Should I go for the FJ?

Hey everyone. I currently own an aging Vaio NV170. You may remember the NV from about 4 years ago, it's main feature being the removable bays, one of which was a subwoofer.

Anywho, it's running a 1.7ghz Pentium 4m, 512mb ram, and a meager by today's standards 30gig hard drive. I've been extremely happy with the performance of the comp, and Sony's service to me, so I'm looking to repeat.

The FJ series seems right up my alley, and with the 10th anniversary colors going now I think I want to get in on it before they discontinue (Sony's brainwashing does work huh? ). I've read around on the reviews and it seems to stack up pretty well, but I thought I would definately post here to see what others say.

The reason I am upgrading is simple, my computer runs Photoshop just a bit too slow. For any sort of travel purposes, at 15" non-wide screen it also seems to be just a bit larger than necessary. I don't use an external monitor at home, but this would be a must with the FJ I feel. Photoshop is about the only program I use, save for surfing the net on Firefox, and I am still not convinced of Apple reliability to go that route.

So, with that in mind, I'll open the floor, but disclaimer that I have looked at the SZ series and think it's not for me for a few reasons. It's a bit more expensive than I'm looking for (partially due to the fact that I'd get it with 2 gigs of ram instead of the 1 gig FJ), and it's just a little too small. The FJ is like with goldy locks, it's just right!

 

For what it's worth, I bought a FJ270/b based on reviews from this site, sent it back to Sony twice, and eventually convinced them to let me return it for credit towards the purchase of another laptop through Sony.

The FJ model gave me lots of problems with odd, high-pitched (albeit quiet high-pitched) sounds that occured in various circumstances. The whine would happen when I ran certain programs, when the computer went in standby, and particularly when the computer ran off battery power. Overall, I liked the FJ model, but the crazy sounds my computer made (even after returning it once for a new model, having Sony replace the motherboard, and further troubleshooting by them) drove me nuts. If Sony hadn't of issued me credit for the model, I was planning on selling it myself.

I have, however, heard of other people that have had no problems at all with their FJs... maybe all mine came from a lousey shipment?

PS - One other, highly annoying, issue: the computer would make a whining sound when it was completely shutdown and turned off ---- Sony reps told me this noise was normal (?!?!?) for this model. Weird, right?

 

my fe does the high pitch noice when it goes on standby and is connected to the outlet, i though this is normal since i hear a lot about these high pitch noises, should i be concerned?

 

You mentioned you travel. I remember taking a look at the FJ and it was a bit bulky. I have an SZ 110 since May now and its a light 4.1 lbs and good screen size. I'd recommend the SZ. There is a new SZ tat came out. I think the FJ is advertised for the college crowd since it has the color style option. Dont know the specs. I'll stop now. LOL

 

I would not suggest getting the FJ. The FE and SZ are the way to go IMO.

 

I would agree.