Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge

BFBC2 Runs at 1080p with settings at medium/high. I was quite surprised:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp6CxfsgohM

 

wait, so you're saying they might DOWNGRADE the laptop soon?

Ahhh, I wanted the 4GB....



Edit: WOW EVERYTHING is backordered on the sonystyle US site. Way to keep up with things Sony.

 

I assume the i5 will be somewhat cheaper than the i7?

I would not call it a downgrade, per se. An i5 would have a higher clock and better battery life. The i5 is the proper CPU for most people who don't need to throw 4 cores at rendering and compressing.

Hopefully they are tweaking. Apple slowed up the 27" iMacs to deal with the screen issue, delaying delivery to 2-3 weeks.

 

Yeah I just received notice claiming that the 4GBx1 is OOS. However i recalled that i ordered 2x2gb according to my order information so it's rather odd.

Gonna call them later today and inquire about that and the free blu ray drive upgrade!!!

 

Mine too

 

Oh Goodie, the Yanks finally get a taste of what we Canuck buyers have been suffering for weeks.

 

There's only two slots, thus 2 X 2gig, that's a typo. With the money saved on the reduced Bluray cost you can afford 6 gigs.

 

It happens on mine too. I think it makes the screen more purty though

 

The F Series getting free Blu-Ray upgrade special right now on US Sonystyle

 

Ahh you just wish you could go on facebook at the Hoser Hut. haha.

I would call that a downgrade. At great rish of sounding like a newbie, I do want to...erm, "Future-proof" my purchase. I want the i7, and I didn't think that would be something they'd do; make a worse computer as time goes by. Maybe I should order one now...

 

CJFMPLC100 code will get you a $100 discount on this laptop. I just used it when I bought my F laptop.

Might only work in Canada, i'm not too sure.

 

But there are trade offs you need to be aware of.

the i7 is slower on apps that don't thread well

the i7 is hot which means more fan noise and shorter battery life and a laptop that you don't really want to use in your lap

the power supply for an i7 is larger than a power supply for an i5

For a lot of people, and dare I say MOST people, the i5 is the proper CPU.

If you feel you have needs that the i7 satisfies, then that's one thing, but to make a blanket statement that the i5 is a downgrade I don't think is accurate.

 

About his pink/lavender color cast can see the same on European HD Premium screen. I've seen it also on the old FW series which means to my understanding Sony is using the same screen - dual cathode whatever, they just used some matte coating. I can notice this cast not only around the text but also on the white background etc. Other laptops that were in the store do not pronounce this feature.

 

LOL! I'm sorry, but it sounds rather funny! 3% faster - that's just what the "irrelewant Windows score thing" says

 

yeah but the idea of getting the best available at the time tickles me some. I figure that'll mean that it might be competitive a couple years from now. And yeah I know that new better stuff comes out every year, I'm just saying the i5 may not last as long, technologically.
I am curious though, how much extra battery life it may mean.

 

why is the i7 the best available?

Some race tracks have long straights, you might want the brutal V8 power of an i7 Corvette
Some race tracks have lots of tight turns and elevation changes and are hard on the brakes, you might give up half your horsepower and 1300 pounds in weight and get an i5 Lotus Exige

the best available is TOTALLY dependent on your needs

 

The i7 runs at under 1GHz on battery.

You might could get an extra 1-2 hours of battery life with an i5, and it would probably be faster on battery

The i7 is a great CPU for people who:

need to max out 8 cores frequently - audio and video and 3d in particular

who don't mind being plugged into AC nearly all of the time

who don't mind the extra heat and the extra fan noise

who don't mind a large power supply

I'm not quashing the i7, because I'm one of the people who would def need it, but after living with one for 2 weeks, I can testify that there are certain drawbacks that need to be known by the average consumer

 

I think a lot of the people here who were complaining about fan noise did not understand the compromise with the i7 quad.

If you were used to a Core2Duo and it was pretty quiet and the fans rarely came on, well, the i7 quad is not that kind of CPU.

I think Sony did a good job with the i7 quad in the F series. The fan does come on under load, as it should, but I never thought that it was out of line.

