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- 1.6GHz Intel Core i7-720QM Processor
- 6GB Memory; 500GB Hard Drive
- Blu-ray Disc Support – BD ROM
- 16.41″ (1600×900) 16:9 Widescreen LCD
- Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
Product Description
The new Sony VAIO(R) VPCF114FX/H notebook has a maximum performance and amazing HD entertainment on a top-notch 16.4″ widescreen notebook with a backlit keyboard and integrated number pad. And now with a quad core Intel Core i7-720M 1.6GHz processor & Intel Turbo(R) Boost Technology up to 2.80GHz, dedicated NVIDIA GeForce graphics, and a Blu-ray Disc drive, you will experience the ultimate in smart performance and a razor-sharp picture with amazing depth and clarity… More >>
Sony VAIO VPC-F114FX/H 16.41-Inch Laptop
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Background:
I purchased this laptop with the intention of using it as a mobile workstation, since my current situation leaves me very little time to use my PCs (i7 920 based desktops with high end gpus). I do a great deal of work that involves Photoshop, Illustrator, some video editing, programming, and light 3D modeling/texturing. I play PC games on occasion, but gaming was not a primary concern of mine. I needed a mobile workstation that would be able to perform the aforementioned tasks well, but without breaking the bank, on a budget of around $1300 – $1500 dollars. Necessities: Larger screen with a decent resolution, Core i7, at least 4GB DDR3, full keyboard, faster HDD, and decently fast GPU with plenty of memory.
Comparison Shopping:
This brought me to evaluate several different laptops: Dell Studio 17, HP DV6t, Asus G51, Toshiba Qosmio series, and of course the Sony Vaio F series. Quality control/reliability and quality of customer service is very important in a laptop that will be moving around a lot/prone to mishaps, so this eliminated many other brands, and also quickly eliminated the option of the Dell Studio 17, which i learned has very serious overheating issues that have persisted for months, with the only resolutions currently involving BIOS updates that cause the laptop to not use the full power of the i7. Yuck. Their CS is a nightmare as well. Next off the list was the DV6t, in which it had a smaller HDD, last generation video card with low resolution, less memory, yet carried a higher price. I was very surprised that that the Sony was shaping up to be the most affordable of the bunch, since I long had impressions that Vaios carried the kind of unnecessary premiums that Apple is notorious for. The specifications of the Asus and and Toshibas were very good and had more powerful 330M and 360M video cards, but were considerably more expensive (not to mention having very ‘gamer’ styled case designs). I have had several Toshiba Satellites break in the past, and Asus is still a newcomer that has a ways to go in the customer service department (I’ve owned at least half a dozen Asus motherboards, dealt with their CS before). Overall quality and surprising affordability lead me to the Sony, which has more than adequate power and features, and excellent customer support.
Now for the Actual Review!
Build & Function:
Build quality was apparent right out of the box, with the Vaio F series having nice very tight tolerances, strong hinges and a great keyboard. I could probably devote an entire paragraph to the keyboard, but I’ll spare potential shoppers the unnecessary verbiage; the Vaio’s island style keyboard is one of the best I’ve ever used! A very nice satin finish, with excellent tactile feedback on key press. Very solid keyboard that is even better than Macbook Pro’s. The case design is very understated, nicely textured. Some would say it looks boring, but I didn’t buy the laptop to stand out, just to get work done. Rubber stoppers on the lid are more than adequate to keep the keys from kissing the screen and look like they’ll last a very long time. AC connector has freedom and play to swivel and jiggle, preventing any connector damage when using laptop on the lap. My only gripe is with the trackpad’s multitouch functions; either my fingers are too big, or multitouch doesn’t work too well, even after adjusting sensitivity. Multitouch isn’t a very big selling point for me, so it’s forgivable. The Vaio is also fairly light and easy to lug around.
Battery & Thermal Capacity:
There shouldn’t be any misconceptions here– battery life is very short. This should come to no surprise on an i7 based desktop replacement. People using this laptop will likely be connected to AC power all of the time. If not, the Vaio has a button above the numpad to switch to a lower power mode, and Win7 has plenty of configurable Power Usage options. As far as heat goes, the Vaio stays very cool compared to other i7 laptops. Doing 6 hours of heavy lifting with the CPU+GPU, the palm rest only got mildly warm, with the bottom of the case never really getting hot. Exhaust fan is relatively quiet.
Screen & Sound:
At first the glossy screen gave me some concern, but in use, the picture is very bright and clear, with reflections not very noticeable. The F114FX has an ambient light sensor to automatically adjust screen brightness and it is not too obtrusive. Color reproduction is surprisingly decent. Viewing angles are very poor, but that’s a given on any TFT screen (anything else would be 2x more expensive). Screen resolution is about perfect in relation to the screen’s size. I mention this because I see laptops on the market with 15″ screens and 1920×1080 resolutions, but resolutions that high are moot unless your face is a foot away from the screen. The onboard speakers lack low end oomph and are a bit tinny, but the sound card itself is not lacking. When attaching a decent pair of headphones, the sound output from the laptop is good.
