Sony CW i3/i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

Not to mention the alienware laptops are built like lead bricks. I was looking into one of their 15" ones and while the price was 'okay' it weighed like 9lbs according to dell. ouch.

 

There is supposed to be that Alienware "netbook" coming out soon that supposedly plays Crysis @ 50 FPS that should be light with and 11" screen. However, the keyword that keeps cropping up online is "starting at $799." I sincerely doubt that Alienware can come up with a Crysis stomping lappy that is light and fast at that price point. I'm sure when you get it decently specc'ed out it will run more like $1499...and it is that ugly glowing red design they seem to like so much.

 

I will forsure post a review! I cant wait to get it !

 

I would soo buy the M11 if it didn't look like an effing toy. All Alienware laptops look like toys to me. Why can't they have a more serious professional design that actually looks like a laptop. imo the design is very immature.

 

the scrybe multitouch software is awesome.

 

I think the 27FX is better for the money, since my guess is a similar set-up on the M11 including an external drive will be about $500 more.

I need at least the i5-530 since MAME plays very smooth on it. Even NFL Blitz and other 3D games play smooth on this CPU. Wild.

 

Ok tested the battery drain issue on my unit overnight with it off and unplugged.

Turned if off at 50% and today when I turned it on still at 50%.

So it looks like Im not having issues with battery drain while unit is off, just need to figure out why it sucks so much juice in sleep mode.

 

Can the laptop screen be shut while using it with an external monitor? I thought there was some Windows setting that can be set to do this.

 

I know, man. If it is like you said about sleep mode, then what is the point? You might as well leave it on all day.

 

Alienware is just selling to it's target demographics. Gamers. Hardcore gamers at that.

 

I read in another thread you can charge USB devices in sleep mode -- Check this to see if it is true. If it is, we should look into how to disable this during sleep mode.

 

I asked this question earlier, but I will ask again since it seems like more people have this laptop. How's the quality of the display? How's the video playback quality on this laptop? I don't play games, but I do watch videos in high quality...some people have said that the video is a bit grainy in darker scenes...

I am trying to decide between this CW and MBP (their glass screen is really nice). One member has said the MBP screen is far superior...I just need some more opinion from other CW users. Thanks.

 

Do you have the 13 MBP? The bigger MBP has a better screen than the 13 MBP (or so I hear).

 

Hello,

I've seen a few posts in this large thread that talk about people ordering the Sony Vaio CW with the 330GT graphics card. The only card I'm able to select is the GT211M graphics card. I'm ordering from the sonystyle.ca website (Canada) and looking at the VPC-CW290 model.

Thank you!

 

This has been discussed ad nauseum on this thread, just do a search. Bottom line some really like the screen and have no real issues with it (me and others) and some hate it and think it sucks (the other others) and has horrible vertical viewing angles because they apparently ride pogo sticks while using it.

If it is a big deal to you, wait till it shows up in the stores and take a look

 

After using the CW27 from bestbuy for 3 days now. I totally love it.
Screen: like what others say the verticle viewing angle blows but unless you have add and can sit still for a minute your fine. If I'm leaying in bed ever so often if I move I will just have to tilt the screen up or down but its no biggie to me. Output to my samsung 40" looks totally amazing I can even read articles about 7-10 feet away in bed. Videos look great too can't wait to get a bluray. Only thing is not sure if it can output in 1080P won't let me click the box but the sammy upscales it for me.

Speed is amazing. I do see a little draw back with the 5400 hard drive when install software from it but nothing too bad at all.
Like everyone else sound is limited but not too much of a downside for me since I can output to desktop speakers or my tvs.
Size is great and I love the look of the black but finger prints to love the lid and armrest ohh well again I'm fine with that.
3Dmark06 score: 6144 after removing norton and other none needed software.
I'm on the fence about OCing the 330 since I won't be gaming(have an 360 for that)but would be nice since It would probably help output to my lcd. The avatar trailer did have a few parts that got choppy for a split second.

