Between the two series, outside of say the CPU and GPU upgrades that were made, how do these stack up?
In terms of:
- build quality, sturdiness
- LCD quality (1080p vs 1080p)
- heat
- sound/quietness
- on board speakers
- keyboard layout (comfort, since the F looks more cramped)
I know the brilliant designers browse this kind of forums and they are kind to take advice sometimes (e.g. they added VT, illuminated keyboard, etc)
I know that VPC-Z is nearly perfect and I haven't seen any competition from other brands so far.
However I am still a little picky about the current Z11:
a) I hope when Intel re-stocks LM processors Z21 can offer the 25W TDP option, e.g. i7 620LM. I personally have never ever seen any laptop within 15" that can deal with 35W TDP decently in history. See the Prime95 + Furmark thread for throttling.
b) I hope Sony can offer flexible options to exclude the optical drive. I know Sony wants to make BluRay popular but I don't need it inside a mobile laptop. It would be ideal to use that room for better cooling / battery design in the future. (Yeah I feel sorry that I missed the chance to buy an X505.)
c) I hope Sony can use cooler GPU, preferably DX11 ones from ATI. Currently nVidia is suffering like Intel was in the Pentium 4 ages. (Recall that V505 used ATI Mobility Radeon 9200.)
I made a clean install of Windows 7 on my Sony VPCEB1S1E/BJ last night, mainly because the language this laptop came in was wrong and I couldn't understand anything (Home Premium, so couldn't change it either). After the install I noticed the laptop became very slow, so I reverted it using recovery discs which were supposed to reset the laptop back to factory defaults. Ok, the language went back to the original and everything was as before. But... now the laptop is very slow, especially with boot times.
I receive a lot of errors and critical errors which show up in the event lists. Event ID is usually 100, or 102-106. A few messages aboiut how some programs delayed the boot, a few about cd-rom driver delaying the boot...
i have had 2 problems with my Z for a while and im fed up because its out of warranty and sony will not fix it.
1. The Right hinge i believed is messed up so it does not close correctly. Due to this the right side of the lcd bezel has become cracked on the bottom right i believe because of the tension. (check the pictures). I have to keep a clip on the right bottom side to hold the LCD in place.
2. The notebook is really really hot. Especially using the nvidia. When running any 3d game it takes less than 10 minutes for the temps to get ridiculous on the cpu and gpu. It just turns off when it gets to like 103 or something. Im not sure if its the gpu or cpu but i think they share the same copper pipe for heat. Im going to put arctic silver on both of the chips if i can and clean everything out really good.
My main issue is the hinge. Im not even sure if it is repairable. If it isnt repairable where and how should I go about getting a new Hingle and LCD bezel.
I've had this laptop for over a year now, and one day when I turned it on, it doesnt respond. The big 'DELL' logo that comes up with options for bios and boot sequences doesnt appear.
The laptop does have the quickset buttons flashing from left to right, and I do hear the blu-ray drive making that familiar sound, but nothing comes up on screen.
Not even the screen's LED. The lights by the headphones and mic sockets indicate the laptop is on and the battery icon does come up but the hard drive load indicator does not.
On very rare occassions it does start running up again, I have managed to backup my files onto another computer and I also formatted the hard drive and restored factory settings from the Factory.WIM file in the D: drive. I already had the newest NVIDIA driver and the latest bios (A12) .......
So I own a studio xps 13 and after two motherboard and one ram replacements my studio still can't run right with nvidia drivers installed onto the comp. The only way for it to run right is to totally disable the GPU. I am running windows 7 64bit is anyone else having this problem?
I updated to the latest dell bios and also used the latest dell video drivers and even try out laptopvideo2go drivers and it still hangs sometimes I can't even get past the starting windows portion. I made numerous formatting attempts. My gpu is the nvidia 9500m i personally asked if they would give me the g210m and see if that would fix the problem but they have refused.
Has anyone actually fixed this problem yet? I have been using this system for around 2 months with a disable video driver but have been too lazy to call dell and wait wait and wait.
Seeing as the prices have come within about $300 of eachother for these machines, I was wondering if there is a major advantage going with Alienware over Dell on the laptops with the i7 CPUs?
View 3 Replies View RelatedI play a video game, and my fps will go from 70-80fps, then just SPIKE to like 2fps and I will get artifacts.. I figured it was a display driver, I've tried probably 20-30 of them now (just random vista 32 bit drivers), all with the same results. When I monitor my task manager I'm using 100% of my CPU Usage, and around 1gig of ram while a game is running. I am trying to figure out 1) what the deal is and 2) how to resolve it...
Here are my specs:
Dell
Inspirion 9400
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T7200 @ 2.00GHz 2.00GHz
2046MB RAM
Vista 32-bit Operating System
NVIDIA Geforce Go 7900 GS
I have Firefox, VLC and Digsby running, my RAM is 90% used. What's going on?
My other PCs don't have this problem and it's causing major slow downs on my computer!
I don't think this is the same screen flicker that is experienced by the few others due to auto brightness problems...
It's flickering black and then the whole thing turns unresponsive after a while...and although the video shows it happening during a low light environment, i have had this encounter during a brightly lit area as well...
[URL] ....
I've posted a copy of what really happens on google drive. Is this a case of motherboard problems? I jsut got my laptop about 3 weeks ago. Any chance for a 1-1 exchange?
My Inspiron 1720 is currently down....
I swapped the primary bay 120GB 5400rpm that came with the DELL for a 7k200 200GB 7200RPM Hiatchi 16mb Cache Hard drive.
