F Owners: Which other laptops did you consider?

Thinking about pulling the trigger on the F series -- now just curious, what did you all consider before you bought it?

 

dell 1545 i think it was..but no other laptop offered the same specs for the price ($1500) and in the end i went for the sony because it just looked better..

 

Asus g73 was the only other consideration. I really wanted an 18.4, but not enough to buy a shiny computer.

Still not sure I made the right call, but probably did.

 

I also considered the HP Envy 15, as it is a similar size and has a strong video card.

However it was about £300 more expensive than the F11 at the time, and the Gen 1 Envy15's apparently had some heat issues, so I went with the F11.

 

Envy 15, Envy 17, Alienwares..

I eventually decided against the HPs due to the excessive heating... and the Alienwares because of the price & design..

Took a while to stumble across the F actually!

 

I came from a Z as it felt far better value and more pragmatic.

I did consider the Vaio L, but ended up thinking it was a bit too gimmicky and next to the grunt of the quad cores in the F, just pushed me towards the F

 

This was in March:
Envy 15: Actually ordered one. Canceled the order when HP charged me $200 more than they were supposed to . Got my money back a week later and miraculously wasn't overdrafted to death from it.

Dell XPS 16: Over a month to build it. Ehh...

MacBook Pro 15" Core 2: I came SOOOOO close to buying one, but I had a really hard time forking up $1625 for a core 2 9600m machine. I so miss OS X on my laptop, but I can live without it.

Asus stuff: Either too big, too low res, too tacky looking. Blah.

Other HPs: Ew.

Alienware: m15x was too damn heavy.

 

The only thing I genuinely dislike about my two-month-old F is the screen. 1920x1080 is nice, shiny I will get used to, but the viewing angles are just crap. There is no viewing spot where I can see a color consistently over the whole screen. Either get black at the top or black at the bottom, but not both.

This is the first laptop I have owned in 10 years, so they all may be like this but...

 

Asus n61jq i was going to buy it....
but after i used both , there is a huge difference between screens sony's screeen full hd is a beast...

 

come on mate , i used lots of laptop's i had samsung R522 led screen..
i donno which model u have but about my laptop's screen i can say its perfect , colors are really sharp and especially when 1900 resolution and 1080P full hd gets together in a laptop it becomes imposible to find...i guess only apple imac except sony

 

Thinkpad or the macbook pro. Price and availability determined my purchase.

 

Well I am going to F127 HG next week

Asus, Apple, HP - all too expensive for the same specs

And there was 40 mins of youtube (one review) that sold me on the F12!

 

Dell Studio 17 - Very nearly went for this but I was unable to CTO a 1080p screen with a blu ray player. Also the heat output was worrying.

Dell Studio XPS 16 - I was going for this shortly after ruling out Studio 17 but I missed the 25% coupon so the price turned out to be pretty high.

Sony VAIO Z series - Honestly I was never going to able to afford one and even if I did save up there would always be a little voice in the back of my head saying - you can get a better spec'ed Sony for cheaper if you weren't so vain. So yeah. In the end I figured that I wanted one but its just too decadent for me.

 

I guess it depends what you are used to. Comparing a laptop screen to IPS or other quality 8 bit + monitor, it ranks about a 3/10.

FYI, there are probably a dozen 16.4 - 18.4 inch 1080p laptops available now.

 

believe me i've checked lots of laptops before i bought mine
dell,asus,hp etc. like a said before except apple imac , only f vaio has the perfect screen , im living in Turkey , maybe we dont have all models i dont know know about that ..can u give me example which model has a good screen like sony

 

The US Vaio Fs have terrible screens (yes, Joe, I know about the poll). When you use them for the darker half of the spectrum of colors you'll find that they have a very narrow viewing angle and inversion is easily seen outside of that viewing angle. I took the following pictures at head level from my chair, 6" above, and about 12" above. [The Vaio VPCF115FM with US 1920x1080 screen is pictured alongside a 15" PowerBook G4 and 23" Apple Cinema Display]

You can see the Vaio F's screen color shifts (from black) *very* quickly compared to the IPS desktop screen and the other TN laptop screen.

 

I spent a lot of time trying to find reviews of laptop screens without much success.

One thing I will say, screen problems are much more evident if you have solid color backgrounds than something like video content. I typically have my screen full of stock market charts, and it color shift is very simple to see. I wouldn't notice it watching movies. And I guess, given all the 16:9 screens, watching movies is all computers are supposed to be used for anymore... right?

p.s. The inversion thing really is a trip - black becomes gray and gray becomes black. The angles where I have seen this are far from usable though.

 

Another one I would consider now is HP Envy 17 from Newegg. It's $300-400 cheaper than the HP-direct prices that were available when I got mine.