Vaio FW first impressions incl. pics and benchmarks

VAIO FW First Impressions

I decided to write an actual review but because I don't have much time right I'm just going to share some pro's and con's about my pre-build Vaio VGN-FW140D with the following specs:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8400
3GB PC2-6400
250GB 5400rpm
DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/RAM
16.4" 1600 x 900
ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3470 256MB dedicated
Atheros 802.11b/g/n Wireless
Integrated Stereo A2DP Bluetooth® Technology
Standard Capacity Lithium-ion Battery
Genuine Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Premium with SP1

$999 CDN after $100 CDN coupon (from sonystyle.ca); final price including tax and such was $1,055 CDN.


First of all, here are some pics of this laptop, enjoy!














Some benchmark tests (I will run some 3dmark tests later today):
all benchmarks were run @ stock settings with stock drivers

PCMark 05



PCMark Vantage



[color='DarkGreen'WPrime + SuperPi[/COLOR]

[IMG]http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm40/CeeNote_01/Vaio%20FW/wprimesuperpi.jpg[/IMG]

[color='DarkGreen']Windows Experience Index[/COLOR]



HDTune Read



3DMark 06



World in Conflict in-game benchmark run @ 1600x900 res and lowest settings



Company of Heroes in-game benchmark run @ 1600x900 res and low settings



PRO's

-awesome value
-good build quality (sturdy body, very little flex)
-beautiful design, thin and sleek
-the XBrite ECO screen is awesome (it's sufficiently bright and very evenly lit, can't ask for anything more)
-the keyboard feels really comfortable once you get used to the spacing in between the keys.
-includes useful video editing software
-no glossy finish (except for the screen) so it doesn't attract any fingerprints
-fans are quiet and still provide adequate cooling, only the palm wrests get somewhat warm

CON's

-made entirely of plastic (strong plastic nevertheless)
-oddly-placed usb ports (get in the way of the optical drive)
-TONS of bloatware
-no Vista OEM disc, not even a recovery disc or a driver disc is included (you can burn the recovery discs yourself though, it takes about 30min)
-speakers are clear but too quiet

Overall my impression is very positive. Before I got to this laptop I bought and returned 2 others, both of which were much more expensive but this lappy is simply great. I highly recommend the Vaio FW for anyone who's looking for a lower-priced, well performing and well build laptop that's also got the looks.

 

Nice pics CeeNote, I really like the white.

 

Thanks PhilFlow, yes the white does look really nice on this laptop and it's actually much thinner and lighter than I'd expect from a laptop with this screen size.

 

Nice review, thanks!

Question: could you define "speaker too quiet"? How is watching a movie on them? Is it enough? How is listening to music?
And, burning the recovery discs: do you have to use CD-R's or DVD-R's??

 

CeeNote- how is typing with the keyboard? do you need to reach to get to any keys (enter or shift (left)?
i'm crossing my fingers that my CTO FW comes with a standard keyboard as appose to the bilingual one.
but judging by your photos there doesn't seem to be much compromise.
And, i noticed you have the core duo sticker, does that mean you have a Atheros wireless card instead of the intel?

 

Listening to music is fine but even relatively minor distractions can make it hard to hear some of the more quiet parts of a movie even at max volume. The laptop is very quiet though so the speakers should still suffice in most circumstances.

You have to use 2 DVD-R's for the recovery discs, CD-R's won't work.

The keyboard is very comfortable and you don't have to reach to get to any keys. It took me a couple hours to get used to it but I really like it now. It feels a bit "softer" than most keyboards. Yeah I got the bilingual keyboard which is kinda weird having some keys labeled in both English and French but it's not that bad imo.

Yes I also got the Atheros wireless card which works really well actually.

 

Right on! that was my main concern
thanks for clearing things up, thanks for the pics
cant wait to get mine

 

Can you use DVD-R DL?

 

No problem! Yeah the waiting is the hardest part lol!

I think you can but I'm not sure.

 

Yes when you burn your recovery disk you can choose to use 1 DL disk or 2 regular DVDs. It takes a while, took me about an hour for some reason.

 

Hey Cee,

Wowsa! Nice looking lappy! It was well worth the wait for you!

The picture's were very sharp, and clear also!