No bent pins, reseated twice.....
ALL DELL diagnostics pass.... but when I try to launch Hitachi's hard drive fitness tests/diagnostics it fails to load when detecting the bays.... give me an OLD DOS COMMAND.COM error.... this software with my 7k100 works perfect on Inspiron E1705.
BIOS is seeing hard drive... as 200GB... Vista sees the hard drive....
I can even do a FULL FORMAT (not quick) through Vista's advanced command prompt install and diagnostics.....
it formats successfull...
HOWEVER!.... when Vista gets to the final phase of its install when it is @ the VERY last step... I believe its called Finalizing the install.... it just sits there with the three ... and the dots are animated... so the install is not frozen, just doesn't go anywhere.
This install on my e1705 /w 7k200 and 7k100 takes like 10 minutes TOPS....
I've talked to DELL hardware and Dell Software On Call support (first 30 days free).... I've worked in IT since the early 90's and I must be missing something here.
Sony Utilities DLL
Vaio Entertainment Platform
Are they even needed when upgrading to Win7 RTM x64
how do i access the bios on my sony vaio fw? model number: VGN-FW139E
View 4 Replies View RelatedHow To Re-install My Sony Vaio Laptop I Tried To Restore But Is Not Possible Secondly Is It Possible To Change The Language From Spainish To English
View 3 Replies View Relatedtrying to put linux mint onto a sony ar51e machine, anybody hear put linux on a sony vaio
View 5 Replies View Relatedsony SR $1200
core 2 duo p8400 2.26
vista business 32 bit w/ freshstart LMAO
2 gigs ram
250 gb 7200rpm hd
ati 3470 gpu
or
sony SZ $1300 carbon fiber with hybrid HD
core 2 duo t7700 2.4
vista bus with bloatware
2 gigs ram
160 gb 5400 rpm hd
nvidia 8400m
I saw this on the Sony site and wondered if anyone has this or knows of a bag similar? I would like to find one that is as slim as a carrying sleeve but with handles
View 4 Replies View RelatedI've been looking at the VGN-FW460J/T at Fry's Electronics and I would to know if this is a good notebook? I really don't care about the new i7's that are coming out, because I planning to get one sometime next year when they reach at a least 2.0GHz and at an affordable cost.
View 6 Replies View RelatedI am thinking about buying the Sony FW with 1080p. I was wondering if it is possible to hook up the FW to my PS3 via HDMI and play my PS3 games at 1080p on it
View 6 Replies View Relatedhaving a hard time deciding between these two. I think in the end it'll come down to which screen size I like better.
But anyway, I was reading the review on the CS here and it says the battery lasted just under 4 hours but there's a higher capacity battery.
While trying to CTO Z690 w/ blu-ray option SONY just gives u the option for 4GB DDR3
View 3 Replies View RelatedI lose about 5~10% of my battery life in a 12 hour period after shutting down my computer and unplugging it from the wall.
Anyone else experiencing something similar? No one else has brought it up for this new Z so I was wondering if I'm just a minority (granted the laptop is new and not many people have it yet)
I am in Shanghai and went to demo a new Vaio Z at a local SonyStyle store with a 3.06GHz CPU and Dual SSDs raided. The unit had Vista 64bit and 8GB of RAM... surprisingly though, no BluRay just a DVD Burner... go figure...
I tried to have someone explain to me if the design of the Z was changed because on my Z (model VGG-Z27GN) internally there is only space for one 2.5" drive (and nothing else really).
If the new Z's can accommodate 2 HDs inside, some major internal redesign had to be made. Does anyone know if this is the case or if maybe Sony is using some sort of two 1.8" Drives instead that they RAID together
I just got mine in the mail today. It says online that it's built in but I don't know how to access or find it (I got CTO without WWAN, and pro w/fresh start)?
View 5 Replies View RelatedMy boss is looking to change his VAIO-TZ laptop to the VAIO-TT model. The one issue he is concerned with is the performance.
His current VAIO is very slow when he has outlook and a couple of more apps open (nothing heavy though). It is 1.2GHz as is the TT model
I'm going to buy a FW-390 tomorrow morning and I want to know if the Full HD Screen is necessary or not.
I have heard that the X-Brite Eco's back lighting is uneven so some parts of the screen are dimmer than others which is simply unacceptable.
On the other hand I have heard complaints regarding the Full HD about the fonts being too small due to the resolution being too high on such a small screen ....
Just upgrade the RAM from 2GB to 4GB onto my VGN-SZ650N/C and after booting back to Windows XP SP3 only see it as 3GB but BIOS see it as 4G
View 3 Replies View Relatedout of these FW series, which would you pick? I want the speed, but i want something that runs extremely cool:
Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 2GHz
4GB RAM
320GB Hard Drive
ATI Radeon HD 4650
at $980 USD
Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 2.1GHz
4GB RAM
320GB Hard Drive
ATI Radeon HD 4650
at $950 .....
I need all the drivers for s360p/win xp. But official site didn't response or our country's connection is problematic.
View 3 Replies View RelatedIs the Sony F LCD screen the same as the Dell XPS16?
At one time the Sony F was listed as an "RGBLED", same as Dell XPS16. They are also the same size/resolution.
I ask, because, I was at Best Buy this past weekend, and I found that the screen was very washed out looking. I confirmed it was resolution 1920, so it was surely their "Premium" LCD. Every review I read seemed to suggest the RGBLED of the Dell XPS16 was bright (almost obnoxiously so) and colorful. This F Model I reviewed truly did seem pale compared to other nearby monitors.