Come on Sony, Where is the Vaio AW Replacement?

For those people who are looking for the BEST in class, I sure was expecting to see the replacement of Sony Vaio AW to show up at CES 2011 with the following / similar specs:

Design:
-Similar in design to AW (because with AW design, Sony nailed it) with some
improvements
-Use premium quality materials (Carbon Fiber, Unibody metal sheet like on
Vaio Z11), but definitely no glossy material
-Keep the amazing Screen quality from AW (18.4in, 100% RGB, Matte),
but definitely no 3D like the disappointment they have just announced at CES
2011 (Vaio F 3D)

Internals:
-Intel Sandy Bridge 2820QM
-Nvidia GeForce 555M GT or wait for the 560M GTX with Optimus technology
-8GB DDR3
-Same Quad SSD Storage as on Vaio Z11/12/13 (either 512GB or 1024GB)
-USB 3.0, BT 3.0
-Blu-Ray RW
-Windows 7 Ultimate

Some of the Specs mentioned here might be pushing it a little bit but don't forget we're talking Flagship here, just like the Vaio Z11 when it was announced last year at CES 2010, it was too good to be true yet it came to market.

 

I was wondering the same thing.

Sony is the only one who is/was manufacturing affordable notebooks with high quality displays suitable for work with colors.

Lenovo/HP priced at 3000-4000 are simply not an option. A crazy price for a laptop. If it suddenly dies, it all becomes junk.

Working with an older FW (couldn't get an AW, was too late) slowly getting disappointed by notebooks market, considering going back to desktops.

 

I believe F series took over AR...

 

The F is the successor to the FW, while AW the successor of AR. At one point, both the FW and AW were available (they actually looked the same).

 

It looks like they folded their big notebook ranges into one though. To be honest, I've had a 16.4" F series and before that a 17" Dell and they are pretty huge. At 3.2kg the Vaio F series made my arm go numb after a while trying to carry it around. It didn't fit in a rucksack, the battery life was so terrible I was desk bound anyway and I eventually replaced it with a much cheaper desktop PC and a second hand Vaio SR.

If you go bigger than 15" and 3kg and you are paying Sony money for it I think you are getting into some pretty niche territory because most people will find it cheaper and more convenient to split their workload between a desktop and a real portable computer. I use my computers for music production and it made sense to have a big multimedia notebook that I could move around with my mics. But in the end it turned out that when I was recording I was seriously 'wired' in either way. I'm talking all USB ports used + hub, expresscard slot used with more USBs, eSATA used for scratch hdd and my soundcard uses the firewire). In the end I got sick of the tangle of wires and having to unplug about 10 things every time I wanted to move around.

 

Just a reminder of how Great Sony Vaio AW Design was:









Just look at the finishing, simple and clean yet effective. You can clearly see that a lot of effort has been put in the AW Design and it's all in the details:

-The Cylinder hinge (One if the greatest design elements of Vaio line)
-The faux black leather that goes great with DSLR cameras
-The keyboard
-The chrome frame

I even recall that the Sony logo on the screen was backlit (I think it was on the AR)

For me, if they keep the same design and update just the internals to what I have already mentioned previously in my first post I will definitely buy it.

I really hope Sony are reading this,

 

The market was simply not big enough for the AW. Period.
Granted, there is some demand for a large laptop with 2x HDDs stuck inside, but that market, you have to admit, is a small niche. I mean, there ain't a lot of 18 incher laptops out there, you'll agree...

And to add, the AW was not marketed as a premium model. Heck, it wasn't even made in Japan (in China actually). The so-called premiums at the time of the AW's demise were the Z, the TT (also at the time being phased out for), the X. Carbon fibre and the whatnot are usually tell-tale parts that Sony uses to highlight their high-end models.

- I am also familiar with certain complaints with the AW. Most notable being the leather palm rest (in the higher spec machines). They had a habit of wearing out less than a year into use and caused Sony some headaches from the looks of it (warranty replacement). Yes, the problem palm rests looked so bad that Sony was forced to replace the palm rests under warranty.
- Then there was the issue of hot running temps, despite the fact that it was made to be a heavy-loader. The nVidia 9600m was an average laptop GPU at the time (unlike the VGN-Z's 9300m which was below average). Too bad it got too hot to the likings of potential customers.

I guess making such a large laptop, and them getting quite a lot of unhappy faces, forced them to reconsider; Sony pretty much decided to ditch the model, save some money, and focus the savings on what was more popular at the time (the Z being one). And remember, this all happened in the midst of the economic recession.

In all honesty though, seeing how erratic the VAIO lineup has been (I'm on about the CES, with that so-called SA model), anything's possible.

 

new F21 does look great also:





Cheers,
Miki

 

miki, from the promotional pics you have just uploaded, the F21 does look great, However, the problem with the F21 is that it uses glossy plastic material all over it, which is a fingerprint magnet and attracts dust easily.

A more realistic pic of the F21 would be (which btw are real life pics of the machine):


or



or



or




I am not trying to de-emphasize the look and feel of the F21 but I do think that it is below Sony's quality standards.

 

Perhaps because it is too big? Unless they can keep it in 6 pounds range, an 18.4" notebook is simply too big and too heavy for most people.