Official VAIO Z Core 2 Duo Series Owners Thread

Sweet
Thanks

 

yes totally agree...this machine is based on battery performance, light weight, screen rez....thats the pros of this rig besides the latest goodies inside....and the sony name with aftermarket support for extras...this is why you go for the Z the 11 inchers are too awkward with man hands.

The biggests watt hogs in this order are the screen, optical drive when spinning, the cpu if on full load, and the gpu. Keep these running low for the max bat life.

use stamina and mid to low settings -->screen settings (at night especially save ur eyes and bat) this is for for the best battery length...which is most the time...we didnt buy this to have it plugged in guys. *** leaving it plugged in all the time kills the bat.

use performace switch for photoshop, flash websites/ videos and low rez gaming....but the intel 4500 gpu is good on everything too. The extended battery looks like crap IMHO with the double spine...but still need to see it in real life...so buy one and use it only if your a starbucks people watcher and gotta have the long times on the run. the extended bat will be cheap to find with resellers and this lappy is gonna be popular for after market goodies.

the gpu is only gonna give a very very very small bump in performance but its better than nothing....so turn it off 90 percent of the time because it runs at full watts all the time...unlike your cpu which only increases watts if under more load.

If you got the blue ray burner drive, and yes you can tell the difference from dvd on this 720p screen. the sony z screen looks amazing at 1600 rez so its a must have...did i mention get the 1600 rez version!...cough up the xtra cash the z is best in class for the screen period, a strong feature of this sony vaio!..also i hear the blueray is a hog on the bat...so can get the extended bat for 2 blue ray movies worth of juice or car adaptor for those movie road trips!!

 

I swear there is a rule for consecutive posts... if there isnt then there needs to be... Any by the way dont get your hopes up for getting the laptop next week... building the laptop starts on friday and then shipping after that... so itll take abt 7-12 businesss days from the 15th depending on where you are...longer if any component goes on backorder...

 

I think so too. Please watch this.

Don't post consecutive posts. Instead edit your last post.

 

Im reading now what ppl are saying about NVIDIA, whata u guys 12 yrs old? Grow up, u should knwo by nnow these are just rumours. Ppl will do anything and everything to put down companies that are high in market cuz they get jelous and wanna put tht certain companies name down the drain. You think a huge company like NVIDIA would do that? use ur logics. Only little kids should be buying into stories like this, or ppl with no business sense. Well im own my own business but still. Its all rumours. If NVIDIA had an effected card my old SZ780 would give me a **** load of problems, but no it ran Crysis on everything low of course smoothly on top of it, WITH Sony Vaio's Junkware installed. And you all know thats a nighmare. So use ur logic ppl. Ur letting some kid in his bedroom with dipers stop u from gettting what u want cuz HE doesnt like NVIDIA.

 

I've preordered my Z from Conics.net, and according to them Sony says delivery will be approximately "start of Sept". I'm not sure if this refers specifically to my order or to Z orders in general.

 

opps sorry for the consecutive posts...im not much of a forum junkie...i registered to address some tech questions that some people gave that were wrong and couldnt help myself...plus just wanted to lay it all out there with the warrantee info since most are not in the know..and my ADD brain just doesnt do it in one post.

Nope, hopes not up that much...but ETA is the 15th...now the stores are getting them on the 16th in some places with preconfigs...there has already been JAPAN users that have their Z...so the 15th starting builds for all lappys is total BS...sorry to call you out...the 15th building is for CTO's in california and these guys are fast pumping em out. SOOOooo....shipping takes 3 days from the warehouse to me...my guess is ill have it around the 22nd or sooner anything beyond that would depends on unknown issues or how far i am in line on the build list and how many orders placed. 26th will be the latest period...if it reaches end of month ill be shocked! So time will tell!

 

Actually, you should pick up a copy of todays Wall Street Journal". There's a brief article on Nvidia on this issue; their stock came down due to this. I'll see if I can google the article and post the link.

 

yes its on sonys site ...look it up....thats why i said its all in the story look at all the stuff...and sony calls it total protection...make sure you call the warrantee company and get them on record of examples that they would pay out in full on a claim...so if you need to..youll have the right story that this legal mumbo jumbo and it gets covered.

 

I'm not sure if anyone has posted this yet, but P1 now has more preconfig options for the Z!

