Official VAIO FW Series Owners Thread

I recommend Acronis True Image as explained here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=252436&highlight=acronis

 

Perfect. Gracias!

 

Nothing, I did a fresh Vista 64-bit install. I really recommend doing that if you can live without the function and media keys. I really hated all the bloatware on the factory install.

 

Does anbody know if the FW supports sata 2, as the standard drive is sata 150 Or is sata 300 = sata 2 or II

New drive Serial ATA-300

Old drive Serial ATA-150

 

SATAI or SATA II does not matter because no harddrive will exceed the specifications of Sata I and SATA1 and SATA II are compatible.

 

its possible to do a clean install without disabling the function & media keys

 

Would like to pull trigger on the FW but just a couple of questions to clarify.

1. P8600 compared to T9400 using mainly Web browsing and Office and maybe some photo editing apps. What real world difference between them?

2. 3 GB compared to 4GB memory again what real world difference does it make just running Vista 32 bit OS and non gaming apps.

3. Blu-ray reader compared to writer/reader - do you believe prices on Blu-ray will decrease enough so this will be an advantage in a short time? Is it worth it to get the writer? Thanks for help.

Gary

 

How would you do that?

 

Unnoticable

Again, unnoticable. Vista 32 bit only uses 3GB of your memory anyway. The only advantage of 4GB is that it can run in dual channel mode. But I doubt you will notice that either.

I wouldn't know. Back in the days the prices of cd-r's and dvd-r's dropped fairly quick, but I don't think Blu-ray will replace DVD anytime soon. But that's just a guess.

 

Thank you and that helps me a lot to figure things out for my order.

Gary

 

It will be hard to notice a performance difference but the P8600 will have better battery life.

 

I tried that and the fan noise is still bothersome to me... hmm... I just noticed on sonystyle that you can't config an FW with the HiColor screen if you get the Intel graphics, so there goes my idea of exchanging my ATI equipped one for one of those. I wonder if there is something wrong with my particular unit, or I'm just more sensitive to noise than others.

I've actually been debating now if I should get the Fujitsu A6210 instead since it can be equipped with Intel graphics and their better screen, however it's only 1280x800 resolution and I'd really miss the 1600x900 res.

 

Well, to all you FW CTO folks who got an extended battery instead of the standard battery that you ordered: Sonystyle Customer Service is expediting the standard battery to all of us by end of week and letting us keep the extended battery.

Just to be sure you get one, give them a call.

 

I can barely hear the fan on my FW. Maybe you do have an overheating problem. What are your CPU temps running? To see temps, you can install SiSandra Lite and look at processor or motherboard info from hardware tab. In VAIO Optimal mode, my temps run around 38-40 degrees C (that will vary I presume depending on room temp).

 

SiSandra shows mine at 37 C right now. The hard drive is 38 C.]

Thats great news about the free battery were getting! The extended battery is normally 250$ so thats quite a bonus to get.

 

Wow. Any idea if they are still sending the extended?

Also, any idea why they did it?

 

hey does anyone use this laptop for school? hows the battery life with the ati graphics card and is it too big or heavy to carry around? also a while ago there were a few complaints about the lid scratching the wristpad area and the colour fading is that happening with all owners? tbh im torn between this and the sr and im not sure which is the best to get for school

 

It feels a little heavy with the extended battery but not terrible. Battery drains relatively fast if you have the brightness level up, but there is an exteneded battery mode you can switch to. I haven't had any lid scratching or fading. There are actually 8 rubber bumpers on the lid.

 

Hmmm. And your fan is racing away with those temps (or not)? When you start up SiSandra CPU benchmark can you hear/fell the fan kick in? Or try Prime95 torture test...that should really get the fan going. If you can hear/feel the fan kick in, then temp management is working ok but noisy fan = defective bearing/bushing? Seriously, the fan on my FW is so quiet I'm not even sure when it is running.

 

Yup, it's because they didn't have any standard batteries...they aren't getting any until later this week.

I'm sure they'll stop shipping extended batteries as soon as they have standard ones. So make it quick buddy. You have no reason to wait!!

 

Well, if they'll have them later this week, it's too late. Even if I ordered an FW today, it wouldn't get built until after they have the new batteries.

 

I just did the benchmark and the fan did get a lot louder. It had more of a whine during the benchmark, but during idle it's whooshing of the air I mostly hear. The cpu temp got up to 54 C while it was running ( I was monitoring it using a program called CoreTemp which shows the temps in the system tray.)

