Recieved custom FE

Just recieved my custom built FE. Ordered it on the 25th. It shipped from San Diego, I guess that's why I got it so fast (Orange County).

My specs are:

2 GHz Duo
nvidia go 7400
no camera (never needed one and can't think of any reason why I would ever need one)
100 GB HD
512 RAM (I will wait for the 667 RAM and then upgrade to 2GB)
DVD burner

First impressions:

Sony got really cheap on the packaging. The notebook doesn't even have a separate box, but was just held by plastic wrap on cardbord in the middle of the main box (just like books from amazon sometimes).

No CD's or anything, so I guess I have to back up that stuff myself...again kind of cheap imho. A set of restore CD's would have made me feel safer too.

The same battery problems as reported before. It's kind of loose and will create a rattling sound when the notebook is carried around. Not a major issue for me, since this is going to be mainly stationary.

Looks pretty cool. A little different then the FS...more white I think. The lid feels very sturdy, but the plastic around the keyboard feels a little bit like cheap plastic and makes my palms sweat faster than other laptops.

The screen is nice and really bright. The nvida control panel says that the 7400 has 256 MB VRAM, I don't know how else to verify this if someone has further interest in exploring this issue and can tell me where to look, I will do it.

I am a little disapointed by the cheapness of the typing area, since this is where my hands are spending most of their time. I will play around with it for a few days and see how disturbing this is going to be.

 

Is it made in china or made in japan?
Thanks

 

Made in U.S. with foreign components

 

Cool! Its time you update your avatar !

 

Is the problem with the keyboard/palmrests that the casing is more heat-conductive than other laptops you're used to, or something else with the design? Just curious, since I'm awaiting my customized FE too...and I'm in SD, so hopefully it will get here soon (maybe it's even waiting for me...still at work now). Anyway, I thought I read that the FE had a re-designed chassis compared to the FS, which was supposed to be made of a magnesium alloy or something. From your comments, it sounds like this isn't the case?

 

Well it sure feels like cheap plastic to me. The material of the lid seems to be different (feels much more solid - I would have prefered that on the palmrest area). I don't think it's so much the heat, but the material that make my palms sweat more. I might be wrong though. Like I said, I will play around with it some more and see if I get used to it.

 

Small update.

I noticed that it is really silent! I hear almost zero fan activity. So far it was mostly setup and internet activity. It's much more silent than my wife's Fujitsu S7020.

The right palmrest area is getting quite toasty. The left one is also getting warm, but the right one definately much warmer. This is probably also contibuting to my sweaty palms, aside from the material.

The HD is just one big partition (I like 2, so I might get partition magic) and 20 GB are used for restore stuff... at least it's NTFS, so that's nice.

Super Pi to 2 million digits (with out of box settings). 1 minute and 13 seconds...Ha ha, eat this Acer.

 

Have u try any intense games?

 

that's really really fast!! if you put more ram maybe it would go even faster

 

wonderful first hand impression
I feel bad abt the cheapness as well.. hm sony has got to buck up in this aspect. As for the recovery CD, rest assured all new sony notebooks nowadays do not have any recovery as they expect u to burn that own recvery partition into DVD(alr did for mine) - kinda cheap on their part too I feel.
Enjoy your new notebook and do post pics if u can

 

It is INCREDIBLY cheap on their part considering how much you pay for their notebooks and how little it costs to make the cds/dvds.

I dunno if HP does it anymore, but my notebook from them I got in August came with recovery cds whereas I know you could pay twice for a Sony and still get no cds, a real shame Sony, reeeaaaallll shame.

 

Haven't tried any games yet, and currently have no time either. I tried running 3D Mark 05 but it crashed, probably not enough RAM.

I also think there are already enough pics of FE's floating around, so I won't post new ones. It looks just like them.

 

I was able to reduce Sony's bloatware to "only" 350 MB RAM (before it was around 450 or so). That finally enabled me to run 3D Mark 05. The 3D score was 1714 and the CPU score 5328. Keep in mind that I only have 512 RAM, I suspect with 1 or 2 Gigs of RAM that score should be around 2000 or so.