Congrat's, and kudo's on an excellent *mini review*! WoOT! :yes:

Now, take the time to really enjoy....

Cin

 

That's weird, I remember it said it would take about an hour but only took me about 20-30 min.

Thanks a bunch Cin, yea I love this laptop. I've finally found what i've been looking for

 

I love the white casing and white keyboard. They look better than titanium gray casing and black keyboard. Do you think that the white keyboard would collect more dirt overtime? That's the only thing that holding me choosing the white keyboard.

 

No I don't think the keyboard will collect any dirt. Obviously I don't know for sure since I've only had it for a couple days but I don't think so.

 

Wow great pics

 

Thanks!

 

Cee,

Wow, great pictures! I got a white one too and I love it. At the risk of sounding stupid, could you explain what all the benchmarks mean?????

Thanks,

Cinger

 

No worries, the first two benchmarks, PCMark 05 and PCMark Vantage measure the performance of the whole laptop and can be used to compare this one to other laptops. WPrime and SuperPi simply measure the performance of the processor though WPrime is more accurate because it uses both processor cores. 3DMark benchmarks (which I'll post later on) just measure the performance of the video card. There are other benchmarks as well, like HDtune which measures the performance of the hard drive and so on... Hope this helps!

 

Thanks Cee! That helps alot.

 

Is this really a design difference? Or are the pictures just taken at different angles?

 

what design difference?

 

Someone must have deleted their post. There were pictures of two different looking FW styles... they called it the new "NEW" FW.

Oh well.

EDIT: Looks like they moved it to HERE.

 

The wait is killing me lol

Thanks to our pm discussion i ordered my Sony Fw the same one as you Cee note on the 2nd of august, it was.. WAS at my house on the 14th but i was at work and the silly people at purolator decided it was better to sit at the airport for the weekend!!! so tomorrow i get my new and first ever new laptop

Thanks for all the help making hopefully the right decision ceenote

Great review by the way

 

You got it for $999.99 from Sonystyle? I went to the Sony store with the Future Shop flyer showing the the laptop on sale but they would actually not match the price.

They were like, "We'll give it to you for $1,050 plus a free USB key worth $40". At that point, I walked out. I got the same model as you but finally bought it from Best Buy with the $20 printer promo.

I agree with all your points and it seems like a really solid machine, especially for the price. Plus, the white is just sexy.

One of the major problems I had (with Vista actually), was that I installed Ableton Live (sound mixing program) and it literally broke Vista. Windows Explorer stopped responding and was very slow. Even Firefox started crashing. I put the recovery discs to good use. I installed all the major apps again and did another HDD image for backup. Not a big deal but I did feel frustrated for wasting an extra day to get everything working again.

 

hey just a question, where did u get the $100 coupon?

 

wait you installed ableton and the laptop stopped working? hmm not good, if ableton doesn't work with vista I may not get the laptop after all. But according to ableton's site it should work just fine, so I am not sure why it was not working for you.

 

Thanks for the review , looks awesome. im actually debating on whether the grey or white would be better, of course if i went with the white, i'de have to go for a lower model than i would have with the grey... but i've never seen a grey in person so i'm not sure if it's nice, i really like the white, it's beautiful. i'm actually scared that the white will get dirty to quick, at the sony store when i shut the laptop, i had already seen a grey spot on the top from dirt, and the material kind of seems hard to clean, but i could be wrong. and do you think the Keyboard would get dirty quickly and couldn't be cleaned well?

 

Thanks, I also had to wait forever till it was in stock but at least they upgraded me to express shipping for free. The actual shipping time from Toronto to my place just outside of Calgary was less than 24 hours!

I agree, it's really a nice machine and I'm glad I got it in white I used the coupon VGNDCT100 to get $100 off. I'm not sure if you can still use it though, just enter the coupon code once you get to the shopping cart.

See above ^

 

To be honest, I don't even know what happened. Might have been a virus? (Even though Symantec detected nothing) but Windows Explorer was really acting up. I'd really love to see someone else's experience with Ableton and Vista. You can always return the laptop if it doesn't work.

 

I've had friends install ableton on vista with no problems.

 

just ran 3DMark 06 and the in-game benchmark of World in Conflict; check out the screenshots!