 

Does anyone know if the CW27 is available in Canada? Is this a Best Buy only offer or is it sold through Sony as well? I can't find that model (or anything similar) on the Sonystyle.com (or .ca) website.

 

looks like the specs are out:

http://gizmodo.com/5461696/alienware-m11x-available-for-preorder-now-shipping-march-1

I seriously doubt this will do 50 FPS in Crysis with serious eye candy unless the 335M is nothing short of amazing...

And as predicted you have to drop some serious coin to get this up to a real performance level.

$1219 to get it near the spec of the CW...

 

and even then the best CPU option is only the SU7300, which doesn't really compare to the i5-520m. 3DMark06 CPU is half...

 

Not sure why people listen to marketing people so much. It is obvious people (marketing) that do not know what they are talking about pumped these marketing points up and media blogs fell for it.

The GPU only pushes the geometry and textures, not the physics, AI, etc.

No way 50fps from a 7300 ULV, yet alone a 4100 ULV. The 7300 chokes on a lot of MAME games. Forget Crysis at 50fps unless dialed down to nothing- including screen resolution. Bottle neck is the CPU, so no matter how great the 335 is. Porche with bald tires analogy.

 

My CW was delivered today. I don't have a full review yet since I haven't messed around with it much. But I did do a clean install of Win 7 64bit Ultimate to remove all the bloatware, which improved boot time.

I'm not sure why people are complaining about the display. It looks great to me.

For whatever it's worth, I am definitely not disappointed with this laptop based off initial judgement. I will report back after I get a chance to really mess around with the unit and testing out the battery drain issue.

 

Looks like my laptop is due to be here tomorrow. Shame I won't be home I hope they will allow me to pick it up tomorrow night...

With the screen. Two scenarios:

1) Different panels are being used
2) Extremely picky users!!

 

I'll vote for option 2...

 

When I get mine tomorrow (hopefully)...I will settle all these arguments with tons of pictures. I still can't believe almost 100 pages and not a single real life photo of it in this thread LOL

 

Probably the latter

Did you end up getting the 10% off via Bing ps2cho? My friend used the same link I posted and got the 10% off buying a different laptop. Hopefully it worked for you

 

+1. Completely agree.

 

After one week of usage on my CW i5 and did a Windows 7 clean install while keeping the recovery partition, I'm very satisfied with it and hopefully I can live with its two major flaws.

The flaws are:
1. Terrible viewing angles (which are typical in LCD panels). BTW the screen on the cw is a LCD with a LED back light. I'm used to my Panasonic plasma tv which has better viewing angles.
2. The blu-ray drive makes noise when a blu-ray movie is played.

 

Yeah I know that ! That's very incomprehensible why Sony Canada don't sell model with the fastest video card ! I want this laptop but I'm still waiting the 330m are available. In best buy, it's only the cheap model (i3 with 210m)

 

about 50 pages back there are pictures of a red one. Pictures are meaningless as it is not a true representation of the panel unless they are super high res which is impractical for the board. The true test is checking one out in a store and making your own decision. Unfortunately this one hasn't made it to the stores so buyer beware...I'm happy with mine.

Have at it anyway...

 

when they make plasma panels for notebooks you can be first in line...LOL

Me, I'm holding out for 3D virtual holograms with force feedback so you can live the pron dream!

 

I have a 8MP SLR Camera that will show the quality quite good enough. I mainly want to show the viewing angles over quality though as it has been pretty unanimous that the quality was beautiful, it was just the angles that sucked.

I must have missed those images...I'm gonna go back and try to find them.

---

As for bing, I got a response from Bing wanting my order details...so fingers crossed. I will be pretty upset if I don't get the $95 that I was hoping for.

 

Just got my CW from BB tonight, so far I love it.

This is my first new PC in over 10 years, and first time using win 7.

My question is which of the pre-installed applications are worth keeping? There seems to be alot of stuff on it, most of which I'm not even sure what it is. Or should I do a clean reinstall? If so I do I do that considering no installation CD's were included.

Sorry this is probably a pretty trivial problem but I'm admittedly pretty computer illiterate.