 

That seems extremely high, if you have a look round the forum someones done a post on a clean install for the Sony S if your interested, i would imagine you could pretty much knock off another 100mb without to much trouble

 

Yeah, I was thinking about this myself, but there are several caveats.
1. Don't I need my own copy of XP? If so, I think I just wait till Vista. I don't want to spend another $150.
2. I will get 2 GB pretty soon anyway (need it for a statistical program), then 100MB seem negligible.
3. Some of Sony's programs seem useful. I don't know how to decide what to keep and what to discard as they might all come in handy one day (music and video stuff, etc.)

 

Sounds like my mine was delivered today and ill see it when i get home from work....... DaCheese... what stuff were you able to remove? I know ill be wanting to remove some as well i also only have the 512 mb of ram until iam able to upgrade...wasn't going to pay sony's ridiculous prices....

 

Theres probaly an easier way so this might prompt some wizard to chip in but you can just use your recovery discs, once its run and restarted and youve gone through putting your details in again it'll start to install all the Sony add on crap just cancel it, then remove the programme from your program startup list (so it doesnt keep tryin to install everytime you start your notebook up), your then free to pick and choose what if any programmes you want to reinstall. you can google the individual programme names to get info about how shiny they are to you

(Note: This works on the Sony S im assuming it should on FE)

 

Cool, thx. I might try this.

 

Some more things I found out while playing around with it. The HD is under the left palmrest, so it's kind of surprising that the right one is getting warmer than the left one. Maybe that is where the GPU is? RAM and HD is easily accessible, but to get to any other parts you will have to take it completely appart. The enclosure around the screen feels pretty flimsy and I can see it easily breaking off if you accidentally get it cought in something.

Also, either I am getting used to the plastic palmrests or they are getting less toasty. I feel it was worse in the beginning. I wish there was some kind of leather thing you could on them, cause the plastic is still making making my hands sweaty...


Ran PCMark05 and got 3814. Can't wait to bumb this baby to 2 Gigs..

 

Is there a way you can tell how much of video RAM is dedicated? It's not like I'd get a laptop anytime soon, but it'll be nice to know.

 

DaCheese, what would you rate the build quality out of 10?

 

Ok, some more about built quality and size. I had an Acer Ferrari 4005 for some time, so I will compare it to that. It feels lighter and looks slimmer than the Ferrari. I don't know if it actually is. The outlets are also more conveniently located imo. It is also much quieter. I can't believe a notebook with a dedicated GPU and a non-low-voltage CPU can actually be that quiet! It is even quieter than my wife's Fujitsu S7020, which doesn't even have a dedicated GPU.

In general it feels solid. And I get zero ripples when I press on the lid from the back. I like the material (whatever it is) the lid is made from. It feels cool and very solid to the touch. The screen itself is also pretty good imo. Nice and bright. And even though its only WXGA the real estate on the screen seems adequate. The parts that are not so great imo is the plastic finish surounding the screen area on the inner lid and the plastic surounding the keyboard (palmrest). Like I said the plastic finish surounding the screen area is not very solid and feels like it ould easily break if it gets accidentaly stuck somewhere, which might happen since it is not very well attached to the lid. I don't know how Sony came up with the palm rest area material. To me it just feels really cheap.

 

case is made mostly from magnesium

 

i don't really know much about built quality for anything..
is that good or bad? ^^;;

 

wow 1700 is pretty nice for that card, not extremely fast but it will handle many games without any problems

 

Its magnesium alloy. I check it on sony website.

Btw, DaCheese. Is this machine cool enough to put it on your laps.

 

I haven't really tried yet. It's kinda too big for that imo. The right side gets quite toasty on the bottom though. I don't think it will burn you, but you will get a pretty warm right leg....

 

What's the discrete video ram on the GeForce Go 7400? I know its 256 shared with RAM so was wondering how much is discrete

 

If you tell me how I can find this out, I will tell you. It says 256 everywhere (in system config and also in the 3D Mark 05 program).

 

Have you tried the program SiSoftware Sandra Lite? It might tell you, but other than that I have no idea. I search through the Sony site and found nothing also.

http://www.sisoftware.net/

 

So its tolerable to put it on your lap. That's nice to know. Does the palm area get warm or hot? That's the most important thing to me. Is the screen still as good as when you first receive the laptop?

