Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge

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UNIFICATION POST SONY VAIO F11 SERIES – ISSUES, FIXES, TWEAKS, REVIEWS


I just ordered an F11 from sonystyle. This is the replacement for the FW series. Mine should come with i7-820 Nvidia gt330 1gb 1920x1080 4GB ram and base hard drive.

ship date is Jan 14th.

 

Congrats! Some wonderful specs! Are they called F11 through out the world? Just thinking this thread may be better titled VPC-F Series or something that helps everyone.

Look forward to your feedback on how the new F stacks up against FW.

 

Hello all...I'll be ordering the F series tomorrow. It'll also be a replacement of the FW590 (which i'm returning next week)

Specs are:
i7 720
Win7 pro
8gb ram
320gb 7200rpm drive
1920x1080 display
grey color (Black reminds me too much of thinkpad days)

Do you know if the 820 will consume more battery than the 720 or will it have negligible differences?
(Though i'm plugged in most of the time, when i'm not i'm still working heavily in autoCAD and photoshop so it'll be quite some extensive use of resources.)

Also, is it worth getting the bluray writer (for future) over standard read only?

I am curious too how this new one will perform for my tasks as well as other user experiences. I am currently using FW590 with a 2.8IC2D, 320GB 7200 drive, Ati 4650 and 8gb ram. So far, it is consistenty exceeding my needs.

 

Ordered an F11 yesterday. i7-720,4GB ram,320GB HD,1920x1080 screen, and backlit keyboard. Ordered the black one, looks sleek judging by the pictures. Got my FW same day new one came out, didn't even open it. Returned it asap, hehe. Excited for new one to arrive.

 

No i5 version of F11 yet (there is no mention of i5/i3 series by Sony @ CES 2010, source: press release)
And i7 costs more
As i5 (dual core) costs less than i7 (quad cores), hence i5 versions of F11 should cost less and they should stop selling 5200 rpm HDDs with 7200 rpm HDDs. Blue-ray disk should be optional

But look wise (design/keyboard) F11 series looks fantastic. I love it. But have to wait till REAL reviews comes

 

An i5 version of the F11 is already available. Have a look at for instance
https://www.sonystyle.nl/SonyStyle/VAIO-notebooks/F-Serie-16-4/

Cheers
Erik

 

I'm seriously annoyed Sony did not put a better video card in the F11. This is hard to justify against other alternatives in the same size class with much better graphics.

 

I am also annoyed at the fact that Sony didn't put a better graphics card in their how about ati 5870 they had that in the original fw series.

 

I ordered my F-series CTO model as soon as it was available for ordering:

Specs are:
i7 820QM
Win7 Ultimate (which did not allow the "fresh start" option)
8gb DDR3-1333 ram
500gb 7200rpm drive
1920x1080 "premium" display (seems to be some ambiguity in the term "premium" as applied in the European markets)
Blu-Ray burner
Black

 

i cant wait for all the review!...

 

Can't wait for the reviews. I'm getting one, the next chance I get which woull be in a couple months.

 

The other alternatives from other manufacturers using the quad core are having heat problems, if I recall correctly from reading around some of the reviews. Flip over an F and the FW and you'll see that Sony has introduced more ventilation holes on the F -- for a reason.

And remember, there will be "refreshes" every three or four months. From the history with the FW series, each refresh will improve the power of the video card. So, just hang on a few months and the model will likely integrate a better card. That's all part of the marketing and development game that every manufacturer plays to keep us interested and coming back for more.

 

Agreed. This is a game that every manufacturer plays. And as long as the consumers have the discipline to not jump and go ahead with an upgrade, everytime they see slightly improved specs in a newly released model, they can avoid losing money.

Bottomline, this new F-series will be constantly refined in its lifetime, with newer and better features arriving like clock-work every 3-4 months and that is a fact of life. Frustrates the people who bought the version with the earlier specs but that is how technological products work.

 

technology always improving. one can never get the latest gadget.

 

I ordered mine yesterday with these specs:

Intel® Core™ i7-720QM processor (1.60GHz) with Turbo Boost up to 2.80GHz
Genuine Windows® 7 Professional 64-bit
320GB Hard Disk Drive (7200rpm)
6GB (4GBx1 + 2GBx1) DDR3-SDRAM-1333
Blu-ray Disc™ player
16.4" VAIO Premium Display (1920x1080) with NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 330M GPU (1GB VRAM)
Fresh Start
Keyboard Backlight
Standard Capacity Battery

I didn't know if the difference in speed between the i7-720 and the i7-820 was that much of a jump to validate the extra $300 or so for it.. what do you guys think?

~maria

 

Actually the turbo boost only goes up to 2.66

 

@freedom16 Turbo boost for the 720 is up to 2.8GHz

Also, does anyone know if backlit keyboard applies in the UK too? It's just a bit strange that there's absolutely no mention on it on any of the sony sites here, unlike in the US...

 

Even here in the US, the backlight option is not part of the regular list of options that you choose when you deck out the F. It is part of the secondary list of things you choose, in the following page, where you get to choose the extended battery etc.

People who are not paying too much attention in the secondary page, might just miss it.

 

Yeah, sorry, that's what I meant - in the UK we don't get a 'secondary' list in the configuration, so no option to choose extended battery, backlit keyboard etc. Is the default going to be backlit or no backlit do you think?

 

In the US, the "default" is no backlighting. You have to deliberately choose backlighting, to get it....at additional charge.

But you never know. There are country-specific differences and in the UK, they might very well have backlighting across the board and hence does not popup as a separate option. Might be worthwhile to call them up and re-confirm.