Sony VAIO F review: Sony VAIO F

Sony certainly makes distinctive-looking laptops. And in a market saturated with cookie-cutter gray boxes (or now, endless MacBook Air knockoffs), that's more important than it may seem at first. Even better, Sony also happens to make very good laptops, and I can probably count the number of real lemons found in the Sony Vaio line over the past five-plus years on the fingers of one hand.

7.6

Sony VAIO F

The Good

With a Blu-ray drive, Nvidia GeForce 540M graphics, and a full 1080p resolution display, the <b>Sony Vaio F Series</b> is a full-featured movie and gaming machine, with a sharp look and useful preloaded software.

The Bad

The 16-inch screen can sit uncomfortably between midsize and desktop replacement laptops, and the Sony price premium is nearly on par with Apple's. Plus, the battery life is disappointingly weak.

The Bottom Line

If the size is right for you, the Vaio F Series is a well-made high-end laptop, and is a good reminder that Sony is one of the few brands that comes close to Apple on design and polish.

The Vaio F Series, represented here by the VPC-F236FM/B configuration, is a 16-inch multimedia machine. It's a not very common in-between size--a bit too big to be mainstream, but too small to be a desktop replacement. That said, with a Blu-ray drive, Nvidia GeForce 540M graphics, and a full 1080p resolution display, it's a tricked-out movie-and-gaming machine (perhaps the "F" stands for full-featured--Sony's Vaio naming conventions are among the most maddening in all of laptop-dom).

But it's also a premium-priced system, at $1,459 (different configurations from Sony's online shop start at $1,049). The look is certainly distinctive, with sharp angles and a raised wrist rest, but HP's 15-inch Envy 15 offers a similar mix of power and style in a slimmer chassis, starting at around the same price. If you want a screen that's just a little larger, and the overall size of this Vaio happens to be exactly what you're looking for, it's certainly a well-made, well-polished machine, and is a good reminder that, aside from Apple, Sony is generally the "reach" brand laptop shoppers actively seek out.

Next to Apple, Sony's Vaio line is probably the easiest to pick out of a lineup. Even though many Vaio design features have changed over the years, such as the rounded hinges with built-in power buttons that were standard for a long time, there's still a basic Vaio "look." In this case, that is manifested in an angular, gently sloping body, chrome Vaio logo across the back of the lid, and distinctive round quick-launch buttons just above the keyboard.

The system's silhouette is very distinctive; the body and lid are both wider at their tops, narrowing below. The effect, as seem from the side, is of two trapezoids stacked on top of each other. Also note that the base has a larger overall footprint than the lid, so the two halves don't clamshell together tightly.

As a 16-inch laptop, the Vaio F Series is at the larger end of the midsize category of systems, which have 14-, 15-, or 16-inch displays. Anything bigger would be considered a desktop replacement, designed to sit permanently in one spot and take the place of a desktop computer, home entertainment center, or other gear. As it is, this Vaio is large, even for 16-inch laptops, and next to a comparable full-featured 15-inch, such as HP's Envy 15, the size difference is notable. While I could see lugging the Envy 15 or a Dell XPS 15z (or a 15-inch MacBook Pro, for that matter) around a few times per week, the Vaio F is just too big for all but very occasional travel.

The very bright backlit keyboard is of the traditional island style favored by Sony (and Apple) for years. It's since become the industry standard for nearly everybody, even appearing on many Lenovo laptops. The large keys and full-size number pad work well, but the volume controls are relegated to alt functions of the F keys, which is not optimal. HP's recently revamped Envy 15 does it right, offering a separate volume wheel and mute button. Above the keyboard are touch buttons for play/pause and rewind/fast-forward, as well as quick-launch buttons for Sony's Vaio help tools, which are handily built into a single app.

The touch pad, demarcated by a pattern of textured dots built into the raised wrist rest, is adequate but small for such a large laptop, and the plastic feel is no match for the glass touch pads that are becoming more common in other brands. Finally, the left and right mouse buttons are squeezed into a thin rocker bar--for more than $1,000, I'd expect two separate buttons.

Sony does, however, pack a decent amount of extra software into the system, and unlike previous years where Sony was well-known as a bloatware king, there are a few apps on here that are real gems. They are easiest to find through the Vaio Gate shortcut bar that floats along the top edge of the screen, and from there, you can access system tools and extras, such as Remote Play for connecting to a PlayStation 3, and a bundle containing Sony's Vegas video-editing program, plus Sound Forge and Acid, both excellent audio apps for recording, editing, and multitracking. I used Acid for many years to arrange drum loops and samples because of its excellent time-stretching capabilities.

