Sony Vaio F series VPCF13AFX/B

VPCF13AFX/B | VAIO® F Series Laptop | Sony | Sony Style USA

I am thinking of buying this laptop. a new f model. vpcf13afx/b
what do you guys think of this? is this a good laptop?

 

The UK/EU version has a pretty awesome matte 1080p screen upgrade and its in the upper end of the plastic notebooks in terms of build quality. The camera grip palm rest rocks and I want to see it on more notebooks for sure.

The downsides are terrible battery life (even when compared to other multimedia class notebooks) but you can't expect too much with a quad core i7. There is an option to go with Arrandale i5 but you won't be able to get that glorious 1080p matte screen which for me is the highlight of the series. Its quite big and heavy too so don't expect it to be portable.

The other great downsides are the speakers which are universally terrible on all Sony notebooks (mobile phone quality). The other big downside is the extremely restless fan which makes a whining noise at certain cpu fan rpms (for me its between 3200rpm and 3700rpm). That said, the fan can't be said to not do its job because the temps are very good compared to the competition and the gpu despite being only a mid range part has pretty good overclock headroom and it never gets stupidly hot. Notebookcheck have done a review of the F11 and F12 and they are very accurate so do make sure to read them.

If you can deal with the faults then theres alot to like but the price bump on the F13 was significant considering the only thing you get over the F12 is USB3.0 and a slightly faster fermi type gpu. The F12 was competitively priced and featured compared to the Dell Studio XPS 16 towards the end of its life when there were new deals like the free blu ray upgrade every week but the F13 is just a little bit too expensive for what it is imho. That said if you buy into Sony its pretty normal to have to pay the "just because" Sony premium. It looks classy and no doubt you are paying a premium for the styling.

If you want a flat out gamer your best bet is still ASUS G73 and if you want multimedia laptop with a screen to die for then I'd say the Dell Studio XPS 16 edges it out for bang for buck these days.

 

He should be fine as he live in the US. The price in the US is extremely cheap compare to ones in the UK and their price hasn't moved from F12 to F13, so it's not that bad for him. The only things he might not get is the matte premium screen and the palm rest, that's all.

Still, I can't believe they raised the price by 100 pounds in the UK with just the addition of usb 3.0 (if you look at the F(V) ).

 

I paid £1,219.00 for a custom F(X) at the end of August 2010 with these specs:

i7 740QM
Windows 7 Pro
6gb RAM
320gb 5400rpm hdd
blu ray writer (free upgrade)
1080p premium screen upgrade

Now you get 2x USB 3.0 and a GT425M instead of 2x USB 2.0 and a GT330M and the same specs (assuming free blu ray writer upgrade whenever it shows up) costs £1479.01 so thats £260.01 more. Imho thats quite a price hike.

He might get a good price on the F(X) in the US but no premium matte screen? If the Studio XPS 16 still has the Adobe RGB screen then its no contest. Get the XPS.