Official VAIO Z Core 2 Duo Series Owners Thread

Yeah, 50% off a retail price of $50 for the Logitech V470 bluetooth mouse is just fantastic. I wish my local Staples (they sold the V470) will "give away" such a deal!

 

So any answers to any of the questions I've asked? I feel this product needs a guide so people can play catch up on the issues plaguing the old series, pros/cons, and the differences in the new models. Seriously as far as I can tell on the stats, they all look the same but for some reason have new model names.

 

I am pretty sure the Z6xx series do not include WWAN card (Sprint in Z590)
and the processors have all been ramped up + price reduction

 

I ordered a Z690 and it's supposed to include Sprint WWAN. It is listed as included when configuring one out on sonystyle.com

 

Most of them seem to be configurable to have the exact same specs, which further confounds things.

So for example a dilemma I'm looking at: if a Z540 is cheaper than the Z530, and they have the exact same specs, is there any reason to go for the Z530 over the Z540? Is there a design difference for example or anything of that nature? Further, if they have the exact same specs, why is one called Z540 and the other called Z530? 10 Internet points to the one who can explain this.

I know there's an obvious difference in the big shifts of designs, like the 1600 x 900 screen resolution vs 1366 x 768 differences and the 256 vs 128 VRAM on the Nvidia. But that's not the case for the models without these dramatic shifts, yet are different models and prices.

 

i think the main difference is that the 540 is cto and the 530 is prebuilt, other than that i have no clue

and all Zs look the same

 

One question: can I buy the Z 690 with resolution 1600x1200 but without blu-ray?
I can't find any information about that on sonystyle.

 

^^ yes u can

 

from the Z590YAB specs it looks like the Z690 SSD is SATA vs. Ultra ATA on Z590. it doesn't matter much unless the SSD is higher throughput than 133MB/s or whatever the Ultra ATA interface is. i hadn't seen this mentioned, though, so i thought i'd point it out and see if it's correct.

 

what you are thinking about an upgrade to qx9300?
Core2Duo 4x 2.53ghz, 12mb L2 Cache... Performance increase over 50%
http://www.planet-notebook.com/inte...x253ghzsockelptrayaw80581zh061003-p-9334.html

I will upgrade my Vaio Z90, this cpu don't get more hot, as my t9600 2x 2.8ghz... the qx9300 have tdp 45W and my t9600 have tdp 35W, so with a better thermal compound, i think there are no problems....
http://www.akasa.com.tw/akasa_english/spec_page/thermal/spec_ak_450_5g.htm

I will sell my t9600 for 500€, if anyone want.... because i will buy the qx9300...

Is there any chance to change the graphic to the Nvidia 9600M GT?
Cheers

 

Any news Bob?

 

Personally, currently The Z5's may not be worth it. For example, Best Buys sells the Z610 for $1899 and Frys sells the Z550 for $2099. You get more on the Z610 than yo would on the Z550.
Pros on Z610: 4GB Ram vs 3GB, 320HD vs 250, & Vista Ultimate 64bit v/s Vista Business 32bit.
So these are well worth having plus the $300 reduction in price.

The differences between those 2 models could be very miniscule. For example, when I got my Z550 v/s the Z540, the 2 differences were P8600 v/s P6400 and the built-in Sprint Wan. That was it. The price difference was $100 more for these 2 features. So, I'm sure if you look carefully you will see that there is 1 or 2 differences.

 

Personally, the Z5's may not be worth it. For example, Best Buys sells the Z610 for $1899 and Frys sells the Z550 for $2099. You get more on the Z610 than you would on the Z550. Though, the Z550 has gone on sale in the past for as low as $1599. It's a hit amd miss if you see the ad. Anyway....

Pros on Z610: 4GB Ram vs 3GB, 320HD vs 250, & Vista Ultimate 64bit v/s Vista Business 32bit.

So these are well worth having plus the $300 reduction in price as the prices stand now.

The differences between those 2 models could be very minuscule. For example, when I got my Z550, I contemplated on the Z540, the 2 differences were P8600 v/s P8400 and the built-in Sprint Wan. That was it. The price difference was $100 more for these 2 features. So, I'm sure if you look carefully you will see that there is 1 or 2 differences.
Check the specs again and look at the features that I've just mentioned. I'm sure you'll see the diiferences.

