i'm shopping around for a laptop at the moment and have spied the Sony VGN-NW26M: Intel® Pentium® Processor T4300, 4GB RAM, 320GB HD, Intel Graphics 4500MHD
I've heard that Sony laptops have good build quality but how about the heat and sound they produce? Is there anything specific i should know about this series? Any problems etc?
For a while now, I have only considered using Thinkpads. Primarily because of the great keyboard, but also because of the business aethetics.....solid pure black design and great materials. Often I would rant about how somebody else had to adopt these two features and add some competition.
I have to say Dell did an outstanding job with the E6400. The keyboard is actually nicer than the Thinkpad keyboard due to a shorter slope on the edges which give them more surface area on the top. Otherwise, the feel is very very similar. Excellent job.
The design is serious and sophisticated with a lower maintenance lid. The Thinkpad, however, still has more polish in the build construction. Specifically, the amount of overall flex and how well they had their seems disguised.
The LED WXGA+ screen has ruined me. My desktop LCD now looks dim. It's the most beautiful matte display I've ever seen on any monitor or notebook. I'm not sure I've ever seen an LCD television as nice. It's just spectacular.
I'm very happy to see Dell finally taking the business notebook market seriously. From what I've seen, I believe they've succeeded in broaching the hallowed arena held for so long exclusively by the Thinkpad. While not quite there in terms of build quality, they have more than matched Lenovo in at least a few areas and hopefully this is a sign of things to come.
Has anyone purchased or seen this notebook? It's fairly new, so no reviews have been made of it yet, but from the specs and overall looks of it, it seems to be a pretty amazing notebook for it's price range (not to mention the 30% off coupon floating around).
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have started this separate thread to get more visibility (for now) but this can be merged into the master 1558 thread eventually.
I have the laptop for 1 week now
Pros:
•Great screen, 1080p screen is easily the best thing about the laptop. Very bright and sharp.
•I5-520m is quite fast. Good enough for most task and even some gaming, I ran the beta of Starcraft for a dew mins and it ran at mid to high settings for most (I have 4570 GPU)
•6200N is a good card and is much faster than the g card I was using in Vostro. Connects to the router in about 10 secs if I turn it off and then turn it on while laptop is on.
•9 cell battery performance is decent, I think I get about 4 hours of use with light to middle load of use. With very light use I should be well over 4 hours.
Cons:
•Slot DVD player is noisy, makes one loud clicking noise when every you boot the laptop. Sometimes there are two clicks.
•Froze one time when I booted up one morning, had to reboot again by holding the power button. Not sure what happened there.
•Biggest issue is heat for me, coming from a 14” Vostro I thought this will produce less heat but it seems to produce the same amount. The touchpad is quite hot to the touch as well as the bottom area just below the laptop. These external temps do not fluctuate much with the change in the core temps, at least that is what it seems to me. My core temps have not been too bad. 35-38C idle, 40-46C with light use (internet surfing), ~50-55C watching youtube etc. 70-74C when stressed 100% for 5 minutes. So what can be done about heat as that is my biggest concern and I have to decided if I want to keep this laptop. I opened the bottom cover and saw the CPU is smack under it. CPU is quite small and the heatsink as well. I could not see where the fan is but it does not seem close to the CPU so no wonder you cannot get heat to get out. Has anyone tired put a larger heatsink over the CPU or put thermal paste?
•Fan Control is very poor but I am optimistic that eventually DELL can update bios to address that. Fan turning on and off every minute is not acceptable.
•Has anyone noticed some light vibration around the touch pad area, when you put your hand to feel it? My laptop seems to have it and it is the highest close to the touch pad area. Not sure if it is the fan or CPU or the DVD player.
Anyway need 1558 users advice as I would like to make the decision on this laptop if I want to keep it. I got it as refurb so the price is quite good for the specs but I do not want it to die after a year and a half.
Ordered a Vostro 1320 from the Dell outlet last week and it arrived in 3 days
Having previously owned its older and bigger brother, the 1510, I decided to order the 1320 because I got a good deal on it on the Outlet .....
This is a hands on discussion of the new videocard which include benchmarks, screenshots and video links to demonstrations.
View 7 Replies View RelatedIm writing this so that others who are curious about these types of cards can decide if the upgrade is right for them. This installation required me opening the laptop and breaking off a small piece of plastic, which was very easy. I also updated the system BIOS to A09 and acquired the 130 W PSU as this baby draws about 45W of power itself compared to the 20 the GS requires.
