Official VAIO Z Core 2 Duo Series Owners Thread

CANDIANS lol, sry to inform ppl that didn't purchase yet.


Sony's VGNZ555DNB VAIO® Z-Series Notebook PC with Genuine Microsoft® Windows Vista® Business with Service Pack 1-Bilingual
VGNZ555DNB


Price $1,999.99*


((The anticipated date of arrival is Sep 18, 2008))
__________________

 

What?! First 29 then 5th and now 18th?!
Are you serious?
-=ToRoNtO-GuYY=- did you went to the store?

 

Did anyone who ordered their Z90 from Portable One get theirs get? If so do you have any feedback? Am I better off ordering from sony or P1?

 

Anyone know anything about the fresh start? How fresh is it?

 

Question for Z owners :

Is there any way to set the S1 / S2 button to disable / enable Bluetooth or other components?

 

sony is run by a bunch of idiots. Honestly, I had to cancel my first order for the Z540 because they kept pushing the shipping date and I told them I needed it before september 2nd for school.

The manager told the sales rep that I will receive the Z555 before the 2nd no problem, so I ordered that one. I called today because they told me the shipping date will be the 29th for the Z555, but as usual, its pushed, but not only by 2 days or so, but pushed to the 18th of september...

what a f***** joke.

 

Yea man sry, I called Head Office and Sony Store. Thats their next shipment. Thats why the guy I bought it from told me to preorder it now cuz the next shipment will be a litte later. Spt 10th was an estimate, but I guess its officiallly the 18th of Spt now. Friggen sucks eh.


Thank God I preorderd!!!

 

toronto guy, what do you mean pre-ordered? And when will you be receiving it?

If I bought it about 2-3 days ago, am I safe or is my date the 18th as well?

 

My Z arrived!! I stayed up all night excited (and working) and almost went to sleep. If I had laid down 5 minutes earlier like I wanted to I would have completely missed it. FedEx delivery at 6:41am..? That's a first for me. I've always received stuff in the evening. I thought it was strange that they had it listed as "out for delivery" at 10:40pm last night.

Time to play...

 

More than the Lenovo U330, I think the new Samsung X360 is going to be a serious competitor to the Z series. Good to have some competition on the 13'' models, after all this with the netbooks. Still waiting the refresh of the TZ to decide where I will pull the trigger. They are appearing slowly-slowly laptops with the ULV Centrino 2, so Sony should release the ultraportables soon. If I take the Z I will definitely take the extended battery.

 

The X360 doesn't compete with the Z, more like the Macbook Air because it is using a low voltage processor and integrated graphics.

I expect to see a lot of laptops announced next month, and the TZ to be replaced by an all new model.

 

Yea I also bought it a few days ago (Pre-ordered), and If u did aswell, u should be gettin it by the 5th. Not 18th. Ppl that that are buying it NOW, are going to recieve it by the 18th. Even if u call a Sony Store, they should tell u within the coming week latest.

 

Exciting! New 14" could be interesting as wel.

 

Placed an order for a CTO Z590 today:

• Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P9500 (2.53GHz)
• 4 GB DDR3-SDRAM (DDR3-1066, 2GBx2)
• 320 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive [5400 rpm]
• DVD±R DL / DVD±RW / DVD-RAM Drive
• Wireless LAN (802.11a/b/g/n) with integrated Bluetooth® technology
• Integrated Wireless Wide Area Network
• Trusted Platform Module / Biometric Fingerprint Sensor
• Standard Battery (BPS12)
• Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Premium with Service Pack 1 \
• 3 Year Express Ship Service Plan with ADH

Accessories:

• VAIO® Urban Messenger Carrying Case - VGPAML2
• Transportable Speaker - SRSM30BLK

Estimated Shipping Date: 09/08/2008
Final Total After NY Tax and Shipping: $2,713.41

 

I went into Vaio Control Center, I don't see where you can disable certain features. What tab were you looking at?

Looks like someone already suggested a solution, but the settings can actually be found if you right click on the sound/speaker icon. You can turn OFF FN sound without changing folder/file names as was suggested.

What models are these? Are you speaking of the UX and TZ refresh? Or are there leaks to new models being released?

 

I'm interested in the SP9300 and SP9400 processors to come out soon, with 6mb of L2 cache, 1066 FSB, 25 watts and 2.26 and 2.40ghz respectively.

