Sony VAIO VGN-FW198U/H

Entertainment laptop could deliver a bit more



THE SONY VAIO VGN-FW198U/H is the first entertainment laptop we've seen using Intels new Centrino 2 platform. We expected more from the system, but its Blu-ray burner and $2,099 price mostly make up for its performance issues.
The attractive 6.8-pound system comes with a matte-silver finish and shiny silver around the keyboard and palm-rest area. Sony included a 16.4-inch, glossy Xbrite-HiColor screen with a resolution of 1,600x900-good enough to play Blu-ray discs at 720p HD resolution but not at the full 1080p that Blu-ray natively supports. Nonetheless, movies on the VGN-FW198U/H look fantastic. The on-board speakers sound decent, though they fall short in the bass department.
Connectivity includes 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, VGA and HDMI out, FireWire, and a trio of USB 2.0 ports. There's an Express-Card/34 slot, SD card slot, and Memory Stick Duo slot with MagicGate functionality. The VAIO also integrates a 1.3-megapixel Webcam into the LCD bezel.
The VGN-FW198U/H uses a Core 2 Duo T9400 CPU, running at 2.53GHz, with a front-side bus speed of 1,066MHz. Sony equips the notebook with 4GB of RAM and 320GB hard drive. The system's discrete graphics come courtesy of ATI's Mobility Radeon HD 3470 with 256MB of dedicated video RAM.

The VGN-FW198U/H turned in solid numbers on most of our bench mark tests, but the VGN-FW198U/H's Achilles heel is its 3D performance. Despite the unit's discrete graphics card, it delivered poor gaming scores for the class. The VGN-FW198U/H's battery life is also slightly low for its class at 1 hour and 25 minutes. -Shane McGlaun
source: Computer Shopper October 2008.