Sony Vaio VPCF11M1E / H Laptop Review

Introduction

I want to tell you about the experience of buying a laptop Sony Vaio VPCF11M1E / H. I bought it in the Czech Republic.
In Russia, Sony offers VPCF11S1R / H with the same filling, and its appearance coincides with the VPCF11M1R / H. More details can be found on the official website . The only difference I found is the absence of 802.11n sold in Russia.
I plan to tell more about my own impressions, about using a laptop, rather than about the results of performance measurements by specialized software.
I will also dwell on the software part of my purchase, for “a computer without software is a useless piece of hardware.”
However, first things first.

Selection

A prerequisite for buying a laptop was decent performance, all other parameters could be sacrificed to others.
My love of HD video, as well as some operating experience with ATI video cards, insisted on choosing a laptop with a video card from Nvidia.
First of all, the experience of my long-term communication with laptops was limited to Dell'es: several generations of Latitudinals, now the family also has a Dell 1555, bought in the fall, it is with him that I will make comparisons from time to time.
I initially focused on the Intel Core i7 720QM, 620M or Core i5 520M. The laptops with the Arrandale family processors just started to appear in the Czech Republic, and in general there wasn’t much choice, the Core i5’s 430M.
As an alternative, I considered the Dell 1557 and 1558, but I did not like the video card (ATI Radeon HD4570). In favor of Dell, they said a good guarantee (next buisness day), a screen, and indeed my positive experience of use.
Only two Sony F-series 520M + 4GB and 720QM + 8Gb configurations are on sale in the Czech Republic - however, the latter is almost 40% more expensive.

Configuration

OS - Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
Chipset - Intel PM55 Express
Processor - Intel Core i5-520M
Memory - 4Gb DDR3 1066
Hard Drive - 500 Gb (5400)
Optical drive - CD, DVD (read and write), BR (read)
Video Card - NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M (1Gb GDDR3)
Screen - 1920x1080
Network - 10BASE-T / 100BASE-TX / 1000BASE-T, 802.11 a / b / g / n
Weight - 3.1 kg


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Visual inspection

The surface of the laptop is matte, both of the lid and the inside, the surface in front of the keyboard is rough (the older model has a rubber-like plastic). Most ports are located on the sides of the laptop, in front there are only card readers and a switch for wi-fi. The camera is located in the middle, which increases the chance of her "fingering" during the opening of the laptop. The start button glows green during operation and blinks orange during sleep.

First run

I bought a laptop in the Czech Republic, in connection with this, I was somewhat afraid to be tête-à-tête with Czech Windows, and the fact that you can change the language only in the Ultimate edition of Windows 7 was cause for concern. However, in vain. When you first start you are asked the language, which is no longer possible to change. In general, a wizard without the "back" button is nonsense, however, here we have the opportunity to contemplate it. I was also upset by the request to enter settings for the wireless network, because in case of inability to connect (as it was in my case, because it was necessary to register the unknown MAC address on the router before), the entered data is lost.
The installation process at the end amused phrase: "Another Vaio is born!"
This is how Windows evaluates performance:

Software

The first impression was: "but not all and quickly." However, after disabling / removing some of the pre-installed programs from Sony and its partners, everything became somehow more alive. In general, the number of pre-installed software is impressive, unfortunately, not a lot of it can be called very useful. For example: Vaio Gate - the panel at the top of the screen with the rule under the Mac dock.
Chrome third version was preinstalled, but it was not possible to update it.
The official Nvidia website does not yet offer drivers for the GeForce 330M (as well as the generally three-hundredth mobile series); at the same time, I was not able to display the image on the TV (it needs to be slightly reduced, but I did not find such functionality in the installed drivers). Ubuntu also has a problem with video drivers - after installing and activating the proprietary driver, the video does not work.

Impressions and operating experience

• Screen: movies look great. In office applications, at first it seemed somewhat worse than on Dell, but with careful comparison I can call them different, but worthy of each other. However, in favor of Sony - the light sensor - is immensely convenient.
• Keyboard: I was pleased with the digital part, the location of Insert \ Delete \ Home \ End \ PageUp \ PageDown is quite convenient (unlike Dell, they are at the top, not the side), the left shift is somewhat small and I miss it regularly, the cursor keys are a bit small, not familiar with their location (not in the corner). Ctrl + F4 is not very convenient to press.
  
  
  
• Touchpad: much more convenient Dell'ovskogo, slightly rough to the touch.
  
  
  
• Weight is essential, however, more or less acceptable to me. In general, the assembly impressions are not bad, comparing with the 1555 Dell, I can note the advantage of the Vaio, it reminded me of my old Latitude, which also could be taken with one hand over the edge and did not detect any significant backlash. What Sony is inferior to unequivocally is the inconvenience of opening the laptop with one hand.
• Very tight insertion / pulling of usb devices and power wires.
• The location of the ports is not the best, in my opinion: they are too close to the front, so in case of limited space, when working with a mouse, what is plugged into the usb, connected headphones and so on interferes.
• Noise: generally acceptable, although in the case of intensive work of a video card, the sound becomes somehow buzzing, this is somewhat annoying.
• The exit from sleep is instant, my home wi-fi is also detected without delay.
• Sound: the sound card seemed quite satisfactory, the difference with my old Audigy 4 is, but not so much significant.
• HD video plays perfectly, including the one with which there were some problems on the old desktop (AMD 4850e + ATI HD 3200)
• Work without charging: about 250 minutes - surfing on an Internet via wi-fi, 200 minutes - listening to the radio with the screen on, again with wi-fi
• From the curious: the monitor off button; in other matters, it is not fully disconnected - and there you can take a closer look at the traces of the picture.
• The camera is weak (0.3 MPix)
• The speed of copying files over the network is up to 70 MByte / sec, I have not watched more than 30 on other own hardware.

findings

The overall impressions of the laptop are positive, I got a lot of what I wanted. The pros and cons I found are described above. Perhaps the ideal solution for me would be a laptop with a similar filling from the Z series, with only a 13 inch screen, and weighing four hundred kilo, however, the cost is almost two times more than what was purchased.