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

Hi,

Here in US Sony generally uses Fedex for shipment. I had ordered one laptop earlier from them and it was delivered by Fedex. Also on their Customer care page, there are FAQs releated to Fedex.

 

Cool.. I tried FedEx now and it showed some +ve info

Guess I was trying too soon yesterday when FedEx hadn't even updated their records!

 

Any Idea when an official review of the Sony Vaio CW series will be posted on NR. Somewhere down the pages (weeks ago), there was a discussion on this and i guess Mr. President was going to write up a review. Any news on that?

 

I see that most of the CW users have ordered the GT230 graphics card, indicating that you would use it more for gaming. Is that so?

I ordered the 256 mb card because the 512 was out and the sale was ending soon. As i am only going to run data analysis and may be watch couple of BLU-ray movies, will the 256 MB be good enough. I have the t9600 with 4 gig RAM. And if anyone can point out their experience with heating issues on a t9600 processor??????

 

Hi,

I have ordered mine on last sunday. It said that the shipping estimation will be on Dec 22th. Initially, it was Dec 8th.

Does anybody here know whether our vaios made in USA, China, or Japan?

Cannot wait to see my Indigo Purple.

Thank you,

Sahadewa

 

Searching is great.

Could help if we knew where you were too. I'm guessing USA so Cali dude.

 

Sorry I forgot to tell you. I am in Michigan.

 

Sony Vaio's from USA are made in California
Sony Vaio's from UK are made in Japan
Sony Vaio's in Europe, im not sure putting recently finding out about the Sony production Center in (Berlin?) im guess they are made there

 

On November 10th, I sent the following message to one of the Moderators of NBR (Charles) on this topic...here what I said and his response...

 

after reading ninja2000's post, does this mean we can change processor on CW by our self? my model comes with T6600 processor, and don't know if i can upgrade it.

Thanks

 

Why could you not change it? lol
Yes, you can upgrade the cpu. That's why some people are buying some on ebay.

 

I just bought the $879.99 model from amazon.com.

2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 Processor
4GB DDR2 800MHz Memory
320GB Hard Drive
Blu-ray Drive + CD/DVDRW
GeForce 210M 256MB

All of their CWs list the RAM as DD2 800Mhz. Is this just a typo? I thought all CWs came with DDR3 RAM.

 

I just got my shipping confirmation email a few minutes ago, it shipped out today!!! I can't wait!!

 

Yes a typo, they have DDR3

 

Me too...just received the shipping confirmation and tracking number. Hope it arrives before the weekend

 

argh I knew I should of ordered on the 26th. lol. I waited til 28th. Bad Idea but oh well worth the wait for black I guess

 

It wouldn't have been bad if you had gotten a better discount than us!

 

I'm a bit nervous about all these people who are claiming their orders won't arrive until late December/early January...

According to Sony, I placed my order on the 26th... but I could have sworn it was on Friday (27th).


I order the CW in icy white and I chose the GT 230M card (which moved back my "estimated shipping date from 12/4 to 12/8).



My order status is "Processing," and the estimated shipping date is still 12/8.


I should be ok, right?

 

lol thats true. I was waiting for more discount but couldnt wait til monday. Good thing i didnt but i hope that sony respects the orders. Like not cancel mine

 

Shipped earlier then expected

 

I would like the the P9700 2.8ghz but ebay just has Engineering samples or/and they come from China or Hongkong so i dont know if I could trust them.

Ive had pretty bad experiences with a few of those ES chips in the past.

 

Hi please can someone explain - received my new laptop today and the Hard Drive is 320gb but is showing capacity 286gb and before installing any programmes / software / files it is showing used space of 25gb leaving free space of 261gb - I know the OS takes up space but !!!!!!! ???????

My HD has been reduced from 320gb to usable 261gb thats 20% gone before I do anything is that normal.

Any help appreciated because I dont understand

 

Yes its normal, The 320GB hardrives actual capacity when formatted is usually around 298GB

Here is a good explanation of this: http://www.pcmech.com/forum/showthread.php?t=118330

Sony also has a 10 gig partition for the recovery which you cannot access by normal methods.

Then the OS and SONY's programs take up around 15 gig of space. Then you have restore points and shadow copies which use a lot.
Then you have a hidden 4GB hibernate file and a 4GB pagefile (if your computer has 4GB ram)

Its normal.

 

I would say for normal use the remaining space is good enough. However, if you really are running short on the space, you could go in for a clean install but not by using the recovery manager. Instead prepare a bootable disk from your recovery partition as explained on this link http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=430379

Before you do this, make sure you create your normal receovery disk if you haven't received any with the CW. Once you are done, you can also delete the recovery partition, that way you will be able to add another 20 gig to your space. Also, you can also turn off the restore point option and also the hybernations, that would add another 5-6 gigs... But it has its own disadvantages....

 

Hello...

I'm thinking about buying this laptop on sonystyle.com from the UK in pink... and have been reading all the comments on the board and am happy with what i hear about this laptop.....