 

Does anyone have a list of programs installed on a CTO F with the fresh start option? I'm curious exactly what is left off. Are things like internet browsers and whatnot still installed? Thanks

 

I just got this laptop and installed a clean version of windows 7 on it! Now i was wondering is there some kind of patch/hack that will let me get two finger scroll on the alps pad?

 

That's the kind of thing they do when they're encouraging sales just before a refresh....

 

Unfortunately, this varies from country to country (and even within the same market). I saw a posting either on this forum or on YouTube of the various different boxings available for the same model computer.

It's that old "consistency" problem again....

 

It depends, in one DIY upgrade case you get an extra memory stick & HDD drive, you have to do the math with the prices in your country.

Memory & HDD are the two easiest thing to upgrade on the F.

My F came with a Samsung HM500JI HDD 5400 rpm

It took less than 5 minutes to swap it (8 screws, use caddy on new drive) for a Seagate 500GB Momentus SEST905003N3 7200. I originally wanted the highly rated Hitachi Travelstar 5K500.B but that's what my US friend brought me.

I you are patient, I will install the OS in the new drive & post the Windows Experience difference. later. There is a ton of benchmarks on the web but in this case it's the exact same F with 5400 vs. 7200.





When swapping drives, the trick is sliding back the caddy to unplug the drive's connector before lifting it from the bay. Don't try to lift the drive out before doing so, you may damage the SATA connector. Interesting, there was only 2 screws to secure the caddy while there is 4 holes. I will buy some to secure it even better.

I will use the OEM drive either in a Power Over eSATA External 2.5" Drive or in a Hard Drive Caddy in the Optical Bay: check this post & the one below it to see photos & the reasoning. Since I need an external pocket drive for backup anyway, might as well kill 3 birds with one stone: faster drive in F, external HDD w/ faster transfer rate via eSATA vs. slow USB 2.0, only 1 cable for power & data. Total cost is about $20 more than a WD Passport 500gb external, for example.

Eventually, I will get a 500GB SSD when the price gets lower.

For the memory, my BB F came with 4gb & 2gb sticks, different brands and rated A & F by Intel on the P55 chipset (F is PM55). See this post: F EVEREST System Report
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5921707&posted=1#post5921707

With that memory info, if I go for 8gb, I will buy a Samsung 4gb, not a Hynix. It's also better to have two identical memory sticks. I will ebay the Hynix 2gb to recoup some of the +- $170 of the 4gb stick.

Hope this helps!

Interesting read on tomshardware with many benchmarks: Do You Really Need More Than 6 GB Of RAM?

 

you're other 2 screw holes...had screws in them. u removed when u opened the panel

 

I agree with count_schemula. For the average user, it's like "super size me".

I would add that there is also less fan work when doing light tasks like surfing & more battery life because of the CPU's TDP of 35W vs. 45W.

 

I believe pre-config's received their boxes with a simple foam structure holding the laptop together, the battery, and other paraphanelia stuffed in whatever free space was left.

The CTO's came with a box with a black plastic shell and tray with everything neatly organized in their own place. Definitely more put together but the cost of this presentation could have gone elsewhere in the unit or none in the first place.

Any other differences? I believe it was talked about in this forum but I saw the difference in various unboxing videos on youtube.

 

Nope, I'm more careful than that & I was taking photos to post here. On my F: 2 for the HDD bay cover, 2 on the HDD caddy (4 holes) to attach to the laptop case & 4 to hold the HDD in the caddy.

Sony must have 2 extra screws in their inventory.

 

There is, look at the point 9 in this guide I wrote

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5905694&postcount=4228

 

My F11 also had the two outside screws missing from the HD cage. How's yours?

 

Do the cover screws go in there?

Mine only had two screws under the cover, but I forget where the cover screws went?

 

But what would they refresh? The F-series already comes with the Arrandale processors.

Still it is a good deal and something some should be interested in, technology always upgrades and refresh and unless the F-series is getting anything truly significant like a much more powerful processor (doubtful) I wouldn't turn my nose up to this.

 

DX11 GPU by ATI, probably a 5730 or if we are lucky a 5850.

 

crazy is right, the 2 on the panel then secure also the drive caddy

 

Maybe one app in a benchmark.

What having a browser, Word, Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects open?

Some apps like After Effects (esp when CS5 goes 64-bit with it) it would use as much ram as you could throw at it. Right now it uses some jacked up process where it spawns 32-bit render nodes.

