FW490 CTO is out!

Just wanted to ask !

what screens are most people buying here? 1920x1080 or 1600X900 ?

I don't need a blueray player I think!
I won't be playing any movies on it. I played 1/2 movie on my last and hooked to tv for fun but never played another.

It has the option for (fresh start) or (no fresh start) does this matter ?
I don't want the bloatware and I have my own Vista Ultra Full, I'd put in.

I'm buying the 160 gig with my intention on putting in my own 200 gig 7200 HD

hope it's easy ?

 

Neither screen is perfect nor desirable in my opinion. With the 1600, the color is pale in comparison with 1920 but the font will be bigger. With the 1920, the color and brightness are far superior but you may have a hard time reading text at extended period of time. You can increase the DPI, lowering the resolution or use the zoom feature but each solution has its own weakness.

Replacing the harddrive is very easy. Sony even posted an instruction of how to do it. http://www.docs.sony.com/release/994657100_VGNFWseries_HDD_CRU.pdf

Fresh start will reduce the amount of bloatware but won't eliminate it completely. The only way to have a pure clean system is to install from your own copy of Vista and drivers and essential utilities.

 

does the blue ray player offer anything besides playing movies in HD ?

does it give better graphics in games?

 

It gives you the choice of burning to 50GB blank disc if you choose the BD Writer version.

Blu-ray drive doesn't have any effect with gaming performance.

 

I'd like to get the better screen but I need to read Text also, so I think I'm going to go with the 1600x900, I've seen the other thread on this! As this was mentioned, all with drawbacks on adjustments as you said here,

Thanks !

 

One more question!,

Does the screen have anything to do with performance !

Like; helps the cpu,graphics card, memory, in anyway ?

 

The screen itself doesn't have anything to do with the performance but the resolution of the screen does. The lower the resolution, the faster the game plays. So, at its native resolution, the 1920 screen is slower than the 1600 screen. You can lower the resolution from 1920 to 1600 but it will not look good. LCD screen looks sharp at its native resolution. Lowering that will make the graphics looks ugly or at least not as good. If you are concern about gaming, get the 1600 one.

 

has anyone else noticed that the GPU went from a 4650 (pre-built models) to a 4570 in the CTO? why the down grade...?

 

I talked to them on the I chat and heres the transcript


Please allow a moment for an agent to respond.

You are now chatting with 'Brian'

Brian: Hi there! How are you doing?

you: OK I have a question I saved the fw490 yesterday in my cart and this morning I was configering a CTO and I was ready to buy it buy I had to go out the door , I came back home and you guys changed the videocard on me , I saved one unit in my cart and that has what I want but I want to change a few options can I get the original video card back in my cart?

Brian: The video card would be the one offered on the site. The FW490 was just released this morning.

you: the vidoe card was changed from the 4650 to 4570 I have the 4650 in my cart but I want to make some changes to the specs

Brian: Oh I see. It should be the 4650 since the 4570 is a 512mb card.

you: correct

Brian: It must be a site error.

Brian: I can try to get some information on this unit and get back to you via email if you'd like.

you: can we confirm before I buy?

you: yes please!

Brian: Sure, may I have your email?

you: [email protected]

Brian: Thanks Steven.

you: so you'll get back to me soon?

Brian: Give me just a moment, I'm going to inquire about it right now. If you have some time please hold.

you: yes thanks!

Brian: Yes site error that they're going to fix, but that may take until Sunday for it to update. However, I can assure you it is the 1GB card if you upgrade to that. You can save this transcript if you'd like.

Brian: It is just the text error on the site.

you: OK so I'll print this out, so should I wait till sunday? or should I just order ?

Brian: You should just order now. That is the 1GB card you're seeing.

Brian: That is what you'll be getting.

you: OK Thanks!

Brian: You're very welcome.

 

So the 512 MB card is the 4570 and the 1 GB one is the 4650?

 

I actually chatted with Sony reps couple of times, telling me that for the time being the 4650 is only available on pre-config models, and the 4650 won't be for the CTO until a later date.

After reading this thread and the sony chat here, I contacted them once more, and posted the chat in this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=393455

I was close to ordering, and now this curve ball again.

 

At least you have the option (though I don't think 1 GB of vRAM would make much difference compared to the 512 MB, especially on the 4570).

In Canada, you can only get the 4570 with 1GB on the CTO and we don't have any pre-configured FW4xxx yet.

 

Yes, I hear you; canadians often get shafted.

but not really in my case, since I really need the 1080p screen; otherwise I would be going for a much smaller laptop.

 

Well, I'm saying that Canadians don't have a way right now to get an FW with the 4650, unless you buy it from the states.

 

Question for those getting the new FW400 series: Would you let me know whether the BD drive makes noise on an empty boot-up? And what the model and make of the drive is?

Thanks....

 

My Sony FW41ZJ which is probably a European version on the FW490 has a Matsh*ta BD-MLT UJ230AS Bluray writer. [had to put the * in place to prevent autodeletion leaving the word Mata!]

Hope this helps.


Philip