Official Sony Vaio CW Core 2 Duo Series Owner's Thread

[MB77]

Tried, my camera produces more noise then this notebook! :P
But tested temperatures: after 30 min of running around in Oblivion CPU cores were ~60C and GPU was 50C.

Hehe.. :-D

[scottybgood]

I ordered this CW CTO on 10/24 from my local SonyStyle store, configured as follows:

Product: US-VPCCW190X-LBOM
Component: Fresh Start
Component: 4GB (2GBx2) DDR3-SDRAM-1066
Component: Large Capacity Battery (VGP-BPL13)
Component: Blu-ray Disc™ playback
Component: No Engraving
Component: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8700 (2.53GHz)
Component: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT230M GPU (512MB VRAM)
Component: Icy White
Component: Genuine Microsoft® Windows® 7 Professional 64bit
Component: 320GB Hard Disk Drive (5400rpm)
Total Price: $919.99
Description: VPCCW190X Configure-to-Order
Ship Method: Standard
Estimated Ship Date: 11/02/2009

I received $200 off via an in-store ecoupon (previously mentioned upthread). My ship date changed from 11/2 to 11/4, then 11/6, then I received a notice that it shipped on 10/28, and I received it at home on 10/30, so I don't how much faith I would put in Sony's delivery estimate, for those that have posted about it before.

I've only been able to spend a few hours with it, so I can't give in-depth commentary, but I am liking it so far. My packaging was considerably different than in the unboxing video, but it was well-packaged nonetheless. There is very little literature, consisting of a quick start sheet, safety guide, and assorted Sony propaganda and sales lit. Mine is white and looks gorgeous.

The large capacity battery raises the back end up quite a bit more than I remember seeing in the store, almost to the point that it doesn’t look as portable. It does angle the keyboard at a nice ergonomic angle though. The battery moves very slightly if I pull on it but does not feel loose or ill-fitting, as some have reported.

The keyboard is standard size at approx. 4.25” x 11.25” (10.8cm x 28.6cm), not including the offset arrow keys. It is the same size as the keyboard on my 15.4 Dell Inspiron. It has a nice feel to it, no difference from other notebooks for me.

The screen is very nice. It is bright & crisp, but I am coming from a 1680 x 1050 screen, so it looks slightly grainy and the icons are large to me. It is somewhat glossy, very low reflections straight on, but they are prominent from angles. The screen dims considerably when viewed at any angle.

I am not a touchpad user, so I won’t comment on it’s functionality. I also won’t be using the HDMI anytime soon. It is very quiet unit; the only noise I hear is when the HD accessed. The speakers sound very tinny and overall disappointing. I also won’t use the webcam.

Booting up, I was surprised to see some bloatware installed, which is one of the reasons I upgraded to Win7 Pro and chose the fresh start option. The most annoying is Google desktop. There are multiple Vaio programs of dubious value installed. It goes through a short canned Win7 setup routine and allowed me to establish my wifi connection pretty quickly. Mine does have the Intel 5100 wifi, although my paperwork stated that it would come with the Atheros wifi. I’m not complaining.

I don’t know if the windows experience score is a worthwhile measure of performance, but mine scores 6.1-6.4 for everything except the HD at 5.3. I’ll probably be moving to an SSD drive in the future if it’s possible.

I will be loading GTA4 soon and testing the graphics performance. I will also be loading SolidWorks 2009. I might remove the back covers and see what’s in there/ what upgrade opportunities exist. If I do, I will post pics. If there are other specific pics, or benchmark tests people are interested, let me know and I will try to accommodate.

If anyone wants me to check something out, please ask, just keep in mind that I am not a techie, and I am going from XP to Win 7, so I might need a little help with any OS questions.

You mentioned the $200 ecoupon, can you share the coupon code with us?

[Slaughterhouse]

Yes please share it...I got the sales representative to take off only $100 and my total price came out to $989.99 for the same system as above but without the large capacity battery.

[electrobuzz]

See posts #54 & 57 for how I got the discount code applied to my order. I was not able to record the ecoupon code, sorry.

[Praetexit]

Funny how a model like this:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo-processor P7450 2.13 Ghz
Windows® 7 Home Premium (64-bits)
4 DDR3 SDRAM (2x 2 GB)
HD 320 GB 5400 rpm
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 230M GPU

without blu-ray, not customizable

costs € 899 over here. That's $ 1324. Same price online and in three shops I checked.

[Slaughterhouse]

See posts #54 & 57 for how I got the discount code applied to my order. I was not able to record the ecoupon code, sorry.

That's so weird. I called my local Sony Style and they had no idea what I was talking about. The sales representative on the phone didn't have a clue either.

[Omen1393]

Sorry for re-asking this question again but can you reformat the laptop with a system repair disc? I really want to just reformat to get rid of the bloatware once I make a system repair disc.

[Slaughterhouse]

Yeah I believe you can reformat after you make the recovery discs.

And just to clarify, the CTO models do have an Intel 5100 wifi card right? The sales representative told me it's an Atheros card but he wasn't sure.

[electrobuzz]

I just ran the free versions of 3D Mark 06, 3D Mark Vantage, and PC Mark Vantage x64 on my system (P8700/230m GPU, 4mb). This is my 1st time running these benchmarks and I did not attempt to tweak any system settings, everything was run at factory defaults with whatever bloatware processes active. I received notices in every test that the specified video resolution was not supported. It also listed my GPU as “generic VGA”, so I don’t know if that had any effect on the results.

3D Mark 06
3D Mark score: 5837
SM 2.0 score: 2393
SM 3.0 score: 2299
CPU score: 2275

3D Mark Vantage
3D Mark Vantage score: N/A
CPU score: 4822
GPU score: 2051

PC Mark Vantage
PC Mark Suite: 4428

Any tips on improving these are welcome. I’ll start tweaking, but wanted to establish a baseline first.

[electrobuzz]

And just to clarify, the CTO models do have an Intel 5100 wifi card right? The sales representative told me it's an Atheros card but he wasn't sure.

My CTO has the Intel 5100 wifi, although my paperwork from the store stated Atheros.

That's so weird. I called my local Sony Style and they had no idea what I was talking about. The sales representative on the phone didn't have a clue either.

No surprise, there seems to be a lot of misinformation even within Sony on this system. I have a feeling my discount was a store manager decision, based on the fact that they were running an aforementioned in-store promotion at the time. I indicated I was ready to buy, and I was in the store (for the 2nd day in a row), so that also may have had something to do with his willingness to offer it.

The manager pulled out a binder from under the register and flipped to a page with several bar codes listed. Above each was a small description and the alphanumeric ecoupon. He scanned the barcode to apply my discount. He then set the binder down on the counter and I tried to quickly see what I could. The codes on the top half of the sheet were all for tv’s and such. The bottom 1/3 was all Vaio codes. I saw $50, $100, $200, and $350 off Vaio codes (might have been others). None of these stated specific models in the description. He put the binder away after a few seconds so I didn't get a chance to memorize anything I bet your local store has the same binder with same or similar codes. Perhaps it’s the manager’s discretion as to how to apply these.