Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony VAIO FW41M/H, Core2 Duo P8700 2.53GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, BD ROM/DVD+-RW/+-R DL/RAM 16.4 inch X-Black Vista Home Premium

I haven't had this computer for long but that's really indicative of how quickly it has made an impression on me. There are so many things to love with this laptop.

Firstly I'll just say that from a performance point of view it's a great laptop. I can play Age of Empires 3 in 1080p with full graphics and suffered no slowdown so far. Crysis can play at low with 1080p, and closer to high at the 768 ratio. Football Manager plays like a dream zipping though each process faster than I could have imagined.

So why did I buy this laptop? Well, one of the major points for me was it's gigantic screen - which, at 1920x1080 gives you the space to multitask. What a joy it is to play football manager with a large playing area, whilst watching Top Gear through iPlayer, and talking to friends through MSN (Windows Live Messenger) without seeing any drop in performance for any task at any point!

That's the kind of performance and suitability that the processor and screen bring to the laptop. So what else? The speakers are, unlike some of the other FW model reviews I've seen, more than adequately loud and I find myself pained at full blast. Similarly, the screen at 100% is overly bright - which means there is plenty of brightness to mean you can use it in any ambience, including outside.

I can adequately use the screen inside on the lowest brightness setting, and, whilst comparing to my old laptop, the difference in brightness was incredible - it can really pump it out. What a beautiful screen too. The colours are well defined, and for anyone who is upgrading to this level laptop from a more middle-of-the-range brand, they will be wowed as I was. I will soon I'm sure rent my first Blu-ray to play, something I havne't done before, as obviously this comes with the ability to play one. From merely watching 1080p trailers I can tell you the experience is magnificent. It isn't exactly going to exchange for your television - but it could output to one if you want to watch with a number of people. Certainly though a duo or trio could watch a Blu ray and have a lot of fun - the viewing range is more than adequate and the speakers are capable of pumping out that level of sound.

The keyboard, for those who haven't used similarly styled keyboards before (Macbook style, though Sony was the pioneer), takes a few seconds of getting used to but I love it already. The keys are spread out, with a few millimetres between each key. The keys are risen just a few millimetres above the laptop - which means there is no gap for anything to get under which can be nice. The keys are slightly indented and the feeling is great for typing - as well as very natural. I find my typing accuracy going through the roof as hitting the wrong button or tapping two at once is no longer a problem. Not only that but it just looks a lot better than a normal keyboard.

The laptop also has an array of buttons above the keyboard for volume, DVD/BD playback, and so on. The laptop also comes with quite a bit of software installed on it already - some of it won't be particularly welcome but most of it is fine. Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Elements (which retail for quite a price) are both there ready. You will have to make your own backup discs (Sony provides the instructions) which is a small pain. The harddrive is 500GB, and you automatically get around 450GB of this to work with as there is a hidden partition for the recovery data.

Though it's not a particularly fast harddrive, it's not something which has displeased me yet even with the installation of some fairly large pieces of kit. Vista is hardly a bundle of laughs but the free Windows 7 upgrade offer from Sony Vaio (instructions come with laptop) will deal with that problem in the coming months.

So what's not great? The webcam is the only obvious candidate. It's not great quality and a feed from it will be fuzzy and blurry, though it can take moderate captures, it's hardly a stand-alone webcam replacement.

All in all great laptop. Definitely worth the money and the build quality feels like it is built to last, along with being generally beautiful. A definite recommendation.

I had been saving up for a laptop for literally years, and I spent my hard-earned bucks on this Sony, which I am now typing this review on.

I'm particularly impressed by the glossy screen, and the height of the screen, meaning you can have 2 browser windows open side by side. The keyboard is also as good as the manufacturer says- very good quality, and easy to type. Good feel to them.

Other than that it's very swish, fast and quiet. It's got a really good webcam- it's very good quality compared to the external one I had been using. Good software on it too- fun webcam stuff, some Adobe stuff, and of course you can upgrade to Windows 7 for free when it comes out.

Oh yes, very good audio too. On my old laptop I needed external speakers to speak via video link on windows live. The volume here is perfect and loud. Great!

I have no regrests on spending a grand on this. I'd get a nice case to ensure you don't hurt this precious thing. And buy some DVD+RWs so you can create the Sony recovery disks it wants to create.

Yes, brilliant... is it wrong to love a piece of technology?

Have had it for a month or so. Looks great, feels great, it's quick, it's cool and it's perfect for my needs - essentially great screen and plenty of memory. It's a great piece of equipment, definitely worth the money.

Needed a laptop that I could game on, do my coursework on and store all my pictures for editing. I'm really happy with it, the keyboard is like typing on air (cheesy but true). It's incredibly fast and multitasks with ease.

The laptop does what the label said,pity about the factory loaded software,who wants ms office when open office is free, it takes hours to get rid off the dross.