I'm actually wondering now how much of the sound might be coming from the hard drive. I got the cheapest 160gb drive because I'm planning to replace it with a SSD.

 

The FW is not a take-it-with-you-everyday kinda notebook. If you don't need Blu-ray, I would get the SR and a big battery so you can take it to class with you...and I would get Intel graphics and 2.1 or 2.4Ghz 25W CPU for extended battery life.

As for the FW lid scratching the wristpad, that is complete bull. A hit-and-run troll reported that and not one other person has had the problem...the guy was probably wearing a titanium wristw@tch and was dragging it all over the wristpad.

 

That sounds more probable. My harddrive (a 320GB), although pretty darn quiet, is more noticeable than the fan. And your 160GB may be an older generation drive when they were engineered for max performance and not acoustic managementm, so it could be real annoying.

 

Always finding an excuse I see...come on, man, pull the trigger....course then there won't be anymore fun and drama deciding what to get!!

 

If you can personally guarantee that I'll get both batteries, I'll end the drama today!

 

Hmmm, let's see. What kind of scam can I come up with this time? I know. Order it with the standard battery...if you don't get extended one, call them up and tell them you thought they automatically came with both batteries because everyone else was getting them that way...and you demand to be treated equally. No?

 

So guys i've done some more thinking, and i think i'm just going to go with the FW... at least until someone or thing else convinces me to get the MBP again. i was just thinking that although the Macbook pro is very powerful and good for my field of study.... i just don't know if i'll be doing much work other than practice on it over the next two years. so i think the FW will give me what i want over the next two years, and will entertain me quite well with it's bells and whistles, then when i REALLY need a machine to do my own Graphics work (ie, i won't have the college machines to work on) after the two years, i can get a new updated MBP (who knows what they'll come up with in two years) for $1000 more .

 

Them: "Thank you for calling Sony customer support. How may I help you?"

Me: "I thought they automatically came with both batteries because everyone else was getting them that way. I demand to be treated equally!"

Them: "Sorry, sir. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

 

TetonWolf, do you happen to use AnyDVD? I'm curious to know if the Matsh!ta drive in the FW works with AnyDVD -- or not (as most forums claim).

 

Yayyyyyyy!!! I love mine (it's my baby).

 

Yeah, my scams usually don't work too good.

 

lol i think... and i just hope i'll be as happy with my eco screen as you are with your hicolor

 

I'll get it and try...I want to backup my granddaughter's DVDs (NOT!!).

 

You mean the ones you keep at Blockbuster?

 

Hay has anybodys FW's come with dead pixels? I am going to order mine Friday, hope i dont get a dud! when it comes im going to check it meticously for scratches and alike, anything wrong and its going back I don’t care what

 

I had one stuck pixel but I rubbed it a couple times and it started working.

 

Are ya sure we're talking about a pixel?

 

oh my!

:laugh:

 

Okay guys, i went and checked out the screen on the FW Eco.

it's a nice screen. nothing spectacular, but a nice screen. i couldn't really check a whole lot since i couldn't get on the net and there was nothing really i could test it out with. all i saw was the desktop, which like i said, was nice. at it's highest brightness, well lets just say i expected it to be a tad bit brighter. i didn't really notice any uneven backlighting, i mean it was a bit brighter in the center but i'm not sure if that's just the colour of the picture... lol i think it was. looking at the other Vaio's around it, i couldn't tell a difference. i saw a little bit of more brightness on a couple of the other ones, but not a drastic difference. comparing it with the big 22" tablet one, which is hicolor, i didn't see ANY difference other than the size.

all in all, that's one sexy laptop! lol, no but the screen is definitely not a bad one. i didn't really notice that sweet spot either. i think that the screen is very similar to my HP, but who knows maybe when it's side by side it'll be different. if i bought it, i'de be very happy with it and it's ECO screen . oh one more thing, quite noticeable was that glossy screen. you could see that "glossy" texture if you know what i mean, like it didn't look very smooth, that may be a concern.

i just love that laptop, i want it so bad! i may just get the one for $1399 though, but who knows. i still can't make a final decision. i love that Vaio but i have to look at whats better for me, is it worth spending $2000 on it now (for the 1699.99) just to buy a Macbook Pro in three years... but then again is it worth spending $2600 on the MBP now and then not have the latest model when i start actually working with it in 3 years... or 2 years. something just tells me if i don't get the FW i'm going to keep regretting it, because it's the first one i wanted! but something keeps telling me just get the Mac, learnnn it and get comfortable with it.

wow... that was a long post, sorry guys!

 

Does anybody know if it is possible to buy and install a Blue Ray drive for the FW139E?

