Official Sony VAIO F Series i5/i7 owners thread *Part 3*

Hi,
I am sorry I don'r have hard data, I will run a utility on it. By visual comparison, it looks no different than the numerous prior F11 units. That is obviously unscientific but i was not blown away by the screen on the F12 rather it was more like, "Oh, looks pretty much the same" kind of feeling.
I am not likely to pop the bezel off but is there a utility you would recommend to get the screen id?
Thanks

 

Joe,

I've been reading some of your posts and you turned me onto the Momentus XT so I decided to give it a try and ordered it along with my F12 from Tiger Direct. I would like to swap the drive in the Vaio for the Momentus and reinstall Win7 and all (any?) Vaio software and drivers.

I'm just a casual user and only somewhat knowledgeable, so I wanted to ask you the following question:

I know swapping out the drive itself should not be a problem. Do you foresee any problems getting Win7 and drivers on the new drive? Does Sony supply me with a clean reinstall Win7 disc as well as a drivers disc? This is my first Vaio.

Thanks for your time,
Tom

 

Is it too late to cancel your Tigerdirect order? Maybe you missed the $100 rebate I posted here ($1,409.99 for the VPCF127FX/B)? I don't live in USA so I don't know if it's stackable over the Bing refund thing.

Read the article here: Vaio_F Series Windows 7 64-bit Clean Install Guide Using OEM Recovery Discs. In the first paragraphs I mention the easy breezy installing of the full factory OEM OS + the recovery partition on new HDD with the recovery discs that you must create out of the box (2 DVD's) as they are not included. The XT Hybrid works exactly like a normal HDD except for the 4 GB memory that is used for a few of the most frequent applications you are using to load them faster.



*****

LCD Data?

Many of us in this thread & the 2 previous ones tried all the utilities under the Sun & could never retrieve the LCD brand & model of the_F11. The only way was to look physically behind the LCD itself. We are waiting for a F11_1080p EU matte Premium owner to do the same as a few of us would like to swap the 1080p US semi-glossy for the EU matte but can't find the model & number anywhere so far.

 

Helllo ,I have ordered my Vaio F11 with 5400 hd option because of the incredible expensive 256gb ssd option in sony style ,128gb is too short for me.

I would like to know if I could use my 2 dvds vaio recovery disc in a new ssd that I will buy in a future when the prices be more affordable.

Thank you for answer

 

Yes you can.

 

Hi everyone, unpacked the F12KFX/B and applied the color profile as suggested here and i have to say the screen is actually very nice and bright enough. The computer feels zippy and feels solidly built, no squeeking and overall very happy with purchase. Just ran geekbench 64 and it gave 6094 on the high performance power setting.

The screen is really nice and crisp, no complaints.

 

@Joe Bleau

the big overhead neon lights have nothing to do with the F11 screen looking bad. May be I wasn't clear enough, but when i say i compared the FW590 to the F11, what i actually did was take the FW590 into bestbuy, put it down right next to the F11, loaded the same photographs onto the bestbuy F11 from a USB drive that were on the FW590, and pulled up the same pictures side by side. Both machines in the same lighting environment in bestbuy. and the difference was astonishing. really, not exaggerating here, it was night and day. Have you ever seen an FW590 screen? It is awesome.

What I'm left with here, is that if the F12 screen is no different, I'll buy the fw590 (sony still has them) and pay the same as the F12, with lesser CPU and memory, but it's worth it because the screen of the F is just so bad. I don't think you can appreciate just how inferior the F11 screen is until you look at it right next to the FW590.

I went to bestbuy today to see if i could look at an F12 screen, they have them but with the 1600x900 pixels, not 1920. anybody know if any store out there carries the F12 with the 1920 screen? thanks

 

Then that is what you should do. You should buy the FW590 and never look back. You put a premium on the screen and feel that the FW590 has a better screen. You should not even post here again. Simply go to Best Buy and purchase the FW590.

