Official VAIO FW Series Owners Thread

i have vgn-fw12m/b

 

What are the specifications? I couldn't find any after 10 seconds of googling so I figure I'd ask.

Processor, ram, video card, screen resolution, blu-ray rom or blu-ray ram or just regular dvd burner, size of hard drive and spin speed of hard drive?

 

The correct product code is VGN-FW248J.

Well, I'm going to have to say that the answer is that it's not a good deal if it is 950 before taxes. I say this because as of right now (Sunday Dec 7, 2008), you can get pretty much the same specs + a blu-ray rom for 899. Of course you'd be out of 2GB of ram. But 2GB of ram costs like 25 bucks from newegg.

It's really up to you if you want to save that 50 bucks and get a blu-ray ROM.

I think Bestbuy allows you to return those laptops within 15 days without a restocking fee. If they're going to charge you a restocking fee, it's probably not worth it to return the laptop.

If it's 950 after taxes though, it's not a super bad deal, but you're still missing one blu-ray ROM.

Go to the sonystyle website and try to purchase a vaio fw and look at the specs.

One good thing about getting it from Bestbuy though is that you get to play with the laptop the day you get it. You'll have to wait for Sony to ship it to you if you buy online and they may never ship it to you. :-D They might just cancel your order for no reason at all or something.

Edit: I made a mistake. For 899, you get the ATI 3650 video card as well. For the same specs at the VGN-FW248J, you only need to pay $799.

So yeah, clairesprius, you should ABSOLUTELY return that laptop to bestbuy and get one from the sonystyle website. You'd get the exact same specs as before and a blu-ray rom for 150 dollars less.

I'd recommend getting the ati 3650 card though. Unless you plan on NEVER EVER playing any games with your laptop ever. The video card is integrated onto the logic board, so you'll never be able to upgrade the Intel 4500 video card that's in your laptop right now.

 

Yeah there is absolutely not enough room to add another HDD. The AW has enough room for two laptop size drives, but all 15 inch laptop and laptops of that class are too small to have two HDDs. You're pretty much stuck with that one internal drive and getting an external enclosure to house some internal HDD.

Which is the way you should go btw. Get an internal drive and put it into an external enclosure. Never buy a prepackaged external drive. Those things might look pretty on the outside, but they're bad on the inside.

Buying your own internal drive lets know that you're using a quality product.

The Western Digital 640GB 2 platter drive is very good for the money right now. The Western Digital 1TB black caviar seems alright too. Kind of noisy though. I just got one of those black caviar things. They have 3 platters. Seems alright so far.

EDIT: Go to page 119 of this thread for a picture of the VAIO FW taken apart. You can see that there is no room for another HDD

 

OK - from looking around and replies on here - it seems obvious that all of the FW245J's are branded FW200 on the laptop. The original reason I asked the question is because the FW270J and FW235J specifically say those numbers on the laptop and they are also 200 series. It also would help of anybody at Best Buy could answer the question why this is so. My guess is that because the FW245J was advertised as a Best Buy exclusive, the 245J model was created for them for some customized version of a generic 200 series. I went in to a Best Buy today and they opened an open box item and it also had the FW200 on it. As for the question on the Blu Ray - the way I read the info was that the drive is a Blu Ray player that also burns standard CDs and DVDs. Does kind of stink that the price dropped now - now it's regualr price is $999, when we bought it on Black Friday it was a $290 savings getting it for $899. Oh well.

 

For Adobe Gamma: just type Adobe in the search area of the Start Menu. All Vaios come with the Adobe Suite.
PS. That might be different according to countries.

For ATI Catalyst, someone in this forum suggested this:

 

I bought a VGN-FW250J/H for $940 after taxes from Circuity City with the following specs:

2.24Ghz Core 2 Duo Centrino 2 1066Mhz
320gb hdd
4gb RAM
bluetooth
webcam
16.4 screen
dvd drive (r/rw/etc) no blu ray

My laptop is branded VGN-FW250 on the screen (bottom right). My wifes is a VGN-FW245J/H, but is branded as VGN-FW200 at the bottom right of her screen.

 

the FW290 price went up by $100 today... At least over the config I've bought last friday. The 4Gb memory is $50 more expensive and the 320gb/7200 hard drive is also $50 more expensive. Oh well, I'm glad I got it cheaper.

 

Yeah so I ordered a laptop on Dec 3rd and the estimated ship date was supposed to be Dec 11th. I looked on the sonystyle website and it said that it was delayed to Dec 15th. I called them to ask why it was delayed.

Guess how long the wait was for me to talk to someone...

