellow sticker could just mean the same thing. Anything else would be the "S" word (speculation).

 

Find it even more odd matching a voice to myself need to slow down

Thanks Count, I didn't know about the degradation over time. Is there any way to determine if this is LED or not? Only answers I could find through google involve me dissecting my notebook

 

So you noticed a difference as well between your old and new screen? I've noticed the vertical viewing is better with our new screen. The horizontal viewing experience between our old and new screen is like night and day. If we were not close to or directly in front of the old screen, colors started to look funky. With the new screen, we can stand just about 90 degrees to the side and it looks pretty close to how it looks when we stand in front of it. I'm guessing our first screen had issues and we didn't realize it until we got this one.

 

Both our old and new unit had a very intermittent audio issue where the left speaker would occasionally spit out a little static when the speakers were muted. When we un-mute them, the static would go away. I had updated the Realtek driver to the latest version from the Sony site and it did not resolve this. Today I grabbed the latest driver from the Realtek site (driver version 6.0.1.6043 dated 2/8/2010) and it seems to have resolved that issue. Just posting it here in case someone else runs into it.

 

@NHMike

yup! noticed it the moment the screen fired up on the new unit. It was surprising.

Apologies in advance but just out of curiosity, (!!!speculation alert!!!)If the EU screen is so different from the US screen apart from the finish, why would Sony upgrade to new screens from the old but only step it up a notch below the EU screen?
Are they trying to 'Quietly' ease a fix hence getting something comparable but not something so obviously different?

 

I think that I have this problem too, where did you take you F11 to be evaluated? Thanks.

 

I'm pretty sure the US (or my screen at least) screens are CCFL. I had mercury warnings with my laptop.

No idea about the Euro screens.

 

Prebuilts available in March.
http://www.sonystyle.ca/commerce/servlet/CategoryDisplays?storeId=10001&langId=-1&catalogId=10001&categoryId=100740&navigationPath=n32009n100299

 

I sent it back to Gordon Baker two hours after turning it on. "One of the bad screens...." is what the tech there said a few days later.

(edit) It was sent to the local Sony headquarters (30 minutes away) rather than back to Diego in CASE there was an easy fix, or in case they didn't believe me when I said it was lousy. They believed me.

(another darned edit) I'm glad anyway that I didn't have to stick with the grey model, which started to ungrow on me; and I wasn't happy about the serial number of 000000021.

(yet another edit!) Anyway I'm getting the new transportable Babbage Analytical Engine on Tuesday or so - and I know it will be PERFECT..

 

All F-series screens are Cold Cathode Flourescent. The aging takes place over several years where the screen colour drifts towards yellow.

 

@waitwaitwait

Did you manage to verify if the screen hardware id's are different? It could determine if they actually switched out screens for the North American version or we still have the same screen but had a larger count of defective ones floating around in the first batch.

My new screen: 1920x1080 60Hz, Hardware id: Monitor\MS_0025

 

Did you find your problem? I am having these same issues with videos and pages loading slowly, pokerstars losing connection. My son has a NW I bought him for Christmas I can have it sitting right next to mine running the same video and his runs flawlessly. Very disappointing to have such a nice machine that doesn't perform as well as its inexpensive counterpart.

Would it be wise to run a DPC latency checker?

The specs of the machine are

Product: US-VPCF1190X-LBOM
Component: No Additional Video Editing Software
Component: Intel® Core™ i7-720QM processor (1.60GHz) with Turbo Boost up to 2.80GHz
Component: 16.4" VAIO Premium Display (1920x1080) with NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 330M GPU (1GB VRAM)
Component: No Fresh Start
Component: Microsoft® Works
Component: No additional Photo Editing Software
Component: 6GB (4GBx1 + 2GBx1) DDR3-SDRAM-1333
Component: Blu-ray Disc™ player/burner
Component: Norton Internet Security™ 2010 (30 Day Trial)
Component: No Keyboard Backlight
Component: Standard Capacity Battery
Component: Black
Component: No Engraving
Component: Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Component: 500GB Hard Disk Drive (7200rpm)
Per Unit Price: $1,484.99
Quantity: 1
Total Price: $1,484.99
Description: VPCF1190X Configure-to-Order

Any help would be great. Thanks

 

My new unit's screen HW ID is the same as yours.

 

Awesome videos man. Wish I had that screen. That actually looks good!

 

And what sort of piles of worthless crapware did YOU install?? Acronis? Several spyware programs...? I-Tunes??? "Background Defragger"????

(edit) I'm badmouthing the software, not the poster. Sorry.

