Sony launched the FW13 GU/H laptop in the Indian market recently. The laptop boasts of features like Full HD and Blue Ray drive along with a powerful processor. Is it really worth the juice? Lets find out.
Configuration
| Microprocessor | Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T9400 (2.53 GHz) |
| Memory | 4 GB (2 x 2048 MB) |
| Memory Max | 4 GB |
| Video Graphics | ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3470 |
| Dedicated Video Memory | 256 MB |
| Hard Drive | 320 GB Serial ATA 5400 rpm |
| Multimedia Drive | Blue Ray Drive. Supports DVD±RW/±R, DL/RAM Drive, DVD+R,DVD-R,DVD+RW, DVD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-RAM, CD-ROM,CD-R, CD-RW |
| Display | 16.4” (41.6 cm) Wide (WXGA++: 1600 x 900) TFT Colour Display (Clear Bright LCD) |
| Wireless Connectivity | IEEE 802.11b/g Draft n |
| PC Card Slot | ExpressCard ™/34 x1 |
| Built-in Camera | Motion Eye |
| Weight | 3 Kg (including the supplied battery) |
| Battery Life | 2 hours |
| OS | Windows Vista Ultimate |
Weighing at 3 kgs, and with a battery backup of a mere 2 hours, this seems to come under the category of Desktop Replacement laptops, and a pricey one at that. I do not know how Sony can call this a Full HD laptop when the screen has a maximum resolution of 1600 x 900 pixels. You can surely call it HD ready. But definitly not Full HD (In case you are wondering why, read this).
The laptop does look good on the memory and storage side with full 4 GB RAM and a whooping 320 GB 5400 RPM disk drive. Although, the memory is the maximum the processor can address, the disk drive could have been bigger for this price. Also, a SSD option could have made things hotter.
Having a blu ray drive with a HDMI port does not justify the high price. The fact that the LCD is only HD Ready and that you will need a higher resolution screen to view the Blue Ray discs in Full HD, one would rather go for VAIO SR series at a much lower price and buy a separate Blue Ray player with much more features.
The few good things I can spot in the laptop include the true wide screen LCD. At exact 16:9 aspect ratio, you won’t see the 2 black strips in your wide screen HD videos when you play them on this laptop. Another thing to note is that the processor is one of the fastest currently available.
I am not sure what the Motion Eye camera would do, however, it has probably something to do with sensing motion and other kid stuff.
The laptop’s MRP is an insane 1,24,900 INR. At this price, I cannot imagine any sane person buying it, considering it doesn’t even stand on the USP (Full HD) that Sony is claiming.
4 responses to “Sony Vaio FW13 – First Full HD Laptop? [Not Really]”
This may have changed since this article was written, but Sony lists two different native display resolution options for the FW:
16.4" Screen
1600 x 900 or 1920 x 1080 Resolution
XBRITE-ECO™ or XBRITE-FullHD™ Technology
It would definately be misleading to label the 1600×900 model FullHD…
I have bought this sony vaio FW series is it original how can i learn about that ?? also is it really Fll HD..thanks
Thanx Setu,
But I need some more help.
For movies that I shoot on my SOny CX 100, on HD mode, AVCHD is best, and then Blue Ray is recommended for best viewing/playing.
Now FW 13 gives me these, will I feel the deficiet if I buy Apple MacBook Pro?
How difficlut is it to use MAC inplace of Windows?
Thanx once again for ur guidance.
Dr Rajiv Dang.
It totally depends on the purpose you want to buy your laptop for. If all you want to do is view BluRay on your laptop the Sony might be the right choice.
For everything, else the MacBook Pro would be better 🙂 Better LED screen (just a little less resolution on the 15" model), lighter, much better battery life (4 times) and it's a pleasure to use every day. For the first few months you'll be happy learning how it does stuff better than a windows laptop.
It'll take a week to get accustomed to MacOS coming from windows but after that it'd be a charm. And you can run windows on a macbook pro anyway. Although I won't recommend anyone to do so unless he really needs it.