FIFTY MINUTES. I'm so glad that it was a toll free number.

I wonder if the laptop will actually get to me before Christmas.

Anybody else getting their shipment delayed?

 

Oh well, I ordered on Dec. 5 and the shipping date is still Dec. 15 ... And my protective case shipped today with an estimate of delivery on Dec. 10... If it get's there on the 10th I'll be really impressed.

 

Hey guys,

thanks for suggestions.
Today I went and returned my FW245J/H back to the best buy.
They asked for re-stocking fee as it was opened one.But at the end they agreed not to take any re-stocking fees.Told them that it didn't had BD-R and BD-RE options which were given on their catalogue.

Planning to buy sony-fw via sonystyle website.
just wanted to know if any software or freebies come along with the laptop preloaded when ordered via sonystyle website.
the one that i bought from BB was preloaded with vista,roxio,click to disc and many other software.Will they be there, when the laptop is ordered thru sonystyle.

 

Hey guys, looks like i will be joining this thread as i just purcahsed this laptop from Sonystyle.

How did i do?


VGN-FW290 Configure-to-Order
VGN-FW290
Customization Details

* Microsoft® Works
* LCD 16.4" (XBRITE-FullHD™)
* No Fresh Start™
* 250 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive [5400 rpm] [Regular price $50]
* Video Standard
* No Engraving
* Standard Battery
* QuickBooks Simple Start
* WLAN (802.11a/b/g/n) with integrated Bluetooth® technology
* ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3650 with 512MB vRAM
* Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8600 (2.40GHz) [Regular price $150]
* None
* Blu-ray Disc™ Read and Write Drive [Regular price $250]
* Windows Live OneCare 90-Day Trial
* White
* Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Premium 64-bit
* 4 GB DDR2-SDRAM (DDR2-800, 2GBx2) [Regular price $100]




$1,079.99

 

Did you use some sort of coupon or student discount? Because this config is going out for $1299.

You did well, my config is the same as yours except for the HD. I've got a 320GB/7200RPM when it was cheaper.

I just kept thinking when will I be using the Blu-Ray Writing. I mean, the notebook has HDMI output so whenever you want to watch a HD movie it's way better to plug the notebook into the HDMI port than to wait more than an hour writing a BD-R. I wish I could change the config and leave only the BD reader.

 

Hi.

There is some info regarding HDMI on Sony's US website "esupport.sony.com/perl/support-info.pl?info_id=22" and there should be a pdf on the laptop (Update Notes HDMI Setup for Quality Digital Sound.pdf), that explains how to enable and what HDMI can and cannot do.

Uncompressed PCM audio will be downmixed to 2 channel PCM. So no 5.1 from the BD player.

I know, that sucks.

Regards.

 

The link you provided only states:

"HDMI also covers the best in next-generation digital audio, being able to support the delivery of high-bitrate and lossless surround sound technologies of Dolby TrueHD®, DTS-HD™ Master Audio, and uncompressed multi-channel LPCM between devices."

These formats are supported by Blu-Ray. As long as the audio codecs are available from the source I don't see why it would be an issue.

 

Someone posted a Company PIN on Slickdeals and i used it and it gave me a discount.

I see today that Sony is giving away the
LocationFree® Base Station
LF-V30 with a laptop order, want to get it added on to mine too

 

Didn't the base station auto-magically appear when you placed the notebook in the shopping cart?

 

Today, not when i ordered it last week.

FWIW i called up to get the base station and they added the DPF-D80 digital frame instead!

It sells for $150 on Ebay!

 

hmmm....I ordered last week also. Why did they say no to the base station?

BTW, what's your ship date?

 

Because thats for this week, last week was the frame, i had no idea it was a giveaway

 

When I ordered the promotion was for $100 off instantly.

 

NO $HIaaaat????? interesting....why da hell are they charging for $500 8GB? you can stick a 2x4GB RAM in the sockets eventhough the spec says MAX RAM is 4GB?

I figured for $500, maybe they had to replace the socket or mother board or something...maybe 8GB RAM required special part or something...

 

call your credit card company and notify them and ask them if there is a credit coming...

 

the socket is always the same. it's just 200 pins DDR2. if there is any limiting factor, it'll be the northbridge I thought. But the northbridge is all the same. GM45 if you're using the intel built in graphics and PM45 if you're using the ATi graphics. so I don't see why you can't put 8 gigs of ram in. are you absolutely sure you NEED 8 gigs of ram though? there are really no guarantees until you try it for yourself. and 8 gigs of DDR2 ram is still pretty expensive. 2x2 gigs of ram is like 25 dollars. 2x4 gigs of 200 pin DDR2 ram costs like 250 or something. It's really insanely more expensive.

