Vaio FW - plastic or carbon fibre?

Hello!

So, I'm in a market for a new laptop and I narrowed it down to Apple or Sony. Now, I had a previous gen Macbook Pro, which was a great machine and I'd go for Apple again, but I kind of dislike that they stopped selling laptops and started selling fancy mirrors :S

So anyway, I always liked Sony and now there are 2 options I particularly like:
1. Vaio SR with ATI Radeon 4570, which should deliver similar gaming performance to my MBP
2. Vaio FW with some series 4000 graphic card (is it 4650 or 4670? would love to see 4850, but that's ain't gonna happen...)

So, SR is small, sturdy, portable and should deliver some decent gaming performance (having the option to play Dawn of War II, Demigod, GRID on a laptop as portable as this would be AWESOME).

What about FW? With the better series 4000 ATI card, it should pack some punch (not to mention full HD)! The main question that bothers me is: is the build quality as solid as SR/Z/TT series? I think all those have carbon fibre casing (correct me please if I'm wrong!), and are really top notch. Does FW belong to this group?

I still think nothing beats Apple in terms of built quality (and design, for the most part). The aluminium, super solid casing is great and whatever I buy, I want something that feels as sturdy (so, no plastic! carbon fibre, magnesium alloy, aluminium, etc.), so I could have peace of mind when I'm travelling with the laptop in my backpack...

 

Z and TT are carbon fibre, SR and FW are not. I believe they're magnesium build.

 

I just went yesterday to Best Buy and inspected an FW up close and found the assembly/materials quality exceptionally poor. The palmrest is made from an incredibly thin plastic that moves (a lot!) with hardly any force applied. The LCD and bezel were loose inside the casing, pressing on the bezel moved the entire LCD panel, and again, the plastic felt horribly thin, about the same quality as those Glad reusable plastic dishes you get 5/$3.50. The hinge barrels also felt really loose and poorly constructed, definitely worse than those on the AW. The lid and base are magnesium and feel pretty solid, but I don't know how much that is worth considering the rest of the notebook. I also noticed the top of the screen was not straight, it was warped resulting in the right side being higher than the left when closed, an issue another poster here on this forum had. On the upside, the keyboard was very nice with no flex.

The poor assembly could have been unique to the unit at Best Buy. I've read quite a few reviews which mention very solid build quality. I can't imagine that there's any difference in the quality of plastic used for the palm rest and bezel though. I also looked at the new Macbook Pro (with absolutely no intention of buying) and the build quality between the two can't even be compared, two completely different levels of quality. Of course the Apple is almost twice the price.

I really wanted to like the FW as I was thinking of going from the AW to it, but after seeing it in person, i'm sticking with the AW.

 

kgbeezr1: it might be that the Best Buy model got trashed after months and months of abuse ;-) I've seen Macbooks (plastic) in pretty dire condidtion in the Apple store. Aluminium series seems to hold better.

Will have to look up some retailer and check it out in person. I think it should be a problem to see FW. Finding SR models might be bit harder...

 

I also think that unit you used at Best Buy was just beat-up to death. My FW is fine and doesn't have any problems you described in your post.

 

I would note that after just 6 months of use, my FW shows significant wear on the palm rest and left mouse key - on each, the paint has worn through to the bare plastic and I do not feel that I am a particularly heavy user.

For what it's worth, I don't know if this is common. I was about to start search or start a new thread. Also, other than that, I have found it to be a great computer, that is well built and exceptionally cool and quiet while running.

 

First of all, checking out a display model of a retail version in a retail store is fraught with variables. The Configure to Owns are all checked before shipping whereas perhaps one out of twenty in retail is.

As for the Mac vs. the Vaio, well, a friend who worked in computer repair told me that it was a riot to see that many of the parts inside the Macs literally still have SONY identification markers on them.

So, the MacBook is probably by Sony.... ;-)