Where I live they don't sell it with the blue ray drive so I was hoping that I could find some place over the internet to order it.

 

Sonystyle.com
configure it yourself it will be a FW190. the FW139E is preconfigured.

 

Thanks! But that's the problem...I already bought the FW138E

 

I see you are having a hard time making your decision. If you like the Sony just pay the extra $100 for the high color. I saw the two screens at the sonystyle store and the high color is worth it. As for the MBP you will spend alot more just for the Apple name. I went through the same thing as you with wanting an Apple but if you really want a MBP and can wait two months, apple is refreshing their laptops. You will still have a hard time trying to figure if the Apple is worth it.

 

Well well, I've been reading this thread for a long time already but since I wasn't registered I had never posted anything. But just so you know that I've seen all of your posts.

In fact, I bought a VAIO FW just two days ago after reading all your comments. My model is the VAIO FW11J (European model). It's got the 2'26 GHz processor, 4 GB of RAM, 250 GB of HDD, Blu Ray reader (not writer) and finally, the ATI Mobility Radeon 3650. The screen is HiColor (or Double Lamp as it is called here in Europe) as I once had two VAIO FZs: one with the ECO screen and another with the HiColor screen and the difference was really impressive. Still, the ECO is not bad at all, in fact I thought it was one of the best I had ever seen until I got my hands on the FZ with HiColor. (My first FZ had a fan problem and I had to take it back, so I changed to a better model which without my knowledge at first happened to have the HiColor screen this time, so you should understand my first impression when I received the new FZ with the better screen placed right next to the old one).

Anyway, I've already been testing a few things on the FW and all I can say is it's awesome. Great screen for work (I can take up many windows at the same time side by side, great for making documents with data you're reading on another window), great for watching movies (finally I can watch my DVDs without the stupid black bars). It's tremendously responsive and applications work blazing fast (even though it's not the best processor in the FW series).

And about the bloatware in Europe at least, Sony has made it better. At least now you don't get the crappy Norton Security trial, and instead you get the much better McAfee Security Suite which I wouldn't mind paying for the full version if I didn't already have a OneCare subscription.

The only other bloatware I found was Google Desktop. Seriously: why would I need Google Desktop Search when Windows Vista already has a neat search function? Am I supposed to be running both search engines sucking out my battery life and performance? And why would I use Google's sidebar when I've got Vista's sidebar? It was just ridiculous.

The rest of the applications are great. Very good sound control applications (Dolby Digital Room control, SonicStage Audio filter), good office suite (Microsoft Works 9, which integrates neatly with Office 2007 this time to make use of both suites in ways that actually feel productive), the Adobe Elements series (Photoshop, Premiere, Acrobat)...

One curious application was VAIO Media Plus. It opens up a media center style menu that looks EXACTLY THE SAME as the Playstation 3 and PSPs Xross Media Bar. It is supposed to connect with other VAIO laptops with this function and even the PS3/PSP to let you watch your movies/pictures and listen to your music from your TV/PSP.

There are many other applications, but I still haven't been able to try all of them.

The one I want to ask you guys who already got the FW is about the VAIO Power Management Viewer which is found in the VAIO control center. This little application lets you see how your selected power mode will affect different areas of your laptop. I have tried many different options to see the changes, but somehow the PERFORMANCE part never reaches the top it could get. I've tried disabling all power-saving options and still "performance" never reaches the top. I'm attaching a picture for you guys to see.

I hope all of this so far was useful

EDIT: By the way, the pictures posted are in Spanish, sorry!!
The one on the left is the VAIO Power Management Viewer and the one on the right is the VAIO Media Plus which I mentioned above.

 

Hi guys.
Im going to buy a FW model - cheapest one here- 1099. The only thing im worried about is i read on the forum that the Atheros wireless card gives issues? It seems the CTO's and the one high end model here in canada (1699) come with the intel link.

Is there any issues with the atheros wirelss card? Is it slower?? Wouldnt that just matter to the internet speed we have here and the router were using?

Id rather not go CTO or even the higher end model because there not in stock at stores where as I can buy a FW from Futureshop tommorrow.

Thanks for any help

 

The FW11J is then model that i wont to get in the UK, but they done sell it here! The advantage is that it comes with the ATI 3650. The only model that i can get with similar specs is the FW11S which has a bluray burner which i dont really need, in trade for the ATI 3470!

Is there any way i can get my hands on a FW11J without paying stupid EU prices!

 

for you CTO guys...how many days was your order in "processing" ?

 

a little over 2 days.