You want a stranger, or a group of strangers, to make your decision. If you end up not liking it, then you can complain that we steered you in the wrong direction.

I am a lifelong Dell fan. When looking for a new laptop for a pastor at our church, I ended up purchasing the F11. I had purchased Dell Latitudes for all past church needs and was really looking at the XPS. I never thought highly of Sony. However, I liked the features and the keyboard, and when I offered the pastor options, I asked him to go to Best Buy and play with the F11 before he gave me his opinion on what he liked.

I have now purchased 5 of these machines.

Do what YOU want. If YOU like the FW screen, then BUY IT. Don't come here, ask questions, then complain abouit the answers you get. We are strangers on an internet site, we are not confidants and most of us are not experts in the field.

Bill

 

Joe,

I didn't miss it. I ran the numbers and no deal out there can match the $1,327 price at Tiger. The only bottleneck on Tiger's setup was the slow HDD but that's solved with the addition of the Momentus. Also, the same 12% rebate that applied to the VAIO was also applied to the Momentus. Free shipping and no tax on both.

I did have to pay $119 for the 500GB Momentus so I guess I'm at $1,446 for both and hoping to salvage a few shekels by selling the 640GB drive.

$1,446*.925 (to net out the tax) and assuming I could get free shipping elsewhere I'm at $1,337. I can't spec a i740,6GB,1080,500GB MomentusXT, Blueray reader DVDRW F12 for that money.

BTW, /puts on tin foil hat/ strange how SonyStyle is offering free screen upgrades. Old F11 stock? Seems like it this was xbrite or dual CCF they'd price that dearly. /removes hat/ disclaimer: May have wrong nomenclature.

Thank you for the heads up on creating the DVD's! This is exactly the type of pitfall I was looking to avoid.

More importantly, I broke the vicious Dell cycle!

PS - Also picked up a Canon 85mm 1.8 and Logitech Nano VX with Bing CB. Total junkie, luckily for me, they're doing away with it in July.

 

What deals are you and Joe talking about? A friend and I are putting in our orders for the new F12's this week, and of course, want the best deal for our money. Is this some Bing cash back offer or some coupon code I missed in the many, many posts in this thread?

 

I don't care if the default monitor profile of x is better than the_F11 according to your subjective opinion.

I calibrate all my monitors with a $200 colorimeter & then compare an electronic version of a color chart on the desktop to a $70 physical version of said color chart & if the colors, contrast & saturation are similar: bingo! I can now proceed to edit photos w/o wasting my time.

A good read: Monitor Calibration: Who needs it? Talks about the more affordable Spyder2Express as my X-Rite i1Display 2 or slrosenfeld's Spyder3Elite are pricey.



Shot in RAW w/ a Nikon D300s yesterday & then processed on my F:



*****

@ ddmeightball: look seven posts above yours & follow link.

 

Looks like the F12s are available now on sonystyle US and Canada.

The Canadian CTO one has some weird options - probably a typo:

16.4" VAIO Display (1600x900)
16.4" VAIO Display (1600x900) Full HD [add $29.97]

Same options on both sites:
Win 7 Pro
740QM
4 GB RAM
no backlight
1080 screen
330M GPU
320G 7200rpm HDD
fresh start

Canadian $1091.50
US: 1154.99 (this is with the free ($100) HD upgrade already)

 

Sorry to just butt in here, but I've tried the Medal of Honor MP beta on the F and it runs pretty much at 50-60 FPS (pretty much constant 60 fps with the VGA overclocked ) with all settings high and HBAO Off @ 1280x720. If you can handle the frames dropping to ~30-40 fps you can turn on 4xAA as well. A video will follow...

 

What are your overclocked settings?

 

730/915/1515 Core/Mem/Shader

 

I calibrated my F11 matt Europe display with an Pantone Huey PRO , and the screen look fantastic , but i clicked on your link "Monitor Calibration: Who needs it?" but the test "Can you see the highlights OK?" i can only see difference in the top four boxes 240,245,248,250 , the center white strip and the four lower boxes 254,253,252,251 all look the same i cannot see any difference.

