Official VAIO Z Core 2 Duo Series Owners Thread

I think he meant the 540 and 590 CTO's, not the 540 and 590 pre-configures.

 

Yea why are the 590's and 540;s Made in USA?

 

got called by customer service at sony....my lappy is engraved and set to be shipped on the 15th no delay expected...fyi its a CTO...eta latest i should recieve is the 22nd...lets see if customer service was bsing or not...

...ill post once i get tracking number to see if Jan 15 estimated date is legit or not.

 

we shall see what it says on the bottom of the lappy...my bet made in japan...doing the build on the bare bones box is done in california. PS...dont diss american workers...made in the used to mean something...grrr so sad.

 

Just an FYI; "Made in ..." means that is the last place the product was handled/packed. Meaning that the whole thing can be made in Japan, but it's called Made in US if someone in US puts an additional plastic bag around it.

For Sony all the parts are of course made in Malaysia, China, Thailand or wherever it's cheapest, and, from the information in this thread, I assume it's assembled in Japan. But who's to say it's not assembled in China, and packed in Japan?

My point is that the work done in US is minimal, thus it's highly unlikely that there's any quality difference between US and Japan.

 

So it's confirmed that information about the blu-ray drive on Sonystyle's website is incorrect? While you are configuring a Z on Sonystyle's website and you click "More Info" under the optical disc drives it clearly states

"Blu-ray Disc™ Read/Write Drive
An economical option for those who would only need to read Blu-ray™ media. This drive gives you the same capabilities to read Blu-ray™ movies and data disks minus the option of writing to Blu-ray™ recordable media."

I guess we might just have to wait until someone receives the Blu-Ray Drive to find out for sure.

 

How much battery life did you lose from upgrading to a 7200 rpm HDD?

I'm considering the WD Scorpio Blue 320 GB HDD for its slightly better battery life.

Did you achieve the 3 hour battery life in stamina or speed mode?

I noticed the current Scorpio Black and the Blue HDD's don't have free fall sensors. Do you think the sensor's necessary? Is it just another name for the "G shock sensor" on the SZ?

Thanks!

 

Sorry, I think this was discussed before, but I am still a little confused. How much should I expect to pay for customs/duties/brokerage fees if I purchase a $3007 laptop from P1? P1 said they don't charge taxes on their Z's. I am living in Canada.

 

New Sony Z's on Amazon

Looks to be a little expensive, especially for the 90's

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=pe_17040_10119250_as_txt_5/?docId=1000251501&&plgroup=7

 

I'm thinking of getting

http://laptopsinc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=VGNZ590NGB&Category_Code=SONYZ

with a 250gig 7200 harddrive

it seems too good to be true.. with this configuration its about $300 cheaper than the sonystyle.com one.. including the $300 savings thing..

i just dont get that 3 year onsite warrenty thing

any opinions?

 

hi to everyone from spain¡¡ first of all sorry about my english¡¡

what do you think of this one? price?? and how is it posible having BD and SSD?? loosing warranty?

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Sony-Vaio-V...goryZ177QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

i like this web¡ i can configure it easily... do they ship to spain??or do you know any web that ships to spain??

thank you very much¡

 

www.notebook.de does. With spanish keyboard if you want.

 

I don't why but still I can't access the P1 web page...Really are they offering the combo SSD+BD? I thought wasn't possible yet! How much does it cost this models guys?
Yeah julsar, they ship in Europe. But consider the 20% VAT that you will have to pay.

 

VAIO SZ590
(P9500 2.53GHz 13.1" WXGA++ 4GB 320GB BLURAY CAM 56K 10/1000 WiFi BT FP WAN ULT)
Item: VGNZ590UCB
Base Price: $3,199.00
Shipping Weight: 8.00lbs
Hard Drive: 64GB SSD ($295)
Total: $3,494.00

(128GB SSD $525)

 

ok, i will take a look. it seems good, but i prefer an american one, because paying in dollars is much more cheaper to me¡¡

 

Oh I see. P1 (laptopsinc.com) also takes international orders.