 

I installed Avast antivirus and Adaware. Was that a bad idea? Is there a better way to protect my machine?

 

Avast is one of the best free AV programs you can get. And Adaware is also great. Look at Malwarebytes for another good one.

 

You've had issues with Acronis? I have it installed on several machines and don't have a problem, though I also don't have it scheduled for anything. I use it manually for backups.

 

In Windows 7 it seems to prevent the F11 from making the backup discs - even just installed but not running.

 

No, Avast is what I always use, except for the one machine with licensed Kaspersky. And Adaware is fine, as is Spybot. But slowdowns do always seem to be caused by TSRs (Terminate and (yet) Stay Resident) and indexing programs such as I-tunes and Adaware. And here's a quote from Acronis' page..
"Continuous data protection..
In addition, Acronis Nonstop Backup™ provides continuous system and data protection, preventing data loss" So Acronis is ALWAYS looking at disc and memory I/O - sure there's a penalty. And Win7 doesnt like Acronis in other ways.

Follow along with Glashub's thead about the slowdowns, it was caused by too many programs all accessing the disc, and Acronis being resident in the.Boot sector.

And again this is Windows 7, which is MUCH better behaved than Vista, and it doesn't like some of the programs that ran fine in Vista and XP.

 

You know, I'll have to take pictures, but even the early Netbook on which I'm typing this, an Asus N10E, has NO inversion nor loss of contrast on the screen from ANY angle, completely unlike what I see on the North American F11.. If this display type were ON the F11 then there would be no complaints. The colorimetry is not so great though.

 

Screen IDs with MS are simply generic indicators -- they do not really identify the manufacturer at all. I've been through all that at the FW threads where everyone was trying to figure out if the 100% color purity European FullHD's last fall were the same as the American ones which made no such claims. Same numbers for hardware IDs -- but likely manufactured by different suppliers, nonetheless.

 

Ah Melodymaster, and his crapware rant. Reminds me of favorite crotchety Uncle. Well my laptop runs great now. For some reason having installed an external monitor changed something. I followed the advice of MiseryMaster...uh, I meant MelodyMaster (probably called that for the way he melodiously rants about "crapware", Derrida, and Roweray; did a clean install and then added the programs I've used and have been comfortable with for years one at a time, always checking system performance after installing something. I stopped short of putting Ccleaner, Spybot, and a couple of others back because I didn't want to push my luck. The laptop is running as advertised.

 

A 128GB Solid State Drive with RAID for, what will it be, $65 CDN? And new screens, eh?

The "power supply thing" is good news because we have read several posts pointing to the need for a stronger battery, etc. for the i7.

Sounds worth a two week wait to me....

 

All past discussions aside (value : price comments etc etc).

I agree, the viewing angle on my Vaio screen is frustrating. The screen setting tweaks made the screen look good in the sweet spot, but the viewing position of the screen on my Sony Vaio F11 is baaaad.

I am constantly adjusting the screen.

The Euro premium matte screen was drool-worthy, and something (if possible), I may consider an upgrade to if I can find it for around $100, and it's compatible and moderate or lower tech ability to install (up to and including light sodering).

 

Picture?

They will give you a hard time, restocking fee is steep.

What is the Hydis display? Is it some upgrade you can buy?

The problem cures are expected, power supply interesting, and the screen upgrade? That has me very curious. Do you have any details besides that link to the ca site that show the screen upgrade or details about it?

The grey model didn't stick with you? It tickles me some, I am considering it. Any reason why you didn't like it in particular, or is it just that it didn't appeal to your sense of aesthetics?

 

However, I don't think Rlee560 IS running an external monitor..(?)

Crapware means unnecessary. When I was a noobie computer user in the mid-eighties I used to install all these fancy things, such as talking clocks and resource monitors, and the 386 would slow down to a crawl.

And Acronis DID cause several problems for you..

Oh yah and Ccleaner... (shudder!!)

 

I'm a little confused here - what is the benefit of raid with only 1 HD? Is there something I'm missing?

 

It's some tweaking or software you added, not a F hardware problem.

How to use the VAIO Care™ utility to check for and correct problems with the computer.
http://www.kb.sony.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=C1009283&sliceId=1&mdl=VPCF115FMB

The OP solved the problem by restoring to factory state & unplugging a problematic external monitor.

 

One thing I positively believe is that Canadian buyers' luck on incredibly cheap SSD options will run out...

 

X2. Asus Eee PC 1000HE, and HP Mini 5101 at work cheap netbooks, excellent screens, much better than the Sony F at any angle.