 

I mean, is it harder to clean than black keyboard? With white keyboard, you may get black dirt on white keyboard, so the dirt is more visible; while with black keyboard, you may get black dirt on black keyboard, so the dirt is less visible.

 

Totally personal choice. Some (like myself) prefer the grey, some prefer the white. That's all there is to it.

 

I see that 3DMark06 defaults to a resolution of 1280x768 with the FW, which makes sense given that its panel isn't capable of the default 1280x1024. Out of curiosity, could you add a true 16:9 resolution of 1280x720 (e.g., with Powerstrip) and see how it benchmarks?

 

I might try it out tonight.

 

Excellent, thanks. I ordered the top of the line UK model (VGN-FW11ZU) and am picking it up from the courier company later today. It includes the ATI 3650 card rather than the 3470, so I'm interested to see the difference in performance.

 

Just installed Unreal Tournament 2004. Getting around 70 fps (using the built-in stat fps command) but drops to around 40 fps when there are 32 players shooting everywhere around. Everything is maxxed out but unfortunately, it recognizes a maximum resolution of 1024x768 and there are no widescreen resolutions, so I get black bars on either side. Does anyone know a hack to display widescreen resolutions?

Trying Trackmania Nations Forever now.

 

Did you play any other games? Did you get decent frame rates?
I'm very interested in the Sony FW series now. The only thing that is holding me back from buying is the graphics card.

I would like to know how the HD3450 performs while gaming. It is relatively new. I would appreciate it if you posted some frame rates for different games and the resolution you were playing them at. Thanks.

 

So, ceenote my new laptop is being used to write this responce and i have to say its gorgeous, great to know i purchased such an amazing machine one question though lol, when i try to put in an apostraphy i get this weird french symbol lol è any suggestions in how to remove this lol

 

The FW uses the HD3470, not the 3450. I haven't played any other games yet but I've already installed company of heroes which I'll try later. I can never get fraps to work properly though so i might not be able to give you specific frame rates. I've also got some other games like Call of Duty 4 and Age of Empires 3, which I haven't installed yet due to lacking HD space. I'll see what I can do though...

 

you already ran out of space on the 250gb drive?

 

Congrats on the new laptop first of all!! Did you use the correct apostrophy key? It's kinda weird though. As far as I know, all the French symbols become disabled once you chose the English version of vista.

 

Yup didn't take long eh?

 

I play the exact same games! Call of Duty 4, AOE 3, Company of Heroes etc. If they run fine with the HD3450, I'm definitely getting this notebook!

When you do play these games, can you give your first impressions? Do these games run smoothly? Can you run them on medium-high setting? Thanks.

Edit: Maybe you can overclock the graphics card? Just an idea...

 

how much is vista taking up? lol maybe you should stop downloading

 

Actually right now I'm using up all the space with my old VHS tapes which I'm capturing, so I can put them on DVD...

 

I'll see what I can do though I wouldn't hold my breath playing these games on high settings. As you can see I'm getting decent framerates in WiC at 1600x900 and lowest settings but as soon as I turn up the details from lowest to low, framerates start dropping like flies per se from 40 some fps at lowest settings to about 20 fps at low settings. Then again 1600x900 is a pretty high resolution and the game looks good even at lowest details.

Not sure about oc'ing though, I don't wanna kill my laptop just yet

 

Just ran the Trackmania Nations Forever benchmark and found a sweet spot with an average of 38.5 fps.

Display settings:
- Resolution: 1360x768 (no 1280x720 resolution available for some unknown reason)
- antialiasing: none
- shadows: medium
- shader quality: PC2
- texture quality: high
- max filtering: anisotropic 2x
- geometry details: normal
- all other settings not checked

Fan kicks after a few minutes but still not too loud and the game works nicely.

Now, if only I could find a crack to make UT2004 detect widescreen resolutions.

 

Thank you all for your impressions/insight.
Does anyone know any online Sony resellers that let you customize this notebook? I'm hoping to configure it with an HD3650 graphics card. I checked Portable One, but they don't give you to many options for customization. Most of their models are preconfigured.
Any suggestions?

 

just added some more screenshots of the following benchmarks:

Windows Experience Index
the Company of Heroes in-game benchmark
HDTune

more are coming...