New FS line - any reasons not to buy?

Hi,

after a painful period of hunting around the net for the best laptop for the best price, I've reached a rather unexpected conclusion: a Sony Vaio

Sony VAIO VGN-FS315M
PM-740 Centrino 1.73GHz
1x 512MB PC3200
80GB HD @ 5400 rpm
15.4" WXGA 1200x800
Grafik: nVidia GeForce Go 6400TC up to 128MB
DVD+/-RW/DL
LAN, WLAN (b/g), Modem,
3xUSB2.0, Firewire, MS-CardReader,
WXP Home incl. MS Works 8.0

All this (with a german QWERTZ keyboard), delivered to my door at just below 1300 EUR sounds very tempting. Sony has upped the specs from the reviews I've read, so performance should not be an issue anymore.

All the reviews state that the FS laptops are quiet, have great build quality and excellent screens. Comes bundled with more & better software than others. Looks substantially better than anything near it's price range... so what's the downside, except the 2+ hours battery life? I would buy a second hi-volt battery to any laptop, so that is not an issue for me.

Any Vaio FS owners out there that would recommend me something else instead? I can postpone the purchase for a week, but then I really need to buy a laptop...and it will be a Sony unless you tell me the dirty secret!

thanks in advance for any comments,

.jon

 

I'd love to have the option of buying one with a 5400 rpm HD here in the States, but we can only get a 4200 rpm model. Don't understand WHY Sony USA has made this the only choice in the U.S. market. I love the new FS 7XX line. Actually saw a FS 740 at a local Staples store yesterday. The display was nothing short of spectacular. I've got one of the new HP Dv4000 machines (with an ATI X700 GPU) on order right now, but if the display disappoints I think I'll go with a FS790.... or perhaps a Fujitsu N3500...or maybe an ASUS Z70va, OR wait for the Sony BX series to roll out the 15.4 configurable option.

 

That's too bad to hear, hope they come to senses in the States as well. I find it a sign of Sony's seriousness to see to those shortcomings of previous FS models, and pushing the prices down. This FS model I'm considering is about the price of an iBook!

It's confusing that the mfgs have different model numbers in different countries, and the prices vary a lot. To put this 1300 EUR to some scope, competing models for the price are for example Acer Aspire 5021WLMi (Turion64), Asus A6V-B005H (PM-740) or FSC Amilo M 7440 (PM-750).

 

A 790 configured the way I'd want it (Go 6400, 512 in one stick, heavy duty battery, 740 processor, CD-Rw) runs about US$1400 here in the States. I expect the Sony BX equivilant will be around US$2000... howver, it will come with the ATI X700 GPU and a 5400 RPM drive. That should be a smokin' unit.

 

The FS is really a nice 15.4" setup...I like it. There are a ton of other options but I wouldn't rule this one out for any reason.

 

The pre-configured BX is on the expensive side, but once we get configurable ones, it will be a complete steal.

 

The new F series in Japan is a 14.1" widescreen. Kinda nice.

 

Integrated graphics though. No word on dedicated... yet.

 

I had the FS series. The negatives are:

-Weak latch design (I hope they fixed this). Latch could break if not cared for.
-The body does not allow for good cooling, the fan would be on for the most time probably. I had a Celeron-M 1.5 and the laptop could not keep the temperature stable at any setting.

That's it I think.
Great laptop overall.

 

And so is the same for about every Celeron-M laptop. The Pentium-M has enhanced speedstep powersaving technology wheras the Celeron-M does not. What's speedstep? If I remember correctly, it allows the CPU to run at lower frequencies whenever a high clockspeed isn't needed. The Celeron-M on the other hand is forced to constantly run at full frequency, thus running at higher tempratures.

 

The Celeron can run at 50% of speed if necessary by the way, but you are right, it does not have the same cooling capabilities.

The thing is the P-M in the FS is the Sonoma variety, which means it is very hot compared to the prev. PMs.

Hence, I predict the fan to be on all the time.