Official Sony Vaio CW Core 2 Duo Series Owner's Thread

I ordered mine on the 26th. There was a pretty good price-drop from when I checked just the day before, which made this decision so much easier. I also qualified for the student discount, which didn't hurt either.

Model: US-VPCCW190X-LBOM
Color: Royal Indigo
CPU: P8700 @ 2.53Ghz
GPU: GT230M
HD: 500 GB
RAM: 4GB
DVD: Blu-Ray (read only)
Batt: Standard
OS: Win 7 Home Premium

Price: $816.99 + tax
Estimated delivery date: 12/8

I REALLY wanted the "Fresh Start" option, but didn't want to have to pay to upgrade the OS to get it, especially as I can get the upgrade to Win 7 Ultimate through the university for $20. The university also has a much better deal on the MS Office 2007 suite.

I'd be interested in seeing details and experiences for upgrading to Win 7 Ultimate.

Also, I went to the Sony support site to see what they had listed for driver updates, etc., and wasn't able to figure out what to enter for a model number. It looks like they only list the pre-configured versions, so I guess you just have to use one with the particular option you want to check. Or am I missing something?

Cheers!

 

I ordered on 11/26/2009, and I received the order confirmation email with estimated shipment date as 12/04/2009.

But logging to online account show as estimated shipment date as 11/26/2009. I paid thru GE finance from sony.

The status shows as processing.

I had couple of questions:

1). which the order status estimated shipment date is showing as 11/26/2009, since I did not received any email yet regarding the shipment
2). out of 2 dates 12/04/2009 and 11/26/2009 which is valid shipment date

 

I ordered on 11/26/2009, and I received the order confirmation email with estimated shipment date as 12/04/2009.

But logging to online account show as estimated shipment date as 11/26/2009. I paid thru GE finance from sony.

The status shows as processing.

I had couple of questions:

1). which the order status estimated shipment date is showing as 11/26/2009, since I did not received any email yet regarding the shipment
2). out of 2 dates 12/04/2009 and 11/26/2009 which is valid shipment date

 

Since the CW has a recover partition I assume it does not come with any recover disks. Is this correct? Can the recover partition be copied to a cd or dvd?

 

By the way, the recently released Realtek driver (on Realtek website, not on Sony's website) seems to improve the audio performance. At least, it did for me. YMMV, though.

Yes, you can (and you'd want to) make recovery discs as soon as you get the computer. For me, it took 2 DVDs, but I was on Fresh Start.

Compared to 210, 230 has 4X shaders and 2X others (ROP, Bandwidth, etc) - so yes, it is much better card than 210. If you are getting CW, IMO you should never settle with 210 - there are better laptops, if you don't need the performance of 230.

Making restore DVD is pretty easy. Also, according to some reports here, there is a "clean install" option in the recovery partition, so it should be pretty easy to do it yourself.

Finally, if you customize it, you can get "fresh start" option (you need to get Win 7 pro, however). Then, you don't need to do clean install - you'll only need to remove Roxio and Google toolbar.

 

Thanks very much Woodgypsy. I would like to do the clean start, but on the website it requires a 70$ more expensive version of Windows, and that honestly isn't a big deal to me. I'll wipe as much crap off of it that I can and then make the recovery disk myself. I'd like to learn how to do it myself anyway

 

I rarely post anything on blogs, etc, but I found this site to be very helpful with my recent decision to purchase a Vaio CW. I'm a 15-year, diehard IBM Thinkpad user; but with the poor build quality on my T60 I experienced after Lenovo took over, I decided it was time for a change.

I couldn't find anything online regarding the Vaio CW Intel VT - XP Mode capabilities until I read through this site... which confirmed that if you purchase an upgraded chip that supports Intel VT & Windows Pro, that Sony will allow you to enable the Intel VT within the Bios.

I ordered the following with an estimated ship date of 12/8:

Product: US-VPCCW190X-LBOM
Component: No additional Photo Editing Software
Component: No Fresh Start
Component: Microsoft® Works
Component: 4GB (2GBx2) DDR3-SDRAM-1066 (Reg. price $20.00)
Component: No additional Finance Software
Component: Standard Capacity Battery (VGP-BPS13)
Component: Norton Internet Security™ 2009 (30 Day Trial)
Component: Blu-ray Disc™ playback (Reg. Price $70.00)
Component: No Engraving
Component: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8700 (2.53GHz) (Reg. price $150.00)
Component: No additional Video Editing Software
Component: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT230M GPU (512MB VRAM) (Reg. price $50.00)
Component: Royal Indigo [VAIO Signature Collection]
Component: Genuine Microsoft® Windows® 7 Professional 64bit
Component: 500GB Hard Disk Drive (5400rpm) (Reg. price $60.00)
Per Unit Price: $909.99
Quantity: 1
Total Price: $909.99
Description: VPCCW190X Configure-to-Order
Ship Method: Standard
Estimated Ship Date: 12/08/2009

I wanted to let everyone know that Sonystyle.com is a Discovercard shopping partner and is currently offering a 5% cashback bonus. If you have a Discovercard and you sign up for the holiday doubling of the regular cashback amount (1% increases to 2% for holiday online shopping for up to $1000), you will actually receive a total cashback rebate of 7% - which in my case equates to about $64 bringing my net cost to $846 for the configuration above.

