Vaio S15 - Prospective Buyer

I'm seriously considering this laptop (primarily due to its great screen at a reasonable price), and I was hoping existing owners might be able to shed some light on the following:

1. Is fan noise an issue? A quiet system is a must for me, as I'll be taking it to conferences, using it for presentations, etc.
2. Is orangegate resolved wtih the newer models? Some sources suggest yes, but it isn't clear. I'd be buying from the Canadian Sony store if that helps.
3. Will the 7200rpm hard drive be any noisier than the 5400rpm? Also, what is the HD manufacturer?
4. Is the CPU soldered to the main board, or upgradeable down the road?
5. Is the system fan replaceable?

Thanks for any responses to one or all of these questions!

 

It's very quiet under light load, but as soon as you start pushing it it gets quite loud. For Word/Powerpoint it should stay well within its "quiet" range.

Sony seemed to be flushign out old inventory for several months, but the new CTO models seem to have the updated display. If yours doesn't, you can return it.

No.

Almost all laptops have soldered CPUs nowadays. Thankfully, CPUs have reached somewhat of a plateau where for most users the CPU is far more powerful than they need. Old Core2Duo laptops are still good performers for casual use.

I don't remember the HDD manufacturer (my Vaio's home right now) and I don't know about the fan being replaceable or not.

 

Thank you so much kanuk - much appreciated! Overall are you happy with it?

Re: quiet under "normal" tasks, would having a virtual machine or two running while powering multiple monitors count? Or watching a movie? I won't be using it for gaming much if at all, so I don't mind so much if it only gets loud when gaming.

Re: the fan being replaceable, I just want to know whether I can replace the fan myself down the road if it dies or gets loud. It's a pretty common point of failure with laptops after a few years, so I imagine it is replaceable, but I just can't find a concrete answer.

 

Yes I'm very happy with it (except the display on the 13, which is mediocre). It's quite the little powerhouse. Playing modern games on high settings on a 0.9" thick 13" laptop is impressive.

I rarely run VMs (I have Mint in VirtualBox that I mess around in sometimes) so I'm not sure how hard that will push it, but it's definitely quiet when watching a movie.