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

Power consumption would be the difference. P series have lower TDP.

http://www.intel.com/products/processor_number/about/core.htm

In theory P series CPU + Nvidia 210/230 series CPU + DDR3 RAM should give laptop with low power consuption & long battery time and offer decent performance as well. But what people report for CW is not really impressive (2-3 hours on fully charged battery?).

Performance wise I don't believe you can notice difference between CPUs in normal usage.

 

Can anyone post some pics of his CW?
That would be nice

 

Corteen,

Thanks. I chatted with a sony agent on sonystyle.com and she told me that on the CW the P8700 and the T9600 custom ordered would have the VT option in the BIOS.

 

That looks nice...but I wanted something that I could put the laptop in, and peripherals, and my Ipod etc...so I got this:

http://www.buy.com/prod/sony-notebo...ack-nylon-gray-black/q/loc/101/202791777.html

Works great!

oh...and HDMI sound can be switched between external HDMI devices and the onboard speakers (or headphone plugin). It explains how to do it in the manual. I need to plug mine into my Onkyo 706 to see if I get Dolby TrueHD when outputting a movie. I will do that and report back...hopefully later today.

Haze

 

Thanks, Guys! I really appreciate the good info.

Fapuse, thanks for the link and sharing what you've gleaned from reading reviews, that's very helpful. I do figure the 230M is a pretty powerful choice at 1366x768 resolution. Looking forward to your impressions. I'm definitely leaning towards the CW, just have to decide on proper config. I went to BestBuy to look it over and it's a beautiful design and seems very well made.

You definitely have to look at the display head-on for best saturation, but that's fine for a small laptop where it's easy to adjust the screen. Keyboard seemed very nice and the touchpad way above average. Only my HP dv9000 has one as nice, I think. Sony's may even be better. (Hp has a very beautiful display, though, one of the best I've seen. But it's 17" and I need something smaller for mobile use.)

But overall the CW is one of the nicest looking laptops I've seen in awhile, the nearby Dells, Toshibas, and Hps were all tres ugly by comparison.

 

This is huge news, if true! I had config'd a unit w/Win 7 Pro and then backed off after reading Sony had disabled VT and XP mode would be useless. I'll go back to Pro if this is true and whoopee! Great news, thanks very much for the post!

 

This link http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Acer-Aspire-5739G-Notebook.19255.0.html has some really good gaming comparisons of the 240M and ATI 4650, which gives a good idea of how the 230M would do. Thanks, Fapuse, for the original link to where I found this!

In short, it sounds like the 230M should do pretty well for this size screen and especially so considering the price and other nice features of the CW.

 

Any experience with the CW's screen in outdoor lighting?

When I am outside with my current notebook I can't see a thing and has been a bit annoying in the past.

Thanks! ^_^

 

Also, I'm still torn between the CW and a Dell Studio 1555. The Studio has slightly better specs. and an HD screen for about the same price. Can anyone give me any advice as to why the Sony CW would be superior?

 

Does anybody have an estimated battery life with the 230M? Will it differ that much from the 210M?

 

The CW is smaller. And a 1080p screen on a 15" laptop is really really high res.

 

Forget it. Only expensive notebooks these days will offer a decent screen for you to work outdoors.
I mean CW's screen is even glare to beginn with.

Sorry.

 

From Sony UK site

From Sony USA Site
Dont know how much truth is in this, but i guess some of our owners can try using the laptop outside and see if the screen is easily viewable or not

 

I just hooked up the new Vaio CW to my Onkyo 706 receiver via HDMI. I am using Arcsoft Total Media Theater 3 Platinum, so I set the sound to HDMI passthrough. My receiver played the audio in Dolby Surround and it sounded good....however, the Dolby TrueHD light did not turn on. I went into the audio properties of the movie while playing in the software and it reported that the sound was TrueHD...but I doubt that the CW has the HD audio proccesing capability onboard...so it "should have" just passed the signal to the Onkyo, which DOES decode TrueHD and DTS HD when it is passed from my TViX M6500A.

