fs745 p/h review

Using for: web development/ graphics/ motion/ movies/ games/ web surfing

Recently purchased the fs 745 p/h, this is the silver/ black model for the fs series. 1.75 ghz ,geforce 6400, upgraded at 1.5 ram, 80gb 4200 hdd uata. Just got it and was amazed at its style and look, the silver chasis with black keyboard is just awesome. I will post some pics later this week.

Screen: :glossy:

Screen is nice, its like a plasma for my laptop, there is only one extremely minor nitpick. On anything other than the 9/9 brightness the screen makes a slight buzz sound only noticible in a dead silent room but still noticible, i dont know if this is normal, its no big deal but definately not something i expected. As for ghosting, yah there is some and probably below average but if your used to using lcd's you wont be bothered by it, not noticible unless comparing it to something with a 16 ms. Backlight is the best for a 15 inch i've seen, but not perfect, there is slight over exposure from the bottom but it isnt the 'same' as other notebooks screens as it doesnt impede or wash out colors or blacks as bad, but its there, a sort of filtered type of light, flourescent? I had backlight uneveness when i first turned it on but after using it for a few hours the backlight seems to be evening out by itself.

Sound:

Not bad but its too quiet, headphones work flawlessly.

dvd/cd

gets a little loud when reading, even while playing dvd's you can constantly notice the dvd drive is audible, again not a problem if using headphones. My mouse illuminates the scroll wheel blue when plugged in, though when installing from a cd or using the dvd the light turns off, im guessing this is some kind of power transfer in favor of the dvd, this might have something to do with power management in the vaio power management settings. The dvd could be sucking too much power? no way of knowing.

Keyboard:

pretty good, im please with the keyboard, very comfortable to type, i like how the delete key is the upper most right key so even in the dark i know where it is. Again the black keys are sweet.

Batterylife

haven't tested it but im not expecting much from the 6cell, i reccomend the 12 cell. I expect 2 hrs max, of course all batteries now a days aren't that great.

size/ weight

15.4 inch screen, not sure the dimensions of the laptop, it is average for a 15.4 inch notebook, not as small as a s series but isnt that much bigger either, im happy with the size. i think the notebook is 6-7 lbs with the battery 6cell. Not heavy at all (for me) and definately pretty slim, i would say almost as slim as a s series which is remarkable. Definately slimmer than a dell 6000 or hp, im guessing the sony bx line would be compared to those thick notebooks as well as a gateway 7515. I would say its about the same thickness as a powerbook, dont quote me on that.

Fan

The fan does come on repeatedly but never reaches epic loudness like say, the s460. I wouldnt say its annoying, definately nothing compared to the 460. On its full power the fan is not that loud, quieter than a dell or hp but does have a slight humm to the fan that other brands dont. The humm isnt as bad as the 460 but its there, on a side note the 480 fan was so bad i returned it, this one isnt nearly as bad, i am nitpicking.

graphics:

The only games i've tried are rome:total war and civ 4. Civ4 runs great, as it should .Rome runs ok on highest setting but i set some parts to medium to increase performance. The vcard is only 128 'shared', wish it went up to 256 but it seems to do the job fine. I wouldn't get this laptop for first person shooters but 2d games or hl 2 generation games work fine. I wouldn't try doom3 on it tho, im not much for doom 3, that game is more of a benchmark than a game, will try to get a 3dmark 05 score later.

otherinfo:

The usb is indeed on the right side, wish it was on the left. Maybe this was a trade off to put the cd drive on the left. Wireless works perfectly intell 2200 bg. Only has sd card slot.

Conclusion:

After going through and returning a dell 6000d, toshiba m40, s480, and hp dv4000 i would say this notebook has a good weight, good thickness, best look and feel, best keyboard, best screen 2nd only to the 480. Comparing fan noise alll these notebooks have audible fan noices but they are mostly all woosh sounds, the fs makes a woosh sound when its mostly idle, powering up and down it makes a slight humm the other notebooks dont make. Again this is once again another tradeoff in the world of notebooks, there is no perfect notebook, nothing can be perfect in a mass production scenario. As for performance, windows takes a little longer to load cause of the bloateware but i'm not bothered by that, overall i wish it could be faster, its nothing compared to the dv4000 with x700, but im really happy with the screen quality and overall style of the notebook, the only problems i address in this review is sound and thats saying a lot for a notebook considering all the other aspects it could easily fail in. In defense for notebooks headphones can always solve problems of annoying or loud fans, but nothing can solve a badly lit screen or slow graphics card, its a trade off for me.

I can see myself keeping this computer and possibly upgrading the hd in the future. If your looking for a sony notebook and the s series is too small, this is perfect for you. If you need something for gaming i reccomend anything with a x700, but the more i use my notebook the more i realise gaming on notebooks isn't necessary at all. If you want gaming on the go get a dell 9600, no gaming laptop will be light and thin, ever, so you might as well go allout big.

:sony:

 

Very nice review. But as I'm a really big HL2 fanboy ( ) it would really interrest me, if it runs smooth at high graphics settings (without AA and trilinear anisotropic filtering)