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

These scrapes that you are seeing, are they readily visible in normal usage or do you have to be looking down at the hinge from a very high angle? Don't misunderstand, I'm not trying to excuse it, I'm simply trying to understand as best I can. If I'm not mistaken that whole hinge area is not typically visible from normal usage angles, is that correct?

My apologies, it's just that I'm currently viewing this from a small iPhone screen so I'm having a little difficulty fully visualizing it.

 

I just wanted to say that 1080p on 13" is so good! Don't understand why so many people think that this is overkill? I just dont see it at all LOL... the text aint even that small and my eyesight isnt perfect being on a PC all day.
Overkill is spending money on 512SSD, 128GB SDHC, 32GBMemory Stick.

Lucky for those who complain about 1080p is that the million other laptops out there dont have 1080p so all good right lol

I'm pretty much selling my PMD unit once I get it so anyone thinking of getting it cheap from me who opted CTO without can contact me!

 

I haven't had the time to run a live boot of a distro yet. Hopefully sometime within the next few days.

Yeah. 1080p is just too darn nice - everything looks sharp. Suffice to say, I don't think I can drop to a lower resolution on a 13"+ laptop again.

 

Do you run with the default Windows font size? Or do you make it bigger in order to read it?

 

For me, I'm using my Z2 with 1080p at the default size. Websites are perfectly legible, and I really appreciate the sharpness of the text.

 

No need to apologize, you are right, even if it's easier to see those scrapes in reality than on these pictures.

Indeed those are hardly noticeable in normal usage, but I am more worried about the hinge design as a whole, and I am wondering if it's not a manifestation of some flaws in it...

 

By the way Tarantula, did you compare yours to the new close up pics I took ?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...2011-series-owners-thread-18.html#post7793149

And do the two parts touch each other when the lid is closed ?

 

note that the sharpness is preserved even if you increase the dpi

 

But I believe that if you increase the DPI on the Z, it will also increase the DPI on external monitors where this would result in characters much too big for comfort.

 

Is your SSD gen3?

 

Well I picked up my new Z21 yesterday from TNT, it came in a day earlier than expected (which was nice).

My comprehensive list of initial impressions (from the point of view of a full-time X user, and a part-time SZ user):

• Very light and thin for a 13 incher, lighter than my in-law's 1st gen Macbook Air
• The premium carbon fibre lid is very subtle compared to the quite-shiny carbon fibre on my old SZ
• The screen is fantastic (far far better than my old SZ, and comparible to my X) and at 900p is just right for me. Auto brightness works well, and seems to be synced with the keyboard backlight as well
• The extended hinge is not uncomfortable on my lap, mostly because the laptop weighs so little (was initially a bit worried about this since most evenings the laptop leaves the desk)
• The build of the Z21 is fantastic, there is no flex or wobble or creaking anywhere. Any worries about keyboard flex or wobbly screen hinges are completely unfounded, or applied only to preproduction models
• The edges are sharp! Watch your wrists when typing!
• The keyboard is very pleasant to use, seems very similar to my X and a lot less noisy than the SZ keyboard
• The Z21 runs very very quiet in all fairness. I have the basic i5, which might help, but in normal (browsing / editing) use you cannot hear the fan at all, even though it's running. Installing Windows Updates, and running People Tag Suggestions in Windows Live Photo Gallery had the fan running quite high, but even then it is not a high pitched whine like the X and is still far quiter than my SZ. Very pleased.
• The laptop runs very cool, I imagine because of the twin exhaust system, very pleased. Not warm at all on a desk, and even on your lap it's very comfortable
• Genrally speaking, everything is so quick.. Even with Fast Boot disabled, the laptop reboots in no time and a usable desktop is immediately available. I haven't done any benchmarking of the Gen3 SSD but needless to say it's quicker than the SSD in my X
• Not too much junkware installed by Sony this time round, apart from McAffee. Had to remove about 20 entries for Windows Live Mesh in multiple languages, which was a bit odd
• I have not yet created recovery media, and I'm hoping to do a clean format and Windows 7 install at a later date when I'm sure I can do it 100%. I want to reclaim the recovery partition for the main Win7 partition, and just to remove any last space-hogging junk I might have missed
• The keyboard backlight is nice, and seems to be light-lime coloured (very comfortable in a dark room)
• The trackpad feels nice, but is taking a bit of getting used to (I'm not quite registering every click just yet with the buttons, and sometimes tapping the trackpad does not perform a click either - I'm hoping this will just take some time to perfect). The trackpad on my X was the best I've used
• The trackpad is the one item on the laptop to really attract fingerprints
• The fingerprint reader works well, but the software provided by Authentec looks like it was whipped up over a long weekend. It works, but it doesn't seem very efficient (and certainly impacts on IE9s performance). You can disable the touch controls to stop the dialog from appearing when you accidently brush off the reader
• The speakers are not that bad! I have no experience of the speakers on the Z1, but the Z21 speakers are certainly better / louder than the little mono thing on my X, but of course are not as good as those on my SZ. All in all it's fine for basic viewing of videos (TV shows and Youtube etc) but if you're settling in for some serious Movie watching, or you're planning on demoing for a large audience, you'll need external speakers
• I cannot yet find the option that sets the laptop to wake when the lid is opened; this option is in VAIO Control Centre on both my X and SZ, is this a feature that Sony have removed from recent models? How can I get it back?
• My Wifi signal has been dropping a lot on this model, I'm not sure why, my D-Link router is rock solid and works perfectly with all my existing laptops. Having said that, the signal hasn't dropped yet at all this morning, so I'll have to keep an eye on it
• The sheet battery is lighter than I imagined, but is a little cumbersome to conect / disconnect; they could have made this easier. I will have to see over the next few months if I will use it all that much
• Battery life (without sheet battery) is certainly better than my X (rated at 7 hours by Sony, but never got anywhere near this) but of course it'll take a few days to get a real impression
• I didn't go for the PMD option so I can't comment on that