If anyone else can shed some light on the ability to pass thru Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD...it would be appreciated.

I can attest to the fact that HDMI out from the CW to a Home Theater Receiver sounds awesome.

Haze

 

Just ordered mine

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834117966

$954 with taxes, shipping and a 2 year warranty.

 

Does any one have the part no for the blu ray drive?

I've ordered my CW from a UK store without the Blu Ray option and am interested to see how much it would be to buy the drive on its own.

Thanks


Martin

 

Sweet...I got my black one from BB online....and used my BB card.

18 months free financing!!!

$855 TOTAL with the bluray drive.

 

Hi, I'm considering to buy the cw, just a few questions.. how 's the keyboard, sizewise, comfort of typing? And how silent is it when running basic programs (office)? How are the viewing angels?
Overall impressions?
Anyone working on a review, perhaps?
Thanks.

 

anyone? please?

 

Just brought it home two hours ago and I'm still installing all the apps & configuring it. It is very quiet so far doing those undemanding tasks. Viewing angles are crap vertical and OK horizontal, but display quality is far better then all on my previous laptops.

WIFI card is Intel 5100 (CW bought in Ireland, would suppose all European are the same), few people were wondering.

Multitouch pad drives me mad. Suppose I just need to get used to it. Will post some more info after I'll test everything.

 

The viewing angles are pretty poor, especially vertical. I guess I would agree with Fapuse's "OK" on horizontal, vertical really is dismal. But if you look at it straight on, it's fine. This seems a problem w/nearly all laptops, some more than others. My HP dv9000 has decent viewing angles. Others I own, not so much.

I only saw it in the store at Bestbuy, so really can't offer much, but it seemed quiet running the demo.

Looking forward, myself, to hearing what some of the new owners have to say.

 

I ordered this CW CTO on 10/24 from my local SonyStyle store, configured as follows:

Product: US-VPCCW190X-LBOM
Component: Fresh Start
Component: 4GB (2GBx2) DDR3-SDRAM-1066
Component: Large Capacity Battery (VGP-BPL13)
Component: Blu-ray Disc™ playback
Component: No Engraving
Component: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8700 (2.53GHz)
Component: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT230M GPU (512MB VRAM)
Component: Icy White
Component: Genuine Microsoft® Windows® 7 Professional 64bit
Component: 320GB Hard Disk Drive (5400rpm)
Total Price: $919.99
Description: VPCCW190X Configure-to-Order
Ship Method: Standard
Estimated Ship Date: 11/02/2009

I received $200 off via an in-store ecoupon (previously mentioned upthread). My ship date changed from 11/2 to 11/4, then 11/6, then I received a notice that it shipped on 10/28, and I received it at home on 10/30, so I don't how much faith I would put in Sony's delivery estimate, for those that have posted about it before.

I've only been able to spend a few hours with it, so I can't give in-depth commentary, but I am liking it so far. My packaging was considerably different than in the unboxing video, but it was well-packaged nonetheless. There is very little literature, consisting of a quick start sheet, safety guide, and assorted Sony propaganda and sales lit. Mine is white and looks gorgeous.

The large capacity battery raises the back end up quite a bit more than I remember seeing in the store, almost to the point that it doesn’t look as portable. It does angle the keyboard at a nice ergonomic angle though. The battery moves very slightly if I pull on it but does not feel loose or ill-fitting, as some have reported.

The keyboard is standard size at approx. 4.25” x 11.25” (10.8cm x 28.6cm), not including the offset arrow keys. It is the same size as the keyboard on my 15.4 Dell Inspiron. It has a nice feel to it, no difference from other notebooks for me.

The screen is very nice. It is bright & crisp, but I am coming from a 1680 x 1050 screen, so it looks slightly grainy and the icons are large to me. It is somewhat glossy, very low reflections straight on, but they are prominent from angles. The screen dims considerably when viewed at any angle.

