What do you think of the NEW Vaio FW?

Phil I am in canada. I do have family in Poland though and I could get it shipped there.

with notebook.de, I guess I would not have to pay the vat I assume but then I would have to pay for the duty at the border. The only problem is the euro, it is rather expensive vs the canadian dollar.

http://www.notebook.de/sony-vaio-vgn-fw-series-g-826/

the 2nd one looks good, since it comes with the 3650, and at 1600 canadian it is not a bad price, but I am unaware how much duty will be, my guess is the same as the tax rate and well that should be 12% and with that it should come out to 1800 or so, which is a lot.

If they ship to canada, I may consider it. How reliable/good is notebook.de?

 

They got good ratings, but now that I think of it, you don't want a german keyboard.

Try looking at dutch or UK market, they come with normal keyboards.

Here are the lowest prices in the Netherlands: http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/cat/...02=&i437=&a437=&scoreMin=0&scoreMax=5&x=0&y=0

 

I can choose an english keyboard via their site so that is no problem. What worries me is that I will order from the site and a month later a new model comes out in canada.

The dutch site mentions nothing about international shipping nor can I find any english on there. Plus all FWs are with the 3470 whereas on notebook.de they come with the 3650.

Thanks for the information though, I will probably email notebook.de and ask if they ship to canada and how payment, duty and etc will work out for me. Currently I am still saving up for it, so a purchase will not occur anytime soon.

 

You might then look at M50, which I decided to go for in favor of FW

 

Yes you're right. I missed that. They even offer international warranty.

 

Question is though, is the 3650 really worth the extra money?

 

If I would have the same question I'd Google for reviews of HD3470 (laptops) and HD3650 (laptops) and look at the real game benchmarks (not 3DMark).

I'll help you with some HD3650 game benchmarks:
http://www.notebookjournal.de/tests/484/2 (site is in german but FPS means FPS)

 

Nice looking unit. Congrats, klas.

 

I was actually reading that site last night. i don't any first person shooter games, and only really stick to strategy, like simcity 4, anno series, settlers, and the like. I am waiting for a new civ 4 game this fall/winter.

The rest of it will be spent watching movies, internet, and graphics design. That's about it. If I was really into gaming, I'd get a pc.

 

Sounds like HD3470 is good enough for you.

 

Good to know. I will have to see how the normal eco brite screen looks in store.

 

I see the FW comes with an SD memory card slot.

Anyone know if it will accept SDHC cards (vs. regular SD cards)?

 

Good question, was debating whether it does or not. Once the 16 and 32 gig cards start showing up at decent prices, it might be a nice alternate storage to portable hdds.

 

FW Question:

Is the T9400 processor worth the extra $150 over the P8600?

 

well depends how you will use it. the T processer is 35W whereas teh P one is 25W and therefore uses less power. So if you do not care for battery life and are plugged in all the time, and use programs that are cpu intensive then the 9400 might be a better options. If you want longer battery life and are fine with the speed of the 8600 then go for that.

 

I don't understand. They have a P8600 2.4Ghz. (25W) and a T9400 2.53Ghz. (35W) as options, but not a P9500 2.53Ghz. (25W). A P9500 would be a lot better. You get the speed of the T9400, yet the power efficiency of the P8600...

 

The Z manual at least states its reader can read SDHC cards so I'm sure the other new models can as well.

But it also said it would not support the high-speed feature of some SD cards.

 

I explained in the bigger thread why this is probably the case. The Z series is a business notebook, small, fast, portable and needs a longer battery life. The FW on the other hand is not meant to be that portable as compared to the Z series.

 

>>So if you do not care for battery life and are plugged in all the time, and use programs that are cpu intensive then the 9400 might be a better options. If you want longer battery life and are fine with the speed of the 8600 then go for that.

Do you think getting the extended battery will negate the power efficiency of the 8600?

 

I think you'll be perfectly fine with P8600 and the standard battery. T9400 and extended battery will be $250 spent for very little gain. Get 320GB HDD/4GB RAM/ATI Video/HiColor screen for much bigger gain. If you want to splurge, get a Blu-ray drive to show off to your friends.

 

I'm already getting all the above you suggested, minus the 320GB drive (getting the drive with 7200rpm). This is my last "I have no idea what to get" configuration. I'm leaning towards the 8600, but keep reminding myself I am going to have this for the next four years or so, so maybe I should upgrade?

 

If you plan on doing any HD video editing and Blu-ray creation (Sony includes tools for this), then you may want to go for the 2.53Ghz CPU with 6MB cache. The extra cache is actually the bigger deal for compute intensive jobs like video rendering. Anyway, I went ahead and added the 2.53Ghz CPU because I have an HD camcorder.

 

Yeah, I won't be doing any video editing. The most intensive thing I'll be doing is running CS3 and Spore, when it comes out. I think I'll go with the 8600. Thanks!

 

hehe spore, waiting for that myself.

 

has anyone who ordered there FW found out where it is right now? is it in the California factory? is it with fedex?