I went to P1 to see the differences between 530 and 540.
540-P8400, 2.26, 2GB Ram
530- P8600, 2.40, 3GB Ram
And your right, the 530 is more in $$ than the 540. Personally, I think the model number itself is misleading. The specs on the 540 should be on the 530 and vice versa.
Note that there were 5 variations of the Z540 on P1's website, so I compare it to the very least.

 

One more thing too. The Z550 has got WWAN while the Z610 does not have WWAN. This may be a deal killer for some.

Furthermore, the HDD on the Z610 is 7,200rpm while the HDD on the Z550 is 5,400rpm.

 

Yes, this is regarding the battery drain question.

I shut down the computer last night around midnight on a full 100% charge and unplugged it. I turned it on today at 11 a.m.

After 11 hrs of sitting uplugged the battery icon showed a charge of 91%.
I would imaging it would take a percent or 2 to boot up the machine so we are looking at about a 7-8% battery drain over an 11 hr. period.

 

The 690 has Verizon WWAN

 

You can and it's 1600X900.

 

this battery drain!!! GahHHhh!

 

To add in to the battery discussion, I've tested my battery on my Z610 for 2 days & unfortunately, the battery drain issue (or should we call it a unique Sony feature) is there on the latest Vaio Zs.

 

A better thermal compound will only help in moving the heat from the CPU to the heat sink. It won't do anything for moving the heat out of the case. The heat increase is almost 30%, which is significant. Chances are that your case will get hotter and hotter, until it fails.
At the very least, you need to install a fan that moves more air.

 

How bad is it on yours?

 

I thought it was concluded that the windows' measurement of the battery levels were inaccurate? Well I don't have the 6xx series but my vaio 540 always shows 32% left when I charged it to 50% the night before (I have battery care function enabled). I still get roughly over 2 hours with it though.

 

Don't know about that. I know that when it says it's down to 6 or 7% remaining it really is cuz I saw that warning last night and still kept working (I wanted to completely drain the battery) and soon after the computer shut down.

 

VAT Calculation

Can someone confirm if I'm correct I wanna buy Vaio in USA and have it shipped to UK via www.myusa.com which will charge me 100$ for shipment .

My question is how much tax will have to pay if here in UK tax is 17.5% I think, from the amount 1400$ (£974) .

From my calculation I would have to pay extra:

- 245$ dollars tax which is £170 pounds.

Are my calculations correct ?

I multiplied 1400$ by 0.175 and just want to know If I did it right and that would be the amount that I will have to pay.

Thank you!

 

Oh I know. What I meant was even though the percentage is 32 or 50, I still get somewhat the same mileage. If window see that you have 6% left (even tho it might be 10% of usage) it will of course still shutdown. But i'lm probably wrong...if that's the case, I'm losing 18% of battery life overnight!!!

 

Well i hope when windows 7 comes out on a vaio Z, the battery drain issue is gone. Then I will get a Z or SR for sure !!

 

@rydude
Yeah, I hope they will fix it (if it's really a software problem). The battery issue doesn't really bother me because I mostly use the ac anyways. I just hope someone who's using XP can pitch in.

 

If battery is being drained while the laptop is SHUT DOWN, then it is a hardware issue, completely independent of Windows. Waiting for Win 7 to fix is problem is highly unrealistic... How come other laptops don't have this issue...

 

Any chance the battery drain could have something to do with the wwan? or does this also happen on non-wwan models?

 

What questions are still lingering?

My z690 is scheduled to be here in two days.

 

Yah, I mean that I hope that by the time windows 7 comes out, that sony would have fixed the battery issue, whether it being a software or hardware problem

 

i think it's a hardware issue...
when you off the plug, you can actually flip the whole laptop over.
when you press your ear to the case, you can hear a small, high-pitch frequency sound.

when you take out the batt, the noise stop. but when you put it back again, well, it came back...

 

Well for one thing, Best Buys and Fry's are overpriced! They will still make money because they are the only brick-and-mortar stores available that sell laptops in most parts of the US.

The problem is they are configurable, so they don't have to be any set specs. The Z540 can easily sell in stock with a p8600, which it does in a lot of retail sites. Also the Z550 is different than the Z540 in that the Nvidia card has 256 VRAM rather than the 128 VRAM on the Z540, 530 520 etc. which is one of the differences on paper that you can already account for. I'm not aware of these differences in the other models, yet they can have the exact same specs but different model names. If you look at the site that you linked:

here is the Z540 with an p8600 2GB RAM 250GB etc http://laptopsinc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=VGNZ540NDB&Category_Code=SONYZ for 1579$ stock.

