Official VAIO FW Series Owners Thread

sorry if this has been asked before, but how's the battery life for the fw? is it sufficient enough for a college student?

 

First of all, I just want to say that this site is AWESOME!

anyway, I stumbled upon a new vaio VGN-FW290JRB (black cover - $1749.99) series at one of the local Sonystyle retail store. I compared the Xbrite Full HD 1900X1080 with the Xbrite ECO from the older FW 190....the result:

Xbrite FullHD is Hicolor with higher resolution. You can clearly see the difference in the color gamut and brightness if you compare the laptop side by side. I have not got any chance to compare it with Hi-color FW 190 though. But for those who still wonder, I can assure you that the new Xbrite Full HD is definitely a lot better than the Xbrite ECO on the older FW. It has more brightness and contrast compared to the ECO. I hope this clarify the debates

Caveat:
the 1900x1080 resolution does make the text really small. I, personally, dont have any problem with it but I understand that some people would not like that. I suggest that you go to one of the sony retail store and see the resolution before you buy the laptop...just to make sure you can cope with the smaller (although crisper) text.

Comment about the new black faceplate:
Overall it looks good and professional. It has the same texture with the white (grainy texture) BUT it has a little bit/sprinkles of metallic all over it..very minor but noticeable if you look closely.

 

the standard battery will last 2 hours non stop on optimized settings, so it will get through one class for sure. there are power saver options on the laptop to extend the battery life though, especially by turning down the screen brightness.

one option is to buy the extended battery, which gives the laptop about a 2 hour and 45 minute battery life non stop on optimed settings. i regret this though because it was an extra 100 bucks and most colleges have outlets in every room that you can sit buy and bring your charger if you are going to be using it for a long time.

 

the big thing with the high color screen is that it is 100 dollars extra. i wasn't willing to pay the extra 100 bucks for a brighter, sharper screen that does drain the battery life a little more because i don't have a blu-ray player on my laptop, and even if i did i would most likely still be hoiking it up to an lcd tv with my hdmi cable when it came time to watch movies.

i guess if you have blu-ray and are definitely going to be watching movies on your laptop's screen during travel or something then it is worth it, otherwise not really.

 

well problem with this is that unlike in the FW190, the FW29x does NOT require the ati card to go for the full HD screen, whereas the FW190 does require the Ati card for the hi color screen. this leaves a few options open why this is the case.

1. the FW29x models with the HD screen are not hi color models in the true sake that the FW190s hi color screen is.

2. the FW190 also does not need the ati card for the hi def screen and the only reason you have to get it with the ati card is raise the price up.

again, only way to confirm is to get FW190 with hi color and FW29x with hi def and compare side by side.

not entirely true, the screen is not just for blu ray movies, it is also geared towards people who want better colours on their screen, like graphics and pictures and video, you can always lower the brightness of the hi color to minimize battery life. Remember ths FW is a 16 inch screen, so battery life will already be lower than most other screens, so if you want battery life, a 13 inch screen is a better option.

 

most people are here because they want the 16.4 inch fw though, and almost everybody is still concerned about battery life.

i agree, hi-color also looks better with games and such, but i just don't think i personally would want a screen that bright and sharp for an extra 100 bucks unless i was going to play blu-ray discs on it.

 

I don't know, none of the sony stores here had a FW in hi color, only the older laptops, the FZ so I really can't compare but some swear by the reason.

 

ascariss,

They do have the new FW now. see my original posting above. When I saw the laptop, it was right fresh out of the box. They just got it yesterday (Friday afternoon). The reps told me that all the 290 series should be out on display by Saturday.

 

mlist I don't live in the states, I am in canada, and as far as I know, no FW29xs here in the stores yet.

 

What would be the best N router to buy to go with the FW 290?

 

ahh..I am sorry. my bad..I did not notice your location

 

Is the 3650 in the FW29* GDDR3 or DDR2?

 

According to the SonyStyle site, it's GDDR3.

 

Yeahhhh!! Now im hoping the FW26*s 3650 is GDDR3 as well.

So what 3dmark06 score are we looking at, ~4500?

