Sony F13 cons?

I've heard some complaints about F-series VAIOs having a whining noise, a washed-out display, poor battery life, etc.

I'm just wondering: are these things true for the F13? I would be getting a 1920x1080 Full HD screen; is that "washed out" too? What about the whining noise? I heard a lot of complaints about that in regard to the F11, but what about the F13? Is it still a problem? What about the ambient light sensor for the display?

 

Unfortunately, you are going to get 100 different opinions on this subject. I have an F13 and love it. My screen is not "washed out", I have NO whining noise, and the ambient light sensor isn't a factor for me. I turned it off because I like the screen bright at all times. You can adjust the settings to your liking, including the backlit KB. It's a very nice laptop, my first Sony, after having all Dell's in the past. I don't think you will be disappointed.

Oh - and it's fast.

 

The matte EU premium 1080p screen is very good. The others are noted as being pretty average, including the glossy 1080p screen offered on the US model.

The fan isn't exactly loud so much as it is restless and it does draw attention to itself frequently because its always revving up and down. Between a certain RPM range (roughly between 3400 and 3700 rpm according to Everest) it also emits a whistling sort of sound which drove me nuts at first and then I just got used to it. The fan however does do its job because the gpu and cpu core temps are really good. cpu idles in the mid 40s, gpu in the high 30s/low 40s. After an hour under heavy load on all cores cpu is still in mid 70s to low 80s. gpu is high 60s to low 70s.

Battery life is poor but you learn not to expect much with a quad core cpu. All mobile quads are going to annihilate battery life and they don't have switchable graphics either so if battery life is important to you then you should be looking at Arrandale dual cores instead. The difference in battery range is huge.

The ambient light sensor is annoying and I turned it off straight away. I'd rather adjust the brightness manually using the FN + function keys.

 

Thanks guys. I turned off the ambient sensor in my Mac anyway. I guess it's true about the Quad Core eating up battery life. I wish the F were available with core i5. It is in Japan. Usually I just use my laptop plugged in, but there were a few times when I took my Mac to school or my friends' houses and used the battery and it lasted for a few hours and I liked that.

And yeah, I'm in the US, so I wouldn't be able to get the matte screen and here our only choice is core i7.

 

I got one of EU models SONY VAIO VPCF13Z1E/B.
It comes with matte premium screen.

Cons:

Screen
- My had rly "nice" amount of faulty pixels, counted 10+. After repair/exchange there are like 5... and 4 are near to each other, so they crate ugly "white" dot.
- There is annoying sort of dark bar at the bottom of the LCD. In service they told me, that it's characteristic feature and it's normal - No thx! So many cheaper laps don't have this... so why "Premium" LCD has this crap? It's well visible in full screen, light backgrounds or movies etc., in Windows it's masked by taskbar. All F seem to have it

Fan noise
- It can go up very loud... whats more annoying, it changes speeds all the time. You open browser and you can hear how speed increase, just to go down after while again. It can be limited a bit, by setting "Silent Mode" in Vaio CC. Still goes up, if you play movie or open applications. Disturbing specially at movies.
- Also there is this whistle/whine sound, that Hayte mentioned. Mostly occurs when fan is changing speed. Sometimes you can hear just single short sound, other times it goes periodic... Looks like some kind of mechanic noise of fan seam or what.

Minor cons:

Bloatware

BD/DVD
- Drive could use eject button, like Z and S have. When you try to press eject button on drive, you pull whole drive in a bit. Also when you carry NTB around, you probably pick it by sides. Drive design is similar to some other Vaios, where part of it is in shape of side/bottom of chassis. So on right side you hold it in spot, where drive is. Dunno why, there was need for those 2-3 cm in bottom.

I/O button
- For some (design) reason, SONY made their button visible even at back side of "roll hinge", so when LCD is open, it reflects on it...
- Some ppl might not like, blinking sleep status of I/O, specially at night/dark room



Claimed it once alrdy. LCD - some pixels are gone, but got new ones (How "lucky" one has to be to get 2x LCD with faulty pixels?). Dark bar - not removed. They replaced fan, but it's still the same. Atm trying to return it. It's not lowend ntb and for that pirce faults with LCD and fan whine on "multimedia" lap are just lame.

Other than that, it's awesome machine, so if you don't mind stuff above...

 

I have an F11 w/US shiny 1080p. There are two reasons I wish I had not bought it.

1. Fan noise
2. Screen

In the beginning, #2 was worse than #1, but over time the fan is the biggest pain.

If I were doing it again, I would get ASUS g73, or get maybe an i5 that could use the onboard video.

There is a big variety of opinions on the screens. Part of it depends on what you are used to. I use an IPS 23" with VAIO, and there is no comparison. If it is a 9, the VAIO screen is a 3 or 4. Previously I had a 30" Samsung that also had excellent color and viewing angles. So maybe I am spoiled. Someone who is used to 6bit panels would not notice so much difference maybe.

I have no dead pixels, btw.

 

I have the same problems. I agree with yoy exactly 100%. I spent 1700 euros and i have sony rubbish.

above my post to sony

DISAPOINTED
I would like to complain, inform you about my disappointment for Sony Vaio VPCF13Z1E product. I bought a new laptop on 13-10-2010 and at first windows start I find one white vertical line at desktop. I inform Sony call phone center (Case No 5072921) for this incident and at 22-10-2010 they send me (from shop) a new one. The second new one laptop (SN 27527456 5000203) has also malfunction on two pixel on the center screen(New Case No 50968191). All this trouble above, make me, as a customer of Sony, unhappy and delay me in my job. I cannot accept that Sony products have such too low quality as I describe above. Please as a serious international and big company take action about my problem. I spent 1700 euros and I have one crisp laptop with imperfection.

 

My biggest complain is batterylife.
You can get a 9-cell bigger battery, but that was not a possible upgrade when I bought my F11 in Europe.
Other than that no real cons.
Loving my F

 

When I bought my F11 I already expected poor battery life, so no complain on that matter. Also, I do not experience any kind of whining noise. Fan on my F11 will only speed up when I use a lot of CPU power, like video encoding or playing game. Normally, it is very quiet.

However, its screen is an absolute disappointment. Viewing angle is terrible and screen brightness is visibly uneven. The screen of my 5 year old S460 is much better than this F11's. Though, my F11's screen is not a premium one, I did not expect Sony to use worst screen than what they used 5 years ago.

In where I live, Premium Display only available on $2,997+ models. Anything cheaper than $2,997 will come with crappy Vaio Display.