 

Duh!

Dual function screws: holds both cover and HDD caddy in place, those Sony_guys are really sneaky!

 

Or there's a surfeit of Bluray drives, or it's an incentive to purchase despite the lack of 4 Gigs of Ram. I hardly think running out of ram is an indication of a pending refresh. And apparently some units are even being shipped with a mixture of Samsung and Hynix (Hyundai - ISi) memory.

Hynix by the way invented DDR ram. They were sued by Rambus for being the only other manufacturer to make Rambus memory, an attempt to break the expensive monopoly. For a while Hynix had a US manufacturing division, but they pulled back to Korea. Hynix memory seems to overclock better than most ram from other companies, including Samsung, that's why I was glad to see it in my F11.

Hynix and Samsung, as the two major ram manufactuers, are in joint development of a new type of ram completely surpassing DDR. (STT or something) Hynix has always been ahead in Ram design.

Hynix memory also goes under the names of Super Micro and Super Talent.

 

What about also watching a Blu-Ray movie & using Premiere @ the same time?

My Kawa ZX-11 has a top speed of 260km but I went there only twice. 220km is good enough for me (radar detector highly recommended )

I did not mention it, but the readers' comments on the bottom of the Who needs more than 6gb article are interesting too.

 

An ATI can't be put in a chassis designed for Nvidia GPUs, the layout is completely different. It can't happen (this has been discussed.) There is no standard interface between manufacturers or even models, unlike desktop cards. Various GPU card layouts are offered according to the physical requirements of the laptop design. The GT335 is specific to the Alienware M11x for instance.

I would have much preferred an ATI car myself. Using a less flexible Nvidia is the major weakness of the F11.

 

In the real world, memory performance in your laptop depends a lot on the relation memory/mobo chipset.

That's why Intel's memory ratings article is very interesting. They benchmarked the memory used in our F's on our P55 chipset, maybe you missed it? http://www.intel.com/technology/memory/ddr/valid/ddr3_nonecc_sodimm_results.htm

While both Samsung & Hynix memory are good on the F, I remember being happier to show a school report with an A rather than an F to my father.

 

I've done that tooo many times


I'm so enjoyng giving ram to VM running that I'm using them so much that is a nonsense

I've four running right now (1gb & 1 cpu each)

 

Guys, how do I enable Intel VT? My VMWare isn't happy...

 

I've gotten my / / /M up to 236/km but I was not editing images in Photoshop and tweaking type treatments in Illustrator to bring into After Effects while reading producer notes in online email apps and Word.

In fact, at that speed, you have a DRAMATICALLY simplified workflow. I usually close Word over 125mph.

 

BIOS

hit F2 when booting

Sony BIOS is very simple, you won't have any trouble finding the setting, and it is disabled by default.

 

I'm not quite sure what the report (or you) are saying. If "F" means the memory doesn't work in the P55, then both Samsung and Hynix had failures.

 

Yes, we've been through this before -- the Canadian site already indicates that the refresh there will offer an SSD with RAID for only $65. And there's the little matter of the screen....

With some of the refreshes of the FW series, for example, the RAM capacity rose, indicating that, indeed, the chassis was slightly redesigned to accommodate the greater RAM. So, it is not outside of the realm of possibility (but I agree, unlikely) that the GPU could change. More likely, down the line another NVIDIA will appear because I don't recall shifts in GPU suppliers within a model series. Hard drives and BD, yes.

We're just going to have to wait a few weeks to find out. But I can tell you that rarely do we "spec"-ulators get any credit for psyching it out when we're right -- but we sure do get "whipped" when we're wrong!

 

I have had my 350Z up to 160 mph which is 257.49 km.

 

haha

FWIW, I thought they were missing as well at first...then when I was reassembling...the light clicked in my head.

 

Thanks Count.

I thought I'd set a BIOS password whilst I was there, since I'll be taking the laptop on site this week. Just a simple 2-digit one. Damned machine wouldn't accept it until I cycled the power. Worrying.

 

Well my order hasn't been confirmed yet, on the other hand I'm being offered incentives to wait another month for my F11...so maybe I'll be forced to get the April Refresh.

 

I was still pulling pretty well, but I started having environmental issues coming to the fore that I thought I should attend to.