Sony Vaio F-Series VPC-F22M1E review

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Verdict:

Fantastic performance and a great HD screen, but the bulky dimensions look dated and it's a bit too expensive

Review Date: 20 Jul 2011

Price when reviewed: £1,299

Supplier: http://www.sonystyle.co.uk

Reviewed By: Tom Morgan

Our Rating 3 stars out of 5

User Rating

Sony’s imposing F-series Vaios certainly stand out from the crowd; the unique-looking chassis has an incredibly chunky screen that’s thicker than some ultra-portables we’ve reviewed in the past. When we saw the first version, we thought this was less of a design choice and more because the display was 3D-enabled, but it has remained unchanged for this refreshed 2D model.

With a matt finish that diffuses reflections, image quality is quite good. The Full HD 1,920x1,080 resolution is huge for the 16.4in display: we had to increase the default font size in Windows to make things easily readable. However, the extra pixels meant images looked incredibly sharp, if a little muted due to the lack of a glossy finish. Contrast was reasonable and viewing angles were surprisingly good, but the position of the screen hinges mean there’s not a lot of screen tilt.

Powering the display is a mid-range Nvidia GeForce GT 540M graphics card. With 1GB of video memory, it has no trouble playing Full HD video and was also powerful enough for some gaming. Our Dirt 3 test may have run only at 720p, but because the test has 4x anti-aliasing enabled, a smooth 40fps is still impressive. Disable AA and most titles should play at 1080p, albeit at medium detail settings.

A good graphics card isn’t much use without a powerful processor to back it up, but thankfully Sony has delivered with a fast Intel Core i7-2630M. It’s usually clocked at 2GHz, but Turbo Boost can raise all four cores to 2.9GHz when required for some serious performance muscle. Paired with 8GB of RAM, it tore through our multimedia benchmarks with an overall score of 82; we can’t think of many desktop applications that will tax the F22M1E. Surprisingly, the battery lasted almost five and a half hours in our light-use test.

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User comments

Mr Morgans Review

Hello. I am thinking of buying this laptop although the rating you have given it is very lowalthough it seesm better than the MSI GE620 even reading the reviews its seems this one is better although the MSI GE620 gets 5 stars... This one seems to compare as good with games although you say this one is dissapointing on that fact and the MSI gets away with it.. Is this laptop good? Do you not like Sony? Really I only want this laptop for looks.
Cheers
Adam

By Mighty on 26 Jul 2011

Hi Adam,
The VAIO is indeed a good laptop, albeit with some questionable design decisions such as the very chunky screen, but we didn't think it was worth paying significantly more for over the cheaper MSI.

Yes, it has a full high definition screen and a Blu-ray optical drive, but you have to pay £400 extra for them; the MSI has a 1,366x768 screen and a DVD drive, but costs £750. Both have the same graphics card, but we would have hoped to have seen something a little faster in the Sony considering the price.

If you don't mind spending the extra money, the Sony is still a good choice, but you'll get identical performance at 1,366x768 on the MSI.

- Tom

By Shopper_Tom on 27 Jul 2011

Photo Guy

I have been searching for some time for a notebook that has a screen at least adequate for photo processing. Mac Book is too expensive and the last version of this Sony had a screen that was too dim. After returning one notebook I have found the US version of this Sony to have great viewing angles, color reproduction, and brightness. I prefer a glossy screen but this will be my next one. The price is going down.

By blvdsngr on 7 Aug 2011

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