 

Warm, not excessivly hot, but like I said, it makes my palms sweat. I think it is a combination of the material with the heat that is causing that. Screen is still very nice. Really bright. I actually had to decrease the brightness a little, even when plugged in.

 

Tells me the same.... Here is the output:

SiSoftware Sandra

Video Adapter
Model : NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400
Chipset : GeForce Go 7400
RAMDAC : Integrated RAMDAC
Video BIOS : Version 5.72.22.26.A1
VGA Compatible : No
Total Memory : 256MB (243MB Video) (1kB System)
Texture Memory : 243MB
Supports DIME Texturing : Yes

PCIe Capabilities
Version : 1.00
Physical Slot Implemented : No
Phantom Functions Support : No
Maximum Payload Size : 128
Width : x16
Speed : 2.5Gb/s

Video BIOS
Date of Manufacture : Friday, December 02, 2005
Version : 5.72.22.26.A1

Current Video Mode
Mode : 1280x800 16M+ TrueColour (32-bit)
Current Refresh Rate : 60Hz
Virtual Desktop Size : 1280x800

Video Driver
Model : nv4_mini.sys
Version : 6.14.10.8320
Expected Windows Version : 4.00
Video Acceleration : Yes
Screen Saver Active : 20 minutes(s)
Screen Saver Name : C:\WINDOWS\system32\vaiomov.scr
Low Power Saving Active : No
Power Off Saving Active : No

 

Oh and I did the reinstall. Worked very nice. I got rid of the recovery partition and lots of useless programs. Now my HD has 90 GB free space instead of 80 and it starts up faster as well.

 

I see, well I did the Email A Question on the Sony site, seeing if I get anything about the VRam. If it has a decent amount of discrete VRam, then I'm gonna buy a customize FE. How do you like the FE overall? Decent? Worth buying?

 

Does it matter?

 

Bwahaha....yah ok.... Please don't use my threat to voice your opinion about chinese products. Thank you.

I will not answer any further to any of your posts regarding this issue.

 

I think I like it. It's not my dream come true (I listed the points I dislike earlier), but it's pretty decent.

Another point I discovered that I like is the keyboard. I like the flex of it and the sound it makes while typing is kind of ... satisfying? So far I think it's worth buying.

The other laptop I considered was the Acer 8204, but I am kind of glad I didn't go for it as quite a few people report problems with it.

 

I read in another thread that the GeForce Go 7400 in the FE590 has 128 discrete graphics, so the FE is what I plan on buying, once I can get the cash for it. Can't wait, will be a big upgrade from what I have now. My poor 4 year old laptop that I've had for to long now. Plan on turning it into a Linux machine later.

 

To Valkyrie, wake up! nearly all electronics and computers are made in China nowadays so don't think just because it's made in China the quality is lower

 

Is there any vents on the FE? I've looked at some images from sony.com and don't seem to see a vent at all.

 

There is one two inch by one inch(just guesswork here) vent on the back and one three inch by one inch vent on the bottom, middle going parralell to the sides(so works great for interlap with slightly spred legs)

No skirts for me though, not like i wear them much any ways hehe

i am actualy planning on buying this notebook in two weeks. provided my credit holds up, if not, it'll be closer to 6 weeks

btw this review is rockin, very very good, thanks for supplying it

 

So that was a vent, I couldn't tell, image wasn't angled well. Won't be on my lap at all, desks mostly, either in class or on my desk at home.

 

I guess the vent issue is cleared? Custom ones look just the same.

Also I got 2 gigs of Corsair 667 CL5 RAM. Numbers for 3D Mark 05 and PC Mark didn't really change. just about 10 points for both of them. That was kind of disapointing...

 

As long as it runs WoW or AoEIII, I'll be happy.

 

Hey DaCheese, have you tried any other games on it? Maybe Far Cry or Counter Strike Source.. . .

Nice RAM.

 

i thought 667 RAM ran to hot to be considered for puting into a note book?

 

i guess thats obviously not the case...

 

Now that you've had the notebook for two weeks, do you have anything more positive/negative to add to your review? I ordered one, though it looks like it'll take a while to ship (and it's possible I could still cancel it, if something devastatingly nasty comes up with the design).

 

Can anyone say if the FE will be able to play Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII its one of the games iam really looking forward to playing along with a bunch of rpg games...