Sony VAIO FW First Look

by Kevin O'Brien

The VAIO FW is a brand new Centrino 2 platform notebook from Sony, offering a much needed facelift, as well as a 16.4" widescreen. What sets this apart from other widescreen notebooks is the aspect ratio of the screen lets movie aficionados enjoy a video without ugly bars above and below the screen. This first look will give you a glimpse of what this notebook has to offer, in general use as well as what to expect when watching various Blu-ray titles.

Our Sony VAIO FW review model specifications:

• Screen: glossy 16.4" 1600 x 900 display
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 (2.53GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 6MB Cache)
• Memory: 4GB RAM
• Storage: 320GB HDD (5400rpm)
• Optical Drive: DVD+/-RW / BD-R DL
• Wireless: 802.11a/b/g/n
• Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon 3470 w/ 256MB
• Built-in web camera
• Battery: 4400mAh Li-Ion Battery
• Dimensions: 15.12" x 1.14"-1.45" x 10.27" (38.4cm x 2.9-3.7cm x 26.1cm)
• Weight: 6.83 lbs (3.1kg)
• Retail Price: $2,149

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Build and Design

The fit and finish of the Sony VAIO FW is wonderful, and the overall design is beautiful. The notebook has a streamlined sculpted look, and when opened has a palmrest and keyboard surround that looks like the graceful sloping surface of a car hood. The surface starts out flat, has a small dip, and then gracefully slopes down to the screen hinges. From working day in and day out at a ThinkPad, it is much easier on the eyes to say the least.

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Build quality is excellent, with the overall chassis feeling rigid and sturdy. Although thin at the very edges of the palmrest, you can pick the notebook up from the corner with minimal flex from the chassis. Even the super thin screen shows that quite a bit of effort went into making a durable design, as you are able to man-handle and even punch the back of the LCD panel and no ripples or distortion shows on the display.

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Screen

I have to say that my first impression of the true HD screen format was one of hatred. Another odd format I would have to get used to, and more odd screen designations to remember. I figured it would be just another gimmick ... but then I started to enjoy it. Outside of watching movies, the extra-wide wide screen is great for organizing many tasks on the screen, where a normal widescreen display just starts to feel crowded. Two documents side by side, a webpage next to a document, or even a webpage with my IM buddy list far off to the side. Of course it is nice for movies as well.

Movie Experience

True HD displays are basically what you have in your living room or TV room if you own an HDTV. 720P or 1080P screens are slightly shorter than what you usually find on a computer. For example on a WUXGA notebook has a resolution of 1920x1200, where as a Full HD 1080P screen is 1920x1080. This has to do with the way most movies are recorded, and in the end thinner or no bars at all showing up during a movie. Below I picked 3 Blu-ray titles from my collection, to give you a good idea of what you might expect to see on this screen format.

• Chain Reaction (2.35:1): Almost fullscreen with 2 thin bars top and bottom that are about 1/2cm tall.

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• Swordfish (2.40:1): Far from full widescreen, with almost 1 inch bars top and bottom.

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• Open Season (1.85:1): Looks identical to the 2.35:1 ratio

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Ports and Features

Port selection on the Sony VAIO FW rates average, and one USB port less of perfection. Users have two video outputs (HDMI and VGA) for easy hookup to external monitors or your home theater HDTV. In some ways the design of the notebook hinders the port layout, as some curved locations which would be prime for an extra USB port end up being too small to work out. The ports and feature selection include the following:

• 10/100/1000 LAN
• Modem
• VGA
• HDMI
• FireWire
• Expresscard/34
• MagicGate
• SD-Card Reader
• Headphone/Mic
• 3 USB Ports

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Performance

System performance is one category that this notebook really shines. Even with a 5400rpm hard drive, the notebook performed quite well throughout various activities including watching Blu-ray movies, playing a few games, and installing applications. The Intel Centrino 2 platform no doubt had a hand in this, and gave us some impressive performance benchmarks. PCMark05 was into the 6,000 range and 3DMark06 was around 2,600.

Battery Life

Working away from a power outlet was not a fun activity with this configuration that included a 4400mAh battery. In the balanced profile with the screen brightness set to 50-60%, I was lucky if the battery gauge indicated more than 2 hours and 40 minutes. Watching a Blu-ray movie decreased the battery life further, putting me into the range of a movie, with enough time to safely shutdown once the film ended. One thing I can say though, if you have the option to select the extended battery, get it.

