Sony Vaio VGN-FW31E

Specifications

Price comparison

Reviews for the Sony Vaio VGN-FW31E

70% Sony Vaio VGN-FW31E review
Source: Techradar Archive.org version
A stylish, well-specified media centre, but less powerful than we'd have liked. Sony's VAIO range is one of the world's best known laptop brands, famous for its high quality, stylish designs. The VAIO VGN-FW31E is a well-specified widescreen media centre notebook, but it falls short on performance. When used for home entertainment, the VGN-FW31E is a stylish and well-specified laptop. For content creation, however, it's low performance falls short, so consider your needs fully before buying.
70, Leistung 40
Single Review, online available, Short, Date: 04/15/2009
Rating: Total score: 70% performance: 40%

Comment

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650: The Hd 3650 is a middle class graphics card (in 2008) and compareable to an 8600M GT GPU from Nvidia. It is fabricated in 55nm process and due to Avivo video engine the graphic card can support the processor with several video operations (HD video too).

Only some 3D games with very low demands are playable with these cards.

» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Graphics Cards and the corresponding Benchmark List.

Intel Core 2 Duo: This is the Core Duo and Core Solo successor with a longer pipeline and 5-20% more speed without more power consumption. As an addition to the Core Duo design there exists a fourth decoder, an amplified SSE-unit and an additional arithmetical logical unit (ALU).

The Core 2 Duo for laptops is identical to the desktop Core 2 Duo processors but the notebook-processors work with lower voltages (0.95 to 1188 Volt) and a lower Frontside bus clock (1066 vs 667 MHz). The performance of equally clocked notebooks is 20-25% lower than Desktop PCs because of the lower Frontside bus clock and the slower hard disks.

T6400: Entry level dual core processor based on the Penryn core with only 2 MB level 2 cache and a low clock speed.» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.

16.40":

This range for display formats was and is a rarity. It is larger than the general standard of 15 inches, but not yet in the range of large workstations. One usually has higher screen resolutions available, but portability suffers from that.

3.2 kg:

A laptop with this weight is comparatively heavy and less designed for mobility than for use at the desk. Therefore, the devices tend to shine less with battery life than with a large screen and higher performance.

Sony: Sony Corporation is one of the largest Japanese electronics companies. The company was founded in 1946 under a different name and initially produced rice stoves. The company launched the first transistor radio. In 1958, the company was renamed Sony. Sony is a combination of the Latin word sonus (sound) and the English word sonny (little boy). Today, its core business is consumer electronics. The company is engaged in the development, design, manufacture and sale of electronic equipment, instruments, devices, game consoles and software. Sony operates in the following segments: Gaming and Network Services, Music, Images, Home Entertainment and Sound, Imaging Products and Solutions, Mobile Communications, Semiconductors, Financial Services and Others.

70%: This rating is poor. More than three quarters of the models are rated better. That is rather not a purchase recommendation. Even if verbal ratings in this area do not sound that bad ("sufficient" or "satisfactory"), they are usually euphemisms that disguise a classification as a below-average laptop.

» Further information can be found in our Notebook Purchase Guide.

Devices from a different Manufacturer and/or with a different CPU

Devices with the same GPU

Devices with Same Screen Size and/or Weight