Sonystyle does not participate in the Bing.com cashback program.

Good luck.

 

Mine was dispatched today.

 

Cool, congrats!!! Another Purple fan!!! Yours is pretty much the same config as mine (ordered it a couple of days ago) It seems that most laptop manufacturers have gone down in quality...I had been a diehard Dell fan for many years, and had always recommended them, but they've been slipping in quality quite a bit, so switching to Sony!

 

I would assume that you would have to have either the cd/dvd or the blu/ray playback/burner optical drive to make these recovery disks. I ordered mine with the blu/ray playback. I wonder if I can change the order.

 

I'm sorry I didn't try any other driver, I m using the one provided by sony

 

1. I had this problem when I was using nvidia 195.55 video drivers from videolaptop2go. I went back to Sony's drivers

2. this unknown device is the MS host controler. You have to update it with ms_6.13.02.06w7.zip provided
here


If everything is OK you have two removable drives in "My computer" : "SD / MMC" and "Memory Stick" see attached screenshot

 

FYI, here are a couple Vaio CW Battery Images, comparing the Standard and Large Capacity...

 

The Blu-ray playback drive has the ability to read/burn cd/dvds does it not?

 

I ordered the exact same model on the 27th as well (color: white).
My estimated delivery date is 12/22/09.

I have a similar question, what is my model number for the purpose of downloading the users manual?

I'd like to download the manual from the website.
My order confirmation listed my model as "US-VPCCW190X-LBOM".
However, this is not an option.

Any suggestions?

 

Can anyone comment to whether the 5200 rpm HD of this laptop bottlenecks the performance?

 

Yes the Blu-Ray playback Drive also is a DVD Burner, it just doesn't burn Blu-Ray discs, unless you choose the Blu-Ray Burner selection.

 

I just use this model number, vpccw18fx/b, which is a preconfigured CW with a P7450 and the GT230m.

 

Thanks a bunch for the info, I will tuck this away for future use.

 

Gta 4 low-medium 20 fps. left4dead (40-70 high), shift medium/high 30+fps.

 

If I understand correctly, your perspective is that you can't burn recovery DVDs since you chose the option for bluray playback. Well as far as i know , you can Burn DVDs with any option you chose, bluray read is a DVD burner that has support to READ bluray, and blu ray writer can read/write both DVDS, and BLURAY so no need to worry

I dont have a CW yet but i randomly just searched any model that i could find in the list and i just chose the user manual because i dont think they make a separate manual for each conf laptop just a general guide for overall laptop.so just check a few models that are there from the list and see if there is a difference but i dont think their is, maybe a separate one for diff GPU but user manual is for overall computer not really having anything to do with specs. so just check it out

 

I thought to buy bigger battery but when i saw it I have small bag and this is very stupid idea from sony, it realy wont fit to my bag cause of strange design. Well so how much longer you can work with it ? 4-6-8h?

 

These pics are from electrobuzz.

 

Prices on CTO builds are way discounted on sonystyle.com this weekend, get 'em while they're hot!

 

Mine also white uh about 6h on battery? nice

 

I didn't know that. Thanks for the info. I went for the BluRay player cause it didn't cost any more. I don't have any BluRay movies or plan to buy any. Maybe I'll get one for Christmas.

 

yupp its always better to be safer than sorry and plus having that option even if you dont have a bluray writer its always better to be future-proof. even after a couple of yrs or like in a few months you get a bluray movie then u can play it without having to worry of not having that option

 

Our sony cw series gt230 is 128 bit or 64bit ? I saw that in http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Graphic-Cards.130.0.html
They saying that its 64bit, but i'm not sure about this because performance is very good in our laptops.

 

The GT 230M has a 128 bit memory bus width. If you click on the link to the GT 230M, you'll see it say that.

You can also check here:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gt_230m_us.html

 

they went up again and the prices are now $849.99 in the Los Angeles area.

 

Hey Guys and Gals,

Just ordered my CW and was wondering what a good case/sleeve would work well with the new lappy. This is my first laptop and have noticed that it's hard to find cases/sleeves for the CW.

Thanks,

 

Intel core2 due t9600 vs p8700?

 

If you buy it with the laptop it should fit. If you buy it somewhere else it will usually fit because most of the are adjustable. Speaking of sleeves than it is better to buy from sony. cases - doesnt really matter.

 

T9600 is better but hotter

In Europe we only have p8700 max

 

If you are not going to be doing any CPU intensive tasks, I'd suggest going with the P8700. Although it has a lower speed and smaller cache, it's still more than enough for most users and will help with battery life.

 

I checked out one of these at Best Buy. The screen looked washed out. Has anyone tweaked any settings to make it look better?

Edit: Found this post in this thread by googling.

 

Is anyone adding an extended warranty on their CW?? It kills me to spend that much extra money. Any thoughts?

