Sony VGN-FS550 Observations

Hi:

I'm sure some of you have been looking at this sexy new notebook from Sony. I bought two of them yesterday, one for my daughter and I, so here's the scoop:

Best news is that Sony USA has finally given up on that stupid partitioning "feature" and now ships one contiguous 80GB disk, so no need to reformat, yay!

The bad news is battery life sucks. I'm barely getting 1.5 hours with the standard battery, on either machine, while Sony's spec says 2.5+ hours! I've already chatted with Sony Support and, of course, they recommended changing my setting from "VAIO Optimized" to "Max Battery" -- which is no help at all. I guess Intel's latest "Sonoma" chipset is performing exactly as reported -- it's slightly faster, but sucks more battery power.

The other bad thing is that Sony somehow decided to increase the size of its power brick, which is nearly twice as large as my Z1WAMP brick, that's *not* progress.

Of course, the XBRITE screen is to die for. In fact, it makes my less-than-one-year-old Z1 look so dim it feels I'm typing through a dirty aquarium. I guess I can turn down that incredible brightness to extend battery life but who really wants to do that, once spoiled?

But I love the price. This puppy set me back just $1450 after rebates at Best Buy, but you better hurry, the offer ends today!!! That's a spectacular price for new technology, particularly one with the Sony brand.

I agree with what another poster said about wanting the 1680x1050 screen, but if you read Sony Japan's site carefully, you'll notice that that model, the VGN-FS70B, offers WORSE battery life, which is probably why Sony is holding off on releasing that model stateside.

PROS: incredible screen; roomy 80GB HD (NOT PARTITIONED); latest Sonoma technology; DVD burner; well-built, solid feel; super-sexy design; cheaply priced, especially for a Sony.

CONS: poor battery life; power brick should be smaller.

That's weird! Neither Sony I bought was partitioned. Maybe they slipped through the cracks somehow...

BTW, does your battery meter lack "time left" too? I only see "percent left," which makes me wonder if Sony disabled this feature after discovering how weak battery performance was.

OK, this puppy is going back. Here's a message I sent to Sony Support:

"While I appreciate your battery tips, this notebook is supposed to work straight out of the box. Since you're merely tapdancing around the issue, please report this service-contact result to product management:

'The customer returned his FS-550 to Best Buy and warned that we should get ready for a lot of complaints.'

BTW, it's quite clear that the new Sony "FS" series are lacking battery-wise, because this is my first Sony (of five) that has no "Time Left" feature when running on battery power."

Yes, and the fact that neither of my notebooks had partitions makes me wonder.

I don't know if this can be improved materially without tossing out Intel's new CPU! Now, I have to tell you that I returned this notebook mainly because of the battery performance, but also because I need to see more screen real estate, not less than my Z1, so maybe the 1680x1050 would be a better choice.

But the Japanese Sony site specs are worrisome, since that suggests it performs even worse than the others in terms of battery use.

I also noticed that Dell's D810 spec sheet, which resembles the Sony, provides no battery performance data whatsoever. That unit is better spec'd than the Sony, including PCI Express and ATI Mobility RADEON X600, but like another poster said, "I don't like the looks."

Well, as you know Best Buy has a 15% restocking fee for notebook computers, and they have a major hurdle to overcome: a bunch of dweeb "techies" who go over the computer for an extended period of time to make sure you're telling the truth.

Bottomline, my friend and I went for a pizza and came back to the San Francisco store an hour and a half later, and though he was skeptical at first, he clearly agreed with my assessment that battery life sucked.

And as we all know, battery life gets progressively worse as a it ages. When I told the tech to monitor the battery meter and watch it go down AS YOU LOOK, he couldn't believe it either, but that's what happened.

Like I said before, it could be just a lemon I had to play with for the weekend, but what are the odds of buying two and finding both have battery lives that sucked like the table below shows:

Battery Timing Test:

Sony FS550 5 Min. 15 Min. 30 Min.
Notebook #1 92% 83% 70%
Notebook #2 94% 84% 73%

Never heard the buzzing sound on mine, and I'm very sensitive to any noise. Glad you confirmed that Sony is unpartitioning some HDs, though!