Best Buy sale: FE and SZ

I've been thinking about buying a laptop for a while now and so I stopped by my local Best Buy today. Apparently they are having a Sony laptop sale which has the FE550 for $1399 and SZ110 (or perhaps SZ120) for $1749, which is quite good, considering you don't have to mail in any rebates.

After staring at both of them for over an hour, I decided to get the FE because of the better and bigger screen. I'm nearsighted so screen size is an issue and I don't play games so the dedicated graphics card doesn't do much for me. It was difficult to not get the SZ however, but I'm a little nitpicky and all the little problems I heard on this forum made me feel a little negative towards the SZ. The FE on the other hand hasn't had a lot of problems reported. Perhaps that has a lot to do with the fact that most people on this board seem to have an SZ instead.

Oh, and during the time that I was at Best Buy, I had to listen to usual bull**** from the salesman, convincingly advising me to buy the SZ because "it will handle Powerpoint presentation better", "both screens are exactly the same", "SZ battery will last for 6 hours versus FE 3 hours". I thought that was kinda funny since Best Buy salespersons are not on commission (are they?) and he was certainly pushing me to buy a more expensive product.

 

oh believe me there are enough FE owners

 

lol *<3s his FE* The sz gets about the same battery life at the FE bit of a joke really.

 

the SZ is way fancier though, portability, 2 video cards and all. My final choice was FE vs SZ aswell but I chose the SZ .

 

more expensive too

 

The screen on the FE is one of the best I've ever seen notebook or desktop. It's absolutely gorgeous to look at. The display on my SZ isn't too shabby either. I choose the SZ because it was more portable and lasted longer on battery (I get around 5 hours at work). Of course I still have a whistling sound coming from my wallet (the sound of air being drawn into the emptiness).

 

Where in Canada is the best price for SZ120?
Is SZ150P available in Canada?

 

How did you manage to get 5hrs out of the sz? What settings are you changing?

 

SonyStyle or go to a sony store and askfor a discount.

SZ150P is not in Canada.

@ duffyanneal - how did you get 5 hours? no wifi? screen brightness turned to 1, switched to stamina and all hardware turned off - the only way I can think off.

 

Can somebody please enlighten me regarding SZ120B vs. SZ160 vs FE590 in the form of Pros and Cons (5-6 bullets each if possible).

I am interested primarily in (in that order):

0) XP Pro
1) shine/ultrabright screen
2) speed
3) DVI port

 

Here's how I get 5 hrs:

* Stamina mode On
* WiFi on
* CD turned off
* Ethernet turned off
* Firewire turned off
* CPU Control set to Battery Life
* Turn off hard drive after 3 mins
* Backlight set to 0-1

I use my machine during meetings and such at work. Generally the meeting room is dark so I can get away with running the backlight at 0-1. I don't do anything CPU intensive.

 

Hey duffy,

how do you turn just the CD-ROM, Ethernet and Firewire off ?

Are you disabling them in the Device Manager, or somewhere else ?

Thanks !

 

Go to the Power Options Control panel and select the VAIO Power Management tab.

 

Mine was showing about 4hrs, but I left the HD on and the screen at level 4.