Official Sony VPC-Z2 (VAIO Z 2011) Series Owners' Thread

Very nice, I run VMWare now on my Vaio X with no major issues but its XP image that I use as internet sand box. I do have an older Powerbook for occasional iPhone/iPad development (I mostly do web development) but having it right there on my main machine when ever I need it would be very nice setup. Would you be willing to provide some installation details threw forum or IM/email? Also do you freelance?

Thanks

 

^
I would also love some details please.
TIA!

 

I suggest you update your USB 3.0 drivers. current is v2.1.19.0

 

For anyone interested, I emailed SGP about the Z2, and they replied:

"Unfortunately, we do not have a plan to make accessories for Sony Vaio Z2.
Please email us if you have any other questions.
Thank you."

 

For those who custom ordered their Z, how was it packaged when shipped from Japan? I'm thinking of doing a custom order.

The packaging for shipping domestically in Canada is ridiculous. It's just the laptop box with a label stuck on it. There's insufficient padding imo and could have attributed to damage.

 

Well, It was a box in a box with lots of air bags in it And inside was a little box with even smaller box for VAIO and another one for slice battery

 

^
lol...that's good to know. Here's what they shipped me and the box is slightly crumpled at the top (not shown), some holes here and there, corners looks as if a dog chewed on it. It's waiting to be shipped back to Sony. Do you have some pics of your gold Z? I'm thinking of order 2 in a Gold and a premium carbon fiber finish. Great way to ship a $2000 laptop that has almost zero padding inside the box.

 

U should not have accepted such packing to start with, let alone for for a lap.
man that looks like a second hand shipment.

 

I'm positive, I wouln't want any other color I thought premium carbon.. but I always had black or silver notebooks, so.. Gold is the way for me now, and I don't regret it, inside, it's honey brown, and wonderful

 

I'd attribute the crack to the crappy shipping. My mother accepted the package as I was in another city at the time. The taping part is mine but doesn't take away from the fact that the shipping was half arsed to say the least based on the box condition. I can't believe Sony Canada would skimp out on shipping like this. It's absolutely ridiculous. Considering that's how they shipped it to me, I'm shipping it in the same way back to them.

Now I'm required to ship it back to Sony for "assessment" from management as to how to proceed wasting my time and putting my funds on hold. I can't even buy another one yet if something comes up with their decision. If they attempt to put the blame of the crack on me, I'm going to be quite furious.

Looks great!

 

How did you do this? Can you give some instructions?

Thx

 

Were those flash pictures? I'm curious if the color changes like blurple does.

 

Thanks just upgraded to 2.1.27.0 and hope for the best

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=19880

 

Very impressive work. I have a Macbook Pro, and tried to get into the iPhone development, but I just couldn't get into the Cocoa development paradigm. I'm just too spoiled by the Visual Studio 2010 tools on the Windows side. Maybe I'll get into Win 8 phone development if those win phones start to take off and get more popular.

 

I would say, not. Without flash.

But I will try to photo it again surely without and you can see

 

Egads man, ship that thing back directly. Is that how Sony is shipping all the units? I'd like to be eco and all, but that box needs another box.

 

Do you have by any change the part numbers for the 3rd gen 512GB ssd in the Z2? I am thinking of buying that part.
Also, do you know if it will perform at sata 3 speeds? Thanks!

 

anyone knows how to mod the Z217 to add 3G/WAN? Since Z228 has this feature the parts should be easily available.

 

Apparently, that sort of upgrade is possible in $ony JP. it seams that the
parts removed are useless though, this laptop has no true SSD!

 

That's how Sony Canada shipped it to me. Absurd. Even the person picking up the notebook to be shipped back was surprised. Should've just ordered from Japan where they don't skimp out on $10 of shipping materials and having to put me through this ordeal.

 

Just so happens I have my borked-drive in front of me. MZRPC512HAFU-000SO

Efforts to de-bork have been fruitless.

 

..or from retail outlets, but that's an absurd answer. Sorry to see that happen, first case like this I've heard of.

They could at least put a huge "handle with care" label on it for the people in your area who obviously mistook Sony for a football manufacturer.

 

Interesting. I had the inner box (with smaller boxes inside) but the outer box was an exact fit and there were no air bags at all.

Three shipments and three different box configurations. Even though they may come from different countries (mine was CTO from Japan), you would think they would have the same basic packing procedures.

 

Mine went straight from Japan to Germany adress

I lost the light for apropriate picture taking, I will do it tomorrow.

 

I wouldn't worry about it. I was just curious about flash versus a warm light source. My interior changes color under those conditions.

I'm glad you are enjoying the gold -- looks like an amazing color!

 

The gold is indeed iridescent like the blurple, just with gold and brown. Can't think of a good name for it tho.

Brold? Grown?

 

Does anyone have some good pictures detailing the difference between the normal black and the carbon fiber black?