I am not a touchpad user, so I won’t comment on it’s functionality. I also won’t be using the HDMI anytime soon. It is very quiet unit; the only noise I hear is when the HD accessed. The speakers sound very tinny and overall disappointing. I also won’t use the webcam.

Booting up, I was surprised to see some bloatware installed, which is one of the reasons I upgraded to Win7 Pro and chose the fresh start option. The most annoying is Google desktop. There are multiple Vaio programs of dubious value installed. It goes through a short canned Win7 setup routine and allowed me to establish my wifi connection pretty quickly. Mine does have the Intel 5100 wifi, although my paperwork stated that it would come with the Atheros wifi. I’m not complaining.

I don’t know if the windows experience score is a worthwhile measure of performance, but mine scores 6.1-6.4 for everything except the HD at 5.3. I’ll probably be moving to an SSD drive in the future if it’s possible.

I will be loading GTA4 soon and testing the graphics performance. I will also be loading SolidWorks 2009. I might remove the back covers and see what’s in there/ what upgrade opportunities exist. If I do, I will post pics. If there are other specific pics, or benchmark tests people are interested, let me know and I will try to accommodate.

If anyone wants me to check something out, please ask, just keep in mind that I am not a techie, and I am going from XP to Win 7, so I might need a little help with any OS questions.

 

thanks for your 1st impressions electrobuzz, that would be really great if you could take pics, and if you can take pics overall of your machine and if possible in different lighting conditions, and Videos , maybe during gameplay or something that would test the graphics card abit thanks
in a couple of days if i find some time ill go through the thread and i will add some bits and peices from owners and such onto the 1st page so it would be easier to find info for other users.
Edit: and a Q & A for common questions about the CW like the keyboard question that came up, feel free to help

 

Really considering one of these. Torn between Dell Studio XPS 13, Asus UL80VT, and the CW series.

Looking at getting this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-VAIO-VPC...4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1257044949&sr=8-4

I really want a white one with the same specs but it seems they're not available for some reason...I'd have to get it from sonystyle and pay extra due to taxes.

 

as far as I know, the SXPS 13 runs really hot, but on the plus side it has a backlight keyboard(good for some, bad for others)

Sony has a really nice cooling system in their machines, and as some owners said it gets slightly warm, not at all hot. and the Graphics chip is better than the one offered in the Dell, since i think now they offer the GeForce GT 210M hybrid graphics and the CW model you chose has the GT 230M 512MB VRAM so could come in handy for graphics power hungry, if you have any questions feel free to ask.
Edit: sorry i cant say much for the Asus maybe someone else can

 

Yeah I heard the same thing about the SXPS 13. Either way, this $900 CW is cheaper than the Dell so the CW has everything going for it right now. I've never owned a Sony notebook but I've heard some bad things about them...my main concerns are build quality and cooling so it's great to hear that it has decent cooling. How's the build quality though?

The Asus is only $70 cheaper and it offers much weaker processors and GPU but the plus is that it has much better battery life. I think I'd rather take a hit on battery life and get better processors/GPU. I should be able to reach at least 3-3.5 hours right?

Oh and I found the white one that I wanted: http://www.abt.com/product/42827/Sony-VPCCW18FXW.html

But I've never heard of this company...anyone have any experience with them? The reseller ratings don't look so hot.

 

alot of people have noted that the build quality on this model is really solid, if you want you can check it out at best buy or a Sony Store if you have one near you, to check everything out, trust me it always helps to look at a laptop in person so you can check everything you need to.
the plus side the the Graphics chip is really powerful something like this is used in medium range laptop so your getting alot for your money, but i mean it all comes down to each user. Check out post # 172, about 5 posts up ask the owner gave a mini review plus he has the same white model that your interested in

 

Hmmm...ok rehangohar77 you convinced me, I placed the order! lol.

Hopefully I don't cancel this one (cancelled my XPS 13 about a week ago). The thing is it seems like such a great notebook for the money so I don't think I can go wrong here.

If anyone can comment on the battery life, that would be great.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834117967

$850
$950 with taxes, shipping and 2 year warranty.

