f series, which is better?

howdy all
i am looking to buy a very powerful laptop for editing and gaming and have narrowed it down to two choices, both f series, the VPCF13Z1E/B and the VPCF12Z1E/BI. almost the same computer excapt for a few things.

1- graphics on b is the nvidia gt425m, on bi its the gt330m, however the specs say the 425m has tgm of 4095mb while the less powerful 330m has a tgm 4600mb. why is this and which is better?

2- the ram in the b is 4 sticks of 2gb while the bi is 2 sticks of 4gb, which is better and is there much difference.

3- the b has usb 3, the bi only has usb 2 (which is kinda pushing me toweards the b)

this is my first laptop so i am researching the hell out of it. i would be greatful for any advice you guys might have.
thakns in advance

the link for both laptops
Product Comparison : VAIO and Computing : Overview : Sony

 

The 425 is faster than the 330.

 

Does the F13 have led backlight? , the F11 and F12 did not.

 

These are the differences:

VPCF12Z1E/BI

- SLR camera grip palm rest
- 2x USB 2.0 ports and 1x eSATA/USB 2.0 combo port
- 2x 4gb sticks = 8gb of RAM.
- GT330M

VPCF13Z1E/B

- Grey plastic palm rest
- 2x USB 3.0 ports and 1x eSATA/USB 2.0 combo port
- 2x 4gb sticks = 8gb of RAM (same as VPCF12Z1E/BI).
- GT425M

GT425M is slightly faster than GT330M and on par with a HD5650 but there is not a dramatic difference. Settings that are unplayable on GT330M are also going to be unplayable on GT425M and HD5650. Although GT425M and HD5650 support Direct X 11, forget about running tesselation and other DX11 technologies because they crush even the fastest mobile gpus. To put things in perspective a GTX480M gets creamed by a desktop HD5770 and thats a low/mid range desktop card these days.

The questions you want to ask yourself are: do you need high speed USB 3.0 ports? Do you plan on using USB 3.0 devices? Do you want the SLR camera grip palm rest? Do you like to game and thus would like the extra couple of frames per second? Lastly, is the difference in price significant? The F13 is better specced but if you have to pay like 200 quid more for it then its not such a good deal.

Backlit keyboard is standard in all US F12s and F13s. The UK F12 and F13 do not have backlit keyboards. This may go for the Eurozone territories too. We don't even get the option.

The other big difference is the VAIO Display Premium 1080p panel. In the UK/EU we get a matte finish, wide gamut display. In the US you get a completely different glossy, standard gamut display.

I won't go into the advantages and disadvantages of standard gamut vs wide gamut displays because it is not as clear cut as it is often made out on this forum (wide gamut displays typically oversaturate colours in applications that aren't colour controlled and can look terrible when web browsing for instance) but the general consensus is that the UK/EU panel is generally regarded as a good display and one of the few good matte screens left outside of the business sector. The US glossy display is generally regarded as being average. The standard of notebook lcd displays is pretty low however so take that as you will.

 

No, led backlight on the lcd screen

 

nope, the F series are not led backlit, CCFL or something i believe as the backliting

 

is it a big issue not having led backlighting?

 

For me yes, non led backlit display take up to 15mins to reach full brightness, they can loose 50% of there brightness within a few years and the cct tube and inverter can suddenly die, led backlight are a lot simpler and you rarely have a problem with them, though some people can be sensitive to the flickering that led backlit displays can have, also the whites can look a little blue, so i bought a display calibrator to fix that.

 

There's alot of handwaving about this sort of thing but you can have a terrible wide gamut IPS, LED backlit display. Its more to do with how its designed and built. I can't say I've ever noticed a CCFL screen get brighter after switching it on. If it does, the process is not very perceptible or maybe I haven't used one for long enough to see it degrade? Shrugs.

For instance, Dell's Ultrasharp U2211H is a high regarded standard gamut, eIPS display with dual CCFL backlight. It has cost saving written all over it but it is extremely well engineered to budget and by any standard is a good lcd display for just about everything.

In terms of notebooks the standard of lcd display is much lower and it is common to see low resolution, not very bright, low contrast, glossy displays which make them unusable outdoors. Many of these displays are LED backlit judging by notebookcheck's reviews.

Sony's FW series had a very famous X-Brite branded, wide gamut TN panel with dual CCFL backlight and though it has been discontinued for a while now, it is still highly regarded.

There are of course excellent screens with LED backlights such as the astonishing rgbled panel in the Alienware M17x or the tiny wide gamut led backlit display in the Z series but those are seriously in the minority. F series has one of the few decent matte screens in a consumer notebook. They are almost extinct outside of business notebooks like Dell's painfully expensive Precision range.

 

Well put Hayte. Don't get caught up in the LED vs CCFL hype...it doesn't really matter.

 

I would not buy another ccfl backlit display, it`s led from now on.

 

CCFL = Cold Cathode Fluorescent Light. I emphasized cold because your comments are more applicable to ordinary fluorescent light bulbs which are hot cathode. They have shorter life spans and need to warm up to reach full brightness. Cold cathode bulbs reach full brightness almost immediately. I've never seen a laptop screen with CCFL backlight that needed warmup time. I also wouldn't worry about the lifespan of a CCFL in a laptop. The half-life of CCFL backlights used in LCD TVs is typically rated at 60000 hours, and TVs use much brighter bulbs run at higher power.

I think the main advantage of LED backlights is packaging. A LED light bar can be made thinner than a CCFL bulb, and LEDs don't need inverters, so they take up less space. It's hard to fit a 1.5-2.0mm CCFL bulb + inverter into a phone, for example. But in a 16.4" laptop like the VAIO F, that's a non-issue. Another advantage is that LEDs are easier to dispose of or recycle because they don't contain mercury.

CCFLs used to be more energy efficient than LEDs because they ran cooler, but LEDs have improved to the point where the reverse is now true. CCFLs also used to provide better color accuracy than LEDs because they could use full spectrum phosphor coatings whereas "white" LEDs are actually blue LEDs with yellowish phosphor coatings. Nowadays, color accuracy is more often limited by the LCD panel than the type of backlight. But when used with the best panels, I think the pecking order in terms of color is still RGB LED > CCFL > white LED. And viewing angles, evenness of lighting, and light bleed are functions of the light diffuser and LCD panel, not the backlight.

So, it all comes down to implementation/application. LED backlights are not necessarily better, just more marketable.

 

Dude iono how the quality of the screens are where u wanna buy but in the American f series the screens are medicre. I was so excited about it til I got it an turned off the auto dim switch and the screen was still hazy an I only had it for two weeks before returning it . In those two weeks granted I didn't take any of the bloatware off but man it was lagging in performance hardcore and constantly slowed down. For something so expensive and supposedly such a solid product I returned it but maybe they improved them a lil bit but that was my experience.