 

Can you elaborate on this? how do you go about doing this? so basically, go buy an Hitachi "Internal" HDD then just plug it in to the lap top? what is the connection used for this?

 

Ok, Thanks for that information!

 

everyone,

How do I subscribe to this thread?

 

Right. That's the capabilities of HDMI.

If you navigate to the FAQ tab (esupport.sony.com/US/perl/support-info.pl?template=&info_id=26), you'll see the following:

"Does the HDMI port of my VAIO computer system support all available HDMI features?

Although current HDMI-equipped VAIO computer systems have HDMI 1.3 ports, features such as 'Deep Color' and support for Dolby TrueHD® and DTS-HD™ Master Audio bitstreams are not currently implemented."

The text I pasted was from the pdf doc on the laptop.

Regards.

 

Pick up the "Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive"

h t t p://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218

Then pick up:

Thermaltake A2395 Aluminum 3.5" ESATA + USB2.0 External Enclosure - Retail

h t t p://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817145026

Put the hard drive into the external enclosure and put the external enclosure to the laptop and you have yourself a homemade external hard drive.

I'm not sure that the usb works with a sata drive though. If you're going to go this route, you'll want to make sure that the external enclosure you buy is capable of using a internal sata drive with the external usb connection since the VAIO FW only has usb connections and no esata.

The should've added an e-sata connection in my humble opinion. The chipset supports it, it would've only taken five dollars worth of soldering...

But the general idea is to build your own external hard drive with an internal hard drive and custom external enclosure. That way you get the best internal drive and not a cheapo hand me down for the pre-packaged external hard drive.

EDIT: I just check, if you put an IDE drive into the thermaltake, it won't work with e-SATA. It may work with a SATA going to the external USB 2.0. But to test that I'd have to take out a drive from my computer. I'm too lazy to do that for no reason. Just google and make sure the external enclosure you buy can do SATA to USB 2.0. :-D

 

Or you could make your life easier and just buy this for $139: http://www.buy.com/prod/western-dig...sb-2-0-portable-hard/q/loc/101/209225091.html

This is perfect for a notebook because it's a 2.5" form factor, and it's also self-powered off of USB power so you don't need to lug around a power adapter. And it's not a cheapo drive either, it's a WD Scorpio Blue 500GB 5400rpm drive.

 

lol, yeah that works too.

 

See attachment below...

 

I have a 2.5" external drive but I'm not a big fan of it. It really looks like cheap stuff even though I paid more than $150 at the time.

WOOPIE!


BTW for an external closure you might consider getting one with FireWire. It's faster than USB 2.0

 

That's a pretty sweet deal. If you don't already have a VAIO FW from Bestbuy that you can't return without having to pay Bestbuy's ridiculous 15 percent restock fee, I'd get the laptop from Sonystyle instead.

Really good deals right now. You can't get a 1920x1080 screen for this cheap from HP or anybody else really for that matter.

And free blu-ray rom or cheap blu-ray ram.

Not to mention the free Sony Slingbox lookalike.

 

Hey, I've a few questions about the FW; currently on my shortlist of laptops.

I've been hearing alot about how the barrel hinges don't hold up well. For the people who've had this laptop a while, how true are these claims? Build quality is a huge factor for me as well as design, but the latter we need not worry about.

Also, how appropriate would a laptop like this be for college? I'm worried that the unusual dimensions of the laptop coupled with the possibly weak barrel hinges could be a problem with the standard college fare...

One more thing, how exactly do you play fullscreen games with the screen? Do you have black bars on the sides?

Thanks for any input!

 

I've bought my FW290 for college use here in Brazil. After extensive reading, even though it's 16.4" in size, people say it's really lightweight. If you read other pages you'll see that there's a lot of people who actually bought this notebook for college purposes.

 

That's a pretty good deal. I got the FW290 in my signature for about the same price ($1049 w/free shipping & no tax from NewEgg), but the one thing it lacks is the Blu-Ray drive. The one that you posted has Blu-Ray, but it only has 2GB RAM and a 160GB 5400rpm Hard Drive compared to 4GB and 320GB 7200rp HD. I would personally rather have more RAM and a bigger faster Hard Drive than a Blu-Ray drive, and that's just because Blu-Ray isn't mainstream enough yet. Maybe it'll be worth getting in another year or so, but the RAM & HD are much more useful on an everyday basis.

 

What do you think, after Christmas, Dec. 25, will Sony Style drop the price even more?

