Sony FS Series Available... Sort of?

Hey guys,

The Sony FS Series seems to be available now from various retailers (including sonystyle), but lacks major configuration options (such as the new geforce go chipset!)

Any ideas when this will become available?

Thanks.

 

Ooo... Sonystyle USA JUST updated their website today. Guess I spoke too soon.

Now the question is...

Where are the reviews!

 

There is a Japanese review out on the FS70B (1.73 GHz, DDR333 256MB RAM X2, 4200 RPM 80 GB Ultra-ATA) with Geforce Go 6200 and it's ugly. Its 3DMark03/01 are 2120/9065, which beat the Radeon 9200 and Geforce Go 5200 convincingly, but fall short of the Radeon 9700 equipped S170/270/360 (2700/10000 range without OC).

EDIT:
Forgot the link for those who like to use translator or can read Japanese:
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2005/0120/hotrev257.htm

 

This is going to sound ironic, but this actually pleases me immensely. I recently had an opportunity to handle an S series laptop at Fry's the other day, and I was very impressed with it and I really liked it.

Then I heard about the FS series, which uses Sonoma and a supposedly "uber" graphics chipset. Generally speaking, the Centrinos right before Sonoma are plenty fast (for me) for general application usage, and the only reason I was considering the FS series was for games (via Sonoma and and the 6200) and for the larger screen.

If the S series actually performs better or even similarly in games, then I have no need for the Sonoma or the 6200, and I can just get the S series and forget about a larger screen (13.3 isn't bad anyway).

Skyshade: Just generally speaking, what do you *not* like about your S series? The only negative thing I've heard about it is that the cooling fan can be quite loud.

 

Well, you know what, I really can't think of anything that I don't like about my S170. Maybe the fact that the right-hand-side of keyboard (to the right of K & L keys) does get pretty warm when you do very intense gaming for extended period of time, but considering no other laptops this size can handle these games anyway, I have no complain. Same goes to the fan noise, I do like it to be less, but it's by no mean loud and a necessary evil for the performance. In fact, I have used my laptop in presentations and no one really notice it.

I do hope the Blue Tooth to come standard with S because it really make the design of S shine -- some people complain about the covers on some ports, but this is a mobile laptop designed to go completely wireless and you can easily achieve total wirelessness with Wi-fi & BT. There is no need to use those ports anyway.

I also like to see more programmable options for "S" buttons, but at the moment I only use one of them so it's not a take-away for me.

The only other thing I can think of is the price tag. I think S is the real deal within the Sony line-up, assuming you need the functionality it provides, but it never hurts to have a lower price tag. You may benefit from the Sonoma hype and get a good deal on S actually. On the other hand, this may be the exact reason that Sony USA is in no hurry to release a Sonoma S as in Japan -- no real performance improvement but worse battery life, might as well grab the market with cheap Dothan.

 

@Skyshade,
I tried to get my hands on a S2XP with a ati 9700 card.
But it is impossible to get it anymore here (holland) only thing i can get is the new s3xp ( in 2 weeks ) with the new go6200 TC and that's such a shame :-( it was the perfect notebook for me light for travel and powerfull when needed... I realy don't know now if i should buy the new s3xp because it feels to me as a downgrade....

on the otherhand there is no other notebook like this....

Hmz.... all those choices makes me crazy [ )]

 

I'm sorry to hear that, Tiberian. I think the S3 in Europe will perform slightly better than the FS70B tested because it uses DDR2-400 memory and has 5400 RPM Serial ATA HDD (assuming that the S3 is very similar to the S92 in Japan), so hopefully you will still get something more comparable to S2 with a possibility (knowing Sony, it's kind of slim though) to upgrade in the future, despite the fact that you don't really get much of a performance boost with the new S3. Good luck with your notebook hunting.

 

thx, well let's see if this so called go6200 tc can run recent games like hl2 or somthing like that. Because besides work, work, work i like to play a fps or a rts
If it does not, i think i wait for the next "S". But one thing is for sure, there is no other notebook like the "s"
Let's wait and see....