 

You can try change some of the color and contrast settings in your Nvidia control panel. Some users of other laptops have done this to help with their washed out screen issue.

 

The factory settings in power management also have the screen brightness set to about 35%. Once you adjust it to a more reasonable 50% it looks a lot better (although probably burns power a little faster, but still, who wants a long-lasting washed out display??)

 

I have some time right now, so i guess i'll make a brief review

Got my CW from newegg, configured with the 230m gt and the t6600 processor. Arrived 3 days from ordering. Yay newegg!, since its the warehouse is about a 20 minute drive from my house.

Laptop is built pretty sturdy. Finding a few problems in its build quality though. One is the fact that when the laptop is in a closed position, you are easily to feel a flex in the screen when carrying it. Keyboard is sturdy, with almost no flex. Disk drive is a little loose though. And yes, when the battery is in, it moves a bit, no big deal.

Screen is REALLY bright, while quality is ok i guess. Although its better than my 3 year old desktop screen, i don't like it very much since i'm not used to it yet. Viewing angles are restricted vertically, but not much horizontally.

Keyboard is great, but will take getting used to (I'm making errors when typing this). Touchpad feels like silk! Buttons also don't need as much force to press. Palmrest is very comfortable.

Webcam is not that great, and the speakers....well, their laptop speakers. Their great only when no one else is near you if at full volume.

The speed is great, compared to my old pentium. Gaming with my slightly overclocked 230m gt is also a blast...at acceptable settings. I play call of duty 4 at ultra settings at about 22-40 fps, and high from 27-50, both with max AA. Modern warfare 2 runs at high with 2x AA from 22-37 fps.

The notebook is EXTREMELY quiet, you can't hear a thing. And it doesn't get very hot, unless you purposely place your hands next to the vents.

With good things, i get a lot of problems too....
After installing about 10 pieces of software, and 3 games, my boot time gets noticeably slower..... Also, whenever i start the computer now, i get a error that says, "disk is inconsistent. scanning for errors. press any key to stop". Not a big problem, but slightly annoying. I guess its because i used daemon tools to mount a disk (anyone know how to fix this). Also, it was a little difficult for me to connect to my network the first time.

Today would be the worst problem i had with my lappy EVER
My wireless connection dropped, so after reconnecting with no avail, i restarted my computer. When i get to my desktop, Aero stopped functioning, and i wasn't able to change it. Fortunately, it went back to normal after a reboot. Guess a great laptop never comes without problems...

If anyone knows, can they help me address the problems? >.<

 

Hi,

Pay with the AMEX card. AMEX benifits adds 1 additional year to the manufacture warranty. This way u can extend the warranty to 1 more year. Hope this helps.

Enjoy

 

I realize this is from awhile back, but can you elaborate on this a little bit more? I don't really understand , and I'd really like to get a nice performance increase out of this card.

 

Will AMEX card work at sonystyle.com US (online)?
thanks

 

Sony CW
t9600 2.8ghz
8gb ddr3 ram
blue ray playback
freshstart
nVidia 230m
500gb hard drive
windows 7 pro
all for 1253.99
Is that reasonable? is there any coupons?

 

I bought loptop and new i am w8ting then its come to moscow from USA

VPCCW190X

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T9600 (2.80GHz)
Genuine Microsoft® Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit
Jet Black
500GB Hard Disk Drive (5400rpm)
8GB (4GBx2) DDR3-SDRAM-1066
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT230M GPU
Blu-ray Disc™ playback
No Fresh Start
Microsoft® Works
No additional Finance Software
Norton Internet Security™ 2009

price with all tax about 1450-1500$


Until i bought this i have realy big problem wich decision, this sony vaio cw or apple macbook pro 13 (price 1600$)
2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
250GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
NVIDIA Geforce 9400m
Backlit Keyboard (English) / User's Guide

some one can tell me SONY vaio cw .VS. Apple MacBook 13-2.53

 

from the spec given, VAIO CW is miles better than those outdated 13" MBP..

whats VAIO CW lacking:
1. A bit heavier (14" cant be blame).
2. No backlight keyboard

whats 13" MBP lacking:
1. Poor performance GPU than CW
2. No Blu-Ray
3. Not a 8gb DDR3
4. Poor CPU than CW
5. Small capacity of HD than CW

and to summarize its expensive than VAIO CW.
your choice.

 

i already make mi choice and new i am w8ting december 12 then mi monster comes (sory for bad english and mistakes)
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T9600 (2.80GHz)
Genuine Microsoft® Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit
Jet Black
500GB Hard Disk Drive (5400rpm)
8GB (4GBx2) DDR3-SDRAM-1066
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT230M GPU
Blu-ray Disc™ playback
No Fresh Start
Microsoft® Works
No additional Finance Software
Norton Internet Security™ 2009

 

Mine was dispatched to the 'logistics centre' yesterday, i wonder how long it will take for them to deliver it from there!

 

Yeah, it works. I bought mine with AMEX

Enjoy

 

I have a question. For VT, do you only need the P8700 processor or do you also need the Win 7 Pro. Will VT work with Ein 7 Home Premium?