Thinking of getting Sony FW

Why buy when you can rent? And if you're going to rent, why not rent the better media?

Beyond that, why do you care if people want to spend more money to buy a superior product?

 

Just thought it was worth mentioning that you would lose more money not only by buying the blu ray, but also because blu ray discs are more expensive. And who rents these days anyway? Download all you can while its still possible.

 

We can only dream of 7200rpm hard drives in sony models here in Belgium.

 

Definitely agree with you there. But if you really wanted the FW CTO with Bluray you could get it with the standard opti drive and then buy a BD ROM off of eBay.

I was considering doing that when they first went on back-order but were still available. Though I just bit the bullet and waited a few extra days to get it from Sony.

 

It seems im the only one here who is oppossed of overexpensive new technologies that are being forced onto us.

 

You can still watch your "cheap dvds and free movies" in a computer having a blu-ray drive.

What you cannot do, is to watch blu-ray content in a laptop that does not have a blu-ray drive.

I watch blu-rays and DVDs at home, via a PS3 (blu-ray drive).

 

Alright...well...
Is the 1900x1600(whatever it is) worth it if i'm not going to be watchin blu-ray dvd's?
Cause I don't buy movies really...especially not blu-rays...
Like does it do anything for gaming or does web surfing look amazing with it? (joke)

Cause if it isn't...
I'm lookin at gettin..

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8700 (2.53GHz)
Genuine Microsoft® Windows® 7 Home Premium
Black
320GB SATA Hard Disk Drive (7200rpm) <----------7200 downloads faster into the hd or what does it do..?
4GB (2GBx2) DDR2-SDRAM-800
16.4" VAIO Display (1600x900)
ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4650 graphics with 1GB dedicated video RAM
CD/DVD playback/burning
No Fresh Start
Microsoft® Works

 

I don't know what you're talking about, I have a few 1080p BD movies on my hard-drive. Most of them are 720p though because my laptop's screen resolution is only 1600x900. No BD-player here in the laptop though, just a normal DVD-player.

 

What's your point? Either you subscribe to a service, pirate them off of a torrent or you're ripping the disc with Slysoft on another pc and transferring to your laptop.

Based on your logic, I could argue that I could watch Betamax or Laserdisc movies on my laptop.

 

Neither 1920x1080 nor 1600x900 is, in my opinion, desirable. Each screen has its own weakness. 1920 is brighter, the color is richer, it has 100% color saturation, it is less reflective, and of course it has higher resolution. BUT you are going to have to deal with font being too small. Increasing the DPI would remedy this problem somewhat but not for OLDER applications. Some older applications would look awkward even with the help of Windows 7 supposedly better DPI scaling. Win 7 better scaling ability wouldn't do any good if the application itself is not designed for DPI scaling.

Now, the 1600 screen is dimmer, the color is less vibrant, it is more reflective and of course lower resolution. But then you don't have to deal with font being too small. 1600x900, in my opinion, is perfect for a 16.4" screen. Not too high, not too low.

The problem with both of these screens is the reason why I stick with my FW190. I would love to buy a new one with faster GPU but I don't like either screen. FW190 is the only model in the FW series that offers rich color, brighter screen at 1600. Such screen, unfortunately, has been discontinued.

Hope this helps!

 

My point is that laptop BD players are pretty useless these days. When DVDs came out, external hard-drives weren't popular so in terms of laptop usage, it was mostly for backups and transferring files.

 

Except for those like me who doesn't even have a TV. For me, a laptop Blu-ray/DVD drive is absolutely essential. It is my only way to watch movies. It is the only reason that I replaced my perfectly good laptop, since its GPU can't play Blu-ray reliably.

I have never owned a DVD or a Blu-ray player in my life. The last player I had was my old VCR. I am doing this not out of saving money, but out of practicality. I just don't like to see a TV and a player sitting there in my room doing something that can be done with my portable laptop. I don't like to see extra stuffs taking space in my space conscious living space. It becomes an eyesore.

And before somebody says that Blu-ray doesn't make any difference with a laptop, think again. A properly transferred Blu-ray movie makes a night and day difference, even with my 16.4" laptop. Eventhough the resolution is not Full HD. Just take a look at Baraka, Lost Season 5, 2001 A Space Odyssey Blu-ray version and compare them to the DVD version. The difference is very obvious. It's night and day!

 

This is the key. Many of the movies that are out on Blu-ray are not using the capacity and the ability of the Blu-ray disc. The source material is probably derived out of a regular DVD with the only difference being that the contents have been transferred to a bluray disc. There are several movies however, that truly utilize the capacity of a 50GB blu-ray disc by having mind-blowing video and superb un-compressed Audio and on my 65" plasma, the playback is just mindblowing.

