Quick question about Sony F series

I saw some VAIO F models on youtube that had a dark lid, but white keyboard and palm rest area. On the Canadian website I only saw a black model, so is this white version still available?
Is the VAIO F a good choice for university + light gaming? I customized an order by swapping out the SSD for a normal hard drive (no need for the SSD) and that brought the price down to $1100. I'm looking for a 15.6-16" stylish laptop that has a ATI 5650 level GPU.

 

Never seen a white version of the F. Only black, grey, and silver. I think only black and metallic grey are available in Canada right now.

The F is a bit large and heavy to drag around university. Personally, I'd want something smaller & lighter, like a 13". But if you can stand the size & weight, you'll enjoy the good screen resolution and keyboard. It's fine for light gaming, and midrange gaming too. The 1600x900 screen is probably a better choice for gaming, but the full HD screen gives you more screen real estate for productivity use and is better for HD video obviously. There's been some debate about the i5 vs. i7 in the F series owners lounge. I'd search there before making that decision.

The biggest issues people have with the F are the fan noise and screen. The fan isn't that loud, but it constantly changes speed and whines at certain RPM. Doesn't bother most people, but drives some crazy. Personally, I found it slightly annoying at first but got used to it. The F stays noticeably cooler than most other i7 notebooks I've seen, so there is a positive side to the issue. The screen suffers from poor vertical viewing angles and a lot of light bleed; the same problems that afflict a lot of notebooks these days. You notice it mostly during dark scenes in movies and dark areas in games. It's hard to avoid that particular issue unless you go up in price and get a MacBook or Envy (which aren't perfect either, just have different issues).

For more opinions, check the F owners lounge.

 

If you need to carry it round with you quite frequently, then it might not be a good idea. The F series is quite bulky to carry around with it's weight just over 3kg. However, it's quite good as a desktop replacement or if the laptop will just stay in your dorm most of the time. There is a whinihng noise which is common to most F owners but that's just something you need to cope with as said above. Otherwise, the build and design is very nice(that's what you paying for in fact)

In my opinion, the EB series (15") would be more realistic for uni students as it's more portable and also support 5650 graphics card which you need for gaming. Have a trip to local sony store and look at how big the F really is first and compare to others. Quite possiblily the actual thing is bigger than what you have in mind.

 

Hi -

I have had my F13 for almost 2 weeks now and the fan noise isn't that big of a deal if you aren't hammering on the CPU. With just net surfing, "light" duty, the fan doesn't hum/whine at all on mine. Now if you are really doing some heavy duty stuff, the fan noise is noticeable but I wouldn't call it a whine. IMO.

The laptop itself is large enough to become a bit cumbersome to call it a "mobile" laptop. It can be done, and it's not all that heavy, but it definitely is not the easiest to maneuver around if space is at a premium.

It's a very nice laptop.

 

Iono if ur still thinking bout getting it but I had it for two weeks and I was quite disappointed with it. The stats sound amazing on paper but in reality it's quite a different story. I was gonna be attending college an I thought it would be a great one to have in school and stuff but this is very wrong lol. This is a very heavy machine an now put added books and stuff ur easily talkin bout a heavy load. I agree with the opinion that you should go to th Sony store and lift it up An see how much it weighs for yourself another note since your there definatly check out the screen that wAs my biggest problem it's really hazy Evan after you turn off the auto dim off an you can't calibrate the screen without additional software. Another thing was the battery life if you do plan on buying it definatly get the upgraded battery because the normal one lasts a lil bit OCR the hour an the fan noise was probably fixed because I had no issue but it does lag quite a bit in performance.