 

Thanks Phil,
I'm sure you intended Vaio Z and not SZ correct? Wow so cheap the SSD options...525$ for the 128GB SSD when other retailers ask the double price. So my dream Z with both BD and SSD would cost around $4k...I might consider it!

 

but they ship directly to europe or i have to create an account in shipitapo.com?? maybe i will not have to pay 20% VAT, no? only if it is stopped at the customs....

even so, it is cheaper than paying in euros....

 

jack sparow, have you seen the ebay link i wrote some post before? it is the model you like... 128 SSD + BD.

 

is it true the Z might have a defective graphics card? :-(

 

Hmm I just copied it of P1, so I guess they made a mistake.

By the way, OCZ Core SSD goes for $514 online. Link.

The OCZ Core has some red flags around it. Very slow random writes for one.

It's just a rumor sofar. But since the rumors about the 8400 may be true.. who knows.

 

I knew that we are going to see the Z with both SSD aand BD. At this point I am wondering why Sony does not offer such a configuration? The OCZ Sata II seems to perform good:
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Sony-Vaio-V...goryZ177QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Julsar, I saw it...quite interesting the hole thing. Even if I would never purchase a laptop from e-bay. Do you have the e-mail of this guy?

 

OCZ Sata II is not the same as OCZ Core. OCZ Sata II is much better, it's the same as Samsung SATA II.

I'll post some links about OCZ Core.
edit: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227345

There have been an above-average number of reports indicating data corruption on the OCZ Core SSD.
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...ask=view&id=200&Itemid=1&limit=1&limitstart=8

There's more information in the hardware/upgrades forum, in the SSD thread.

 

THE EMAIL??no, but you can use the link "ask seller a question" and he will receive a mail with your question.

 

Be careful tho... Sonystyle offers 2 SDD's (1.8")in RAID 0, and P1 only offers ONE SDD (2.5"). So the 2 SDD's in RAID 0 offered by Sonystyle are much faster than the one on P1, and that explains the huge difference in price.

 

Great news! I am curious to see how many of are you going to cancel the order from Sony and place it with P1.
Is way too expensive for me though. I am reading a lot of bad things about SSD lately so I don't know if is even worth it the Z with a decent SSD.

 

I was waiting for Sony to release their business models of the Z on P1 all along. I knew it was just a matter of time, and I knew it would be cheaper on P1. But again, unlike a lot of you guys who placed orders on sonystyle, I'm in no hurry to get one.

 

I agree. But at least we have the option to have blu-ray drive and ssd together. Is not going to be superfast like the RAID 0 but is always ssd. Are we sure that are OCZ the one's P1 is offering?

 

That's the only SSD in the price range...

It's definitely not too good to be true. They are legit business models of the Z. You can find the whole list of them on Sony's site for business.

You can expect the price to get even cheaper (200-300$) between now and Christmas.

 

I'm not 100% sure. But judging by the prices I'm 90% sure.

OCZ Cores are sometimes faster and sometimes slower than 7200rpm drives.

More OCZ Core information:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=281205&highlight=OCZ+Core
http://www.guru3d.com/article/ocz-core-sata-64gb-solid-state-drive-review/9

 

Based on IsamuX's guide, I don't think it's too hard to replace the harddrive in the Z.

Personally, I think the current SSD's are still very immature. I wouldn't invest any money on the SSD's till the Samsung's MLC SATA II 256 GB SSD comes out in September (of course I won't get it till the price comes down a bit).

 

I'm not really seeing a big price savings going with Portable 1 (outside of the non-raid SSD option). In fact, if you get the 3 year warranty (so that you get the $300 discount with Sony), P1 is actually more expensive.

P1 Model quoted above /w 3 year accidental warranty: $2,738.00
Sony Style configured exactly the same: $2513.99 (in FL, comes to $2670 /w tax)

without warranties:

P1 Model: $2,349.00
Sony: $2,419.99

So, in this case P1 wins without a warranty, Sony wins with the warranty. So be sure to compare both (and I wouldn't worry about P1's offers being too good to be true). Of course there may be other reasons to go with one or the other (e.g. international orders, the debilitating fear of an American touching your CTO ... rofl, )

All the best,

 

Did I miss something? What's this $300 discount from Sony?