 

Could someone post temps of the 3650 after a few hours of gaming? I am pretty set on getting this laptop just wanna be sure it handles temps well as that is the reason I am getting rid of my current machines (Sager NP2096, Asus G1S)

 

I received my FW11ZU (US model = FW19x) last Friday, and I'm very very pleased with my purchase.

I noticed a major issue with it over the weekend though - whenever it comes out of hibernation, the Blu-Ray drive is missing from Windows Vista. I have to reboot to get it back again.

Anyone got any ideas?

 

I have a problem with my fw190...

the media buttons don't work anymore... anybody have any guesses as to why?

 

Sorry, can't answer the blu-ray question, but I have a question of my own for an FW11ZU user (or any FW user, I suppose).

I don't have an HDMI enabled TV, so only have s-video/scart etc on a CRT. Do you know if a TV signal can be output through the VGA port? If it does, I could get a suitable VGA-S-Video adapter and play video from the laptop to a normal TV. The older Sony laptop allowed this, but sonystyle suggests that TV out is only available through the HDMI port...

Anybody else know the anser to this?

If it doesn't work, I'd have to get a VGA to S-Video signal converter which is more expensive than a simple adaptor cable.

Thanks.

 

I'm still wondering if the original FW units will take the 4GB memory chips and DDR3. Would love to see someone try it

 

It would be great if Sony offered a 1600x900 Hi-color screen for the FW290 CTO. That's the only thing that's stopping me from buying the notebook...Maybe the next notebook refresh?

 

Btw have you guys seen the new keyboards on the newly announced Macbook Pros?....

Loving my Vaio FW, so glad I can multitask with it

 

Just purchase my FW290 recently, waiting for it to be built

Quick question guys

Has anybody been successful in install xp on their machine?
Are there any limitations on some of the features when using xp?

Thanks

 

Plain black keyboards don't really match well with the MBP's full aluminium casing, the reason why a black keyboard IMO looks good on the FW is because the FW has a lot of black/grey parts and details on the casing, so a black keyboard doesn't stand out as much as it does on the new MBP (though it may be early to judge by just one fuzzy preview pic)...

Anyway, I'm happy with my FW as well, I've ironed out most issues I've had with it. These are the ones that remain: I still haven't solved the " browser full-screen 4:3 video black bar" issue I've mentioned earlier in this thread, I'd also like to find a way to remap the big glowing power button to make it perform alternative actions (for instance, bring up the shutdown options window), also if I get the courage to open up the laptop I'd like to try to dampen the touchpad button clicks with a soft cloth or something because the button clicks can be annoyingly loud in quiet settings...

 

Can anyone with a new FW 290 with the 3650 video card tell me what kind of CPU usage they're getting when they're decoding h.264 video at 1080p? I guess playing any sort of Blu-ray would work. That ATi card is supposed to have Avivo, the ATi hardware acceleration for h.264 acceleration. Just wondering if it actually works.

 

Just ordered mine a few days ago from best buy. It will arrive next month because its an international shipment and my uncle is gonna bring it for me who actually is referred to as the shippin address. Cant wait to get my piece of pie ****!!

Vaio Vaio!!

 

i just bought FW-130E, keys are very big, they could have easily added numpad by reducing keysize to standard. Colors are very inferior to my Sony CRT monitor (i was expecting much better screen colors considering it was supposed to be made for movie playback).

 

I'm jsut a bit confused, lots of the FW models come advertised with 1600x900 resolution, yet they can take the Blu Ray option. Isn't that kind of messing the point of having Blue Ray?

 

I just did a clean install of Windows XP on my FW190. Does anyone know what audio drivers I'm supposed to use for XP?

This is the Sony link for drivers:
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=VGNFW190&region_id=1

Everything is listed for XP except an audio driver, it's only under Vista.

Any help?

Thanks!

 

Yah, you probably uninstalled vaio event service or did a clean install of vista. you can get vaio event service back from the sony driver site.

 

Not really. You will be hard press to see a difference between 900p and 1080p with a 16.4" monitor. Blu-ray will still look much better than DVD with a screen that small but I don't think you would be able to tell a difference between the 2 screen resolutions.

 

Is there anyway that i can increase the saturation (make colors more deep or dark) ? Colors on FW look pale compared to my CRT monitor.