Software:
I do wish this laptop had the option of Win7 Professional, but that is an easy “Anytime Upgrade” to be saved up for when the price goes down. The Vaio F Series came bundled with some software, but not nearly as much as I was worrying about. Google Chrome, Silverlight, Office 07 trial, Norton AV, Works, Corel WinDVD (for BD playback), and Roxio EZ CD Creator. All of the software is useful, but I uninstalled it all in favor of my own, quickly and painlessly. There is also quite a bit of Sony brand software bundled in for media creation/sorting/sharing/backup that is actually pretty good, but I wound up removing the majority of it. Most of the bundled software is geared for home/entertainment use and wasn’t necessary for me since I would be installing the CS4 suite. Removing all of the bundled software netted about 5 second faster boot times, which is marginal. There is enough performance headroom in the system to keep this stuff on, but most “pro” users will be deleting it. No DVDs came with the laptop, but the HDD does have a recovery partition if you ever screw up bad enough that you need to restore to factory original. Nothing new there.
Performance:
This laptop is no slouch when it comes to CPU intensive tasks. 300+ MB .PSD & .AI files, converting videos, rendering scenes/fx, unpacking compressed files…this computer doesn’t break a sweat (literally, the computer stays cool). The i7 720QM with 6GB DDR3 is amazingly quick, and it is close enough the i7 820QM in speed that it’s very hard to justify spending extra money for the higher end processor. The 7200rpm drive is a lot faster than I had anticipated and it will suffice for a while until SSD prices get down to reasonable levels. Although I’m not a big PC gamer, this laptop should be able to handle all games very well, since the native resolution is overly high, so the GT310M won’t be taxed too hard. It would be nice if the GPU side had a little more power, but at this point I’m not noticing anything.
Overall, this is a fantastic, well thought out laptop, with plenty of performance, and a head turning price. It is probably the first time i’ve purchased a laptop and not felt shortchanged and/or overcharged. If you’re shoppping for a Core i7 laptop, you’d be doing yourself a disservice to not check out these new Vaios. The price has come back down to earth, while the quality has remained at top-of-the-line levels.
Rating: 5 / 5
My old 13-inch Macbook with 120-GB hard drive + 1-GB RAM + Core 2 Duo, had cost me ~$1500 in 2007 but then had a hard drive failure after just two and a half years. I decided not to flush my good money down Job’s pocket any more.
Got this machine for Core i7 + 6 GB RAM + NVidia graphics card w/ 1 GB memory a couple of weeks ago. I have been pretty happy with its overall performance and even Windows 7.
I did notice from the very beginning the incessant hissing noise everybody is talking about. It was not loud but maddening (to me).
But I found a fix at a Yahoo forum: Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Sound -> “Recording” tab -> Select “Microphone” in the list and click on the “Properties” button -> “Listen” tab -> Check “Listen to this device” and select “Digital Output(Optical)…” from “Playback through this device:” drop-down.
It hisses no more.
The fan sound isn’t bad at all. My old Macbook made far louder noise every time it got hot, which was about every hour or so.
It doesn’t get hot like my old Macbook, either (boy, did that thing get toasty).
The DVD-RW/Blue-Ray-R drive runs pretty smoothly. My old Macbook used to vibrate violently when I tried to burn a CD at 4x or faster.
In short, it is pretty good, and I would recommend it to my friends and family. A little pricey, generally speaking, but a bargain compared to the overpriced Apple things.
Rating: 4 / 5
bought this laptop a couple of days ago….WOW. its a beautiful piece of machinary..hd playback is great on its 1080p screen..
and can play all my games(including crisis) with ease.So yea i’m really satisfied with this laptop
pros:crazy good full hd screen
great graphics card
the feel of the keyboard is great(back lit)
multi touch mouse pad(pitch and zoom pages)
fast as hell!!
cons:expensive..but you get what you pay for
fan can get loud…whine
i wish it was a tad thinner
doesnt have a non tray slot loader…( i like those)
all in all its pretty good…and worth it if you have the dough..
Rating: 4 / 5
At this price point, this laptop seemed to good to be true – it was
I’ll start with the CONS:
One (1) annoying dead pixel on the display.
Out of the box it has that high pitched buzzing noise that everyone is talking about. I applied the change in Windows to the mic settings and that solved that problem. However, after about 4 days of use, a very weird ‘ringing noise’ is being emitted from the fan exhaust port. This is not the same noise as referenced above. The best I can describe this noise is it sounds like a tuning fork or a low frequency noise that sounds like the mic feedback when you put it too close to the speakers. It comes and goes at random and is EXTREMELY annoying.
The fan on this laptop is also VERY loud. I know the i7 is a lot to cool, but the fan on this is ALWAYS on (even at idle) and it is constantly increasing and decreasing speed. If it would maintain a constant speed it would still be loud but would be much less annoying. When gaming, this fan howls – I mean the turbos on my car seem to wind up with less noise. At full boar, the fan sounds like a jet engine winding up.
PROS:
Very nice looking laptop. No lame graphics on the case, very clean lines. Profressional looking laptop.
The display – the 1080p display is very nice. I love all the real-estate because I always have a lot of applications open at once. The brightness by default is one notch below full, so adjusting that to full brightness really made the colors pop. Viewing angles are tight, but acceptable.
The backlit keyboard has turned out to be very useful. Typing in the dark or lowly lit rooms is cake.
The i7 processor backed up with this much RAM makes this thing a processor beast. I can run some extremely CPU intensive tasks and this never breaks a sweat.
Ultimately, I returned this thing because it became obvious will all the noises that it was just a cheap laptop with poor build quality that had not been properly tested.
Rating: 2 / 5
I have one foot firmly in the Apple camp and another in the PC camp. Don’t argue with me, some things Windows just does better. I had a smaller VAIO that lasted for 5 or 6 years before it blue-screened. This is a wonderful, big, second workhorse for our wireless system at home.
Rating: 5 / 5