 

hope your not talking about me...nvidia makes good products so does ati and yes you can run crisis on low settings on just about any gpu made recently...but by no means is it gonna run like the nvidia 9800gtx moblie that just came out. The 3d 06 bench mark for the Z gpu is under 2k and the gtx is 10k.

You own your own bix and 3k for a lappy is alot? thats one employees monthly salery here in the usa....just fire some dead weight and get your lappy...its worth it.

They have good claims the old 8000m series nvidia prior to the one in the Z had issues...its on the web google it. But most issues are not hardware but are the drivers.

Sonys junk ware....another reason to get the vista business option with fresh start that also comes with a free cd of xp pro drowngrade. Yes sonys bloat ware is a major pain to clean up and the apps running in the back along with microsofts bloated vista...its clear why more ram is important now days.

Yes NVIDIA...is on the ball....ATI is a AMD company which has always been know to make cheaper solutions for the gamer...thats why amd bought em but ati lost talent on that buyout...so ATI is kinda lacking but will make a come back...we need strong gpu competitors to keep things advancing...so I personally love them both...my tech addiction encourages all great companies. AMD INTEL ATI NVIDIA....and morns the loss of Cyrix and matrox/voodoo

 

Guys,


Do not discuss ways of committing fraud with ADH warranty...that is against the forum rules and will not be tolerated.

-Kdawgca
NBR Mod

 

yes because they are modding the lappy in house...there are somethings you cant do...but all the guts can be swapped except the gpu.

I wish sony offered the 64bit OS...i dont believe in wasting ram...soo Windows 7 it is...the only issues with that is the 7 os is supposed to have alot of fun touch screen goodies in it...was it 2010 when it comes out or later...havent looked into it in awhile. thank goodness for the 3 year warranty on the z ...wink wink

 

Well Here's the Article on Nvidia: USA Wall Street Journal
Unfortunately, you have to subscribe to it to read the full article. Article dated Aug. 13, 2008

Here's the link:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121859523254035725.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

 

Really? Sweet! I've been waiting for it forever. I'm going to check it out right now.

 

They offer SSD's with the BluRay?

 

Yes. P1 has added lots of SSD options. By the pricing I guess they are OCZ Core SSDs. They're not the best and they've been getting some mixed reports.

Option with Bluray + SSD is also available:
http://laptopsinc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=VGNZ590UCB&Category_Code=SONYZ

 

I said I didnt condone makeing false claims and examples are purely hypothetical....the comments were mostly focused on overcoming the many comments in the warranty because as it is written it seems to be at their total desecration to pick and chose what they will cover on a case by case situation and is in total favor of not paying out.

It is the right of everyone who buys the warranty to cover them selves getting exact examples of possible claims to fully understand what is covered and what isnt prior to making a claim and putting themselves out of time and misery....its up to a individual person to choose to use the information discussed on a legitimate claim and fraudulent acts are not condoned by me but education is... receiving the warranty value that we paid for is important to me and all customers and as long as the claim complies to all the articles of warranty the word Fraud is a moot point and NOT the point of disscussion. I apologize if you misread the post and made an assumption.

 

Does anyone know if the preconfigs sold on P1 are made in Japan?

 

Great news for those of you who are not ultra rich like me and still want the higher resolution screen!

You can get the cheapest Z590NFB (P8600, 320 gb HDD) on P1 for 2300$, that's only 50$ more than the Z570!

For those of you who want the fastest CPU, you can spend 50$ more on the Z590NGB (200 gb HDD). And perhaps upgrade to SDD when the price comes down a bit in the near future.


Question: what's the best SDD out there right now? Thanks!

 

I think they are indeed made in Japan. Why wouldn't they be made in Japan if other pre-configures are?

 

I think it's the Samsung 64GB SSD.

There are larger ones out there, but they're not guaranteed to be good quality. (some use more power than 7200rpm drives I hear)

 

When's the Samsung 256 GB SSD coming out? It shouldn't be too expensive since it's a multi-level cell SSD.

Question: So what's the best 320 gb HDD out there right now? Thanks!

 

P1 offers Bloatware Removal. What are they removing? Is it recommended?