TLDR; this is a brilliant ultralight laptop. Well built and high quality, fast, a brilliant all rounder. I understand that many of the NBR members are serious power users, but for little old me this is the perfect computer.

 

Nice review. I believe Sony did away this. This was an issue over at the SA-BCD thread - wake when lid is open. I believe, someone was able to solve this issue on their SA. If its important to you, you may need to pop in over there and ask around.

Enjoy your Z2. Please post more of your experiences, as I'm curious how well it performs without the PMD. Thanks.

 

Hi,

As fan noise is my main concern for comfortable use, I wonder how the fan of the Z2 behaves with office applications such as Word/Excel/Powerpoint ? (I don't plan to do any gaming or photo editing).

Would you say it is really quiet with such applications ?

Thanks in advance.
PS. I'm also thinking about going for the i5 to reduce risk of noise.
Olivier

 

Just received my Z2 this morning. Anyone managed to get everything working with a clean install yet? Fast boot option too?

Cheers.

 

The biggest upgrade you can go for with the Z is the gen 3 SSD. The rest is pretty insignificant tbh.

 

@awharton go to System Setting -> Vaio Control Center -> System Information And their it is

 

Is that from a fresh install?

 

It is really quiet while doing basinc tasks, alomost inaudible and I am very sensitive to this !!!

 

Thanks, I'm going to look into this. It's a basic enough feature, as long as you understand the risks of your laptop switching on inside a bag.

I believe the GPU aspect of the PMD is only for serious gamers / graphic designers, or those who need to hook up 2+ displays, as so far I have been pretty impressed with the built-in Intel graphics. Google Earth is perfectly smooth, HD video and the rest is no problem. I even tried out Half Life 2: Episode 2 (the last PC game I really played!) on the Z and I could max out all the settings at native 1600 x 900 and it played perfectly. I know it's an old game, but it demonstrates to me that the Intel GPU is fine for most tasks. Serious GPU fiends will probably want the PMD. And of course if you don't already have an external Bluray burner then it may make more sense. Personally I don't need the exra USB ports and connections offered by the PMD.

By the way, the fan was VERY noisy playing Half Life 2. I'm sure this would be the case with or without the PMD.

I've been using the Z all morning with Word, Excel and Internet Explorer and you can't hear it; you really would have to strain to hear the fan. There are almost certainly other noisier elements in your working environment. I have had to check to see every now and then if the laptop has not gone to sleep. It might be a different story with the i7 processor, but with this i5 it's a non-issue.

I've not tried a fresh install specifically for this reason as another user reported that the Fast Boot option had disappeared. There may also be other features affected. I'll wait for a tutorial to show up in the coming weeks!