The only thing that puts me if the poor sound comments.... I'm just wondering what owners make of the sound level of the CW??? As I intend to use it for internet surfing mainly, facebook, bebo and probably play music / watch youtube... Is the sound loud enough for this??

I know its a petty issue, I just dont want to spend on it if im going to be struggling to here it....

Replys would be appreciated

Chloe x

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello...

I'm thinking about buying this laptop on sonystyle.com from the UK in pink... and have been reading all the comments on the board and am happy with what i hear about this laptop.....

The only thing that puts me if the poor sound comments.... I'm just wondering what owners make of the sound level of the CW??? As I intend to use it for internet surfing mainly, facebook, bebo and probably play music / watch youtube... Is the sound loud enough for this??

I know its a petty issue, I just dont want to spend on it if im going to be struggling to here it....

Replys would be appreciated

Chloe x

 

Hi Chloe welcome to the Forum and this Thread! well concerning the sound issue i would say it depends on the condition your in, it would hard to hear as some say if your outside like in a coffee shop, but if your at home and there isnt noise around you then i guess it would be okay. On the activities u have noted it should be sufficient as long as your sitting right infront of the computer or a couple of feet away, i cant guarantee other than that. I tried it out at Croydon Micro Anvika and i played 3-4 different songs, and the sound was pretty okay to me, and there were other people around me talking and being shown the other computers, plus store music so i say its okay for your tasks
I hope this helps you out in deciding

 

Well, my order status was updated again this afternoon...

I ordered my CW on the 26Th, with an original estimated ship date of 12/08.

Yesterday the status was "being built", and a later update on the page finally showed the ship date as 12/04.

This afternoon it was updated yet again, still "being built", but the ship date is now showing 12/11.

Of course, considering some of the posts I've seen here, I'm taking any status/dates reported with a whole shaker of salt.

Update: HA!!

A couple of hours later, at 8:04PM, another email update came in announcing that it has shipped. FedEx tracking shows that it arrived at their San Diego location at 6:49PM, 47-minutes after being picked up. I don't know about the FedEx California schedules, but here in Michigan that would be soon enough to get it on a plane tonight.

Sony's order summary still doesn't show my credit card as being billed. I'm sure they'll get to that eventually.

 

Thanks for providing the link to creating the bootable disk from the recovery partition, I appreciate it!

 

is it me or does it seem like alot of the purples are on this forum, you guys are lucky cause you guys naturally get shipped for sure because of the gt230's are in the purple ones and didn't run out like instantly. I hope SonyStyle took a gt230 from a purple one and stuck it in mine. Well they should of.

 

I ordered mine on the 26th as well, and for some reason I've gotten lucky and they've already shipped mine, it left San Diego on the FedEx truck today, heading for AL. I have the exact same config as you, including the color, except I did Win 7 Pro with Fresh Start. I did order it in the wee hours of the morning on the 26th, like 4am...so maybe I got a bit ahead of the pack.

 

My shipment finally shwoed up on Fedex. It has been picked up for delivery...Estimated Delivery date is this weekend...cant wait

 

Lucky Mine still shows a ship date of 11-30-09 yeah! I have a feeling all of us that ordered around black friday cyber monday will not be seeing our laptops for a long long time....

 

Ehh I also ordered early Black Friday ( 8 AM PST) and it also says 11/30/09 for me. I don't get what that means. The Shipping Date when ordered was 12/15/09 =/

 

I think it means most stuff we added to our CTO is on backorder and it will be sometime before sony gets more stock in. I have a feeling that most people won't see their CW's until the end of Dec early Jan...

 

Shipping Update: HA!!

A couple of hours later, at 8:04PM, another email update came in announcing that it has shipped. FedEx tracking shows that it arrived at their San Diego location at 6:49PM, 47-minutes after being picked up. I don't know about the FedEx California schedules, but here in Michigan that would be soon enough to get it on a plane tonight.

Sony's order summary still doesn't show my credit card as being billed. I'm sure they'll get to that eventually.

Yes, I ordered mine at about 6PM on the 26Th, so yours was almost certainly ahead of mine in the que.

The only reason our configurations aren't identical is that I found that I could upgrade to Win 7 Ultimate for considerably less than Sony was charging for Pro by getting it through the university. ($20) Time I've got, money I don't, so I'll deal with cleaning out the garbage on my own. Oh, and I did get mine engraved.

Hmm. With an estimated FedEx delivery date of 12/8, it looks like they're shipping it FedEx Ground. Doesn't make much sense to me from a actual cost/efficiency standpoint for that size package and distance, but at least they didn't charge us for it.

BTW, this laptop is an early Christmas gift from my father to help in going back to school. Classes officially started today. I'm adding a MBA to my BSEE.

 

So lame.... should've gotten the pre-configured one whn there was that 150$ off coupon =(

 

Good luck with going back to school, I am looking to do the same thus my serious flirting with this fine lappy! Sony Canada has it kinda pricey, but both Best Buy and Future Shop sell a $899 model (basic) which seems fair enough. Will go by tomorrow once more to choose the color, wish the colored ones wouldn't get so grimy looking with smudges... I tried to wipe the red demonstrator with my sleeve and all it did was smear it-- I guess you need a special cloth/solution to de-grime? What are your experiences with this?