More To Come

As always, our First Look Review is merely intended to provide you with a first glimpse of a new notebook. Our full review is coming soon ... stay tuned.

 

Thanks for the first thoughts review Kevin.

That screen size makes this laptop an almost perfect desktop replacement, great to watch Hi-Def Movies, giving you more real state in day to day apps..

For me, is just to big to carry around, I'll stick for the 14" notebooks.

 

Thanks for the preview.

Is this a triumph of form over function? All three USB ports next to where the majority of users put their mouse could be a serious annoyance. Sony normally pay more attention to such details.

John

 

which screen is this. the hiColor or the ECO?

 

These 16:9 screens, while shorter, also have higher resolutions than regular 15.4" notebooks. Especially when you compare 1080p to WSXGA+, you're getting significantly more pixels in essentially the same size notebook, maybe a bit wider. While you can get WUXGA 15" notebooks, they aren't nearly as common as the 16" 1080p screens will be.

Interesting though, either way.

 

Good question. Hard to say, since there's a discrepancy on Sony's site. Based on the specs and price, this FW appears to be the VGN-FW190EBH.

Notice that on the 'Features' tab it says "comes equipped with a gorgeous, extra-wide 16.4" XBRITE-HiColor™ LCD display", yet on the 'Specifications' tab it says " XBRITE-ECO™ Technology : Yes"

Soooo, which is it? XBRITE-HiColor or XBRITE-ECO ?

 

Definitely something not right with the way Chain Reaction displayed. A 2.35:1 movie has more prominent black bars on a 16:9 display then what is pictured here--very close to the 2.40:1 movie that is also shown.

 

I was in Best Buy today and this notebook is there. The lid seems to made out of some metal. Is it made out of Titanium?

 

Regarding aspect ratios: The 1600*900 screen has an aspect of (16/9) = approximately 1.78:1, so the closer the movie is to that ratio the thinner the black bars you'll see. It makes sense for the 1.85:1 to show really thin bars, since it's very close to the screen's ratio, but the 2.35:1 should look very much like the 2.40:1. Are you sure the Chain Reaction movie didn't switch to some other aspect ratio? (like maybe 1.85:1?) It's possible the disc had more than one format on it...

 

I wonder why the Blu-ray model is so much heavier than the DVD model. The DVD model, according to Sony, is 6.4 pounds while the Blu-ray model is 6.8 pounds. I mean, come on, a Blu-ray drive is not any heavier than a DVD drive.

What is the weight of this notebook without the battery and power supply? I am curious.

 

Any other differences in the configuration that could make it heavier?

 

It appears from your photographs that this laptop does not suffer from the backlight bleeding/uneven lighting that the AR screen does. Can you comment on this?

 

Kevin:

You are a bit incorrect with this statement in your introduction:

The 16:9 (or 1.78:1) aspect ratio isn't a supported Aspect Ratio for films. It's used for HDTV.

Academy Flat ratio is 1.85:1. That's about 18 pixels above and below the actual viewable area of the screen. Academy flat is only used in about half (or less) of the movies shot today.

Half or more are shot as "scope" films which are shown in an aspect ratio of 2.40:1 in theaters and 2.35:1 in the home. This gives you an active picture region of 1600x680 which means 110 pixels above and below the active picture region.

These "ugly" black bars are there because you're seeing what the director intended without additional distortions. They aren't there to be "ugly".

This mentality is what led to all of the "Pan and Scan" / "Crop and Chop" / Fullscreen DVDs which look terrible.

 

For reference, the 2.35/2.40 :1 aspect ratios should be roughly 1/3 black bars, top and bottom. The difference is < 6 pixels overall that's roughly 3 pixels top and bottom.

So your Chain Reaction image is very likely a crop and chop.

Cheers,

 

There doesn't seem to be a single model with the Radeon HD3650 in the US. Does anyone know why this is? What's worse for me personally since I was planning to get this notebook, the Blu-ray drive makes the only available two models overly expensive (near Macbook Pro territory).

 

Never have I seen a competitively priced Sony notebook. Doesn't exist. Don't like paying for a name.

