Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony VAIO FW31E 16.4-inch Laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 2Ghz, 4GB RAM, 400GB HDD, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470, Vista Home Premium)

A quick non tech review, plenty of those splattered all over the net, plus I am not that much of a techy anyway, I use the laptop for word processing, internet surfing, watching films, editing and storing pictures and family videos

I bought this laptop purely based on ergonomics. The other competitors in the 16.5 inch bracket were too dam ugly/businessy/pasticy to contemplate. I have to admit that when closed, the blue/grey plastic back is not much to look at, but once you open the lid, the view changes considerably. The magnesium curvy chassis is very pleasant and well designed, I personally find it nicer than the Mac equivalent. The "scrabble style" keyboard is nicely laid out and it is a joy to use. The screen is very bright, colours are vibrant and clear. The odd 16.4 inch size works wonderfully well. Hardware wise, it is very well equipped and dealt with every task without breaking a sweat, Vista is a a pain to use, I installed Windows7 Beta and frankly it transformed this machine into something twice as good!
The mack-book pro is twice as expensive but nowhere near twice as good when it comes to everyday tasks. This is a very well specced and well priced laptop. Unless you're into heavy gaming, this is probably the best laptop you can get at present.

This is the greatest laptop i have ever owned, if you are unsure if you should get this please do you will not regret it!!
The graphics card is great (can even play games such as Call of duty 4!)
I have never written a review before and i just have to because this laptop is just amazing. The performance is great and the look of the keyboard, screen is beautiful ;)

After much searching to find the ideal laptop for me, I came across the Sony Vaio. Very stylish to look at, love the keyboard which is ideal for me as I touch type and find it difficult to do that on the more traditional keyboards where the keys are too close together! That's actually been one of my gripes with laptops in the past so I'm so pleased to have found one that resolved this issue.

Very fast and reliable, absolutely love it and would recommend it!

Had it for a couple of months now and no problems. Delighted with my purchase!

I recently purchased one of these to take with me to University. It's powerful enough to run office, a web browser and media player in unison, or to be used as a DVD player with it's High-Quality screen, but not quite powerful enough to tempt me into gaming.

Upon first inspection, I was taken aback by the beauty - It really is an attractive machine. The frame around the screen was a little loose, but that was the only imperfection I spotted.

First boot went smoothly, and the screen really is of an excellent quality; crisp, vivid colours, and not a broken pixel in sight.

Be prepared for a lot of bloat-ware pre-installed on the machine, some useful, some not. As long as you're careful with what you remove, none of the programs should kick up any real fight when uninstalled. Even McAfee went peacefully.

Things move at a pretty steady pace; it certainly isn't a high-end machine, but it's good considering the price. Windows 7 may also boost the performance a little.

Sadly, my machine has already developed a few problems, only four days into life. There is a loose part of the case next to the mouse pad that will creek and moan when any weight is applied. Certainly not the end of the world, but combine that with the fact it will snarl like a rabid beast whenever the DVD-Drive is in use, or any sound above a whisper is emitted from the internal speakers, and I am definitely questioning my beliefs about Sony's reputation for High Build quality.

Inside the machine things have been just as Hit and Miss. First off the Webcam won't work at 1.3mp, only the common 640x480 res or under. Also, after a couple of good days, the wireless now refuses to run faster than a connection from the '90s. Our other laptop in the house clocks in at an average 6mb/s whilst online through the wireless router, whilst the Vaio is now down to 300kb/s (30kb/s downloads). These are of course not issues everyone will experience, but after some online research It's certainly not an isolated incident.

Pro's - Aesthetically Pleasing. Good setup on paper. Amazing Screen.
Con's - Bundeled with unneccessary software. Suspect build quality. Hardware/software issues appearing in no time.

bought this laptop mainly because of the 16:9 screen as I like to watch TV on the internet and it's really good quality. I would have thought the computer being faster but I suspect windows Vista has something to do with it, I think I'll go for Windows 7 when it comes out. Overall very satisfied.