New Sony buyer - not sure which one to get

I'll have to admit - I have never been a fan of Sony laptops, until I stumbled upon a new FW one day and realized how stunning it looked, it appears to me that Sony is now on the cutting edge of design, right up there with Apple, and now the only decision I need to make is which model to get.

There are so many choices, I really like the FW a lot, but I fear that it might be a little bit "too big" for me. I already have a nice desktop at home, so I don't plan on using it as a desktop replacement, but I do love the idea of watching Blu-Ray movies in full widescreen glory.

I am kind of gravitating towards either the CW or the SR series. Can someone give me a rundown of pros and cons of each of those models? I really LOVED the LED backlit screen of the SR when I saw it in the Sony Store. I gravitated directly towards it because it stood out, even from several feet away! It seems so much brighter and crisper then the regular screen on the CW.

However, the SR with blu-ray costs a LOT more then the CW (although without Blu-ray it's similarly priced to the CW). Battery life seems to be much better on the SR (probably becuase of the LED display)...

What else am I missing?

As for me, what I will be doing with my laptop:

-DJing 1-2x a month using Serrato or Traktor (not sure which program yet)
-Watching movies in bed both streaming from my NAS on my wireless, web videos, and dvd's (or blu-ray!)
-Ripping DVD's to VOB files, converting them to MKV (Divx Plus HD) files
-Web surfing while sitting on the couch watching tv
-Listening to music, organizing music, ripping music, etc.

Travel-wise, I probably will take it on a plane maybe 2-3 times a year...

 

CW also uses LED backlight. However, you are correct that SR LCD is much better than that of CW (or many other laptops). However, if CW in display had "Vaio color mode setting" on, then that would have made it appear worse than it is. Actually, I suspect that CW may get slightly better battery life than SR - however, I don't think there will be large difference between these two. Both should be in range of 3:30 - 4 hours.

The way I see it, the advantages of CW are
Price
Ergonomics
GT230 (for games)

The advantages of SR are
LCD
Weight

For you, I feel that SR is a better option, unless you really like to have cheap BluRay.

BTW, HD display (not 1600x900 ones) in FW is great - but as you have the desktop already, I feel that it indeed is too large.

 

The SR will be getting an update around January (SW??). I'd wait...

 

CW = consumer level... not worth the price as you get similarly specced laptops for 200,300$/€/Pounds less.

The SR However is the "consumer branch" of the old SZ - so for a portable laptop, short of the Z that would be a great choice amongst the Vaios

 

I disagree that the CW is not worth the price. I feel it is very competitively priced and not many laptops actually offer better value for what you get. The display is quite good and also is the specs and design.
Prices start at £589.

 

Then the UK is in luck with its pricing - in Germany (and that is representative for all of Euroland last I checked) they start the "self configuration model" at 880€ and else 900€ ...

At that price you have plenty of other options.

Link: http://www.sony.de/product/vn-cw-series/tab/models

 

I've had a look at US prices and they seem decently priced.
UK prices even for ready to order models are decent i feel.
Prices start at €749 in Germany(you need to downgrade the specs to get that pricing)/£579 in the UK. So whilst it is more expensive in the rest of Europe and may be unfairly priced higher still there are not many laptops that compete at that price range.
If you spec it out to the max then it may be not such a good a deal in the rest of the EU.
Still though there are not any 14" laptops that offer a bluray drive, 230M graphics card and a full powered C2D processor shy of €1,000.

Sony upped their game compared to the previous CS series.

 

I spent some time at the Sony Style store last night, and couldn't stop lusting after the 16 inch 1080p display in the FW. I had it side by side with the SR, and honestly the SR's display was "almost" as good, but the FW still was a notch above! The FW also has a nice config for the price, blu-ray burner, P8700 processor, 4 gigs, 320gb 7200RPM, and 1080p LCD for $1259 seems like an excellent deal to me. I almost pulled the trigger, but I'm still wondering if the bulky size of that laptop will get to me after a while!

 

I for one prefer a laptop with less weight. I was waiting for a newer version of the SR to come out but was also in a desperate need of a laptop so i went in for the CW series which with the holiday specials here in US costed me atleast $250 cheaper than a similarly configured SR. I too love the SR model's Display the best. So if u can wait for the nwe model of the SR, then it should be worth it. Else, CW is not that bad a choice at all...CW is in pretty high demand right now and with the Nvidia GT230 Graphics, it leaves the competition (other 14") far behind.

 

^ Same here. As I carry around my laptop a lot, I'd never trade my CW for FW, even though I'd love LCD of FW. And yes, CW is way better than older C series, and IMO is one of the most well-rounded laptop on the market right now.

 

Have had my FW for about 13 months - numerous road trips, 3 trans-pacific flights (soon to be 4) - it's a great lappy and I'll agree it can be a bit large at times, but still lighter and easier to transport than the old HP I had and the Dell I had at work. (both of those were 15" systems.)