Am i doing something wrong.

EDIT : I just re-calibrated again, and i can now see the difference between the centre white strip and the four lower boxes 254,253,252,251, but the screen is a lot darker and the colors have lost a lot of there vibrancy.

 

Confident that the F12 comes as a result of the experiences / failures of the original batch of F11 (even the last batch I do not inspire confidence) there'll bet on F12S1E

Councils and stores to buy RAM?
The S1 comes with 6GB and 8GB will get ... means buying a 4GB and a 2GB stick with gathering dust: (

 

Joe found that Microcenter has a rebate on the F12


Naz_Vegas used Bing Cashback which apparently gives 12% back when u use it to to go to TigetDirect

Also if you can wait, you can always call Sonystyle directly and talk to a rep and they will sometimes give u a 10% discount and the upside is you can customize it to what you want. Also some people that want an extended warranty have been able to get 15% off.

 

Hi Lucky_j,
I and a couple of others discovered ewiz website sells Samsung brand memory which is used in the F11 for the 4gb stick

SuperBiiz.com - Memory, Computer Memory, Notebook SODIMM

however looks like they are currently out of stock. This is useful as you can keep your 1 4GB stick that comes with the laptop and get another that matches.

Can someone with the F12 run cpuz and confirm they are still getting the Samsung M471B5273BH1-CH9

 

Actually, depending on your role in that church, perhaps you are a confidant.

 

Nope. I would never want to know any "secrets". I simply make sure that the office runs smoothly. Our church also runs a Christian Day School with kids from pre-school through 8th grade. We have about 3,000 communicant members and our school houses between 200 and 300 students (depending on the year...enrollment fluxuates). This is a large database to keep track of...donations, tuition, lunch program, athletics, over a dozen choirs, births, deaths, baptizms, weddings, etc. Plus, we design and print our own weekly church programs...5 services plus special services for holidays, weddings, funerals, etc. Add to this a full sound booth for services and a live radio broadcast and it gets a bit more complicated than I had originally thought it would be.

All of this takes horsepower. More than I ever would have thought prior to my involvement!

Bill

 

thanks


Do they send to Europe ? Should i consider buying from Sony ?
(i dind't found info on their website)

 

Anyone swing by Best Buy to see the F12 model? I notice the gpu specs on their site conflict. One page says 330m the other 310; resolution 1600x900.

 

Noticed that at Bestbuy.com and at the Best Buy store here in Lincoln, NE. Their website and little information cards in store say 1GB 330m video card but the laptop itself is 1600x900. According to Sony's own website they only sell the 512mb 310m with the 1600x900 screen and the 1GB with the 1080p screen unless there are some unknown configs I haven't seen...If so, it would be odd that Sony's own website refutes that.

 

Yes i can confirm that information for the VPCF12S1E European model. I just run cpu-z and thats the memory i have installed.

 

So is just getting this RAM from some store and install ?
Anyone knows where the slots are ?
I supose that is one on the bottom and another under the keyboard ?

thanks

 

I don't see the Canadian CTO model on the Sony website. Can you post a link? I'd like to order this soon. Thanks!

 

Lots of nice photos from all angles except the bottom of the VAIO_F VPCF127FX/B on bhphotovideo.com (backlit keyboard incl.). In fact more photos than on Sonystyle.

Looks exactly like my F11_North America black.

Also: VPCF123FX/H Titanium Gray.

 

Considering_F, you are making a costly mistake based on the inability to read and follow a thread. The FW590 is a nice machine, yes, but I would pay FAR less for a Core2Duo than for an i7 laptop. It has been long-established that the F11's screen is horribly, badly calibrated from the factory, it is way too blue, backgrounds are too bright, meaning images are washed out, and the "automatic" light function makes the display too dim. AFTER calibration the screen looks stunning, even on my early unit with shading and inversion. The FW used an ATI GPU, the F11 an Nvidia. My guess is that they did not change the default firmware settings and the display of the F11 was still set for an ATI card, and ATI and Nvidia GPUs ARE different in their colorimetry.

