Advice on FW 45X

Hi,

I'm a long time dell laptop user, and im thinking of making the move to Sony, one of my mates has a VAIO FW, and I think I would find it a lot easier to own day to day than the M1730 I currently have.

I dont play games any more so the M1730 isnt really what i need, it is extremely heavy, has battery life that makes it impossible to use on the battery, and is very loud.

I use the machine primarily for SW Development, things like .NET and SQL Server, so the screen size of the FW really appeals to me, screen real estate is important.

I also run a couple of VM Workstations from USB HD drives so 8gb of ram would suit that.

If there are any owners of the FW45X lurking I wouldnt mind your opinions on any of the following and anything else you think is useful to know:

Portability (weight/battery life)
Noise - do the fans kick in a lot during "normal" use and are they loud.
Performance.
LCD Screen quality & sharpness

Any other advice/tips/info (e.g. dont buy this - theres a replacement coming next month) would be welcome like i said, i dont have anything else on the shortlist atm except maybe a studio xps 16.....

cheers,

b

 

You'll find all sorts of comments on the FW at this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=278446&page=488
I have the FW285 X-brite Hi-color 1920x1080 screen, 4GB RAM, and 2.26 Processor. Love it. The keyboard is wonderful for typing. The screen is fabulous - I do lots of work with Excel and the extra real estate with the resolution is fabulous. Some will say screen font size is small but matter of choice.
Stays very cool, fan noise is minimal, travels well, had mine on two cross-pacific flights and several other trips (car and train). Can't talk to your SW development concerns, but for the office work and Excel modeling I do it's a great laptop.

 

thanks mate - thats just the sort of input im after

I did start reading through that thread, a lot to wade through but ill carry on later

when I used my mates one I noticed that the keyboard was really nice to type on, whereas the keyboard on my M1730 feels cheap, and lost 2 keys after a matter of months - not the greatest build quality on the planet really.

 

There indeed signs that a "refresh" of the model is due out in about a month (there's a thread speculating on the FW590) based on the Canadian SonyStyle site.

Europe is usually ahead of the States in the appearance of the new models so, yes, you may want to wait a month to see what they add/subtract -- and likely the current FW45 will drop in price when the new version comes out.

Good luck!