 

Keep in mind that 320GB/5400rpm drives are about as fast as 200GB/7200rpm drives. This is because the 320GB have higher data density.

This would be untrue if Sony choose the Hitachi 7k200 as 200GB drive, but I doubt they would do that as it more expensive than other.

 

Why the heck would this higher end FW come with just a 4200rpm hard drive ??

 

Nixon said because the majority of people don't care.

But a good 4200rpm can perform the same as a mediocre 5400rpm, so really if you want a good harddrive you need to buy it yourself.

 

woah, good to know that 320GB 5400 is faster then 200GB 7200 rpm. I was just about to order 200GB separately

 

True. Got any suggestions for some good hard drive cloning software?

I'm guessing that cloning the HD would be the easiest way to swap them, right?

 

Acronis True Image is the best imo.
You can use the demo version for it I believe.

Check out the post by John here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=252436

About as fast I would say.

The top drives at the moment are WD 3200BEKT 320GB/7200 and the OCZ Core drives being the first affordable SSDs.

 

Thanks!

Is that the Scorpio Black? Do you feel it's better than the Seagate?

 

One more thing... does ANYone know how to see which hard drives are shipping with the FW ?

 

Yes it's hard to argue with these benchmarks:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/15079/1

(many pages with different benchmarks)

The only way that I know of would be to ask people that have received their FW.

 

Yeah, I was hoping someone that bought an FW would pick up on the hint...

 

FW ad from that other video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=A982h_xEhJ0

 

>>>Keep in mind that 320GB/5400rpm drives are about as fast as 200GB/7200rpm drives. This is because the 320GB have higher data density.

Really? This is news to me!

 

It's true, both get about 50mb/s read speed.

 

Another reason 320GB drives are faster is because they are latest generation and are using a newer version of perpendicular recording technolgy. It is notable that most of the 250GB drives are not as fast as the 320s...in fact some 250s are downright slow. Below is a good page to check drive performance (to see all the drives, go to bottom of the chart and click "View All Products").

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hard-disks/average-read-transfer-performance,675.html

You'll see a wide range of performances. Notable trends are that 320s are almost all fast, 7200 rpm are better with file server IO benchmark. The Hitachi 7K200 is quite fast all around...unfortunately, as Phil has noted several times, you don't know what Sony is going to give you. Fujitsu drives are pretty slow and Sony likes to use them. Since Fujitsu has a 7200 200GB but not a 5400 320GB, the 320GB option is your safer bet.

P.S. Unfortunately, Tom' Hardware is lagging a little in adding most of the new 7200 320GB drives to their list

 

Hmmm.... I think the best bet (for me, anyway) is to just go with the 320 GB 5400 rpm drive on the FW for $100, rather than buy a hard drive separately and install it.

For that matter, the 4 GBs of RAM for $140.00 is not really a bad deal either. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

Sure, I always have thoughts

The harddrive is the most underestimated part of a system. People tend to just take what they can get while they spend hundreds of dollars on the latest CPU that they do no even need.

Going for the 320GB may not be a bad idea. It may be a fast WD or a slower Fujitsu. If you are disatisfied with it's performance you can always replace it and put in an external enclosure. I do believe the price Sony charges for it is out of proportion though.

I've been making some comments that people should really go for 4GB dual channel. I've read a bit more and it seems like it's not as beneficial as I thought. 3GB or 4GB will be hard to notice.

I have a Fujtsu 320GB 5400rpm

 

Hmmm. Maybe I'll wait to see what's actually being put in these units.

Ahhh. Price-wise, that's a big difference on the FW. Sony charges $140 for 4GB or $40 for 3GB.

 

I've just received my FW11S today and it's up and running (bigger than I thought, and I think the 16/9 will take time to get used to).
Knowing this laptop has got 4GB RAM and it's installed with Vista Premium and I've got some license of Vista Ultimate kicking around, shall I install Vista 64 on it and by the same time delete that recovery partition ? (AFAIK I can't see any recovery dvd/cd coming with this machine so not sure how to recover).
Underlying question as well is how good Sony is with driver support generally and with Vista 64 more precisely ?

 

Congrats! Could you please tell us which brand/model hard drive Sony put in your new FW?

I know what you mean. Here's a depiction of my current Dell D420 compared to the Sony FW:

 

The harddrive is a Fujitsu.
It's a 300gb mhx2300bt, googling this it appears this was released in late 06 so it's definitely not the newest one.

At least it's not a Seagate, I had two failures of Momentus 5400.4 with those (on a Asus U6sg).

 

300 GB ??

I don't see that one being offered...


EDIT: Sorry, I just realized this is a non-U.S. version. I'm guessing they have different configurations.

 

Yes indeed, I've got the UK version
And I already got rid quite a few of the free apps installed with it!
But still dithering as to whether I should install Vista 64 on it.

 

daneel, there is no recovery dvd, you have to make it yourself from the recovery partition.

 

Don't know... maybe someone else has some thoughts?

How do you like the FW? Size, weight, keyboard, screen, etc?

 

Sony vaio FW is ugly looking. Crappy graphics card to match this.