YOU set up an F11/F12 and FW 490/590 side by side, YOU calibrate both with a screen utility, THEN check. The FW will give a wider viewing angle, but BOTH will have near-identical colour quality and depth.

 

It does that on battery, plugged, plugged without battery.... But its weird, today just when i was preparing to go the center to make them fix my laptop,but the computer was working well, those odd dots didn't appear... I haven't turned on my laptop for three days till now... But i'm sure those dots will appear any time i just have to wait, because i don't want to go to the reparation center if i can't show them the problem... I think i have bought a cursed laptop lol...

 

Hi, I am new to the forum but have had my F series (Best Buy VPCF115M/B for 3 months. I recently purcahsed a Hitachi Travelstare 320GB 7200RPM SATA/300 drive from FRYS. I ran a create Recovery Disks and it created two DVD disk. I turned off the laptop and remvoed the battery. I removed the drive that came with my F11 and installed the Hitachi drive. No problem with the removal and replacement. I brought up (booted) the recovery DISK #1 in my CD/DVD drive. All went well until I got to the point where it indicated that I want to perform a complete system restore. I got the message - something to the effect - that it was 'unable to find drivers for the C: drive'. I turned off the laptop. rechecked That i had installed the new drive properly. turn the laptop back on and attempted the recovery, again. Agian the got the same message. My system was up to date Windows-wise and VAIO-wise before I statred the process. I don't not know where to go from here. Looking for some Guidance and Help. Thanks for your help in advance.

 

The point of a colorimeter is to remove the subjectivity of the user & to calibrate the monitor for the most accurate color representation possible for a given software/hardware combination. The colorimeter measures colors & other stuff instead of you using your subjective eyes & brain.

The colorimeter does not care if you find the colors vibrant or not. If my monitor is not calibrated similarly to a webmaster's monitor, how can I tweak my image, send it to him & then discuss with him about color balance, contrast, etc?

If my monitor would be calibrated "vibrant" warm colors his "muted" colder white balance then we would be comparing apples to oranges even if talking about the exact same image. And that's not talking about looking @ an image on the monitor & then printing it with the colors all skewed up & wondering why.

Nothing prevents you from creating 2 profiles or more: one for accurate for photo editing/printing for example & one for "pretty & saturated" for playing games or watching videos maybe differently color balanced than the movie's director intended.

I copied my original post here because it was not editable anymore: Vaio_F Series Monitor Calibration and Users Created Profiles Roundup.

Maybe you missed this quote from Damien Symonds:

Luminance on the_F11: give this a try on your US 1080p if you don't have a coloromiter like the i1Display2 than can measure Luminance: Fn+F6 several times > to set to the max brightness > lower to about 109 cd/M2 by going down two clicks with Fn+F5.

If you zip your monitor profiles with WINRAR or similar & post them here to share with users w/o a colorimeter, I would be happy to include them in the article. Check also the Pantone Huey forums for tips from other users of that brand of colorimeters.

Same invite to share your monitor profiles to you lucky F12_Owners that also have a colorimeter.

As MelodyMaster wrote above, the F11_North America 1080p OEM profile is overly skewed to blue & the screen capture below shows that the calibration program had to pull down the blue output a lot to produce the accurate color custom profile:

 

It's on the frontpage of sonystyle.ca. They removed the "customize" option for computers from the left menu. The new models also don't appear in the "compters - shop by series" submenu.

CTO | Customize | Sony Canada

I haven't been following this thread closely - but learned that calibrating your monitor seems to be an important thing to do - I'm not into video editing or photography/prints but would like my monitor to display the right colors. Can someone recommend a free calibration program for this case? (sure I can find links on google but I don't know which one is good) Thanks!

