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| |  | Sony | Home » » » » Sony VAIO VGN-FW160E/H 16.4" Laptop (2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 Processor, 4 GB RAM, 250 GB Hard Drive, Blu-Ray Drive, Vista Premium) Grey | | | | | | | Description: | | Broaden your entertainment horizons with the VAIO FW notebook featuring an extra-wide 16.4¿ XBRITE-ECO LCD display. Great for watching widescreen movies or viewing two websites side-by-side, this entertainment-rich notebook minimizes those annoying black bars you see when playing widescreen movies. Watch and record DVDs and get the most out of your games with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. An entertainment powerhouse, the VAIO FW notebook is inspired by theater screens, born from SONY HD expertise and powered by the energy-efficient an super-powerful Centrino 2 processor technology ¿ the latest and greatest from Intel. | | | Features: | |
• Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 processor (2.26GHz), 3MB L2 cache
• Genuine Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium with SP1
• 16.4" widescreen LCD with XBRITE-ECO technology
• 3GB of pre-installed RAM & a roomy 250GB Serial ATA hard drive
• Blu-ray optical drive
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Length:
| 10.3 inches | | Product Width:
| 15.1 inches | | Product Height:
| 1.46 inches | | Product Weight:
| 6.4 pounds | | Package Length:
| 17.8 inches | | Package Width:
| 13.1 inches | | Package Height:
| 5.3 inches | | Package Weight:
| 9.2 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 34 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
 Terrific laptop.Apr 25, 2010
Even after just over a year of use, no complaints to speak of. I travel extensively and this laptop has reliably tolerated everything tossed its way. Two thumbs up.
 Hardware issues and tech support is worthlessAug 23, 2009
The DVD drive sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Sony support told me to wipe the entire machine and start from scratch. They would not listen to me when I told them it won't help. So I did it. Wasted an entire afternoon and of course it didn't help. Still exactly the same problem. Now they want me to send it in and of course pay for it.
Also, this thing is heavy and battery life is pretty bad (always under 2 hours from day one).
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Excellent laptop, sans VISTAJun 11, 2009
I purchased the Sony VAIO VGN-FW140E/H laptop for my 66th birthday in August of 2008. It came with VISTA Home Premium and loads of adware and that annoying UAC dialog. What idiot thought that improved security? Anyway, VISTA would occasionally throw up this message: "Lost connection to the display panel". It would blink a bit and then the desktop would redisplay.
After a month of putting up with VISTA I installed the Linux OS called Mandriva 2008 PWP in dual boot mode, and began spending all my time in Mandriva. Mandriva was bothered by the hardware defect that bothered VISTA. In February, 2009, I decided to replace BOTH VISTA and Mandriva with Kubuntu 9,04 running the KDE 4.2.4 desktop after running Kubuntu in the LiveCD mode and noticing that it worked around the video chip defect and gave me stunning accelerated video. Kubuntu is the desktop that VISTA had hoped to be. Since I scrubbed the HD and made Kubuntu 9.04 the ONLY OS on the box it has been an excellent performer. Running Kubuntu, this laptop reaches its full potential: speed, stability and security. The GM45 chip, a mid-range graphic chip, gives its best. I am NEVER bothered by viruses, Trojans or adware, and bloatware is a thing of the past. The Kubuntu repository has over 28,000 free applications, accessible through the package manager... FireFox, OpenOffice, GIMP, Stellarium, QCad, KMyMoney2, VLC, GoogleEarth, Thunderbird, and TONS of games for the grandkids! :-)
On all the OSs I've used, the touch pad was a problem for me. It worked OK, but as I typed my hands would relax and some part of my thumb would touch the pad, making the mouse cursor jump to some other part of the screen. I disabled it and just use my USB mouse.
As you can tell, the design of the laptop is beautiful. It rivals the Mac, and is certainly more affordable when running Kubuntu, which is free. The Dolby sound is awesome. DVD movies are gorgeous, as are the HD videos on the Internet at Youtube, Hulu and other places. The sticker on the laptop claiming it has a "Full HD 1080p" lies. It's not that good, but the difference is less than most users can detect. It interfaces with my Sony VDR recorder, which allows me to view and record to DVDs the movies I make with my Sony Video camera. Speaking of cameras, the Webcam on this laptop works with everything I throw at it. Primarily Skype. Running Kubuntu it makes a beautiful SecondLife platform, including voice chat. Editing audio or movie files with one of several tools to choose from makes that chore a snap. The GRAMPS genealogy software makes storing and managing the 20 years of data my wife has collected easy.
And, I still keep my hand in programming. I have installed QtSoftware's Qt-Creator, a GUI IDE that matches or exceeds MS Visual Studio when using the Qt4 cross platform Widget set for the API. I also use Bzr as my VCS. It's nice being able to write an application once and compile it for both Linux and Windows without changing the source code. The Qt4 API and Qt-Creator are under the GPL and thus are free for noncommercial use.
After almost 10 months of use I have to say that this laptop is the best computer I have ever owned, starting with the Apple ][+ I purchased in the summer of 1978.
Big DisappointmentFeb 16, 2009
I bought a Sony Viao FW computer from the Palm Beach Gardens, Fl, SonyStyle store in January. The sound worked intermittently; the computer stayed in shut down mode for 12 hours; and it stalled during a boot. All this happened within the first 40 days of ownership. I returned the computer and requested my money back, explaining that I had lost confidence in the product.
After two hours of stressful "discussion" with the store manager, the technician, and, finally, the store owner, 85% of my money was refunded. The 15% was kept as a restocking fee for the faulty machine.
Please think twice before you invest in this product. I was burned and I have little confidence in Sony or its representatives.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Disappointing WiFi, ServiceFeb 09, 2009
This is a handsome, sturdy product, serviceable in many ways but with an unstable Wifi connection. A bit of Googling suggests this issue may endemic with this and similar products. So surely Sony has heard of it before, but the online help is perfunctory and routine. The first online techie (are they all named "Scott?") ran me through some drills, then directed me to a troubleshooting memo which didn't seem designed for this product (refs to stuff that wasn't there). On an email contact, I was told I'd better phone in. Through my own in attention, I misplaced the phone number, so I logged in again: I did have some prior service ID's, but the new Scott didn't seem the least interested. He was setting me up to do a system restore to "where I was before the problem started"--but the problem didn't "start;" it has been here all along. I asked him if system restore would wipe out stuff I had added; he said well yes, I should back up. I said look, can you just send me a driver? He said sure; he was walking me through driver install (not too helpfully, I must say) when the connection broke and I haven't had contact with them again.
FWIW, replacing the driver did not help. I'm just as sure as I can be that Sony has some in-house knowledge of this general issue, and some proactive means for solving it. But they don't seem interested in providing it to me.
I suspect my best alternatives are (a) suck it up; or (b) pay some big money to Geek Squad. Not what I want out of a computer company.
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