When I originally bought the GS I knew it was a good card. It still is. I got this card because I felt the upgrade would be more cost effective then rebuilding my old desktop PC. All I can say is that where the GTX shines is where the GS shows its weak spots. The GTX can really handle higher resolutions really well as well as keep the frame rate fairly smooth.
For my temps, since I AS5'd it, runs at about 45 idle and 75 peak which is fairly good considering all thats going on.
The biggest jump was in STALKER which quite honestly the GS really had trouble with. Im happy to report the GTX can max out this engine fairly well with little to no choppiness.
Well shoot, what are we waiting for lets see some pics and results.
7900GS specs
7900GTX specs
Bioshock- All Mazed out- no Vsync- 1920x1200 20-30FPS
Gears of War- All Maxed out- No Vsync- 20-30FPS
Stalker- All Maxed out- 1600x1200- Smooth 30-45FPS
In conclusion, the GTX stomps all over the GS in higher resolutions and with the extra clock and memory speed it can easily outperform the GS in almost every aspect. It should be noted these are stock speeds and OC'ing would result in hopefully even better performance.
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Order Date: 18/09/2008
Estimated Delivery Date (on or before this date): 20/10/2008
Actual Shipment Date: 25/09/2008
Cost: 1461.68 euro (2135.08 usd)
Config:
QTY Item Description
1 Latitude E4300 : BLACK Intel Core 2 DuoSP9300(2.26GHz,1066MHz,6MB) Latitude ON Reader
1 Standard Touchpad 214-10064
1 Display : Black -No Camera, Latitude On Reader, WWAN- 13.3inWXGA(1280x800)
1 Documentation : English Shipping Docs
1 Memory : 4096MB (2x2048) 800MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
1 Hard Drive : 80GB Serial ATA (5400RPM)
1 Optical Drive : Roxio Creator 9.0 Software (XP & VistaCompatible) with Recovery CD
1 Optical Drive : Power DVD 8.0
1 Optical Drive : BLACK 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
1 Power Cord : UK/Ireland 90W AC Adaptor 3-pin
1 Battery : Primary 6-cell 60W/HR LI-ION
1 No Carry Case
1 Wireless : Intel WiFi Link 5100 (802.11 a/b/g/n 1X2) 1/2 MiniCard with Centrino label
1 Keyboard : Internal UK/IR Qwerty Standard Keyboard
1 Software Driver : Latitude E4300
1 Software Driver : Recovery DVD
1 Operating System : English Windows Vista Business SP1 to XP Pro SP3 Downgrade
1 Windows Vista Business SP1 Os media
1 Client Systems Management Disabled
1 AntiVirus : Not Included
1 Base Warranty
1 3Yr Basic Warranty - Next Business Day - Minimum Warranty
1 No Warranty Upgrade
1 Declined CompleteCare
1 Latitude Order - Ireland
1 Road Freight Charge Per Unit 1-10 unit
Collected my dell latitude e4300 saturday morning (27/09) from my local depot instead of waiting for it to be delivered and been giving it a whirl for the last day or so.
First some quick figures. On my kitchen scales the e4300 with the 6 cell battery weighs about 1.8kg (4lbs). The charger and power cord weigh another 500 grams (1lb) making for a total travel weight (notebook + 6 cell battery + charger) of about 2.3 kgs (roughly 5 lbs).
The e4300 feels sturdy enough although the 6 cell battery that sticks out at the back feels a little loose when given a tug. The keyboard (uk layout) as far I can tell is almost same the size/layout as its bigger brother the e6400 except for the page up and down which are full size and placed beside the arrow keys.
When first powered up the machine spends a little over 2 minutes in some kind of bios initialization mode before booting into a windows xp setup screen - subsequent power ons are a lot faster taking about 50 seconds to a bring up a full xp desktop.
The matte display (device manager says LCD2207) is brighter and has better viewing angles than the Latitude D630 I used some months ago but I was expecting a lot more from a LED screen.
Heat wise the notebook gets a little warm under the chassis top left near the air vent where the cpu is located but was still comfortable enough to place on my lap while wearing jeans.
Noise is a problem with this notebook. The cpu fan although not loud is audible if you're in a quiet room. The latitude D630 was almost whisper quiet in comparison. There's also a slight electronic buzz which sounds like someone sending morse code coming from the top left of the notebook which becomes extremely irritating after a while.
The battery meter claims over 6 hours when fully charged but I've gotten nearer 5 with wifi and some web browsing - will do more formal tests later.
The default software install on this machine is a mess - see attached screenshots taken from task manager and process explorer.