The 16.4-inch display has a 1,920x1,080-pixel native resolution, which is what we'd expect in a high-end laptop of this size. By way of comparison, most 15-inch laptops have a lower 1,366x768-pixel display, and even high-end ones tend to top out at 1,600x900. The advantage of having a 1080p laptop screen is that HD video, such as from a Blu-ray disc, can be displayed at its native resolution. As one would rightly expect from a Vaio laptop, the display is clear and bright, with decent off-axis viewing. While it's not technically a matte screen, this is one of the least glare-prone ones I've seen on a multimedia laptop in a long time.

There are a handful of surprises to be found in the ports and connections. This is one of the first laptops I've seen where the USB 3.0 ports outnumber the USB 2.0 ports (two to one, in this case). Of course, USB 3.0 peripherals are still not as common as they should be. Secondly, it's been a while since a laptop landed here with a FireWire port. Sony also calls this technology i.LINK, but it's really only used by a handful of cameras and older peripherals. But if you've been looking for a FireWire-enabled laptop, you've found one.

While the various preset configurations keep changing and disappearing, Sony currently has the customizable version of this system for sale on its website, and it's worth noting that even the $1,049 base model includes a quad-core Intel Core i7 CPU. The 1080p screen is also standard, and a 3D compatible version is also available--we reviewed a 3D F Series laptop in 2011. Our test unit also had an upgraded GPU, the Nvidia GeForce 540M, which is $50 more than the standard 520M.

In benchmark testing, the 2.2GHz Intel Core i7 2670QM performed excellently, beating out Dell's XPS 15z and Toshiba's P775 (both with Core i7 CPUs) in our multitasking test. In single-app tests, the XPS 15z did a little better, but at this high-end level, any of these systems is more than enough for even heavy multitasking, photo/video editing, and HD media playback.

The Nvidia GeForce 540M is a solid mainstream GPU, and the system ran our Street Fighter IV test at full 1,920x1,080 resolution at an impressive 44.7 frames per second. In Metro 2033, a very challenging test, it only ran at 12.0 frames per second, even at a lower 1,366x768-pixel resolution, but the game itself is very playable if you dial down the detail levels in the in-game menus.

Juice box
Sony Vaio F Series	Average watts per hour
Off (60 percent)	0.871
Sleep (10 percent)	1.09
Idle (25 percent)	16.67
Load (5 percent)	79.22
Raw kWh	76.73
Annual power consumption cost	$8.71

Despite being a bit on the bulky side, the Vaio F did well in nearly every department--until we got to the battery test. It used to be common for big-screen multimedia/gaming laptops to run for only about an hour, but since Intel's current-gen Core i-series CPUs hit last year, scores have risen across the board. So, it was disappointing to see this 16-inch laptop run for only 1 hour and 44 minutes on our video-playback battery-drain test.

The Sony Vaio F Series is backed by an industry-standard, one-year mail-in warranty. Upgrading to a three-year mail-in plan is an extra $179, or $329 with accidental damage protection. Support is accessible 24-7 via a toll-free phone line, an online knowledge base, and a Web site with driver downloads. Sony's support sites are clean and easy to navigate.

For a den or dorm room, the big-boned Vaio F could find a good home as a Blu-ray or gaming center, but the large footprint and premium price also mean that the potential audience is somewhat limited, and you may be better served by a thinner high-end 15-inch laptop or an even larger desktop replacement.

Benchmark testing by Julie Rivera

Find out more about how we test laptops.

System configurations:

Sony Vaio VPC-F236FM
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-2670QM; 8GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 540M + 64MB Intel HD; 640GB Toshiba 7,200rpm

Dell XPS 15Z
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-2620M; 8GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 2GB Nvidia GeForce GT 525M / 64MB (Shared) Intel HD 3000; 750GB Seagate 7,200rpm

Lenovo Ideapad G770
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 2.3GHz Intel Core i5-2410M; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 1GB Nvidia GeForce 410M; 500GB Hitachi 5,400rpm

HP Pavillion dv7-6b55dx
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 2.4GHz Intel Core i5-2430M; 8GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 64MB Intel HD 3000; 750GB Hitachi 5,400rpm

Toshiba Satellite P775-S7320
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-2670QM; 6GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 64MB Intel HD 3000; 750GB Hitachi 5,400rpm