 

Those are worse processors and it's $50 more than what I paid.

 

what about g210m gpu?? is it powerful enough to play most games??

 

Ok, here are some quick initial pics. The lighting sucks in these (indoor lighting), and my good camera is loaned out right now. I will try to take better pics in natural light tomorrow.

I didn't feel adventurous enough to take the full cover off the back, but I'm curious.





Working height with large battery installed.



The white finish is lightly pearlescent and glossy. Does show some fingerprint smudges.





Bootup time is about 40 seconds. Shutdown is less than 10 seconds. I left it on for about 6 hours continuously at idle and noticed only slight warmth on the lower right hand rest area and on the back where the HD is located.

This thing came with nothing on disc, so I plan to make a recovery DVD before I start installing my programs and modifying the install defaults.

What benchmark should I run on this? 3DMark?

 

You should run 3DMark06 and whatever games you have with built in benchmarks.

Is the keyboard full sized? How good is the screen?

 

Ah looks like you already posted about the keyboard and screen. Thanks for the info!

The keyboard is standard size at approx. 4.25” x 11.25” (10.8cm x 28.6cm), not including the offset arrow keys. It is the same size as the keyboard on my 15.4 Dell Inspiron. It has a nice feel to it, no difference from other notebooks for me.

 

about benchmarks you can improve your french if you want...

http://www.01net.com/fiche-produit/prise-main-6825/pc-portables-sony-vaio-vpc-cw1s1ep/

@+

 

According to Nvidia 230M uses 23watt and 210M 14 watt, so it should be noticeably better. I think this is peak power though, so real difference in power saving mode may be smaller. I'm just checking battery life with 230M (&2.1ghz P series CPU), so at least I can give you some reference point - 210 will certainly be better.

EDIT: 2h40 min from full to empty, all time watching streamed video, full volume and brightness setting 1 below full. I think 4h with office-like usage may be possible, but yet to be tested.

Just remember:
P series CPU uses some 10w less than T series
210M uses some 10w less then 230M

If you choose T series CPU and 210M then you have more or less same power consumption as when combining P series with 230M. Most power efficient combination would be P CPU & 210M

Not neccessarily related, DPC latency test:

Not sure what it means for normal usage, but maybe some people will be interested. Can someone else check it, want to know if it is just my CW or some general problem (or feature? )

 

Don't buy DELL. Was considering buying either XPS13 or 16 and done really a lot of research - 13 is much heavier and bulkier than CW, but the major issue for me would be that it heats a lot and has much too slow GFX card (GF9500 should be a bit faster than 210M, but way slower then 230) and is more expensive. Compared to CW it's previous generation design.

CW is bigger, lighter and it doesn't heat. I mean, really. And I really tried to make the GPU work.

 

It's a little bit worse than a Radeon 4570 but it will get the job done at low resolutions and low to medium settings.

 

That is indeed worrying. For real time audio handling and playback I think it could pose problems as it is related to dropouts and weird noises. The Dell Studio XPS 13 has a DPC chart much worse than that but it really makes me jittery about purchasing one. A BIOS fix is needed here.

 

OK so I finally made my decision and bought the "UK retail model" of the CW at John Lewis. Specification is ideal for my needs :-

Model # VPC-CW1S1E/R (a very nice red/black style)
Intel Core Duo P7450 2.13GHz
4 GB DDR3 Ram
320GB Hard disk
Standard DVD R/Wr (I decided that blu-ray was not a priority for me)
Nvidia GeForce GT230M 512MB graphics card

On initial switch on I have one dilemma - it comes pre-loaded with 60 day McAfee anti-virus software. I was planning on simply extending my Norton Internet Security which already works fine on my desktop PC to the Vaio CW (as NIS can be used on 3 PCs) - I certainly don't want to have Norton on one and McAfee on the other and pay for both!

So - any advice from other CW users out there on how best to completely remove the McAfee software? I've heard that it's not as easy as it should be.

Or, would anyone recommend sticking with the McAfee instead of Norton?