On booting into Windows xp over 354 mb of ram is already being used up by running processes all seemingly related to the proper functioning of this laptop. I though vista memory usage was excessive but for an xp install this is ridiculous - if only 512Meg ram was installed this machine would not be usable as a business notebook.
In general use the touchpad becomes intermittingly laggy with the mouse pointer pausing to change shape (2 black arrows,twirl) no doubt due to some value add cruft running in the background and the touchpad has twice stopped responding to finger input necessitating a windows reboot.
The bottom right of the keyboard doesn't seem to fit snuggly with the notebooks chassis leading to a noticeable flex everytime you press the page down or right arrow key.
Theres an ambient light sensor that adjusts the screen brightness on the fly depending on lighting conditions but anytime I enable it the display brightness seem to jump about a lot (even indoors at night) so I left it off.
With wireless configuration there also appears to be some kind of bun fight between windows xp,dells control point and Intel PROSet software with the apparent winner being Intel.
Not sure if there's also a problem with whatever tracks hard disk usage on this notebook as the hard disk light on the bezel is constantly flashing even when filemon.exe utility reports no file activity.
I'm going do some more tests and try and find out if I can do something about the buzzing noise, hard disk light and keyboard flex but as it stands for the price I paid this notebook is failing to impress.
Very brief note (I supposed to be cooking Christmas dinner...)- I've got my M6400 and it is great.
I stuck an extra hard disk in (the 2nd caddy and interposer was in there) and installed Vista 64bit as RAID0. All seems well. I patched it to all the latest patches and no audio problems (but then I only play MP3s on it - no audio work), no BSODs etc.
I've put in the 5505 WWLAN card from my D820 - and it works, but I need some drivers - the Dell drivers detect the system type and refuse to install - which is a pain in the to be honest - but I'm confident of getting around that. More on that later - after Christmas!
The system is blindingly fast (QX9300, 8GB RAM) . Battery life is about 1hr20mins. By far the fastest computer that I've ever owned.
Only fly in the ointment is to do with the hard disk system - in there I have a 250GB and a 320GB - and it only let me setup a 500GB RAID0 setup - and won't let me do anything with the spare 70GB. Never mind - it isn't like I'm short of disk space!
There was some pretty major keyboard flex when I got it - but I fixed that by reseating the keyboard and all is well now.
There are some drivers that I seem to be missing but I don't know what they are (looking at device manager - some devices without a driver) - but the system is running ok. This is my fault for not saving the original vista configuration first before wiping and re-installing! So any suggestions there would be great (they are the Broadcom USH and 2 devices called "Data Interface" - I downloaded the Broadcom USH drviers from Dell, but they didn't work on the 64bit vista. I'll phone dell support between Christmas and New Year and see what they say)
So - specs are:
Non-Covet, 1920x1200 FX2700, 8GB RAM (it shipped with 4GB), disk as described above, and vista 64bit. No webcam or fingerprint reader. And I've also got a E-Port plus docking station.
Happy Christmas!
the PSUs - even after being warned - the size came as a real shock! I must try the system with my 90W PSUs from the D820 - I'll let you know how that goes.
I have ownwed a 1730 [purchased from Leee73 here] for 12 hours now, I spent a few hours downloading all the necessary drivers from Dell and installing them as it had a fresh install of Home Premium. I loaded 3D Mark 2006 and ran it with slightly underwheling results [12000 marks] But I do know that Vista and some drivers dont do well in that benchmark. I loaded Crysis, R6 Vegas2, GRAW2 and UT3 and I must say that this machine totally rocks. Every game is maxed out in screen resolution and still pulls playable framerates. The image quality is mind blowing. The Logitech LCD is fun in a bunch of ways. Ya this is a desktop replacement, but definatly ultra portable compared to lugging a tower to a lan party or on a camping trip. The I/O ports are all laid out well. THe one thing thays missing is a fingerprint scanner. Imagine going to the toilet at a lanparty, you could simply lock your computer with the swipr of a finger so jealous competitors cant go mess with your regidstry. The webcam is a must along with the microphones [although I have no use for them at the moment] The speakers sound crisp and clear and I hear sounds in games that I previously have never heard on my Quad core 3870 Xfired 1066ram raid powered desktop. I also own a 1710 and anyone who compares these machines simply has no idea what there talking about. I really like my 7900GTX powered 1710, but its no 1730 when it comes to flat out image quality and overall performance.