 

I would have thought that you'd also be hard pushed to tell the difference between a dvd and blu-ray on such a small screen? Is blu-ray really any better on the FW?

 

I don't know how blu-ray looks since mine has a normal dvd-drive but I do have 720p quality of my favourite show, Entourage and I must say that it looks much better than dvd-quality, even on a 16" screen, it is actually noticeable in quality.

 

They don't have any xp drivers for the FW290 model, I wonder how similar the 2 systems are. What are your spec's on your machine?

 

I don't know if I imagined it, but has somebody managed to overclock either the ati 3470 or 3650 on the FW? Do people generally overclock graphics cards on notebooks-I imagine that overheating is an issue which can't be compensated for...

 

190 series has been removed from Sonystyle website (now discontinued?). Base 290 series gets a slight price adjustment to $899...Base graphic splash model gets a price adjustment up to $999 and they no longer offer the mermaid design (sold out?).

 

Goes to show you how Canadians get screwed over. The 190 series is still the only CTO FW available. Oh well, I must admit that I'm happy that the 290 CTO is not available in Canada because it means my 140 is not quite outdated in Canada just yet.

 

well the 180D is out of stock and my guess is that the 290 will be introduced shortly.

 

Question:

I just ordered my Vaio FW290. Will I be able to downgrade (upgrade) to Windows XP no problem or are there going to be complications that will arise? I don't know Vista that well so I'm not sure if something will be amiss if I change over.

 

Intel® Core 2™ Duo Processor P8600 (2.4GHz)
3 GB DDR2-SDRAM (DDR2-800, 2GB+1GB)
ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3470 with 256MB vRAM
LCD 16.4" (XBRITE-HiColor™
WD Scorpio Black 320 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive (7200rpm) With Free Fall Sensor
DVD±R DL / DVD±RW / DVD-RAM Drive
WLAN (802.11a/b/g/n) with integrated Bluetooth® technology
Standard Battery
Titanium Gray
Windows XP Home Edition with SP3 (OEM)

I installed the HD myself. So far I still haven't found an audio driver, i've looked everywhere. There are users on this board who are running XP on an FW, so i'm surprised no one is offering the answer, I just assume the people who are haven't seen the posts.

From what I read they are exactly the same except the blu-ray drive on the 290 is better, and the video chipset is better, if you upgraded.

 

Is there no audio driver on the sony support site for XP? they did offer XP drivers for the FW after all.

 

I know that with an HD3470, the Vaio FW is far from a gaming machine, but how does the GPU and the laptop handle the gaming world? Does it dissipate heat well at all?

 

it may not handle top of the line games, but with that graphics card i could still run the WOW demo and battlefield 2142 without adjusting any graphics settings.

 

They offer everything for XP except audio drivers. I even chatted with a Sony tech support person (online chat, they don't seem to know much), and they just told me that Sony doesn't have a supported audio driver for XP yet.

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=VGNFW190&region_id=1

That is the link to the FW drivers page. There is no audio for XP, just Vista.

 

I have a 13.3" SZ at 1280x800 with an external BD drive and I can clearly tell the difference between DVD and Blu-ray. Blu-ray is more than just about high rez. It's also about better compression. Blu-ray does not have compression artifact that DVD has. Lost Season 3 look awesome with Blu-ray. You can even see every strain of body hair of the actors. Something that you can not see with the DVD version.

That being said, the quality of a Blu-ray is only as good as the transfer quality. Some older movies, like T2, look horrible. They look very bad for BD standard. But that is because of the poor transfer quality more than anything else.

 

Just got the FW-290 in and so far im loving it. Went with the FullHD xbrite screen and it looks great. Really crisp and clean. Ill try to do a user review when i have some time.

 

Oh also. I have already tried undervolting the cpu and have had some great success. .9000v orthos stable and idling at 36-37 degrees. Went from a full load temp of 57 degrees Celsius to barely hitting 45 degrees.

 

what cpu is it?

 

Ahaha! my FW finally got here. and it's the ****!

 

ive got the p8400 in it. The fan will turn on at 38 degrees Celsius, drop it down to 29 degrees and turn off. will post a screenie when i have more than 15 posts.