Hello all, I am about to buy a Vaio FW, and I have a couple of questions to ask

First of all, Merry Christmas!!

I'm about to buy a Vaio FW (4gigs, 320hdd, 2.4 Processor, Blu-ray Reader and Fullhd display) and I have a couple of questions

1- How do you, FW owners feel about the laptop after a while from purchasing it ?

2- I've seen some people assemble tutorials on how to install a fresh new copy of Windows into the FW. I didn't go throught them but, here is my question.. Can't I just simply install a fresh copy of windows Vista and download drivers from the sony support website ??

 

All your questions have previously been answered on the 240-page Official Vaio FW owners topic right here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=278446

 

I bought the fw290 jab with the 2.26ghz, full hd, hd3650 and I'm loving it so far...the build quality seems to be excellent and I can't say enough about the unique keyboard...the screen is amazing as well.

1st sony laptop for me, but I owned a sony desktop a few years back that served me well so I decided to give their laptops a shot...so far no dissappoinment whatsoever.

EDIT - also, just to add that I installed Fallout 3 yesterday and am able to play on high detail with 1920x1080 with no hiccups.

 

I've owned the laptop now for well over a month, and have had no major issues with it. The barrels are a weak design point but I have learned to be careful with them and not open the lid too fast or too suddenly.

The screen is good, but the battery life could be better unfortunately, this is one thing I would like to see addressed, 3 hours would have been good.

One issue I have is with vista, there is no method to stream using the laptop, so I can't stream music over then the net. It is also a bit bigger than a 15 in laptop but not so much, the extra screen space is a major benefit though and I appreciate it.

As for your second point, I would highly recommend you read the fresh install of vista for FW, since it will guide you and will result in a smoother reinstall experience for you, since the people in that thread have stream lined it to be as efficient as possible.

 

I've only had it for about 4 days but so far I'm quite impressed with the laptop and have absolutely no regrets about purchasing it. 1080P screen is fantastic. I don't mind the small fonts at all. It's a very good looking laptop that perform well.

Only minor complaint I have so far is that hard drive is located under my right hand. It's a bit warmer than I would like on my palms. This is coming from having used thinkpads for many years. My wife has VAIO NR and it doesn't get warm like this either.

My laptop specs:
P8600, 4GB (upgraded after purchase from 2GB), 320GB 7200RPM (upgraded after purchase from 160GB 5400RPM), 1080P

 

Man you should have bought it 2 weeks ago when it was at least $300 cheaper to config.