The 1730 could use some beefed up ram as thats the only thing holding back the Windows experience index to a 5.0. I got a great deal on my 1730, I would buy one new from Dell if a smokin deal came along like when I bought my 1710, but I am too cheap to pay full retail. If you were thing on buying a 1730 but had read others complain, dont listen to them, Its an awesome gaming rig, and even though guys with single 8800s in their laptops can brag of simular 3D Amrk scores, you can rest assured that they would have bought a SLI if they could have. And they secretly deep down inside will forever remain envious.
I've previously had good experiences with HP until their past few models which have been a nightmare for a long, long list of reasons. But this post isn't about HP it's about Acer. This is my first Acer product and I've had a very positive response to the quality of their design but a very poor experience with the quality of manufacturing.
The unit I purchased is the Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T (1.4Ghz, 4gb, 14", 320GB WD) from Staples (US retailer) for the bargain price of 544.98 USD.
The most attractive aspects of the 4810T includes:
* The battery (wow!)
* The excellent, bright LED screen
* Fantastic keyboard (the fn key is to the right of ctrl, perfect!)
* Synaptics touchpad (the best)
* Super quiet fan even when playing games and doing heavy processing
* Decent speakers (dolby) with great sound through headphones
* USB ports on both sides
Some of the less attractive aspects include:
* Keyboard audio functions seem to rely upon software instead of hardware and can fail during heavy processing or if the OS hangs
* As a single piece of platic instead of separate buttons. The touchpad button only works on the edges with the center being "dead"
* No dock
* No expansion slot
* The speakers beep loudly when power is connected/disconnected if the speakers are on (annoying)
* The wireless light blinks during activity instead of just being on or off (annoying)
* The screen hugs the keyboard too closely creating key-shaped oil deposits on the screen (not uncommon but undesirable and a source for damage if something hard like a grain of sand is on the keyboard)
Coming from a PC I guess this is a review on Mac OS X and the new Pro.
I had on many occasions for the past 5 months been playing with Macs, at school in the comp lab, and in BB and the Apple Store. So I knew what I was getting into.
This decision was hard for me being a PC user, and seeing laptops for 4-600 dollars cheaper with similar "specs" I had also not long ago built my Phenom II 955 BE Gaming rig, after OC it a bit I feel I am fairly well versed in the PC realm.
Anyways I decided to take the plunge into something new. I decided for the 13 b/c of battery life mostly, and b/c the 15 is too much money with the apple care. I am only using it for school, and any intensive photo editing goes to PS CS4 on the PC. The 15 MBP would likely not be as fast as the PC so I opted for battery life over speed. Although I would have liked the extra real estate.
I am Glad I made this decision. The 13 is very fast, I got the base model 2.4Ghz. I am actually surprised with how seamless I can move through all the windows, dashboards and spaces. I filled my dashboard up and it isnt slow at all, I have 4 spaces and when I am running apps (Safari, Chrome, QT, Pages, Keynote, iTunes, etc.) in all of them there isnt any lag. Obviously there is some getting used to, but overall its pretty easy and straight forward, and best of all it just works....
Just got my m4400 finally. Quad core + uxga/led. The led screen went pink or something when docked without a/c power. It also flickered a bit when I was using it on battery (only happened once).
The fan is way loud (using bios A11). I found the I8kfanGUI program to control the fan (works pretty good) but what's funny is the laptop keeps wanting to turn the fan to full speed, then the tool kicks in and turns it off again. So it spins up, back down, up, back down .....
I first started with an MSI wind which I liked alot the big selling point at the time was the 10" screen which wasn't quite "standard" on the netbook scene. While I liked the wind I found the keyboard too small to enable quick typing. I had it long enough That I got used to it however it just wasn't cutting it.
I then moved onto an N10J and threw in a 500GB HDD and it was my main computer for about 2 months until I got a desktop, anyhow I loved it mainly becasue it had a nearly full size keyboard. The addition of the 9300M was great for watching HD videos and some light gaming. As it stands I love this notebook however the geek in me always wants to try new things and I couldn't wait to see the response from AMD's side, and this is where I begin with the DV2............
I don't have time for a full review because one of the reasons I jumped so quickly into this new notebook is that I am on a deadline. However there are a few first observations I don't want to forget about, should anyone be interested in a more complete review.
A little history first. I have been a Mac user for the past 20 years. I grew up with them, have been responsible for them in an IT capacity and have made a living generating content from them. I know the platform well. I am however not the type of guy to put all his eggs in one basket and also routinely use Windows, mostly for gaming, and Linux, mostly for serving.
The point is, I make my living around the Mac.
Purchase and Arrival.