 

Not exactly sure, no model number on the review unit, and although the specs are similar to one of the preconfigured model, the hard drive ended up being different. Are unit has a 320gb 5400rpm, the other model has a 400gb 4200rpm.

Well that is what the back of the Chain Reaction Blu-ray package says

Definitely not plastic, has a cold feeling like some sort of alloy.

The Blu-ray model has to have the dedicated graphics card option. the lower model has integrated graphics.

This will be brought up in the review. Backlight evenness is pretty off, enough to make viewing the screen when dim pretty bad. The edges and corners are dark while the center is bright. At 100% brightness you cant see it as well, but with it lower it is very noticeable. Another 16.4" LCD notebook in the office had none of this showing up, so it is only on the Sony model right now. I hope I can get some pictures to turn out well to show this off.

 

In that case, I'll bet it's got the Eco screen, not the HiColor. The Eco screen on the FW is not really that impressive. I'm told the HiColor is much better.

 

The only part cropped on the image you see is the rest of the notebook and background taken out. I paused Win-DVD/BD and snapped a picture with our digital camera.

Viewing the movie on my Sony kdl-40v3000 (1920x1080) TV through my PS3 shows the video with bars of the same size.

EDIT:

Blu-ray UPC is 024543414421

http://www.eforcity.com/024543414421.html

 

What other notebook has a 16.4" 16:9 screen? I thought the FW was the only one with this screen on the market right now.

 

http://www.acer.com/gemstoneblue/eng/

 

Too bad this screen isn't 1080p. At least with a 15.4" screen you can view 1080p-quality film, even if there are black bars. Who cares if it's a 16:9 ratio when you can't see HD content, anyway?

 

Asus F8v? Dell Studio 17?

 

Which do you personally prefer, the Acer or the FW?

 

I like that the Acer has a 1080P option and also has media buttons on the left side of the keyboard.
On the Vaio FW, the space is wasted on both sides of the keyboard, they could have put something there, extra media buttons or a numeric keypad.

All FWs have the 1600x900 resolution, whereas the lower-end Acer 6920s have 1366x768 (too low for a 16" screen in my opinion) and higher end models have 1920x1080.

Since these are direct competitors, I wonder how both compare in screen quality.

 

In your review please consider how hot this gets on your lap and if its comfortable to work on your lap for an extended period of time.

Thanks

 

Thanks. I already knew about the Acer but it has a 16" screen as opposed to the FW's larger 16.4" screen. I think the FW is unique in that respect.

 

Ugggh... never mind -- I just got a good look at the Acer.

 

I just finished my main battery test moments ago, and even in balanced mode doing nothing more than web browsing the FW got toasty to make my legs sweat.

 

One thing that I found interesting was that even though it's a 16:9, 16.4-inch notebook, they didn't put a NumPad on. Looking at the screenshots it certainly appears as if there is room with the extra space to the right and left of the keyboard and space between the keys. I realize the space-between-the-keys thing is part of a Sony keyboard design, but I hope some manufacturers do put NumPads on 16.4-inch notebooks.

 

Kevin, if it's not too much to ask, could you tell us the model number of the Blu-ray drive? It should be listed in the Device Manager.

 

Mat****a BD-MLT UJ-220s USB Device

 

The case shows 2.35:1 which means (properly presented) the picture should resemble your Swordfish shot with the larger bars, not Open Range with the almost non-existent smaller bars (1.85:1).

So there are a number of possibilities:
1) Improper presentation from playback software
2) Incorrect labeling of disc
3) Photographic manipulation.

The use of the term "crop and chop" wasn't discussing how you showed the images, it's a term used when a Cinemascope (2.35:1) film is shown at 1.85:1.

 

that's what I noticed about FW when I tried it at the store. One of the reasons why I decided not to go for it was the heat while idling. I previously owned FZ and it was also getting uncomfortably hot during normal use.

On the other hand, I just got Asus M50VM and I am amazed that this laptop gets barely warm even after encoding 1080p project in Sony Vegas Pro for 2 hours. I don't know how they did it, but I love it.

 

I might be going for #2, since it shows up the same way in 2 Sony Bluray players. Perhaps it was a tweaked copy to show off 1080p on various TV's?