 

In FAQ indicates "Although current HDMI-equipped VAIO computer systems have HDMI 1.3 ports, features such as 'Deep Color' and support for Dolby TrueHD® and DTS-HD™ Master Audio bitstreams are not currently implemented" similar to the first blu ray players but I can`t find the downmix to 2 channel for PCM audio

 

I don't have my FW yet but I have played around with them a fair bit. Overall the build quality is good; however I agree that the barrels are a weak point. These are not the actual hinges but a plastic piece near the hinge. I wish it were stronger; I'd recommend putting this laptop with the barrels up if you put it in a carrying case.

Because the screen is a 16:9 ratio, when you are playing games you may end up with black bars on either side of the screen since many games are designed to be played on a 16:10 screen.

If you are really concerned about durability you should consider an HP or Dell business line notebook (of course, more expensive). That said, the FW is pretty well made.

 

I started chatting with Sony support today requesting a LF-V30 for free because I bought my notebook 5 days ago.

I was disconnected but got an e-mail from them saying they will give me a discount code so I can purchase the LF-V30 for free on the next few days ;D

 

I hope they do the same thing for me. That would be pretty sweet. I might even get one of those PSP 3000s if they actually give me a LF-V30 for free. Might be kind of cool to watch TV on a PSP over WIFI.

 

Sony just announced that it will cut the consumer electronics investments by 33 percent because of Great Depression 2.

I think they're just trying to sell as much stuff at they can before March 2009. You might see another super duper sale the last 2 weeks of Sony's fiscal year, but who would want to wait another 3 months for a laptop though.

Besides, the world might end before then and then you'd be the only zombie left without a laptop to rebuild civilization in your own image with the copy of wikipedia you downloaded onto your laptop.

It's like the stock market really. It's all about guessing with Jedi powers.

Maybe Sony might have a deal where you get a free Sony PSP 3000 with a Sony VAIO FW. I think that would be about the right time to order a FW right away.

The demand for the PSP 3000 might just be low enough for that to happen. No one wants to buy a PSP when they think the world might end.

 

My $318 ($300 + tax) price adjustment went through yesterday. Took about a week, not bad at all!

 

hmmm, I definitely will test when I get it.

 

Hi. Well that text was from the pdf document on my FW.

All of the links I've supplied here, can be followed from the FW model home page, (esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-home.pl?mdl=VGNFW290&LOC=3)

I found the same info on Sony's US support site (esupport.sony.com/US/perl/support-info.pl?template=&info_id=111). The information is regarding BDs on the FAQ page, question 7:

*******
Question:
I use an HDMI™ output and cable (sold separately) to connect my VAIO® computer to my home theater set up. Why aren't all the surround sound technologies supported?

Answer:
HDMI output can carry the following audio streams to an A/V receiver:

Up to 8 channels of uncompressed PCM audio - the A/V receiver would not have to do any decoding work
Unprocessed surround sound sent as a bitstream - the A/V receiver would handle the decoding of the audio stream

Current VAIO computer systems, however, do not fully support the following:

Dolby TrueHD - the computer will send a 2-channel downmixed stream to the A/V receiver
DTS-HD Master Audio - the computer system will send a 'core' standard DTS stream to the A/V receiver to decode
Uncompressed PCM - the computer system will send a 2-channel downmixed stream to the A/V receiver

Finally, some VAIO computer systems are not currently capable of sending bitstream audio. In this case, the computer will send a 2-channel downmixed stream to the A/V receiver
*******

But really, you can set your AV receiver or HDTV to output some sort of Expanded Surround, which doesn't sound bad in any respect.

Hope that helps.
Regards.

 

Your welcome guys for bringing up the whole LFV30!

 

On what basis are you getting a LF-V30 for free? I've read the previous posts trying to figure it out??? I want one

I also purchased a couple VAIOs in the last couple weeks (had to purchase a 2nd one after they started discounting them substantially on Cyber Monday and wouldn't stop my initially ordered VAIO FW).

Can't wait to get mine, the 1st one i ordered is coming today, even though i'm going to return it, i can't resist urge and am going to have to open it and check it out!

 

Hmm, my FW just came today. It wasn't supposed to ship until next Monday. Heh, I'm not complaining. I'm making the recovery discs now. So where do you download the Vaio Recovery Center software on the support site? Or are the recovery discs bootable?

The first thing I'm going to do is wipe the hard drive and install a clean copy of Vista. Who knows what sort of spyware is on this sucker. :-D

 

I have a VGN-FW170J laptop. I just got into gaming and was wondering if i could upgrade my graphics card. The options for the laptops said HD card or ATI 3650 and I picked regular integrated. Could i Trade my laptop in or update my card and have geeksquad do it for me?