 

You also have to keep in mind that the warranty offered on P1's website is Onsite service vs. the warranty offered through sonystyle which is the Express Ship. P1's + Warranty may be worth it to those who want the Onsite Service. I'm sure you can call and get onsite warranty through sonystyle as well but I'm sure it's more expensive.

 

If you purchase a >= 3 year warranty + 2 accessories you get $300 off. I recommend the lovely $19 Vaio Stylus as a perfect match for your new Vaio Z,

 

P1 usually offers good services but they're not the cheapest.

For the cheapest Z deals look at other retailers.

 

Yes, that is definitely true. I wonder though, for most of the types of things that go wrong with a Notebook (broken LCD, damaged MB, bad GPU, etc), is there much they can usually do to fix it on-site?

 

Like which?

Thanks!

 

Here for example:
http://www.nextag.com/VGN_-_Z/search-html
http://computers.pricegrabber.com/laptop/m/84465310/search=VGN-Z/st=product/sv=title/

Give it a week and this list will be a lot bigger. Prices will become lower when they get Zs in stock.

 

Are you sure? On http://laptopsinc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=VGNZ590UBB&Category_Code= I read:

"- 128GB Solid State Disc (64GB x 2) Ultra ATA with RAID technology"

 

hey, about HD a person told me, is it true??

"
You have to be careful which 7200rpm hard drive you get. The first generation 7200rpm drives are about 35MB/s with the 2nd generation going at 41MB/s to 52MB/s and the third generation going at 55-70MB/s. Obviously, it makes sense to get the best.

In this case, the best hard disk drive you can get is the 320GB Seagate Momentus 7200.3 hard disk drive. It operates at nearly 70MB/s making it 20% faster than the 2nd best drive on the market the 250GB 7200rpm Samsung (~57MB/s). Here is a laptop I'm selling with this hard drive. In the listing are benchmark tests and hard drive comparisons.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=280256090487&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=018

is that the best 7200 rpm HD?

 

P1 offers onsite warranties? 'Onsite' as in someone comes to my house and does the repair? Does this apply to Canada and is it a Sony technician that comes to do the repair?

As for the $300 discount, when is it applied? After we pay from P1 or only if we purchase from SonyStyle?

 

Yes they offer "onsite"(make an appointment and someone comes to your house to do repair). Only the Express Ship with ADH is available when you order on Sonystyle's website, but the sonystyle rep told me you can get this onsite warranty through sonystyle if you order on the phone.

The $300 discount is only offered through sonystyle. If you add a plan with ADH and 2 accessories it automatically takes $300 off your order.

 

Do I really need a warrenty though? I've had a Dell for 5 years and it still works fine for me.. And I never got a warrenty. I was going to do the same for the Z once I buy it. Thats why I assumed it was better to just buy it from P1

 

Would anyone advice to get the XP Professional downgrade instead of Vista Business from P1? I understand the interface of XP is more familiar and hence might (in the beginning) be more easy to work with... But I can't really see why you would not want Vista (with SP1). I mean, it is an improvement in the long run right.

 

Vista is a terrible OS. Plain and simple

 

But then especially for the 1600x900 Z models, Vista might be still preferred because of the scaling possibilities it offers?

 

Question;

1. Will a 7200rpm 250GB HDD produce more heat and noise (and use more battery life) than a 5400rpm 250GB in case both are performing EXACT the same tasks?
2. Will a 5400rpm 320GB be as fast as a 7200rpm 200GB?

 

Actually, it's not plain and simple. While in the past I would have agreed with you, after Microsoft released SP1, Vista has become more stable.

Granted, it is more of a resource hog than XP but that's what happens with every successor (aka XP is a resource hog compared to 98, 98 is a resource hog compared to 95, and so on) but it's still pretty solid.