Sony Vaio FW455 quick review

Hey guys, this is just a quick review of my new Sony FW455 notebook. I bought it recently after a couple months ago my HP DV7 fried its motherboard, after two days of ownership.

Specs:

Colour: Brown
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64bit
Screen: 16.4" glossy 1600x900
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 2.1GHz
Memory: 4GB DDR2 RAM
Hard Drive: 320GB 7200RPM
Optical Drive: DVD read/write, Bluray read
Graphics: ATI mobility 4650 1GB DDR3
A/B/G/N series wireless, Bluetooth, webcam, 6 cell battery

Retail price: $1299, I paid $1199 on sale (Canadian)

So after a week, here are my thoughts:

Build quality: Pretty solid. It is a consumer grade notebook, after using a business grade one for awhile, consumer grade definatly aren't as good. But it is more than acceptable for most ppl, it is supposed to be made from magnesium, instead of plastic. So it does feel fairly solid, but not quite like an aluminum chassis design such as the mac pro's etc.

Keyboard: I like the Vaio's keyboard, a la mac style. Although technically Sony came out with the chiclet keyboard first, everyone associates that style with Mac's...go figure. No dedicated numberpad, with sucks seeing this is a 16.4" widescreen, but not a big deal for me. I like that the multimedia keys are physical buttons, and not touch sensitive like most brands are using nowadays. I have yet to use touch sensitive buttons that work on a notebook. Keys are flat, a little indent would be nice to help prevent finger slippage, but again not a big deal for me.

Screen: Very nice. Colours are crisp, clear, the resolution is perfect for this size screen, great to use. Backlight bleed, I haven't noticed any and I am not going to go looking for some either.

Speakers: Not very good. Now I am used to crappy speakers, so they are plenty fine for me, but they aren't very loud, not much bass, no subwoofer is disapointing as this is a 16" widescreen entertainment notebook. BUT, this is also the smallest and lightest 16" I have yet seen and used, so there must be sacrifices as always. For me, I am happy with the speakers as I mostly use headphones anyways. The speakers are plenty fine for the occasional movie/game at personal distances anyways.

Battery life: Another one of the rather disapointments. Although, it only has the 6 cell battery so really I can't complain, from a full charge down to 10% warning, at high performance mode, lasts roughly 2 hours. The battery does seem to take forever to charge tho, and after the notebook is shut down, the batter will continue to drain. From 100% charge, after 24 hours of sitting unused and shut down, powering it up shows 88% charge. Weird.

Heat/Noise: Heat is ok. If you are just doing general websurfing, word document usage, it will get mildly warm but not hot. However tasking it such as a game, or heavy usage, it will get really warm. Not so hot that it becomes unbearable to have on your lap, but enough to notice for sure. Noise is ok, when the fan is at idle it isn't very loud, but once it spools up it is rather noisy. I am used to much noisier fans tho, so it doesnt bother me at all. No notebook is perfect. This notebook is very thin and light, so heat and noise must be sacrificed somewhat.

Performance: The Intel T6500 is NOT a speed demon. Speed freaks look elsewhere. For everyone else, it is MORE than sufficient. I find it very fast for everyday use, websurfing, typing up documents, playing games, etc. No disapointments here, but again, it is not the fastest processor out there, so keep that in mind. Most ppl would and do find it plenty fast.

Graphics: I don't have any benchmarks to use. I do have Crysis, and Crysis Warhead, altho at the moment I only have played Crysis and only have that one installed. I also don't have fraps.

At 1280x720 resolution, all graphic details set on High, everything runs buttery smooth for me. I have played through the first two levels so far, and no problems at all. Game looks great, plays smooth, so I am plenty satisfied with the game performance. Settings details to very high shows stuttering, or setting the resolution to native. So you have to tone down the details a bit, no biggie for me. For $1200 I wasn't expecting to play Crysis at 1920x1080 details Very high, and I am not willing to get a budget gaming notebook just for that purpose.

Overall, I am very happy with my Sony. Very stylish, lightweight, thin, powerful, at a great price. We'll see how long it lasts...

-Krait

 

Thanks for the brief review. It's great!

Did you experience a fair amount of keyboard flex?

Wished it had a black keyboard instead of the shiny silver.

 

good review, very helpful, if possible can you take pictures? i have yet to see many Chocolate Brown colour FW's only a very small handful. and if possible in different lighting conditions, indoors, outside, day, night etc , you dont have to have it would be really awesome if you could. thanks!

 

I don't notice much keyboard flex, I love this keyboard. In fact, I think there is almost none at all. It is very stiff and sturdy. The keyboard is also dropped down from the touchpad area slightly, so your palms rest on a slightly raised surface while typing. It is very comfortable to use.

I don't have the silver keyboard, it is the chocolate brown colour so the cover is chocolate brown, and the inside is all black. I love the touchpad as well, it is one of the better ones I have used on a notebook.

I will try to take pics, I have a Nikon D90 so when I have time and feel like it I will try to take some pics and upload. It is a very thin, lightweight, and stylish notebook. The colour is great, when I went to buy it I was expecting the titanium silver colour one, but instead the model they had was the chocolate brown, which is very nice. My G/F has a Caramel Brown 14" Sony Vaio, so at least we match lol.

-Krait