 

Not entirely necessary except for the lazy, since you can remove all the "free extras" (trial software and crap like that) yourself

 

OCZ ssds were at a good price and performance but there are still issues with ssd so give it alittle more time until it is iron clad...there are so many times that a disk can be written in ssd...the tech will get better and cheaper...very fast...data storage isnt the type of thing you should take risks on as a early adoptor...I am waiting for the big price drop and higher storage like 256k or higher...any major name brand should be fine for any storage device after it has been fully tested and proven with alittle bit more time.

 

I worked today on an Acer 16" with 1920*1080 resolution. I'm guessing the PPI is similar to Z 1600*900. The pixels and letters looked fine on default settings.

Then I changed the DPI to custom setting 110 DPI. The system restarted and everything looked fine. I browsed a couple of websites and booted some applications. I did not see any problem.

I think I would be comfortable with ordering the 1600*900 resolution. I think I don't even need to change the DPI settings. Just zooming webpages on 110% will be enough.

Samsung SATA II is very good and some of the MTrons are.

Comparison Samsung v.s OCZ Core: http://blog.laptopmag.com/in-depth-with-the-ocz-core-series-low-cost-ssd

 

Question for people who have the Sony Z:

How does the laptop close / stay closed?
How sturdy does it feel?

 

Hello again folks, wow this thread has ballooned quite a bit.

First the battery, I let it run dry with full everything on, just usual usage, web surfing installing programs using the DVD drive as well as off the HD, and just typing up docs. WIFI (N mode) on all the time, full screen brightness and I'm not sure if there was CPU throttling or not, but it was blowing hot air out, but the machine still kept feeling good. Not quite cool, not quite warm, comfortable. The regular battery that I have lasted for just under 3 hours. (Again my results are not typical.)

Then I left it to charge over night and luckily my brother unplugged it this afternoon, I turned it on tonight and read the battery that it has 96% left a charge. Perhaps if it was charged and unplugged over night, it might be 92% (just a guess)

The Vista Ultimate that I installed is retail and NOT using the key from Sony (I opted for Vista home). I don't recommend changing the language pack from the Japanese versions as most of the programs seemed to have been broken. Japanese uses a lot of Japanese fonts and they don't move over well to an English OS, let alone the naming scheme. We use a "/" for directories where in Japan it's a "Yen symbol".

My machine isn't perfectly set up. I desperately need drivers for it, but it's too new for any. The restore discs I made didn't take. Keeps asking me for the second DVD but I put it in and it doesn't read (sigh) I'll have to wait on a perfect setup. I still have the original HD (sorta messed up with the English langauge pack) but recovery partition still in tact. I'll try to recreate or pull off of that.

In my opinion the best 320gig 7200 HD out is the Scorpion Black. I have it and it's quiet and cool. I'm going to swap again when a few more mature SSD's come out.

The machine feels very sturdy when closed, the battery feels a little little loose. The lid closes with (I wouldn't know how to best put this...) a tense hinge?? When you close it, about 3 cm from closing, it will lose the tension and kinda snap close and want to stay close. Any other angle it will stay at.

I'll try to play a movie soon, and as for dust... meh, I'm not too worried about dust. Most of my non stationary equipment never had a dust problem, but my stationary ones... I really should dust more often! *^_^*

Games, still coming, gotta sort out some things. IF ANYONE knows of any driver packs or from any site that would have a full set for Vista x86 (or x64, I might try that later) please let us/me know. or Until I get my machine running like stock again...

All those ordering from those 3rd parties, I think they might come with a drivers DVD or two for the translation, if they offer to remove the crap, I'd do it... it came with a lot of junk stock. Not as bad as my brother's TZ but enough to just want to wipe it and reinstall. He is lucky as his machine is more mature and drivers are everywhere, but perhaps with the new Z's we can make some kinda repository or something?? If anyone can rip or copy the drivers from their import, that would be great.

Again, I'll post more and try to answer more questions as they come.

Thanks for reading my long posts.

 

Just called Sony-Style UK and they've got 70 pre-orders for the Z11 with first orders out for dispatch on 21 Aug.

 

IsamuX, cant remember if you got the blu-ray drive, but could you or anyone else confirm if the blu-ray drive can burn BD discs?

this is what P1's website says:

- BluRay Combo DVD±RW Optical Drive

so does it only burn DVD's?

 

Nope, no BR drive for me, too expensive (for me) but yes it is a BR burner that can burn BR and BRE at 2x. As well as the usual assortment of DVD's.

