Sony have billed their new Vaio FW laptop collection as offering the chance to 'discover true cinema with a a 16:9 real-wide display.'  With a large, 16'' 1600 x 900 display and a Blu-ray drive, this is a laptop that's ready for HD Ready movies.  So, will it prove to be the 'unforgettable' experience suggested by Sony's publicity?

Handling
The grey metallic exterior of this laptop makes a very good first impression, but it's somewhat tarnished when you get closer and realise that the case is actually made from plastic.  Nevertheless, it's solidly built, and there's no glossy plastic, well known for attracting greasy fingerprints on so many other laptops.

Typical webcam shot

Like on the Apple MacBook, the keys are spaced out and easy to use.  There's no numeric keypad (for that, you'll need to switch to the MSI EX620), nor any touch-sensitive controls like on the Lenovo IdeaPad Y650.  Some traditional multimedia hotkeys are found along the top of the keyboard, in front of which is a standard-sized touch-pad … or a small, if you compare it Lenovo's or Apple's.

The webcam is responsive and gives a good quality image.  You should be careful of well-lit areas, which tend to be a little over-exposed.  The microphone isn't quite as good, and our test recordings all suffered from irritating feedback.  Fortunately, though, the mic is far enough away from the keyboard to not pick up the sound of typing while you're making a VoIP call.

Working our way around the outside of the laptop, Sony has included an RJ45 Ethernet port, a modem, VGA and HDMI video outputs, a FireWire 400 port, an ExpressCard 34 slot, a memory card reader (that includes support for Sony's own Memory Stick format), a pair of mini-jacks and three USB ports.  If we wanted to single out anything that was missing, we would suggest an extra USB port or an e-SATA link.

Underneath, two easily-accessible flaps open to reveal two 2 GB RAM modules and the hard drive.

Video outputs: VGA and HDMI	FireWire and Express Card 34 slot
Three USB ports	Multi-format memory card reader

Processing Power
Windows Experience Index: 4.7. CPU: 4.9 - Memory: 4.9 - Graphics: 4.7 - Gaming Graphics: 4.7 - Hard Drive: 5.4.

In this section of our review, Sony ended up with a wide range of scores in different areas, and ended up about 25% behind our reference model, the Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Xi3650.  To start with the bad news, it struggled with audio encoding in Cubase and rendering DivX video in TEMPGEnc.  Image editing and handling X.264 video in TEMPGEnc was better, as was file compression using WinRAR.  The laptop's best performing element was its hard drive.

When playing Blu-ray video, the VGN-FW13 used 43 W with an average CPU load of 70%.  Once we activated graphics acceleration, these figures plummeted to around 35 W with a CPU load of just 5%.

Gaming
Sony have used the same graphics card as MSI did in their EX 620, but the screen on the FW31E has a higher resolution with 37% more pixels (1600 x 900 for Sony instead of 1368 x 768 for MSI).  This inevitably results in a bigger challenge for the hardware.

When we played our test games, the results were something of a mixed bag.  Crysis was just about playable in its native resolution, with 'low' quality and anti-aliasing deactivated.  Race Driver Grid doesn't work above 1024 x 768 and so we don't think it's a valid test for such a high-resolution screen.    With World in Conflict in native resolution, the drop in performance from 'average' to 'low' modes was very noticeable.  It's up to you whether you prefer the latter for its faster drawing or the former for the extra detail, despite the jerkiness.

Sound
This was the FW31E's weakest area, and it produces quite simply the worst sound we've ever heard from a laptop.  There's a minimal amount of connectivity (microphone in, headphone out and an optical audio out), and as soon as an audio signal is present there is a low buzzing.  As for the built-in speakers, the sound is dreadful, and soon as the volume is above 60% it's so distorted that listening is uncomfortable.

Portability & Battery Life
When we put the Vaio FW31E on our scales, it weighed in at 2.81 kg, somewhat lighter than the 3.1 kg mentioned in the specification.  This makes it around 300 g heavier than its two 16'' competitors, the Lenovo Y650 and the MSI EX620.

The battery allowed us to loop video for 2 hours 9 minutes during our battery life test, which is about fifteen minutes better than the Lenovo and an hour more than the MSI.