 

You miss the point of monitor calibration: it's not only a program, it's a physical device that measures to real output of a given monitor in conjunction with the program. It's like if you would try to use a webcam program w/o a webcam.

Follow the link above & try the profiles.

 

That is almost good news & seems to point to a loose connection.

On the_F11, the video card is welded to the motherboard so you only have to check by unplugging/plugging:

- Unplug F, remove battery.
- Motherboard to LCD video cable.
- Power from mobo to inverter & then to LCD.
- And for good measure: I would remove & reset the memory sticks, just in case.

Check: Vaio_F Series Laptop How To Replace the LCD Display & Inverter.

 

Anybody know if there is a service manual for the F11

Also that`s for the help Joe Bleau ,+REP

 

Maybe your discs were not burned properly as all the necessaary HDD drivers are in Win 7.

Reinstall old HDD, burn recovery discs with a quality DVD brand & select check for errors.

If you want your system to be identical to your current customized one instead of going back to factory state: create full system image on an external drive with Windows Backup, create a system repair CD (backup will remind you), replace HDD & boot with repair disc & install image. Check links in my signature below.

 

You're not doing a System restore to a corrupted drive, you are doing a NEW factory install. An early option in this process should be to format the drive. A drive formatted in an external carrier or via USB is NOT guaranteed to be recognized on a motherboard's native IDE/Sata port. Make sure the drive IS being seen in BIOS.

 

Just chock full of good information this guy Joe, eh?

Thanks again for the drive image tip.

Turns out that while my F12 is being shipped there appears to be a countrywide shortage of the Momentus XT drives, and I won't be receiving mine for weeks. Not sure if this isn't some sort of shelf pull because Amazon, Tiger, Newegg, Compusa, CircuitCity are all showing out of stock with shipment dates weeks to months out.

Now I can go ahead with setting my system up and just install the image on the XT when, and if, it arrives.

 

Thanks for the reply. Yes I understand to do it properly one has to use a device and measure the output of the monitor. I was hoping there are some sort of program that display some color patterns and use user feedback to adjust the color. Obviously that's not the best way if at all possible.

 

Windows has a color calibration utility built-in. Go to color settings in control panel > advanced > calibrate display. the nVidia control panel also has options to adjust the gamma for combined and separate RGB channels as well as saturation, hue, etc.

I would, however, recommend that you DO NOT go this route and instead try one of the .icc color profiles posted on this forum; they offer much better color reproduction than doing the software calibration (I am using a US 1080p screen and for me slrosenfeld's .icc profile works best - I believe there is a link to it from the unification post linked to in my signature). The screen may look too warm at first, but you get used to it after a while and the color reproduction is much better.

 

MelodyMaster is right, if booting from recovery disc #1 & selecting Restore Complete System and not Restore C: Drive, it will offer you to choose how you want to partition the HDD & then format it. See: Vaio F_Series Windows 7 64-bit Clean Install Guide Using OEM Recovery Discs

You are welcome. BTW the XT Hybrid is just being launch to market as we speak so it's normal to be B.O. @ the present. Patience.

This user was played by TigerDirect: the Momentus XT Hybrid page said in stock, so he bought 2 of them just to be told after his credit card was charged that it was back-ordered for 3 weeks!

When you ordered one, did the XT page also lied & said that it was in stock?

 

Hi again, when I checked BIOS it indicated that the drive was 320GB. So i assume that from a BIOs standpoint it found the drive and knew exactly what it was. I don't know what esle to check from a BIOS standpoint. I did try to restore but never got any questions or options on partitioning the new drive. I believe the drive is virgin (with no existing partitions). I would expect that would be the first order of business to take care of. BTW, I had also taken a image backup and tried to install a image backup, too. Got the same results. I also ran VAIO Care Diagnostics on the drive first before starting the recovery and image restore and it passed with no errors.

