Official VAIO Z Core 2 Duo Series Owners Thread

Not really about cosmetics because the computers look essentially the same. It's more about whether I think the 690YAD is worth the price I paid...it doesn't seem to offer much more from the 610, which is almost $1000 cheaper. I thought it would be faster and quieter but it really isn't.

 

Does anyone know of a good adapter (preferably black) for the memory stick reader that doesnt stick out as much as the standard white sony one? I loved how the SZ took the memory stick pro duo without an adapter, why not build the Z the same way!?

 

Is there a way to control when the fan turns on or off? Mine is either always on or it likes to turn off for a few seconds then come back on. The noise is pretty noticeable sometimes. I know this was a problem in the earlier models but I guess it still is with these ones.

 

Thanks for sharing the pictures. The Shadow Border design looks cool IMO.

 

Yuck.. the shadow lid looks horrible.. and WHY cant he return it? SO what if it costs the company money?? He paid full price for a laptop that came with a satisfaction guaranteed or return for full refund for 21 day policy in the purchase price!!

If he is NOT satisfied with ANY thing with the laptop be it looks, specs, or price, per policy he gets a full refund by shipping it back to them within 21 days. You should NOT feel bad about sending it back!!

 

That does make some sense.
Please disregard my rant.

 

Do you guys know if the Z is SATA or SATAII? It shows SATA on the spec sheet but the SSD I might put in is SATAII...would this make a difference and does anyone know?

 

I think you've pretty much answered your question. You've already told yourself that personally, you didn't feel there was much difference between the 690 and 610, so maybe, you should go with that feeling and opt for the 610. But then again, those 2 models offers different specs. CPU, HD and RES. I guess your next question should be how intense are the applications you will use to justify the 690. If non-intensive, then 610 is your best bet. $1000 is a lot of money.

 

The SATA II drive will just run at the SATA I speed, since the chipset supports original SATA. You won't know the difference unless you run benchmarks.

Do you plan to take it apart yourself, or pay to have it done?
I went by a computer fixit place in my city yesterday to ask about possible drive replacement in my Z, but I was not comfortable that the guy wouldn't scratch or break something doing it. He said "I haven't messed up a notebook yet" but I stopped short of asking him if he would replace my Z if he scratched it or broke something. I am quite sure that he would not.

Are there any better instructions out there for drive swapping, other than the Japanese ones posted early on?

 

Doesn't your Z690 already come with a SSD? Is that one not "good" enough?

 

You mean that the official repair manual is not good enough? It not difficult really, and it's true, that I wouldn't let my Z to be touched by anyone else

At first they're overpriced. And probably many people want to choose by themselves...how much power it consume and how much heat it produce. With my choice my Z became silent...I doubt it would happen with two SSD in RAID 0. Also many people would probably choose Intel SSD instead nowdays (not me).

 

Yea sorry, I meant the 690... why do I keep typing the wrong model number for my Z?... it's the second time already..

Cool! Thanks a lot for posting up the picture.

I think I still prefer the premium carbon look. The shadow design looks a bit too flashy to me. I'm sure it would suit some people perfectly well.

 

On my last stay in Japan I was able to see all premium designs next to each other and it's true I really didn't like the two new ones. That's why the gothic arabesque won...premium carbon looks nice as well, but a bit too much usual looking for me (hey I switched to Sony from IBM ,))

 

It looks intricate enough that I wouldn't feel comfortable attempting it myself, and I am to concerned to let "any old" shop "take a stab" at it, so to speak.

Anyone in the Austin, Texas area that would swap the drive for me for a reasonable fee?

 

I was asking for the 610 if I decide to keep that one and return the 690.

 

I'll do it myself...the process doesn't look too bad. So then it doesn't matter if I buy a SATAII or SATA drive right?

 

It looks more intricate than it is. The most difficult is to take out the down side of palmrest...switching the HDD itself is piece of bread And it doesn't matter if you buy SATA or SATAII..


BTW...does anybody know why Everest is showing 5% overclock of CPU clock, even though I didn't overclock anything...?

 

Thanks! And I think the SSD in my 690 is a 1.8''. Is yours 1.8'' or 2.5''? There are a lot more 2.5'' but that may be too big!

 

My Z came with 2.5" Hitachi HDD, which I exchanged for 2.5" Samsung SSD...it's true there's much bigger selection in 2.5" SSDs...