PS. I'm happy to go with one of these brands of anti-virus by the way, they are far less resource intensive than they used to be. So I'm not likely to go with any freeware options.

 

I've posted picture with the worst case I've seen, it is usually better, like 2-3 red bars at time on screen, but latency is often just below 2000. I wasn't able to determine the cause yet.

I also have problems with GFX performance. So far I've tested 2 games, rFactor (car racing sim) and Dark Age of Camelot (very old mmorpg).
rFactor on maximum settings was giving some trouble to my old ACER 8210 (ATI X1600). Vaio CW has no problem running in on full settings and the game is perfectly fluent, except from time to time it freeze for like 0.5s. I've tried reducing the settings, but even when i set everything to lowest possible level (that doesn't even trouble my company laptop's NV135M) those freezes still happen.

I've tried DAOC, and it is exactly the same, doesn't matter what detail level I set, game freeze from time to time - just for a blink but it does.

So it doesn't seem to be game related. I'll also try Oblivion and will run 3dmark today, will see if problem appears there as well.

I have no idea if it is a GFX card problem or maybe some piece of software running in background that kicks in from time to time (ie one of many bloatware apps loaded by Sony), because the card itself seems to be perfectly capable of running games at high/highest details. Would be nice if some could write something about graphic performance of their CW's.

 

Maybe it's a driver problem in the GPU. Try downloading the latest drivers with that. It's odd that a good card would stutter in games. Oh, do post once you got Oblivion up and running. Currently considering the CW for my next purchase and would really want to see how the game performs on it. Thanks!

 

Try to switch off nvidia PowerMizer function, to be found in nforce settings. Same as with ATI cards (PowerPlay in CCC).

 

electrobuzz,

Since you have a CTO version with P8700, could you please check the BIOS and see if you have an advanced option to enable VT ?

I was told by a sonystyle.com agent via online chat that if you custom order with P8700 or T9600 you should get the advanced option in the BIOS.

Appreciate your help. I hope to try an get an in store discount also.

Thanks

 

I would reccomend just running Microsoft Security Essentials, it isn't a full suite but it does the job. It's free and gives you really good protection and hardly takes any RAM at all.

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

Since the computer doesn't come with any discs, can you reformat the computer with a system repair disc?

 

Is anyone having problems with BluRay output ?
When I am playing a BluRay disc if I try to use the HDMI output to display the movie on my 24" external monitor - I get a "cannot display protected content" error and it crashes out ?

Does this mean I am SOL for displaying a BluRay movie on anything other than the CW screen ?

This is frankly a deal breaker for me - and as much as I like the CW I am going to probably take it back and get something else.

 

I'm pretty excited for the positive feeling towards this machine. Mine comes in Tuesday from sonystyle. Anyone have any recommendations for a bluetooth mouse for this bad boy? I have looked at the Microsoft 5000 bluetooth but the size is too small. My hands feel cramped. The logitech MX series look nice but $70+ for a non bluetooth mouse seems too much. Any suggestions?

Anyone use the logitech v470 or think any other bluetooth options that aren't designed for a Kebler elf?

 

A) Check if your external 24" supports HDCP! It seems as if it does not...
B) Make sure you did not expand your desktop over two screens, since BluRay playback is allowed only on one single screen.

If A) is your problem, you have to buy a newer TFT which supports HDCP handshake with external devices like Sony CW or standalone BR player

Either or I think it is not the CW's fault

 

thecincibengals - I'm using a bluetooth Apple Mighty Mouse. Works great with Windows 7.

 

Hi - thanks for the advice.

Re security suite, I decided to give the McAfee software a chance via the free trial so activated it. As I can run the trial on up to 3 PCs I also removed Norton from my desktop PC and installed McAfee instead. So far so good - the McAfee software seems to be less intrusive and resource intensive than the previous Norton software. And the McAfee SiteAdvisor feature on web sites is very useful.

Re repair disc, there are no discs at all with the CW. So, right now I'm in the process of creating recovery discs (3 DVDs worth) via the Vaio Recovery Centre.