 

Go to your HDD's support page then if you can't try it in an external enclosure or an other computer.

I can't believe both recovery discs & system repair disk would be bad, unless they come from a defective blank DVD batch. Again: did you check for errors when burning the discs? What is the exact wording of the error you are seeing and when does it appear exactly?

"...I did try to restore but never got any questions or options on partitioning the new drive." - That's not possible. Restore is not an option when booting from the recovery disc #1: it's either Restore Complete System or Restore C: Drive as the screen capture in the previous post illustrates. Which one did you try exactly?

 

Been following this very useful thread for a while. Local Best Buy has a F12 in stock for $1350, Model VPCF126FM/B. I will be replacing my aging Vaio, and will be using if for Photo and video editing.
Would like to talk me into or out of this purchase?
Thanks to all for the great info here.
Footnote:
I do order items.....but I don't like too. I will pay extra to carry something home NOW, and like to have somewhere I can carry it back should I have early problems.

 

Just a definite, closing comment on the Sony Vaio F12:

It is available through most sony sites, including SonyStyle USA, and is $100 off (free HD upgrade) through the end of the month. Any info on the F12 is up through official channels, no more speculation.
However I don't think it's in stores yet. So reviews will be another month.

And now a photo to show how ecstatic I am about the news:

 

JOE,

Yes.

Further complicating matters is the fact that instead of two separate transactions I ordered it along with the F12. So, in the interest of actually receiving my $200 Bing cash back, I won't cancel or modify the order and risk having the whole transaction disqualified. Rather, I will enjoy my F12 until such time the XT is made available and image onto the new drive.

Despite the sea of negative reviews online, it is my understanding that TigerDirect is not an entirely shady operation.

Some enterprising individual on ebay is selling them for $299 a piece. How did you get yours already?

MICHAEL,

The laptop model you are looking at has the lesser 900p screen which is not ideal for photo editing. This alone would make me seek out the full HD model.

Sony - VAIO Laptop / Intel® Core™ i7 Processor / 16.4" Display / 6GB Memory / 640GB Hard Drive - Black - VPCF126FM/B

 

If BB's VPCF126FM/B specs are correct, I would think twice about getting that one: says GT 310M, 1600 x 900 but also says 1 GB video memory while previously the 310M had only 500 MB. Sounds fishy as the main page says GT 330M. But both say 1600 x 900.

It's also the same price as my BB's VPCF115FM but with a screen & maybe also a video card downgrade. Check the VPCF127FX/B in the previous posts with much better specs IMO (GT 330M & 1080p LCD) for $1,409 or less compared to BB"s $1,350.

That's not a best buy unless the page is wrong.

For photo & video editing it's better the faster GT 330M & the 1080p LCD. Photoshop CS5 & Adobe Lightroom 2.6 & my new 3.0 are much snappier with fluid zoom in/out with the GT 330M because of it's faster OpenGL used by those software.

 

Thanks for continuing with me on this. The screen that presented in your response is never displayed when I try either the 'Restore Complete system' or ' Restore C: Drive'. i only get the message ''''drivers cannot be loaded..'. BTW, I have been using your 'VAIO F Series Windows 7 Install Guide' along with the 'How to replace the HDD Vaio F Series' guide as my road map through this process. They are very well written and have been most help through this process. I am at a point where I am ready to give up and stay with my original HDD. There was nothing wrong with it - and it still works - I only want to improve the performance of my laptop. Guess it was not ment to be in the 'cards' for me for it to be done. I will more than likely try to return the Hitachi drive to FRY's. Thanks again for your time and efforts.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

Still, I would try to find the problem on Hitachi's support & burn new recovery discs with the check for errors option. You don't want to find out that the discs are bad if, God or whom ever forbid, your current HDD dies & you can't recover on a new HDD. The optical drive may also be defective. Run the hardware tests in Vaio_Care > Troubleshooting > Diagnostics > Hardware.