 

thanks for the review its actually very helpful and more interesting than websites reviews where they dont mention all of what you did

 

I ordered mine a while back (in UK) and just found out it is due to arrive in a few hours. Went for Pemium Carbon, i7, 8gb ram 1080p, WAN, backlit kb, battery slice, 256GB GEN 3 SSD.

 

For typical office usage, CPU usage is very low. Word/Excel etc are waiting for you to do something

Even running Civ5 off the Intel HD3000 GPU, the CPU was at about 50%, and the fan was running, but it's not an annoying high pitched whine - just a noticeable hum. Normally, I can't hear it at all.

 

I did a clean install (and removed the recovery partition). I can't get the Fast Boot option to reappear. Given that once you enable Fast Boot, there doesn't appear to be a way to boot the machine from external devices, it may be that having the Recovery Partition present is a requirement (because you can boot to the recovery partition by holding down the Vaio button).

Even without fast boot, the machine boots up very quickly - faster than my Z1

 

Is it possible to use the Protector Suite 2011 from the current vaio z instead of the Authentec suite?

 

Thanks for your reply regarding fan noise.

You have convinced me.

I just ordered the Z2 (carbon premium) with mainly i5-2540M @ 2.6Ghz / 8Go / 256 gen3 / 1600x900 ... and other options. Sony (France) says it should arrive on the august 22nd maybe even sooner ! Can't wait... and thanks again for your help !

Olivier

 

Hello, I am ready to order but I can't choose between black or Carbon premium.
Is somebody can publish a photo of the carbon premium finition?

Thx a lot .

 

here you go:


Cheers,
Miki

 

I hope it wasn't in the Enfield Sony Distribution Warehouse that got burnt to the ground last night...

 

I don't know if I'll be the first receiving a premium carbon, but I'll take some pictures if you want (next week probably)

 

^
All the folks in Asia that got their Z2 in black is premium carbon.

 

So, are there some other owners that notice such wear ???

 

Wow! Didn't know it.. here there are 2 black colors.

 

Thx for the picture,
the black one is on the left and the carbon is on the right side, that's right ?

 

that's right, black is right, carbon is left (slightly brushed)

also carbon is black. i mean technically carbon's color is a shade of black. so technically its correct heeh

 

you mean the other left is the carbon version

thx a lot for the picture , carbon will be mine

 

I forgot to mention that In Japan they sell the regular black and also China...all other regions come with premium carbon fiber.

 

If you like black go for the Carbon one. The plain "black" has a "blueish" tone in it that i don't like at all. I guess you could see that for yourself in the pictures..

 

Carbon look much better and the option is not expensive compare to laptop

 

Trust me, go for the premium finish - you're definitely going to love it. It has a brushed metal finish that accentuates the Z2's class. It just oozes style.

 

go a bad email from sony

 

^
Bummer...thats like 4 weeks away...

 

When did you place your order?

 

How does that premium carbon compare to the VGN-Z? With the VPC-Z1, Sony offerred it in Glossy Premium Carbon, not matte right (I know there was a standard black)? Saw this glossy lid at SonyStyle and it was a fingerprint magnet and didn't look premium at all - it look more like an acrylic blend. But if this lid has a sheen effect, like the VGN-Z and VGN-SZ, it should look very premium.

 

^
There is a premium carbon that is matte on the VPCZ...my VPCZ117GG came with that matte permium carbon fiber lid.

 

Is it just me or is the educational pricing (U.S.) for the Z no longer showing the additional 5% - consequently making it the same price as the regular SonyStyle.com site.

UPDATE: Scratch that.. it came back up! Thankfully...

 

Do the US build to order Z's not come with a premium carbon option? I'm only seeing black carbon and blue carbon options.

 

I believe the only way to get the premium carbon option in the U.S. is by purchasing the Signature models - either the $2999 or $4499 model.

 

i re order it about 2 week ago with that PS3 and upgrade discount thing. also this is with the WANN i really hope it come with verizon LTE

 

Hello, yes this is my first post up here, and I've got a question for you guys first-owners of the Vaio.

One of my "key factors" in deciding for a notebook is Battery Life.

Can anyone of you tell me how is the REAL battery life on this new beauty?
Can it keep more than 5:30 hours with WiFi on in the REAL world?

Furthermore, do you think that I would get better battery life if I pick up the i5 2520 processor versus the i7?

thanks a lot!

 

The user manual for the Z21 series has a section on GPS Functionality. Is that only with the WWAN module? I didn't think the intel centrino advanced-n 6230 board comes with GPS...