 

beautiful notebook, its nice to see sony is creating beautiful notebook again
aesthetically, the webcame could be designed better though. the 16:9 aspect ration sure give the notebook pleasing profile.

does the notebook comes with HDD movement sensor?

what is the material used to make the case? (plastic/magnesium)

isnt 1080p means that the notebook should have 1920x1080?

i hope this question is addressed on the final review

 

I'm guessing more likely to be aluminum or magnesium alloy. Titanium is a HELL NO.

 

It doesnt, and sony doesnt offer a 1080p screen for this notebook yet. My guess the reason for the sticker was that the notebook can output it through HDMI to your TV.

 

Having 1920x1080 with a 16.4" notebook would make the text too small to read in my opinion. The PPI would be slightly more dense than the AR and I already have to squint when reading text with AR in its native resolution. I think 1600x900 for 16.4" is the right balance.

 

Tell that to all the people with WUXGA 15.4" screens

 

This FW will sell for $999.

 

Bummer.

 

Glad you like it, Klas!

I looked at pics of that Asus, but couldn't get past the funky looking touchpad.

 

I want to buy this notebook, but I need an external eSata port and HDMI output of 1920x1200. The eSata for a scratch disk and the 1920x1200 for my ext 24inch LCD. All this for photo editing.

Looks like it doesn't have eSata but what about the HDMI resolution? Anyone know if it can do 1920x1200 (not 1920x1080)?

Thanks.

 

To be honest I like the looks this FW as well, but I would rather have a laptop that doesn't toast my palms or legs

 

Seems like an aesthetically pleasing notebook, but like typical Sony notebooks, style > substance. I'll have to check this out for myself next time I go to Best Buy.

One thing I don't like is the 16:9 aspect ratio based on specs alone . . . only 900 pixels of vertical space. That is not much better than the degrading WXGA 1280x800 screens as far as vertical resolution goes. I like the 1680x1050 screen very much on my Sager; at work I use dual 19" 1440x900 screens, and I find that there is a significant difference between 900 pixels of vertical space and 1050. I really miss that extra 150 pixels while programming and writing text-based documents.

 

Is there any indication that the FW gets really hot?

Edit: found it.

 

Originally Posted by Kevin
I just finished my main battery test moments ago, and even in balanced mode doing nothing more than web browsing the FW got toasty to make my legs sweat.


I gave it a try myself at the store and it didn't seem like heat managment was any better then FZ.

I know I am repeating myself, but I am still surprised that Asus M50 doesn't have that issue even under heavy load. I really didn't expect this when I bought it, but it was a nice surprise.

 

I just purchased this notebook and I'm very happy. To give you a bit of background, I own a T61/T7700, I had a MBP 15.4" 2.4ghz/4gb ram, Compaq Core2 Duo 17" laptop/Dell latitude T7200/Dell XPS T7700......so I've had the luck of being able to compare many different brands in a very short period of time. This is by far the best design and performance I've seen to date...for the money anyway.

I guess rather than focusing on how large...or small the black bar is in the very rare movie I watch, I chose the laptop because I see a very good purpose for the extra wide screen, while the laptop weight doesn't suffer. I use gobs of programs like Visual Studio, Photoshop, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Eclipse....all have toolboxes and boxes that need that extra bit of space on the left and right, talk about useful . I just purchased and installed the WD 320gb Scorpio Black 7200rpm drive, and the FW really does rival any desktop with a 7200rpm that I've tested. It's absolutely rippin fast, and I know most of that is due to the 7200rpm drive, but I was impressed with the 2.26ghz Core2 (centrino 2). This chip does run cooler than most of the 2.2ghz Tseries chips I've tested, and seems to be a bit snappier than the T series (clock similar). Performing some routine tests, I installed Vista 32bit edition, installed ubuntu 8.04, and it absolutely screams. Looking at benchmarks in the wild, I've seen some compare this chip to the 2.5ghz and they act surprised that it's a bit slower....really? Buncha smart people out there. IMO, the hard drive is the slowest part of any of these new computers, get a good 7200rpm with 16mb cache and you'll see a bigger jump in overall performance than just about any other upgrade.

I highly recommend this laptop......so far I can't find anything to complain about.

 

Just curious, did you get the regular Eco screen or the HiColor screen?