Now here is a similar link to the Z530 with the same specs, p8600 2GB RAM 250 GB, but it comes with WWAN http://laptopsinc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=VGNZ530NB&Category_Code=SONYZ for 1549$ stock!

So you get WWAN and you pay 30$ less?!


To ask about the battery drain people seem to be mentioning, has anyone bothered to ask Sony about this?

 

I recall someone posting that they called Sony about it and was told that it was designed that way.

 

finally, that puts it to rest.. so it's not an actual problem

 

Actually, a similarly spec'd Z on sony.com is about $200 more expensive than the Z610 at Best Buy...

 

I've read in some reviews, amazon or newegg, that the WWAN card does have GPS receiver built-in as well, and can be used with mapping programs such as Streets and Trips by Microsoft.

Any comments?

 

Can you give me a link? I only see 4 models at Sonystyle.com, the 530, 540, 590 and 690. Not to say that Sonystyle.com is any good, because Sony.com is overpriced too! You are almost expected to use the 10% student discount for that. And of course, yearly no payment financing is the major bonus if you don't have the cash.

 

Oh?

I would have loved to pay less than $2,000 for a 2.53 GHz / 2 GB / 250 GB / Ultimate 64-bit / 1600x900 notebook, but I couldn't find it anywhere else.

 

I don't like to generalize because the very top end models might be different since I haven't looked into it much, so Sony may be good for some models granted that you are willing to pay a lot for the laptop. But that depends how much exactly after tax and charges did you pay? If online retailers hold it, we can probably find a cheaper deal somewhere. But regardless, I'm talking about things like a P8600 2.4G Hz, 2 GB of RAM (buy an extra stick for 30 bucks or so yourself), 250GB hdd and the works for 1400-1600, no tax, free shipping.

Sony and Bestbuy charge tax, and Bestbuy also charges for shipping so you have to take on an extra 1-200$. So that 610 comes out to 2081$ for me, standard shipping, $2056~ If I want to pick it up in store.

 

That's basically what you would pay on sony.com with the 10% student discount. I bought the 610 from Best Buy but haven't opened it yet because of finals studying but I got 18 months no interest and paid about $2050.

 

Can you link it to me? Still don't see it anywhere.

 

Link what? The 610 isn't on the sony website...I was referring to the 690 on sony.com which is in the same series and has basically the same basic stuff. When you customize it to include what the 610 has, it comes out to be a little over $2000.

 

Oh okay, well that's not the same item then.

edt. I might as well emphasize on this since it might cause confusion.

Firstly, the 690 is 100$ cheaper at Sonystyle.com with the exact same specs using the 10% discount.
Second, the 690 comes in 1600 x 900, the 610 is in 1366 x 768. So that already is the dealbreaker that makes them not comparable.

Let me give you an example.
The z520 is 2000$ after tax on BestBuy.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...z530&lp=12&type=product&cp=2&id=1215819844713

The exact same model and configurations are 1487.99$ free shipping no tax at JR after using JR's 7% rebate at live.com. (JR isn't cheap either but I'm making a comparison.)
http://search.live.com/cashback/products/offerings/4003/14608365

Just to give you an idea of how vastly overpriced Bestbuy is.

 

Is anybody running CS4 (photoshop, dreamweaver, fireworks) on a z540? The resolution comes just under the specs.

 

I believe people running other os (linux for example) still get the battery drain. =[

 

Why was it designed that way? That's sounds like an absurd explanation.

 

This is slightly off topic, but has anyone successfully purchased the new Intel P9600 and swapped it into a Z? I'm running the P8600 and wouldn't mind the increase in performance... but I can't find anywhere to buy the CPU...

 

I charged my battery to 100%. Then I shut down the Vaio Z. Once I made sure I had shut down the laptop, I unplugged my AC adapter from the power outlet. Went to bed & first thing the next morning when I woke up, I turned on my Z & checked the battery level in Vista. It showed 93% and 94% the two times I tested.

 

My Z610, which is one without the WWAN, is showing the battery drain symptom.