 

Hm, then I'll look again. I'm leaning towards just returning the 690 for the 610 since I can install a SSD in it for less money plus I don't need the processing power of the P9600. I'm basically using the computer for internet, email, word editing, and watching occasional movies. I probably won't notice the difference in the 3MB cache difference, but I will notice the $1000 difference!! =)

 

When I was buying my Z I didn't mind much about the price (probably that's why I chose the Blu-Ray drive and premium design from SonyStyle, eventhough it would be much cheaper to buy Z in the local shop )...but the SSDs were too overpriced even from my point of view and I would loose the possibility of easy upgrade.

It's true that at first I though I'll keep the HDD at least for 2 years...but it was way too noisy and vibrating..so I exchanged it for SSD....the total silence witch such powerful machine is wonderful

 

Total silence? But the fan will still be on regardless, and it is louder than anything else, so how can noise be a factor? Also HDDs seem to me to be silent.

 

My HDD was considerably noisy and I could hear the "added" noise to the fan, when the HDD was spinning. But the main thing...with SSD my overall temp inside went down, so now the fan in the Stamina mode "doesn't" go on...it means total silence

 

I thought the fan was on regardless of temperature. Your HDD might also have been defective. I think the only thing noticeable about the Z is the fan, which doesn't stop regardless of anything. Possibly the DVD drive as well. I would say increased read/write speeds, shock protection, possibly lighter weight depending on which ones you get, are the selling points of an SSD.

 

I have the Samsung SSD on my 690 and the fan is non-stop. It stops intermittently but sure enough, it comes back on almost right away. I can hear it too...I don't think a $3000 laptop should do that, considering my Dell was completely silent and 1/2 the price with the same specs!

 

No it doesn't. The fan on my Z goes on usually on startup but after that not anymore if doing light tasks. I had in my hands many Z in SonyStyle shops and all of them had noticable vibration...and I would expect noise as well. I hope we're talking about 7200 rpm drives....

I didn't notice big difference in performance, of course the PS now loads faster, but startup and shutdown in fact takes much longer, don't know why. The reason why I bought SSD was shock protection, silence and low power c. and temps. I still didn't measure real battery life with SSD, but for instance today, while I was just writing in a Word with everything off incl. wifi and half brightness..after 2 hours it was indicating that the battery will remain for another more than six hours...I'm not saying that would be reality...but it's quite impressive difference from previous HDD, with which I could make about 4-5 hours...

 

My battery life then is terrible with SSD. I get 4 hours if I'm lucky in power saver mode =(. All I'm doing is surfing the internet or writing stuff. Maybe my computer is busted.

 

My order status changed from Processing to Your VAIO is being built! Maybe it will be finished tomorrow and shipped. I hope cause the wait is killing me.

The price of the 610 is 1899 at best buy which isnt that cheap. You could just build yourself a 690 CTO with the 10% off and 300 rebate and configure it with the cheapest specs and your price will be cheaper than 1899. Mine with all discounts, premium carbon fiber, win xp downgrade, 320 7200 hd came out to be 1799 after tax (in IL). If you opt out of the downgrade and 320 7200 harddrive (since you will replace with SSD) it will be another 150 or so cheaper. Thats pretty cheap and you get the higher resolution monitor as well as the larger graphics card memory. Just a thought.

 

SSD will even give you less battery life than a standard HDD according to TomsHardware.

 

Not true, that was a methodology error on TomsHardware's behalf, and has since been corrected.

SSD does use LESS battery than just about any spinner drive:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Intel-x25-m-SSD,2012-14.html

These are the power consumption ratings of an X25-M:
— Active: 0.150 W TYP
— Idle: 0.060 W TYP

These are the power consumption ratings of a 320gb 7200rpm Hitachi:
— Active: 1.80 W TYP
— Idle: 0.20 W TYP

(ratings are from manufacturer's data sheets)

 

Don't they use the same graphics card? They both say 9300M GS.

 

They both use the same graphics card but the 610 has only 128 ram while the 690 has 256? Some one correct me if im wrong.

 

Oh weird...you are right...well that's no good. How much worse will the graphics be then? That might be a killing factor in that decision.

 

Just got an email saying my order shipped! EDD 3/4/09. have to wait till Wednesday, but at least I know its on the way.