If this as already been discussed in another forum please direct me there.

 

They are very low quality so I wouldn't bother...more of a set of unboxing shots than panel evaluation shots.

 

Depends on what you care about. Get rid of Norton because Norton sucks and there is better antivirus for free. I got rid of everything but the Vaio stuff that cam preinstalled, the image software, the webcam software, and the mini-version of Roxio. These remainders have given me no problems and people have reported that a plain vanilla install results in disabled function keys so beware uninstalling too much.

Run pc decrapifier (do a google search) if you want to be comprehensive and someone posted a link to a Vaio uninstaller program you can use as well to get rid of the Vaio add ons.

 

did you have any driver issues, specifically the fn keys not working? I'm planning on doing that sometime soon. grabbed all the drivers off of sonys site already.

 

Zero problems. Everything works as usual minus the assist key since I uninstalled that Sony assist garbage. You do need to download drivers though. What I did was just burn all the drivers onto a CD so it was ready to go after the clean install of Win 7. There is a post in the Sony forum listing all the drivers you need. They can all be found on the Sony site.

 

awesome, thanks man. one last thing did u just use the serial on the bottom of the laptop?

 

Anyone tried the Battlefield Bad Company 2 beta on this laptop?

 

give me your steam account if u have it and ill try it for you

 

Hey, just got my laptop in today. I was really hesitant about the resolution being so high. As it turns out, it is pretty good, although everything is smaller than my old HP 1280x800 on a 15.4'. I have even made an unboxing video, but it is in my phone and I'll need to transfer, edit and upload... i ll do asap.

I just wanted to report two things for now:
1. The temperatures on this machine are really good. Under normal use, the CPUs report around 25C and the GPU around 38C.
2. I installed NFS Shift on my laptop. w/o overclocking the GPU I got smooth frame rates at 1600x900 with 2xAA. And the GPU temp reached 49C and the CPU remained 30ish. I am really impressed with the performance as NFS Shift is a pretty heavy game.

 

Wow nice Temps realy low! my desktop 9800 GT gets way hotter..
Ill be happy to watch your unboxing video as im full of jealousy waiting for mine

 

FYI.. Win 7 HP clean install instructions are here , courtesy dperezo and xgx2007

 

If there is a way to gift the beta, I can try it for you.

 

Not to add to anyone's indecision, but Sony just released info regarding their new 15" E series coming out next month (looks like a cross between the NW and the F), and if it comes with upgrades it looks like a really nice slightly larger alternative to the CW. Keep in mind, this is coming from someone who nearly jumped off a bridge due to indecision regarding conflicting reports on the CW

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666107682#additionalImage1%22

Apologies if the link doesn't work, you can find the info on the Sony website.

 

Could some1 please tell what softwares are essential and what are non-essential? (I m sry if some1 already answered this b4, but the answer didnt seem very clear. Sry..)

 

Not the same, the E serie is bigger (15.5 inch) heavier (5.9 lbs vs 5.3 lbs of CW) and no dedicated video card (poor with games)

The E serie is in the same category of Dell Inspiron 15.

 

The Sony rep stated that when released this machine will have all the upgrades that the CW currently has (graphics card, blu ray, processor, screen). I'm sure those will add up, but still, it looks like a good 15" alternative.

 

Good, yeah better alternative than Dell, I like the Sony finition. Ok now the E serie go the same category of Dell Studio 15 and if the keyboard is retro-eclaired : in XPS 16 category.

Before Christmas I wanted a CW with core 2 duo, but video g220m card was not available, I waited for the core i5 and the g330m not available ! Why it's so complicated to buy a laptop with good video card ! I sold my asus a8js to buy a new one, but not find a good model. Maybe the new Z ? I have to still waiting again until March ! ARG! Sony please do something ! :cry:

 

Fiddles,
If you believe everything that the reps tell you, I wonder if you will ever buy another laptop.

 

are you using hw monitor? i get two temperatures for the cpu. core 0 and core 2 . core 0 sits around 28c while core 2 sits around 38