 

Here you go:


Cheers,
Miki

 

OS X on Vaio Z: in answer to posts (and PMs) about how to do it.

I have spent hours (actually, probably days and weeks) fiddling about with OS X on laptops over the past year or so.

After getting OS X 10.6 working, a few months ago on both VMWare and natively on another laptop, Lion subsequently came out and everything broke. In the end I cheated with Lion and used this video: [Tutorial] How To Install Mac OS X Lion 10.7.1 On Intel/AMD PC In VMware (Image Download) - YouTube as the basis. I've noticed there are some subsequent updates on the sam e YouTube channel to when I installed mine originally a few weeks ago which you may like to view.

My setup is using VMWare Workstation 7.1.4 and I have stayed at Lion 10.7.1 and switched off all updates, as 10.7.2 broke it again.

Beware: you need to be patient and be prepared to have time on your hands to do it!

Interestingly had Apple provided a laptop with 1920x1080 resolution screen in a reasonable form factor, I would have purchased that instead of Vaio Z. As it is I have two Macs already for app development, but I just don't like carrying around a multitude of hardware.

Cheers, Howard

 

Is anyone experiencing slow battery charging? It took more than 2 hours to charge the standard battery :/

This is so far, with the terrible speakers (shame on Sony!) the only negative stuff I've noticed.

 

^I'm some folks would like a how-to, either in this thread or in a dedicated one

 

I think I have dealt with this before in my wife's SA, but I can't find how to solve it again so here it is to see if someone has better memory than mine.

After a reboot, the display brightness goes to a default value of 64% for the Balance mode I'm using, regardless what I did to change it before the reboot. I had the auto-brightness off in VAIO Control Center and in the Intel Graphics there is no power-saving either. I have a clean-install Windows 7, so maybe I missed something in the clean-install process?

Thanks in advanced.

 

The speakers really are terrible.

My SZ680 video card finally started to fail on the weekend and I had to go and get a Z227GG/X.
Sony Oz have a deal on at the moment - free slice battery and an Xperia Arc phone.

I'm driving a 1920x1200 Eizo monitor and I get kicked out of Aero when extending the screen across both the Eizo and laptop, which is a bit dissapointing.
Is anyone else having the same problem?

I didn't watch the first charge, but I will watch the next one in the next few days Mikjo.

 

^
That's a good deal!
Free slice battery and Arc.

 

I was surprised. I checked the web before heading to the store and online they were bundling the phone and it sounded like an online only deal but I didn't have time to wait for an online sale + delivery.
When I got to the store I politely asked for a deal and the salesman told me about the phone and battery.
In reality he could have charged me whatever he wanted - I don't have the time to muck around with work at the moment and I didn't have a backup machine.
The HD speed and reboot time makes loading up all the software much less painful than previous occasions.
I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with the phone though.

 

I just purchased the extra battery (slice) for my Z22 and awaiting it to arrive.
Will I be able to get a separate reading for the charge state for each of the 2 batteries after I install the slice, or will they simply combine into one bigger battery?

 

^
Two seperate readings.

 

Keep in mind that Lithium-ion batteries charge up to 80% fairly fast and then trickle charge the remaining 20%. So that last 20% can take a while.

 

OK, thanks!

 

Quick question guys, how will you know if you Disc Drive is DVD or BD Writer.. TIA

I bought mine with this current model: Sony Vaio Z2 - VPCZ216GX

 

There is usually a sticker on PMD and usually I just stick in BD-R disc and if it burns, it burns

 

Any words on GPU driver update? We got broken promises for mid OCT, end OCT....

I just hope Sony won't left this issue unattended.

 

^Who made this promise?

 

@palda, yup it has, my concern is how will i know if its writer or just a reader.

 

then try ImgBurn and you will see, what it will say about your drive

 

I think if it says just BD-ROM then it doesn't burn.

 

Mine stated in the device manager was "Optiarc BD-ROM".

@Palda, don't have a blank BD disc media to test, i just wanted find out if it's reader then it will be reader both for DVD as well.

 

^nod

I still haven't burned a single bluray to this day. Horrifically slow.

 

ImgBurn has diagnostic module, which says everything about your drive, without everything, but as educated gentleman above said, if it says BD-ROM, it's just it

 

lol...talked to Sony Canada. Refund is pending processing and will take a week or so. Excessive amount of work to simply get a refund from Sony Canada.

Offered me 5% discount (lol...equivalent to the $100 coupon that they run year round)....& asked about their shipping methods. They'll still just ship the laptop box as is and claimed that damage is a rare occurrence. So to save $10 on shipping materials, they're willing to waste customers' time with unnecessary downtime if damage occurs.

Anyhow, judging from how Sony handles things here in a shoddy manner, I'm opting to just pick up a pair of pre-configured Z series in stores. Can't imagine having to deal with them for issues especially if I get dead pixels and the like. Pathetic to say the least. Shipping from Japan is an option but CTO won't let me pick the 1600x900 screen. Absurd.