PS: In this day and age, I am no longer interested in a laptop that comes with ancient CD/DVD burners. I absolutely want a Blu-ray burner in it (which in turn will also burn CD/DVDs too). In the Sony Vaio outlet, I find several laptops costing over $3000 and equipped with CD/DVD burners......I am not sure any informed person in December 2009 would even consider such products (I hope nobody buys them, so that Sony will get the message to not bring out such models without at least bluray playback capability).

 

Totally agree. sony is a premium brand. Every vaio notebook with a optical drive should have bluray plus ati/nvidia graphics as standard. If its too expensive go buy a Compaq from walmart .

Sonys recent fault is the 100's of retail configurations with gaping holes in the spec sheets.The worst example is the the €550 NW20EF/W that doesn't have an HDMI port. Hello we are entering 2010 sony this nickel and diming of your products is fragmenting your core brand philosophy.Sony should copy Apples feature packed yet simple product lines (MB-MBP-AIR) NOT €1700 atom equipped VGAout netbooks (TT) and poverty specification entery level notebooks for emos to surf youtube.

 

The 1600/1900 resolutions are excellent for programming, at least in my case. I have a sony vaio z with 1600 and I love it. I can have several windows open at same time while working and this helps a lot.

 

Why would you want a bluray? Apart from watching movies and can't see other use.

 

The ability to watch high definition moves is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what one can do with a blu-ray burner.

I am certain you have also heard about the 50GB+ capacity (the latest ones upto 250GB with multiple layers) of a blue-ray disc.

In addition to the ability to author high-definition content (I have high-definition camcorders and I would like to transfer its contents to a format that I can enjoy on my 65" plasma TV), you can also use the MASSIVE size of the blue-ray disc to backup data too.

The CD/DVD drives are last decade's technology and have no business being in a high-end laptop costing 1000s of dollars and I personally would not pay the high price for it when we are about to enter the year 2010.

 

HP is the worst quality producer in the West, so I bet your gonna enjoy your sony which is 2nd in the quality report (see the link in my signature). Although it would be nice if you could hold out till CES passes this january to see what other models Sony might launch...they can't seriously still try to sell laptops with 800 mhz ram and core 2 duo's in 2010.

 

Long time since I posted.
But just came around since I'm near ordering a new laptop. Was wondering if they made any changes to the FW series since there are new threads with updates on other series that Sony is producing.
Any thoughts?
Thanks.

 

A couple of changes that immediately stand out are: The F-series (new name for the FW-series) has moved onto faster DDR3-1066 RAM, from the earlier DDR2-800 RAM that the FW had.

The second change is of course the CPUs are of the new generation of processors from Intel, including the i7 etc. The graphics card is now changed to that from the Nvidia line.

The next change that I could immediately detect was that they managed to shoe-horn numeric keys beside the regular keypad.

Things like the great screen and other things about the FW have stayed the same.

Of course there are other changes but these are things that immediately sprang forth.

 

For all new changes in F-series, they are very instering but what about the price?

 

Based on historical trends, every new generation is introduced with newer/better features, while the price does not change over the prior version.

However, if you are willing to pick up the prior version, the street prices may be lower than the street prices of the newer models, since retailers would want to eliminate old stock. I personally prefer paying a bit more for the newer models.

 

i dont see much of a discount on sonystyle now, compared to the deals they have before xmas..

 

Except for a 36-month no-interest deal currently running (ending on Jan 9th). In my opinion, that deal is a big enough "indirect" discount.

 

The Base F will be more expensive than most current FW models . The new i5/7 processors, 1920x1080 screen,1GB nvidia graphics,4GB+ ddr3 ram and bluray across the range isn't going to be cheep.

Compare that to a $800 retail FW with no bluray drive, 1600 x 900 screen ,t6600 Processor, 3gb ddr2 ram and 256mb ATI graphics.IMO The base i5 F will retail over $1099.

 

We may very well to surprised to learn (in a few days) that with the additional features/upgrades in place, they held the line on price. Even though its sounds illogical, historically that is how the electronics industry trends.

Newer and better things keep on surfacing and to the frustration of the folks who purchased the older versions, the price actually goes downward. I prefer waiting to get a clearer read on how things will shake out, regarding pricing.

 

So the keyboard for the f series is different from the fw series?
I would rather them not have added the number keypad. That really sucks.

So how long is it until this stuff is shipped out? Or is that unannounced still.
Guess I'll have to wait a little still.