Is there a skin to preserve finish on the Vaio's, particularly on the mouse buttons so the silver stippled paint finish wears away

Is there any way to preserve finish of the Sony Vaio FW, particularly on the mouse buttons and where the palm-rest is, I hear the silver stippled paint finish wears away leaving bare white plastic underneath.

Is there a skin or plastic screen cover that you guys use or recommend to prevent this or hide defects?

I recently picked up this bad boy for just $744 (after 12.3% bing cashback (Google it if you don't know what it is)).

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5619517&CatId=4938

Has anyone heard any other issues with this laptop?

It has the 1600x900 screen which I've heard some criticism of (I heard something about it having a one-lamp "eco" screen) but I don't know if that applies to the model I bought or how good the eco screen is.

If I can get a skin that is precut for that laptop's dimensions in particular (nothing fancy, just black would be good), that would be awesome.

I'm considering this skin, but it's not precut, and I don't know how good it is...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Laptop-Notebook...=63&clkid=8978356309079581388#ht_52686wt_1165

 

Other than that issue which I've heard others complain about, I'm very happy with the purchase. The design is gorgeous. This is only the second laptop I've seen that looks everybit as attractive as the Unibody Macbook Pros. (On the same note, I hate the newer F series laptops that have the number pad and off center mouse pad. Those two things completely screwed up the design that the FW got right on so many levels).

The screen is a gorgeous 16.4 inches at 1600x900 resolution. And it looks amazing.

The graphics card it packs blows the 9600 and most other laptop GPUs out of the water. According to notebookcheck.net's benchmarks, it compares well to or significantly outperforms every GPU released in 2009 or before and only loses the fight to ATI's brand new 5830 and 5850 series.

And best of all, it has a Blu Ray Burner (I wonder how many years it will be before Apple comes around and starts offering Blu Ray Burners in their laptops)!! and all sorts of other goodies (7200rpm hdd, HDMI, Firewire, Bluetooth, WiFi A/B/G/N etc)

Even if Apple were to offer these specs in their next refresh, it would have run me three times as much as what this laptop ran me. Even the lowest end MBPs (which don't even offer a GPU) cost $500 more than this lappy. So my wallet is happy.

Yes I know that it has DDR2 800 ram but I researched extensively on the ram and it turns out that DDR2 800 actually slightly outperforms DDR3 1033 and is identical in performance to DDR3 1333 (which no laptop even uses) because DDR2 currently has a much lower latency.

Don't take my word for it, look through these links...

http://www.breakitdownblog.com/ddr2-800-vs-ddr3-1333-does-speed-matter/ - A worthwhile read if you're considering this laptop.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/245145-30-ddr2-ddr3 - It's a forum discussing this topic that has links to benchmarks comparing ddr2 and ddr3 from anandtech, xbitlabs and extremetech.

So the only thing missing is that it doesn't have Arrandale (asking for an i5 in a $750 laptop with both a kickass GPU and a Blu Ray burner is unrealistic). Besides, the i5 only makes a 15% difference and only in stuff like compiling and video rendering which I primarily do on my desktop anyways. For everything else, it doesn't matter, and even for games, it actually makes minimal if any difference at all because the GPU does the brunt of the work.

If you do end up getting the same laptop, be sure to use the Bing Cashback to knock another $105 off the current $850 listed price tag.

 

Have you tried looking into the InvisibleShield or BestSkinsEver?

There is also another company, but I can't remember their name.

 

Thank you.

$40 seems like a lot though, esp for something completely clear. That ebay one I linked to is colored and $9.99.

I just hate that it isn't precut for the laptop.

If I could find something like that for the FW for $19.99 or less, it would be great.