 

Okay, everybody, finally EPEAT has most of the new F series models up in the registry: http://www.epeat.net/SearchResults....ProductType=3&monitorsize=48&manufacturer=35&

The link above is to all Sony laptops with a 16.4" screen...if you check the "reduction/elimination of environmentally sensitive materials" on each specific model you can see whether and how much mercury is in the light sources.

This is what I deduced: Sony's FW screens before the FW5 series had less mercury in the light source -- therefore, since they were different, there is the possibility that the FW5's left-over screens were retro-fitted into the new F's in North America. Sony's F model screens listed have the extra mercury, too -- and that means for sure that those model numbers have CCFL screens.

NOW, what we do not know is how much Sony has reengineered the F for the first refresh. Remember, for the FW, Sony introduced new screens and the GPU. While it doesn't look as though the first refresh of the F has a different GPU, we cannot be sure how the screens are different, whether Sony will be using LEDs or not, etc.

Note that almost all of the models reviewed for EPEAT are from the US, with a few Canadian models. Also the F models are farther down the list (I set the filter for all Sony laptops with 16.4" screens and worldwide). Why Sony is not submitting more models for EPEAT (even from Canada, for example), I don't know). Perhaps because they would not get a good rating due to different suppliers?

Enjoy!

 

P.S. Joe Bleau, I know you enjoy deactivating the Sony ad link by mangling the spelling of the brand, but consider this: the advertisers pay for the maintenance of the NBR site -- and the majority of the site is dominated by Dell and HP ads. So, by disabling the Sony hook into the ad counter, are we helping or hindering the pursuit of our Sony forum and Sony's support of it?

 

I agree with MelodyMaster about people messing up their computer and adding all kinds of crapware & not even updating it & then complain about the hardware manufacturer.

The problem is most of the time in the cockpit, not the plane.

Example from the How to Optimize Any Son*y VAI*O With a Semi-Clean Install thread:

Before:
HD Space: 130 GB Free
Processes: 66-70
Memory Usage: @40%

After:
HD Space: 162 GB Free
Processes: 54-58
Memory Usage: @28-30%

 

Mine has the same hardware id, so i guess i have a defective one because of the terrible backlight bleed at the bottom of the screen. I am sending it to Sony Canada for correction, fingers crossed that they will recognize the problem and replace the screen.

 

How can they give me a hard time? I have the box and packing and original receipt? Saturday will be 13 days. I have 14 to return it.

Resdtocking will be about $200. So, they win there.

 

I thought the two-tone unit I saw in pictures was grey, but in fact it was gun metal and black. I wanted to get away from all-black for my equipment, just as the DVD players etc. are silver, the BenQ 1920 X 1200 monitor is grey, the vacuum tube audio amp is gold, the Thorens TD-124 turntable walnut etc.. But grey actually looked more out of place for the F11 than would black. WHITE would have been ok, or the lovely two-tone gold colour of my Asus netbook.

SSD drives can have raided banks of memory, with an internal Raid controller using a driver loaded in windows. Quad raid 0+1 or even Levels 4 or 5 can be self-contained in one SSD unit.

 

Yes but if I link to a Sony support page, it breaks the link & send to coupon, examples:

Sony Vaio Clean Install Instructions for Windows 7

Son*y Vai*o

There are other ways of advertising than breaking links or adding automatically links in texts which I followed a few times before realizing that it lead to coupons & not to content related to the poster's comments..

And NO, I don't "enjoy" editing posts to fix the broken links.

Edit: hum, seems that Sony Vaio is not getting parsed, maybe they fixed it?

---

@ nizmoz: how many more rants you plan on posting against the F display?

I'm starting to find it funny. Will you run out of "angles"? - suspense!

 

You'll lose the computer, unless it had a GT310.

But they will positively agree with your assessment of the screen.

 

Yeah that's what I meant. And don't do it on Saturday if you can help it, and if you can't go in the morning on Friday or Saturday. Trust me, with less people to wait on and mangers that are bored, you stand a better chance of getting the issues you have worked out faster and nicer.

 

Can you elaborate what you mean by 'lose' the computer?

 

Some people have money... That charge would KILL me - to think it hadn't actually bought anything! My Computer is going to cost me $2200; it's hard to describe how much beyond budget that is for a self-employed runabout like myself. It just HAS to pay for itself..

 

I gather you haven't been following the adventures of Poohkie or myself. "You'll Find Out!" as Kay Kyser would say.

 

tcklim,

When you are idle at the desktop or browsing with only one or two windows open does your laptop make any noise?

 

Again, we are discussing. You need to quit your whining.