 

I'm waiting for my cashback credit card to arrive before i order mine. Just hope i can get it before the 3 years promotion runs out.

 

bbasra, what 3 years promotion?

 

He's talking about 3 years free RTB warranty if you register your Z or TZ within 30 days of purchase and it's before the end of September - available in the UK only I'm afraid...

 

Can you provide a link to more on this 3 year free RTB

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3760931

"All Z Series are made in Japan, except for the Z540 & Z590's which are MADE IN USA (San Diego, CA) @ Sony's plant." per portable one

 

https://www.sonystyle.co.uk/catalog/48/489A06B4C67A00AAE10080002BC29B85.pdf

 

Yea, they ar Made in Japan.

 

IMO, thought u guys should know in my logical sense. If you guys get the Junk removal like Isamux mentiioned, they will have to open ur brand new sealed laptop and on it, fiddle around with it removing the junk and what not and then seal it back. Theres a veryyy good chance of that, infact I can guarntee they do that cuz they cant magially remove junk from laptop for u. So just keep that int he back of ur mind.

 

I doubt it. I doubt they "open ur brand new sealed laptop" and they I doubt they "fiddle around". For bloatware removal they copy an optimized, bloatware free hard drive image to the hard drive before packaging.

Don't make it out like they're a bunch of amateur kids fiddling around with laptops in their garage. They're a qualified Sony service station and Sony TSP. They know what they're doing, and I would even guess that it's them who package your "brand new sealed laptop".

 

Also in my opinion, but when you order through the 3rd parties. I'm pretty sure, they'll just custom order whatever you want from Sony Japan, get it shipped to them, they'll reformat and reinstall an English OS (removing the crap in one big sweep) and any warranty issues you have will be dealt with through them, NOT Sony.

I don't think they'll have to open up the machine to do anything... Just my two yen. *^_^*

 

I agree with ac500 - they'll just be applying an image they made earlier and not doing bloatware removal by hand. Same with Sony's Fresh Start (hence the reason you can only get it with Vista Business...).

 

Ack! The Z590's are made in the US? ****!

 

Maybe already next week will be shown new USB 3.0 (codename SuperSpeed USB) at IDF in San Francisco. It's speed will be up to 4,8 Gb/s.

Do you think they'll implement it to Z anytime soon...?...as I'm not that concerned about problem with Nvidia card (I didn't heard about any problem with them on SZ)...but I feel a bit sad that these new technologies like USB 3.0 and new FireWire (i.Link; IEEE 1394-2008) are not in the present 'best of all' notebook....and even if they will be in Z's refresh, I don't think it'll be this year anymore....which is a bit too much time to wait for me...

 

It's always the case that a new latest greatest technology comes out just after a new release. You have to take the plunge sometime or you'll be waiting forever...

 

True...on the other hand USB 2.0 is with us for 8 years...so it's something what stays for longer time than other usual hardware ,)

 

Here are the media types and read/write speeds. Bold Type is for BD media you were concerned about:
DVD+R DL Write: 4x max
DVD+R Write: 8x max
DVD+RW Write: 4x max
DVD-R Write: 8x max
DVD-RW Write: 4x max
CD-R Write: 16x max
CD-RW Write: 10x max
CD Read: 24x max
DVD Read: 8x max
DVD-RAM Write: 5x max
DVD-R DL Write: 4x max
BD-R Read: 2x max
BD-R Write: 2x max
BD-RE Write: 2x max
BD-ROM Read: 2x max
BD-RE Read: 2x max
BD-R DL Read: 2x max
BD-R DL Write: 1x max
DVD-RAM Read: 5x max
Blu-Ray Disc™ Support: Yes (BD-R/BD-RE/BR-ROM/DVD±R
DL/DVD±RW/RAM)
BD-RE DL Read: 2x max
BD-RE DL Write: 1x max
_________________________

This was discussed in one of the tech shows I was listening too and was mentioned it would be implemented into laptops early 2009. I'm sure Sony will adopt it eventually and will most likely be implemented on the Z6 (just my guess).

 

Just a little something for us to pass time whist we await our Z lappie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AbLc-S14bo

 

just cancelled my sonystyle.com vaio Z590 CTO order. After reading 100+ pages i decided to wait few days till it starts shipping and may be consider other options like P1