I dont know if it will make a significant difference. Probably will depending on which games you play if any. I dont know that video playback will be different or if video editing or other such applications will be affected, they might? How do you like the 1600 x 900 resolution? You should go to a best buy and see the 1366 x 768 and see if you can handle that resolution. I think those are the only two major differences, video ram and resolution. If you like the Z consider the CTO, better deal than both for the money with all the discounts they have now. Plus you get a 3 year warranty and i got 18 months financing by finagling with those guys. Then you could upgrade everythign to your own specifications in the future.

 

What screen brightness level are you running it at?

 

I just joined the club!
Got myself a 690CTO!

P8700 (2.53GHz)
320 GB 7200 rpm
Premium Carbon Fiber
4 GB RAM

Total price after tax $1,947.58, not too bad ^.^

Still wish I could afford SSD, whats the market price like for SSDs that I could stick in there myself? Just out of curiosity?

It sucks though cause it sais it wont ship till 3/10!!! UGh.

 

Welcome to the club. I really hope you for the 3 year warranty for $200 then get $300 instant discount; it's a no brainer. You could also get the 10% student discount.

A 60gb OCZ solid SSD is $90. They are pretty good for regular use, and twice as fast as the 320gb 7200rpm.

A OCZ 120/128gb SSD is around $200.

A high performance Intel X25-M 80GB is ~$400, while the highest performance X25-E 32GB SLC SSD is ~$500.

 

I don't play games so that's not a worry. Yeah, I went to Best Buy to see it and the resolution isn't so bad. I like the 1600x900 more though. I got 18 mo no interest at BB too...I'm not a fan of GE Money due to stuff that has happened in the past, so financing at Sony is out of the question. That's a reason I like the BB one too.

3-4/10.

 

yea that price includes student 10% and the -$300 bundle. Got the smart case for $60 and the neoprene for $20 or whatever cause it was the cheapest accesory to get.

Why are the intel so much more expensive? is the installation hard? I'm pretty comortable opening up a notebook but not if you need to remove 10 layers lol

 

The Intel ones are the fastest, so you pay the price premium. The SLC ones handle writes very well, they are great for server of heavy duty use, but the production cost is very high and thus the price.

It's not very very hard to swap the hard drive. It takes 15 minutes if you're careful and can keep your patience.

 

Yea, the main issue I've heard of SSD's are their write speeds? I don't know, I think for now I made the right choice in going with the 7200 rpm, at least untill prices fall for SSD's, then i'll swap it out, I don't really need oer 6 hours of battery if it means taking a hit on HD speed.


One thing I forgot to find out about before I ordered, but how big is the trackpad in comparison to most notebooks, I like a roomy one, and some even high end notebooks have tiny ones.

 

You wouldn't be taking any hit on speed. All the SSDs I've tried are Significantly faster than the 7200rpm drives. For example, the read speed of your drive is ~70MB/sec, while even the cheapie SSD's are ~140MB/sec. Write speed is about the same.

The trackpad is about 25% bigger than the dell laptops I've used, and is simply excellent.

 

i've read that a lot of the inexpensive ssd's have slower write speeds then a normal drive...or is that just wrong?

 

That had something to do with stuttering, a problem of some entry level SSDs when it came to writing random small bits of data. This problem is less so in Vista/Win7, and the newer models of even the inexpensive OCZ or G.skill drives use a newer revision of the controller which did alot to help alleviate the problem.

You should see about 80MB/sec write speed with an entry level new model SSD drive, which is higher than you'll ever see with a 320gb 7200rpm (about 60MB/sec write speed)

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/notebook-hard-drive,2006-11.html

 

I hope the Samsung SSDs that come with the 690 are good quality. Mine hasn't had stuttering but the one on the Dell has. I'm gonna try to reinstall Vista on it now and see what kinds of speeds I get.

Hm, well I would if I have the copy of Vista 64 bit .

 

Samsung isn't known for any stuttering problems, just the smaller brands that use a Jmicron controller.

 

Dell had a Samsung SSD and it kept stuttering. It took a very long time to install Office onto it. The 690 was much quicker.

 

Looks like I'll have to read up on it, for now I just wish I could get the notebook in my hands!!! I dont wanna wait two weeks. Bestbuy tax would almost be worth it haha, too bad I'd have to pay like $3k anywhere else for a z690, a bit too much tax for me.

 

Do you guys know how to get Vaio Recovery Center to stop coming up whenever I want to restart and reformat the hard drive using the Vista DVD?

EDIT: Nevermind...figured it out.

 

you could pop in an ubuntu live cd and use the drive tools to totally ormat the whole drive, but I don't know how that works with a SSD so at your own risk.