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Sep
18
Written by:
George Ou
9/18/2008 1:42 PM
I started off as the proud new owner of a brand new Sony VGN-FW140E notebook with the latest processor and chipset, but happiness turned to severe disappointment as the flaws rolled in one after another. The notebook looks deceptively sleek and cool when it's actually quite bulky with a 16.4" LCD display, but that's not one of the many reasons it failed.
The first problem with this laptop is that the display is so glossy that I could literally shave myself it in. Take it in to any semi bright room with a window or bright lights and it's basically worthless because you can barely see a thing. I have no idea why laptop manufacturers keep putting out glossy displays but this particular laptop was particularly horrendous.
The second problem with this laptop is the buggy drivers. The HDMI audio drivers for example simply refused to install on a fresh install of Windows Vista Ultimate Edition 32-bit claiming that it only installs on Windows Vista (don't know how much more Vista I can get). Clearly Sony has not tested this driver. The other problem was the panel button drivers which disabled Vista UAC and rebooted and then installed itself. I re-enabled UAC after Vista warned me and then all hell seemed to break loose with these drivers. Vista now complained about a missing battery (strange considering the fact that it has power to warn me) and dropped me in to hibernate mode. You boot up again and same thing happens again and I had to do a system restore to put the computer back to the ways things were before I installed those drivers.
The third problem is this laptop's hardware. The battery simply stops charging after a few minutes whether it's in suspend mode or whether it's powered on. When you first plug the power cord in, the battery indicator in the task tray charges but it stops in a few minutes. Even after leaving the laptop plugged in all night long, it refused to charge the battery. I think the only way to charge the thing is to completely shut down and I'm still not sure if that will work.
The verdict on this laptop is that it's a miserable failure because it belongs in a lab somewhere as a beta product and not as a production product. It's going back to Fry's where I bought the machine at a discounted $899. It's not that the laptop is a complete design failure, it simply needs a lot of work to hammer out the flaws. The camera and microphone worked fairly well, the inclusion of an HDMI port was a welcome entry, and the discounted price was reasonable for a high-end laptop. But until these issues are worked out and the LCD replaced with something that works in a bright room, it's a nonstarter for me.
Moving forward, I just bit the bullet and ordered a real road warrior's laptop the Lenovo X200 12" ultra-mobile laptop for around $1120 (need to order 9-cell battery extra) which got a fairly impressive review (especially the 6+ hour DVD playback drain test and CPU performance). I was very tempted to go with an Asus 1000H NetBook at only $450 but I really wanted a high performance ultramobile with the Intel 45nm P8600 2.4 GHz CPU.
Tags:
11 comments so far...
Re: Why the new Sony FW series laptop fails miserably
Well, at least it's a story with a happy ending. Although the X200 is a fine laptop, I can't say I am happy with Lenovo's decision to stop selling SLED pre-installed.
A person such as yourself wouldn't be happy with a mini. There are limits to what you can do with one, but that's to be expected.
Good Luck with the new rig!
--Dietrich
By dietrich on
9/18/2008 2:42 PM
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Re: Why the new Sony FW series laptop fails miserably
Sony has always been at the forefront of glossy displays, and they give it a hip name like "xbright" or something. It's a gimmick. From what I understand, glossiness is a easy way to give the illusion of high contrast.
Regarding your third paragraph, I think you meant to say "64bit" when you mentioned Vista Ultimate Edition.
By Bagha on
9/18/2008 5:02 PM
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Re: Why the new Sony FW series laptop fails miserably
It'd be nice if you could let us know after some time how the Lenovo works out.
By Paul William Tenny on
9/18/2008 5:02 PM
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I will definitely be doing a hands on review of the X200 Paul
I will definitely be doing a hands on review of the X200 Paul, thanks.
By host on
9/18/2008 5:06 PM
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That's what I was afraid of Dietrich
That's what I was afraid of Dietrich, that I wouldn't be happy with a NetBook's performance. I think for strictly Windows XP, VPN, and MS Office, the Netbooks are fine. But I want a little more than that.
I was not going to pay $2000 for a 12" laptop when the NetBooks are only $450, but seeing an $1100 Lenovo X200 was just too good a deal for me to pass up.
By host on
9/18/2008 5:05 PM
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Bagha, I did mean 32 bit
Bagha, I did mean 32 bit. I don't run 64 bit because I'm afraid of running in to a few driver issues.
You're right about the glossy displays. I noticed that the Macbooks have those glossy displays too but not quite as glossy. I swear this Sony FW series laptop is the highest gloss display I've ever seen. These consumer laptops are all gimicks in terms of form over function. The Thinkpads are strictly function over glitter and they're completely practical. You might have a dull looking surface, but it's highly functional in the grip you get. The screen is completely dull looking but it's extremely effective in bright conditions.
By host on
9/18/2008 5:08 PM
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Netbooks aren't bad for most
Although I want to trash my 7 inch screen, I still am quite fond of my netbook. It will play a full screen video although a bit choppy at times. (Also not an Atom.) I am sure that even though the 8.9 and 10 inch screens require a little more CPU, the Atoms would be enough to do almost anything that I am interested in. I am currently testing out one for at my work place. We have production environment which is very hard on PCs that require several fans.
Agreed though, the price on the x200 is too good to pass up. I would still enjoy having more RAM, but DDR3 is at a high cost.
By nuCrash on
9/20/2008 5:51 AM
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For most is the key word
For most is the key word, and I'm afraid I might all out of that scope. At 4x the price for an ultra mobile like the Sony or Dell 12" models, I can live with the limitations of an Atom based Netbook. At roughly 2.3x the price for an X200, that changed my mind.
By host on
9/20/2008 11:35 AM
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Re: Why the new Sony FW series laptop fails miserably
Xbrite (licensed from Toshiba), seems to be something they use for people that intend to watch a lot of movies (presumably in relative darkness), though I think I've seen it on virtually all Sony and Toshiba laptops, as well as at least some from HP.
Personally, I expect a 17" laptops to be heavy (Air not withstanding), but that aside, I think you meant to say Alpha where you said beta. I'd expect a beta product to work with all the h/w it ships with.
I wonder if this was a defective unit. It just seem hard to believe that any laptop model, especially one from a major player, would ship with the issues you mentioned, but then how could an individual laptop have that many disparate problems related to defective h/w?
By notgonnatellya on
9/21/2008 5:23 AM
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You're right, I should have called it an alpha product
I might believe that the battery is a hardware flaw, but even then it's intermittent. I can’t believe the HDMI audio driver and the panel drivers are specific to this unit and I certainly don’t believe it’s possible to have 3 of 3 flaws attributed to the hardware.
Now unfortunately for me, Fry’s won’t let me return this POS till I spend close to $30 to order the recovery disk from Sony.
By host on
9/21/2008 1:59 PM
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Re: Why the new Sony FW series laptop fails miserably
Many of us are looking for GeForce 86/87/8800M GT/GTS or better in a sleek format. Maybe Apple will continue to deliver, but many people I know are looking at Acer or Asus all-around. It would be nice to have a list of all high-end (8600M and above) GeForce laptops/notebooks sorted by size and price. The Nvidia site only lists unpopular Alienware, Dells, and HPs.
By anan on
9/23/2008 7:44 PM
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