I made the decision to buy after 6 hours of spec shopping. I called around to the local Best Buy (you never know until checking) and the closest Apple store, which for me is 120 miles away. Neither had them in stock, but they both at least knew what I was talking about. The Apple store didn't have an ETA, but expected them within the week. That wasn't fast enough for me this time, so I ordered directly from Apple. This was Tuesday night at 5pm. Wednesday at 2:30PM, I took delivery. Nice. The outer packaging was a plain brown box. Inside, the standard Mac packaging with nothing but the notebook, a power adapter, and a simple folder with barebones manuals and the OS DVDs. Good presentation, but not a lot of goodies............
It runs like XP with 256MB of memory and this system has 3GB's. The HDD's on this are large WD 160's at 5400rpm, so it cant be them.
I have disable Aero and gotten rid of (uninstalled) the 90day trial Norton.
I am running AVG Free for an AV. Ultimate is a 64bit system
Just opening a new site in IE takes on the average of 15secs or so and initial start up, seems to take forever.
I have went into power management and amended the screen to never turn off and also the HDD's to never turn off.
Before I did this, it went into some sort of sleep/hibernation mode and couldnt figure out how to wake it. I tried using the "sleep mode" at Start>Sleep and it went into sleep fine but when pushing the Power button to re-awaken, I waited about 5 mins and it still didnt awake.
My SZ430 has been a workhorse for me for 3+ years and I m now looking into the replacement of either Z or Y series....
Problem I have is I have 2 docking stations for my SZ in my home and office and would like to know if I can reuse those for the new Z or Y series.
I just saw the new sony e series laptops. Are they supposed to replace the NW series?
View 10 Replies View RelatedI am trying to decide between the F series and the Z series. Anyone else been debating between these two laptops?
View 10 Replies View RelatedB series is released in this January
[url]
Which series is better? The B series is for business. This series is only 5.9lbs with 15.4'. On the other hand, the CW series is around 5.5 lbs and it is only 14'. What do you think? Have you ever try B series? 15.4' is pretty good for movie.
I really enjoy the big screen, large HD and fast CPU. And what appears to be a Sony exclusive, a R/W Blu-Ray drive. I watched eagerly at the AW series, thinking that I might pull the trigger on the 'next' laptop in this series.
But as you know, it never came...
So I took a look at the F series at some of the local computer shops (e.g. Fry's and Micro Center)
I have seen the post
http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...272690&page=90
i see no mentions at all for the NS series here.
Buddy of mine wants to get it for the 800 bucks they are selling it for on Sonystyle, is it a bad Laptop?
What does that look like to you? We're thinking an updated Vaio P given that stretched form factor. The previously unheard of Vaio model PCG-11111L is definitely a Sony of some sort complete with CDMA850 and CDMA1900 courtesy of Qualcomm's Gobi silicon .....
View 3 Replies View RelatedI am looking for a new laptop for college, as some of you may have seen. after long debate, I have finally realized
sony has the best computers for my needs. But from there I am lost. My mother has the fw and loves it, so I know the build quality is great .....
I was looking at this series all the way back in October when Windows 7 was going to launch. What happens?
They keep Vista on it and the gradually phase it out. The few OS 7 models they had they phased out.
Why did Sony discontinue this Series? I've seen no rumors or anything on an update.
Was it not selling well? Techical problems? Why just drop the line for so long?
Recently I bought the NW series Vaio, the VGN-NW265F to be exact. I hooked up the laptop to my TV via HDMI cable in order to watch
a blu-ray movie and I can notice right away that the quality of the image is what is in question here. I know that PS3 and the blu ray movies playing in
why the CW is no longer available? my dell broke over christmas and I was hoping to get this computer before my school break is over at the end of january...
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have a Sony Vaio VGN-FZ27G notebook to be exact and been having a few issues of late, and wondering if there are some clever computer buffs out there to help me solve my dilema.
Firstly I run Vista on 32bit with service pack 1 and just as a side note formated not that long ago.
The main problem is instaling software. Here's when it gets a bit tempremental. Basically it doesn't want to do it, instal software that is. And before you all say "yeah that's an easy one, just run it as Administrator!!" no been there done that and yes it is set as me being administrator etc.
My question, is there a simple oversite or a setting in computer management or even firmware or drivers that need to be definately looked at? I mean it wont even load software at times from the DVD drive let alone from the hard drive!(It wasn't like that before, I know it can do it)
Ive recently recieved my new Z Series with TPM included, until recently I just thought this came hand in hand for the biometric finger print reader.
I now believe that it can be used/or its purpose if for much more than this.