You brought up an interesting idea though-- wonder how many ppl were sure enough of their purchase to get it engraved?

 

Someone find out when they will get more of their gt230's lol

 

I am wondering what does "Shipping Update" means..Looks like it's sth bad (from the previous posts) lol..

Oh yeah btw what will happen if I am not there when my CW arrive? I think it's gonna be here during winter break..

 

I definitely agree, sonystyle.ca is a total rip off for the price they advertise the cw for. I know Futureshop has the $1049 laptop which differs from the $899 sony cw model by having 500GB (instead of 320GB), and blu-ray playback (not in the $899 model). Those are the 2 main differences. The $1049 model only comes in black or white, whereas the $899 model has 4 colors. Just some tips for you since I bought the $1049 model at futureshop (i got it for $950 after the guy reduced it by $50 and had an in-store promotion for a free $50 gift card): at futureshop you can get them to reduce the price, as they are commissioned based. You should be able to get something off or at least some accessories included. Don't fall for their price guarantee promise, b/c when u read the fine print, it doesn't cover certain days and boxing day specials (which if u can hold out, u never know what might happen). Its a lot of money esp after taxes, and they know this, so if I were you i'd look for a sales associate willing to help you out. Also, I don't know how you feel about an extended warranty, but then again, if you have credit card warranty services, it would then add another year to it, I believe.

As for smudges, I have the black color, and smudges are annoying and very visible. After a while u get used to it, but u will still find urself trying to wipe them off here and there (I use my lens cloth for my glasses and it does a good job).

 

You have to be very careful about cleaning, especially the screen and keyboard areas. Most household cleaners and soaps should NEVER be used, as too many of them will damage the plastic surfaces or leave a film. The usual recommendation is to just use a slightly water dampened cloth.

There are specialty cleaners available, but probably the simplest and easiest to get that should work for the worst cases is a good eye-glass cleaner. These are designed not to damage plastic lenses or the specialty coatings used for eye-glasses. I use it for cleaning CDs, DVDs and the occasional smudge on a monitor or TV screen as well as my glasses, using a clean micro-fiber cloth. You can get it in small spray bottles, easy to pack along with your laptop if you want. Just don't spray the machine directly! Spray the cloth to get it a little damp.

 

Hi all,

Most people in the thread have the GT230M graphic card. Is there somebody out here who's got the G210M?
If yes, how is is for non-gaming tasks? Am I gonna regret not getting the gt230m one for the sake of Win7 Pro (I need the XP mode for programming)?

Thank you,

 

Speakers on CW is serviceable. I wouldn't recommend it for listening to music (no laptop of this size have speakers that are adequate for music, though). For Facebook, youtube, etc, it should be fine.

Headphone jack can put out a clear sound with large enough volume (which, sadly, is not always the case with many laptops) - it can sufficiently drive my ATH-CK7, which many cheap electronics struggle to drive.

 

Yes I would agree, this machine is actually for the wife and she'll never use the 500G. +1 on the SSD I definately would have ordered one after playing with an Adamo with SSD.

Yes I nearly bought one of those also but I need VT for the wifes machine as her office uses a couple of things that only work in XP.

Ah I didn't know about that second part thanks. I guess you could always replace the keyboard with a UK one quite a fiew Vaio parts on ebay so only a matter of time. If this was for me I'd probably have imported from the US. I'm flying over to Boston tomorrow and was going to nip down to NYC and pick up from JR.COM but with the 10% of coupon that was posted there wasn't enough in it anymore so just bit the bullet and ordered in the UK.

Hi There, Most of those games should be ok, but I suggest reading the whole thread as alot of your quesions are already answered.

Yes I'd like to know about that too.

mjames: how long was it from In production to shipping? I got the email in production this morning.

Chloe, most laptops have pants sound great thing about the Sony CW is it had bluetooth so you can use bluetooth speakers like these:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-SRS-BTM30-Bluetooth-wireless-speaker/dp/B000I0X0NQ

just pair them up and you are done.


Regards,
Neil.

 

http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Sony-Vaio-VPC-CW1S1E-Notebook.23038.0.html

 

http://www.notebookcheck.com/Top-10-Multimedia-Notebooks.16388.0.html

 

Not bad In my opinion it should be in 3 place because of 14"

 

Thank you for all the replys and taking time to answer my dilemma over the CW sound capability...

I just need a laptop that is portable and lightweight and the CW seemed perfect for that. But i also need it to play music, as i listen to music in room and watch dvds alot, as i'm away at drama school at the moment..... Do you all think I should go for the NW Series instead and sacrifice abit of portabilty for better sound?

As you can guess I'm not very good when it comes to chosing laptops... lolz

Apreciate all your replys and advice,
Chloe x

 

I suggest for you apple macbook if you want cw then choose cheapest with gt 210 and processor etc. sound for cw is normal not bad but not perfect. for your needs cheapest cw is more powerful than your need and its portable. If you want amazing sound you can always plug to whatever you want ( sound station, tv, etc.)