Sony VAIO SA Series Laptop (VPCSA4MFY/BI): Core i5 2450M 2.5GHz, 13.3" 1600x900 LED, 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, Radeon HD 6630M, WiFi N, HDMI, BT, USB 3.0, Win 7 + 4GB Xbox 360 $699

Quote from avagyan : I've got the code, but computer went out of stock, after 2 days it's still out. Is there any other worthy laptop there ?

There are quite a few but it really depends on your needs. Some of the asus and samsung ultrabooks are good deals although most of the good deals are are sandy bridge.

Quote from trevortypes : Maybe this is bad.. but anyone know what store would accept the return of the xbox 360 for store credit which I got as a "gift"?

Seems pretty shady and maybe illegal. I would recommend just selling it on ebay or craigslist.

has anyone found a modified touchpad driver to enable two finger scrolling? I'm pretty happy minus this missing feature. thanks!

PS: Yes, I have done some pretty extensive google searches. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Quote from trevortypes : Maybe this is bad.. but anyone know what store would accept the return of the xbox 360 for store credit which I got as a "gift"?

You don't. Every store records the serial number at purchase.

Quote from frum : Register here: Lenovo Barnes and Noble Gold [i2.com] Then wait for your password via email. I should note, the current promo, while still good, is not the lowest price I have seen. They had Employee Pricing which ended this past weekend, and had some killer deals. So it could be worth waiting a week or two to see what new deals they roll out. I bought a pretty loaded ThinkPad T530 (except I opted for the 1600x900 HD+ screen instead of the FHD) plus 3-yr onsite Accidental Damage Warranty for $794 shipped.

Mine comes up to $756.75 with the same configuration... wtf?

Quote from Finker001 : Mine comes up to $756.75 with the same configuration... wtf?

That particular promo expired. They still have some sales going on, but the pricing isn't as good as its been.

for anyone that cares, i did a clean install and added the 240gb ssd from staples and added another 4gb stick of ram.

here's what windows experience index says for me (on speed mode of course)
processor: 7.0
Memory: 7.5
Graphics: 6.7
Gaming Graphics: 6.7
Primary Hard Disk: 7.8

Quote from trevortypes : for anyone that cares, i did a clean install and added the 240gb ssd from staples and added another 4gb stick of ram. here's what windows experience index says for me (on speed mode of course) processor: 7.0 Memory: 7.5 Graphics: 6.7 Gaming Graphics: 6.7 Primary Hard Disk: 7.8

So I did about the same thing as you, except no clean install. I got rid of the 14gb utility partition, and copied the 100mb boot partition and resized the 400(ish)GB partition to fit on my 240gb. I installed an extra 8gb of memory and my scores look slightly different. Especially the primary hard disk, I think maybe I should go the clean install route. The performance is great, but I really don't know why the HD scored so low. Any thoughts?

processor: 6.9
Memory: 7.4
Graphics: 6.7
Gaming Graphics: 6.7
Primary Hard Disk: 5.9

I re-ran the assessment several times and have rebooted half a dozen times. The performance of this drive is towards the low end for an SSD. I cant help but think that it might be accurate. I forgot to look at what the 5400rpm drive that came with the laptop scored. Anyone?

http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net...V200S3256G

Quote from kevlar3d : So I did about the same thing as you, except no clean install. I got rid of the 14gb utility partition, and copied the 100mb boot partition and resized the 400(ish)GB partition to fit on my 240gb. I installed an extra 8gb of memory and my scores look slightly different. Especially the primary hard disk, I think maybe I should go the clean install route. The performance is great, but I really don't know why the HD scored so low. Any thoughts? processor: 6.9 Memory: 7.4 Graphics: 6.7 Gaming Graphics: 6.7 Primary Hard Disk: 5.9 I re-ran the assessment several times and have rebooted half a dozen times. The performance of this drive is towards the low end for an SSD. I cant help but think that it might be accurate. I forgot to look at what the 5400rpm drive that came with the laptop scored. Anyone? http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net...V200S3256G

Hmm. You said you installed a 240 SSD as well.

I know there is a long list of drivers to install, but I feel most comfortable with clean installs as I know EXACTLY what has been installed and can also choose to ignore the installs which I know I would not use (such as the fingerprint reader which i just disabled)

In addition, I also do a clean backup with norton ghost.

I also did the following SSD optimizations based on the guide from lifehacker.
http://lifehacker.com/5802838/how...f-your-ssd

Try applying these SSD optimizations
TRIM CHECK
in command prompt, type "fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify"
If this results in "DisableDeleteNotify = 0", that means that the OS
is using TRIM

DISABLE PAGE FILE
right click my computer > advanced system settings > advanced tab >
performance > "settings" button > Advanced tab > Virtual memory
"Change" button
uncheck auto manage > select SSD > radio button "no paging file" > set > OK

DISABLE HIBERNATION
in command run as administrator and type "powercfg /hibernate off"

DISABLE SUPERFETCH
type "services.msc"
find superfetch
stop and disable

DISABLE DEFRAG
type "defrag" and open disk defragmentor
click "turn on schedule" and uncheck "run on a schedule"


also, here are the only drivers i installed.
1 BIOS Update
2 Audio driver
3 bluetooth update driver
4 motherboard chipset
5 motherboard mobile express chipset controller
6 memory card update realtek pcie card reader driver
7 USB3 Controller Update driver
8 Network Realtek Lan
9 Wireless Update driver
10 WiDi Update driver
11 system components intel management engine interface
12 system components sony firmwire extension parser
13 system components intel sata registry patch
14 pointing device driver
15 wireless lan
16 Video Driver Update driver
17 system components sony shared library
18 notebook sony notebook utilities
19 did not install fingerprint sensor (DISABLED IN COMPUTER MANAGEMENT)


Hope it helps!

I pretty much did all of those tweaks with the exception of hibernation. Hibernation writes the contents of memory out to disk so the state of your computer persists when your computer boots from a hibernated state. I haven't been able to find a really good reason to disable it and lose that functionality with the SSD. Except the argument - "your computer boots fast now so you dont need it"

Quote from kevlar3d : I pretty much did all of those tweaks with the exception of hibernation. Hibernation writes the contents of memory out to disk so the state of your computer persists when your computer boots from a hibernated state. I haven't been able to find a really good reason to disable it and lose that functionality with the SSD. Except the argument - "your computer boots fast now so you dont need it"

if you have the same 240 Sandisk SSD drive, I'm not sure why your computer doesnt show the same performance. I would suggest checking the drivers (and other patches as there are a LOT on sony's website) to make sure everything is installed and patched correctly.

I would think that some settings might not apply correctly if transferring from regular hard drive to SSD drive. thats why i do a clean install onto the SSD - so the OS recognizes the SSD drive for things like TRIM.

good luck!

Thanks Trevor, the ssd is not a Sandisk, it is a kingston and it does have significantly lower performance numbers. http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net...V200S3256G
That must be the reason, in any case it is much faster than the stock drive and boots in under 10 seconds so I am happy.

I

Does anyone know if this laptop will support an 8gb stick when using the old bios version, R1031H4? I'd hate to have to lose SATA III SSD performance in order to use 4gb more RAM.