Sony VAIO VGN-FW465J/B 16.4-Inch Laptop - Black Review

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(More customer reviews)I got this laptop as a birthday present for myself. Before getting this, I browsed different computers and considered Dell XPS 16, Mac Pro 15 inch and Lenovo Y650 as well. After all the comparisons that I made according to the design & features of all the laptops, Vaio FW won over a lot of mile.
Price: The price is very reasonable having jam-packed features. If you customized all the features that Vaio FW has to the other aformentioned units, i bet it will cost a lot lot more. See below prices comparison according to specs that Vaio FW465 offers with certain differences:
a.) Sony FW - From the main Sony site it is Less than 1,200 (including the mail-in-rebate) plus free 100 music downloads while from amazon.com it will be 1,029 (including rebate)
b.) Mac Pro 15 - Around 2k! The difference in specs with the Vaio FW are the following: backlit keyboard and battery life are the pros for Apple as I can see it. Apple have Mac OS but Sony offers free Windows 7 upgrade, sooo I still stick to that. The graphic card of Mac is Nvidia 9400m while Vaio have the astonishing HD4650. Vaio have bigger and brighter screen not to mention the Dolby sounds and Blu-ray capability - Mac Pro? .... NOT!
Disclaimer:Mac fan boys might read this and may say that I am just poor or anything (like they always do to people who didn't choose Mac) ---- you're wrong. I can afford Mac but the features they offer doesn't meet my standards. So chill and understand that people have different options in choosing computers.. peace!
c.) Dell XPS 16 - From its site - Around 1,650 having the same specs as the Vaio FW. I am also alright with this, but I have been reading so much negative reviews about the heat and the death blue screen for Dell lately. Soooo, that actually makes me a little bit cautious about recent Dell products.
d.) Lenovo Y650 - Around USD1,300 without the blu-ray capability, only 5400 rpm HD, having NVIDIA GeForce G 105M 256MB Graphic card and Screen LED 1366x76. This is still ok, knowing that Lenovo's are really durable.
Main Features: I like how they customized it to have 2.53ghz of processor speed with 320gb of memory having 7200rpm. That feature itself is already a plus compared to any other laptops out there. The blu-ray capability makes your HD experience of watching movies really great combined with High Definition Audio with Dolby Digital Live and the brightness of the screen. Nobody else (as of now) does great Blu-ray experience the same way Sony does it, for me. The graphic card was also upgraded to Ati Radeon HD4650 with 1gb dedicate dvideo RAM making your gaming experience really great. I also like the classy look of Vaio FW with the hinge and just seeing the Vaio logo makes people WOW already. Also, almost all my gadgets (PSP, my cellphone, camera and music player) are sony, so I find this convenient having the magic gate card slot. The motion eye camera, the pebble black key panels and the multimedia dedicated buttons are awesome as well. One more thing, if you guys are concerned about the heat being produced by this laptop - don't worry because it has a great cooling system and dock design. The heat is common to all laptops but this one is a lot cooler than others (compared to my old gateway, dell, macbook and my dad's toshiba).
I just wish it has a backlit keyboard to make it a complete package already (though the screen is too bright that you can see the keyboard panel as well, during night). Also, the bloatwares should be lessen -- I don't find this an issue but I know it's a hassle for some. You can delete them anyway but you have to allot some of your time in doing so. One more thing, you have to do a lot of things to maximize the performance of the laptop during the setup.
I don't need to make this really long. Overall, the unit is very nice and it has totally awesome features with it. This is a great buy and you can never go wrong with Vaio FW. I bet you can make use of this laptop for many years without being out-dated. I am a meticulous person when choosing my gadgets --- and this unit meets my expectation!
I ordered the Vaio FW neoprene together with this unit and it fits quite well.

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Broaden your entertainment horizons with the VAIO FW notebook featuring an extra-wide 16.4” XBRITE-FullHD LCD display. Great for watching widescreen Blu-ray Disc movies or viewing two websites side-by-side, this entertainment-rich notebook minimizes those annoying black bars you see when playing widescreen movies. Watch and record CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray Disc movies and get the most out of your games with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. An HD entertainment powerhouse, the VAIO FW notebook is inspired by theater screens, born from Sony HD expertise and powered by the energy-efficient and super-powerful Centrino 2 processor technology – the latest and greatest from Intel.

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Sony VAIO VGN-FW510F/B 16.4-Inch Black Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Pros:
Good specs for a mid-grade notebook
Comforable & quiet keyboard
Upward facing speakers
HDMI output
Aesthetically pleasing
Cons:
LCD is dark even at full brightness
Fan comes on intermitently every 4-5 mins
Heavy (6.9 pounds)
Low battery life (~2.5hrs on light usage)
Review:
I bought this at Bestbuy the weekend of Black Friday ($649.99). It's rare to find a mid-grade notebook that has dedicated graphics, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, GigE & 802.11n connectivity, and a 1600x900 display. Even at MSRP, the specs are pretty good for the price. The keyboard is very quiet and comfortable to type on. The touchpad is a decent size but the 2 buttons are hard to click (I generally use the touchpad tap gestures). The max volume on the speakers are pretty good and they actually face up. Many lower end notebooks have them facing down going away from your ear and also gets muffled if you put it on your bed. The HDMI is great for connecting to an external display. Unfortunately, the integrated glossy 1600x900 xbrite-eco display looks pretty bad. Even on max brightness, the LCD is not very bright. The viewing angles are bad. Normal sized text is hard to read unless you're looking at the LCD straight-on. This is my first experience with extended usage on a Sony xbrite-eco display and I'm a bit disappointed. I haven't used a TN-panel in 3 years, so I am a bit spoiled on monitors. I'm also very conscious of computer noise. The fan comes on and off frequently and cannot be controlled by 3rd party software (This is true of all Sony Vaios). I checked this out using HWMonitor. The PC idles around 50C. When the CPU gets stressed to 59C, the fan starts spinning and cooling the CPU down until 51C, then stops. This is a regular pattern that occurs maybe every 4-5 mins, but on the other hand, many notebook cooling systems are the same way. The good thing is this never becomes one of those lap-scorchers. This thing is quite heavy at 6.9 pounds. The big LCD and dedicated graphics add weight and also trim down the 4400mAH battery's life. I get 2.5hrs on light usage. I think this could have used a bigger battery, but I think Sony didn't want to have to market a 7 pound+ computer. There is still pre-installed garbage software that you'll want to uninstall but it's not as bad as it used to be. This is currently my main computer and I usually have it "docked" to my external S-IPS Dell monitor, external keyboard/mouse, and constantly charged, so I don't feel the effect of the dull LCD, weight, or battery life.
Overall, I still really like the computer. To get similar specs elsewhere, you'd have to spend $1000+. It looks very sleek and has the Sony "Vaio" branding if you're into that. With a 16"+ laptop, weight and lowered battery life are a given. The hardware is very good other than the LCD and the cooling sytem is a little bit below average in my opinion. I'd say if this looks good on paper to you, head down to a brick and mortar to check out the LCD brightness, viewing angles, and weight before making your decision.

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Sony VAIO VGN-FW510F/B Notebook Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 (2.20GHz) Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 500 GB HDD 4 GB of RAM

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