Hey all I have recently purchased a VGN-FE21M notebook to replace my stolen Dell Inspiron 6000. I just wanted to say what a fantastic laptop it is and is a definate upgrade on my Dell. Despite only having the Dell about 7 months, dual core processors were not an option at the time but i am suprised what a difference they make. Even relatively small things as waiting for the MSN messenger window to appear after you have double clicked on the taskbar icon happen without a delay unlike my Dell. This makes a welcome bonus and another thing that struck me about the Vaio was the stunning screen it has. It made my Dell look pathetic, I was constantly re tilting it to see correctly and had to be right in front of the screen to see anything which was very frustrating if you just needed to quickly check your e-mail or go on the internet. This is not the case however with the Vaio so hats off to Sony there because it seems that all their notebooks use such excellent technology.
The build quality of the Vaio is as good if not better than the Dell which was also excellent. The huge hard drive is double the size of the Dell and the dual layer dvd writer is also a welcome upgrade. Another nice feature is the motion eye on the Vaio which it seems many manufacturers are starting to incorporate into their notebooks. The Vaio itself while being a similar width and hosting the same size screen as the Dell, is lighter and thinner. Another nice touch perhaps overlooked by some is the fact that the speakers are located above the keys on the notebook as opposed to being on the front of the Dell. This means that any music you are playing while the laptop is on you lap is not muffled by clothing! I do however miss the media player controls that were also located on the front of the Dell.
I also like the adapter that Sony provide now so that I can view pictures from my XD memory card on the laptop without much fuss. This adapter supports other memory card types aswell including SD (the only one the Dell supported). Another excellent thing is the fan or should I say lack of it. After reading other users comments about noisy fans on some of their Vaio's I wasn't quite sure what to expect. However, the fan is whisper quiet and the extra fan has rarely come on even when I have been playing games on it. When it does, it comes on for about 10 seconds at a time but this has been rare. This is also better than my Dell which would have the fans working away all the time when playing a game.
Because nothing is perfect, I will just mention that I have found a flaw with the design of the laptop though and that is the lock/release mechanism of the lid. Whilst I have been writing this, it has popped up no less than 4 times because it gets caught on things and it doesnt seem to take much to slide the catch across so that the hook pops out. Only a minor flaw in my opinion and definately liveable!
Overall I am an extremely happy Vaio owner and I would recommend this notebook to anyone! The product is styled in a way only Sony can and I prefer the design to my Dell as well which was also a smart machine I felt. There are just a couple of things that concern me and I wondered if anyone could help at all. The first is that I had no end of trouble with my wifi connection. My ISP is Wanadoo broadband and I have one of their liveboxes which was absolutely no prob to my Dell which after I had given it the WEP key quite happily connected to it. However my Vaio has been more tempermental and despite tweaking settings here and there suggested by Wanadoo, I cannot get the computer to connect to the wifi through a secure connection. I have had to disable all the security settings on my livebox in order for the Vaio to connect which it will then do no problem. Any suggestions on this would be greatly appreciated because it's driving me mad!
Another problem I am having is that all the Sony applications such as My Club Vaio and Vaio Update tell me I must be connected to the internet first before they will work which is all very well and good except I am already connected to the internet when I try and open the applications! Therefore I can't recieve any Vaio updates or anything. Is there something I am doing wrong here?
Any help on these matters would be greatly appreciated and I hope this helps anyone who may also be considering buying a Dell or Vaio. Thanks in advance guys!
