First look: Sony VAIO FW-Series

Tim Danton July 16, 2008

Sony VAIO FW-Series

While three out of the four VAIO ranges announced by Sony yesterday are squarely aimed at businesses, the FW-Series has one mission in life: to entertain.

The chief sign of this is its 16.4in screen, with 1,600 x 900 pixels to help make high-definition movies look great (it’s also enough to view two programs side by side with ease).

And, from my brief encounter with the Blu-ray version of Spider-Man 3, they do: colours pack a punch and viewing angles are good too. The only possible complaint is that the screen is quite reflective.

All but one of the models include a Blu-ray drive that can burn DVDs, but only the top-end will have the capability to write to Blu-ray discs as well.

As standard, all FW-Series laptops include Sony’s Click to Disc Editor too. This allows you to import video from, for example, an HD camcorder and create high-definition Blu-ray (or standard-definition DVD) discs of your own events, complete with interactive menus of course.

Continuing the entertainment theme, pressing the AV button on the top-right of the chassis brought up a menu at the top of the screen with all the usual media-related apps. It’s a handy way to avoid hunting through menus or loading up Windows Media Center to find your chosen application.

Side shot of VAIO FW-Series

The speakers looked impressive, with a huge grille above the keyboard, but we couldn’t test them meaningfully in the exhibition hall – this will have to wait until we have the laptop in our Labs (I’ve been assured one is already on its way).

The final notable feature is a generously sized keyboard, which – like most of the new VAIO ranges – uses the “isolated” keyboard with well separated keys.

It worked well in my brief time tapping away on it, and benefits from the keyboard itself being well positioned: some big laptops like this push the keyboard right to the top of the chassis, which means your palms sit in a slightly uncomfortable position when typing.

vaio_fw_series_h_gray-150x150 With any laptop that includes such a big screen, portability is never going to be its biggest strength. But the FW-Series is by no means the worst offender at 3.1kg and measuring a slim 37mm tall.

However, its width of 384mm means it isn’t a natural for slinging into a bag and it seems that battery life will be somewhere around three hours.

If I was looking for an entertainment laptop, though, I’d certainly consider the FW-Series. Especially as the top-of-the-range model includes a highly respectable ATI Radeon HD 3650 graphics chip.

Prices range from £799 inc VAT for the FW11E, which includes a DVD writer but no Blu-ray drive, to £1,299 inc VAT for the FW11ZU.

Look out for our full review soon.

The specs:

Sony VAIO VGN-FW11ZU: £1,299 inc VAT