HP Envy or Sony Vaio Z

If hypothetically you had an unlimited budget, which is the better laptop?

(older thread on this is outdated)

 

Sony Z without a doubt. The Full HD screen is priceless imo.

 

Vaio Z,but it's 900 more than an Envy (w/o BCB or other discount)

 

Would you rather have an Aston Martin or a Mustang? The Envy packs a punch at half the cost. The Z is the best in its class, but not worth the money IMO.

 

Even with unlimited budget, I'd get the Envy, far better graphics performance. Radeon 5650 vs the underclocked 330m in the Z.

 

The Z without a doubt. The Envy looks pretty good and seems to have good build quality, but the Z is second to none on these counts.

Biggest advantage of the Z: It's only 3 lbs but gives you everything the Envy 14 would give you (minus a bit on the graphics as mentioned above).

The Z is also not as much more expensive than you might think. If you configure the Envy with the same SSD as the Z the price difference goes down to $100-200 (if you can get a bit of a deal on the Z using Bing Cashback or some other kind of discount).

 

I just bought a Z122GX - i5 520m and 128GB SSD. It's a beautiful laptop, beautifully engineered. Some Sony drawbacks - the SSD is proprietary, mega $$$ battery, if you break the screen, good luck finding cheap LCD replacement (not that I've ever broken one, but this 13.1" 900p screen is not offered anywhere else). The proprietary SSD bothers me the most, you can't upgrade it with standard drives, and next to impossible to find if it fails and you're out of warranty. You can jury rig a standard 2.5" drive in place of the optical drive, but seems a bit ghetto to do on such a machine, and there are conflicting reports on whether you can boot off of it.

That said, the Z runs beautifully. It's so much more responsive in everyday tasks than my Envy 15 on AC or battery. Sony really did their homework on this thing - i5 520m in a 3lbs chassis with the battery, easily >5hrs battery life surfing and Windows stuff. Runs cool doing regular tasks, but when CPU/Nvidia GPU is maxed out the air venting out is pretty hot, interestingly though that the bottom barely gets warm even when hot air is venting.

PS I picked up the Z at Microcenter for 1699. Spec out the Envy 14 with i5 520 and 160GB SSD and it's 1590. If the proprietary SSD of the Z doesn't bother you, it's almost a no brainer..

 

Z, but not at a $900 premium

personally, i wish the Z came with lower config options, like integrated graphics, non-ssd, etc. things i dont need....but i want the chasis and screen and battery life and weight of the Z

 

The Z because:
-The 512GB SSD option is actually a quad setup with a read/write speed in the 500 to 600+MB/s...whoah
-1920x1080 screen on a 13" is just stunning, but you must have good eyesight
-Envy doesnt have bluray...the Z does.

One area where the Envy wins is the better graphics and the slot loaded drive.

I looked at both, but overall the Z simply wins hands down, but its costs alot.
The Envy is a very good machine though

 

If the Z had an eSATA port I think I would be very tempted by it, mainly because you can get it with a matte full HD 1920x1080 display. I also thought the Z had slot loading optical drive. I'm convinced I saw a Z series laptop when in Melbourne Australia a few years ago (2008) at a Sony store that had a slot loading drive.

I'm waiting for the Envy 14 to go on sale here in Canada, and if it comes in much cheaper it will be hard to turn that down.

 

Read your sig and was curious, why did you sell the Z if you feel it's better than an Envy 14 which you have on order? What made you swing that way?

 

envy ftw. i love my envy. cant beat the discounts thats floating around

 

Does the graphics card in the Envy 14 have a substantial advantage over the Sony's for HD video editing? Or nothing to worry about?

And what CPU would you recommend for manipulating HD video?

 

The Envy has a more powerful graphics card - slightly so in raw power, more greatly in terms of new technology support (like later gen DirectX 11 and OpenGL hardware support). It also has the option for the superior Quad Core processor options, including the Core i7 840QM.

The Vaio Z is lighter and smaller, with the possibility of a higher res display if you choose and pay for it, likewise with a blu-ray burner. It has a MUCH higher starting price and you're forced into a proprietary SSD, but every Z comes with said SSD in the US anyway.

 

Depends on where I was driving? On Pacific Highway, US1, the Aston. On a dragstrip, probably the mustang.

Bronsky

 

ENVY 14 ftw win...13" is tiny

 

I agree, I had the Z, now replacing it with a E14

 

It depends on what you need to use it for.

If you are fortunate not to get one of the models with the black screen issue, then the Envy 15 is much better for video editing, InDesign, photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, disc authoring apps and gaming. The Radeon 5830 is a solid graphics card for a laptop. For example, you would be able to run even the most memory intensive 3D games at 1920x1080 resolution (which is much easier on the eyes at 15.6" instead of 13"), max detail settings, at around 30-45 FPS, without lag. Also, the USB 3.0 is an incredible time saver for transferring large video files. If you order from HP direct, you can try it for 21 days and then return for full refund if you don't like it (including shipping cost).

If you want a very slim, small unit that is great for traveling, or if you really need an internal optical drive or longer battery life, then I would go with the Z.

 

It's on, I can clearly hear it's running, I dunno if both of them are running