Sony VAIO F (Late 2011) Laptop Reviews
Sony VAIO F (Late 2011) Laptop Reviews
Sony VAIO F (Late 2011) Laptop Reviews
The $1,399 Sony VAIO F is all lights, camera, and action. Boasting a large 16.4-inch 1080p display, a Blu-ray player, and a healthy stable of multimedia software, Sony’s latest entertainment media machine is sure to impress. A blazing quad-core Core i7 processor with Nvidia graphics ensures the show goes on, but is the VAIO F worth the cost of admission?
Sony VAIO F Design
The VAIO F is a collection of understated design and interesting angles. The black matte plastic lid is rather austere; a large chrome VAIO insignia is its only decoration. What the notebook lacks in panache, it makes up for with its ability to resist fingerprints and smudges. The lid is a half-inch shorter than the bottom deck, giving the notebook a prominent bottom lip that houses indicator lights for battery, wireless, and the SD card reader.
The notebook’s interior is similarly spartan, constructed of black matte plastic with few flourishes. The standout features include a large backlit keyboard and a raised plastic strip that serves as the palm rest and the touchpad. The keyboard deck slopes downward, revealing a long, thin speaker grille. Touch-sensitive media controls as well as buttons for VAIO Assist, the web browser, VAIO Media Gallery, and power are located directly above the keyboard.
Measuring 15.7 x 10.7 x 1.3-1.7 inches and weighing 6.6 pounds, the VAIO F easily outweighs both the Gigabyte P2532 (15.4 x 10.4 x 1.1-1.4 inches) and the HP Pavilion dv6t (14.8 x 9.7 x 1.2-1.3 inches), both of which weigh 5.8 pounds. While the Dell XP 15 L502X is slightly smaller at 15 x 10.4 x 1.5 inches, it managed to match the VAIO F’s chunky 6.6-pound frame.
Sony VAIO F Performance
Thanks to a quad-core 2.2-GHz Intel Core i7-2670QM processor with 6GB of RAM, the VAIO F has some serious power under the hood. The notebook posted 9,608 on the PCMark Vantage. That’s 1,326 points above the desktop replacement average, and it also beats out the P2532 (8,780) and the XPS 15 L502X (8,548), both of which have a 2-GHz Intel Core i7-2630QM CPU and 8GB of RAM. The HP dv6t’s 2.3-GHz Intel Core i5-2410M processor with 6GB brought up the rear with a score of 6,673.
It took the Sony VAIO F’s 640GB, 7,200-rpm hard drive 59 seconds to boot up the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium, 2 seconds faster than the average. The Gigabyte P2532 and Dell XPS 15 L502X posted 1:00 and 0:53 thanks to their 750GB, 7,200-rpm hard drives. Although it’s also equipped with a 640GB, 7,200-rpm hard drive, the Pavilion dv6t came in dead last at 72 seconds.
During the LAPTOP File Transfer Test, the VAIO F duplicated 4.97GB of mixed-media files in 2 minutes and 38 seconds for a transfer rate of 32.2 MBps, slightly slower than the 36.2 MBps desktop replacement average. The P2532 and XPS 15 L502X tied with 33.3 MBps while the dv6t posted 30.1 MBps.
On the OpenOffice Spreadsheet test, the VAIO F took 5 minutes and 13 seconds to match 20,000 names to their corresponding addresses, 55 seconds behind the average. Still, it held on to beat out the XPS 15 L502X and the P2532, which clocked in at 5:14 and 5:27, respectively.
Sony VAIO F Technical Specifications
CPU 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-2670QM CPU
Operating System MS Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
RAM 6GB RAM Upgradable to 8GB
Hard Drive Size 640GB
Hard Drive Speed 7,200rpm
Hard Drive Type SATA Hard Drive
Display Size 16.4
Native Resolution 1920×1080
Optical Drive BD-R
Optical Drive Speed 8X
Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce GT540M
Video Memory 1GB
Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n
Wi-Fi Model Atheros 802.11b/g/n
Bluetooth Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
Mobile Broadband -
Touchpad Size 3.5 x 1.9 inches
Ports (excluding USB) Ethernet; Firewire 400; HDMI; Headphone; Microphone; USB 3.0; VGA; security lock slot
USB Ports 3 Ports
Card Slots 4-1 card reader
Warranty/Support 1 year limited warranty
Size 15.7 x 10.7 x 1.3 – 1.7-inches
Weight 6.6 pounds