The specifications seem similar to the current processors out like the P9500.

But these are small form factor processors. I hope Sony can use them in their models, maybe an even slimmer Z or 12" notebook soon!

Nothing has been leaked, its all speculation. But I predict many new laptops will be announced next month, as will Sony's ultraportables, which will replace all their current models, they will have TZ, G and UX replacements I hope.

 

I doubt the TZ will be replaced anytime soon as a series cycle is about 2.5 years (and TZ has been around for less than a year).

 

The previous models have been the TR, T, and TX. The TR lasted from late 2003 to late 2004 when the T was announced and then the TX was announced in late 2005. So the first two models lasted a year.

In May 2007, the TZ was announced so the TX lasted around 1.5 years. So I think its reasonable for the TZ to be replaced by a new model, especially with an entirely new chipset, processors and Centrino 2 branding.

 

would the z owners please comment on the level of fan noise (relative to SZ if possible?) thanks in advance.

 

How do I enable that?

My goodness clean installing with ultimate 32bit is a lot harder than expected. Brightness function doesn't work even after installing Shared Library and Sony Utility. Also, I don't have that Vaio Control Center thing.

 

Is there any way to set the S1 / S2 button to disable / enable Bluetooth or other components?

 

toronto guy, if we ordered it same day, how come I got a call today from Sony 10 minutes ago saying it's been delayed until the 18th?

 

Read this review ascend, it will cear up your mind:

http://www.mobiletechreview.com/notebooks/Sony-Vaio-Z550.htm

For sure we know that Sony in the fall is going to refresh the TZ and the AR, according a user that knows a lot more than us.
I don't know if I can wait untill October, and the Z is really a great laptop. I might go for the 200 GB 5400 rpm, the reviewer says that the performance is acceptable and most important for me is that the laptop runs cool and the fan noise is minimum.

 

Ill call them and see whats goin on. Ill give those mother **** hell if thats the case. U dont **** with Torontoguyy. I talk to presidents of companies, ill trash the manager till he ****'s in his pants. This is how I got the guy to give me a $100 off. I'll keep u posted.

 

Hopefully you have performed a driver and system recovery backup using the Vaio Recovery tool. (You always should burn the driver and recovery DVDs directly after finishing the preconfigured installation)
This way you will have 2 DVDs including all the needed drivers and the original windows system.

I tried a clean installation of Vista Ultimate using the drivers from the Vaio Webpage without success. I had an annoying Battery error and most features didn't work at all. (As for example the Special Buttons and OSDs)

So I removed all the installed tools again and did a driver recovery from the DVDs burned before (Just start up your clean Windows Installation, insert the first Recovery DVD and it will going to give you a program for doing it). You will be able to choose all the drivers you would like to install and the software you need (basically you should only install the Vaio Tools and the fingerprint software, all the other programs are useless). I installed all the drivers as I wasn't sure about the needed SATA drivers.

Do not reboot the notebook during this process even if some programs may ask for it. oh and get sure you have switched on your Wireless cards or you may get an installation error during the Intel WLAN driver setup.

As said, without the Recovery DVDs it may be a pain to get everything to work as it should I think.

 

What type of battery life are you getting now with what settings?

To disable hardware you can either do it through the control panel device manager or you can do it through the power options panels.
You can also change some but not all of the settings via Vaio power management if you click on the change advanced power power settings in the profile panel of whatever power panel you use. Vaio Ultimate battery disables your dvd drive/i-Link/Modem/ Network LAN/ and runs on 16 bit automatically.

 

haha!! lovin the attitude dude. Please do give them all the **** you can, they're realling pissing me off now.

And please keep me updated man

go leafs go

 

Hope you folks will appreciate yet another (mini) review...

Specs: VGN-Z590 CTO, 2.53GHz, 2GB, 200GB 5400RPM, Vista Business w/ Fresh Start, standard battery, no Blu-ray.

First impressions so far, after unpacking everything:

This thing is SMALL. Holy crap is it small. And light! Even with the battery in it's very light.

Build quality is EXCELLENT. Without a doubt, this is the nicest built laptop I've ever owned.

The packaging was a bit strange, with the VAIO box "floating" around in a larger shipping box. Not much of a problem. I think all the packaging weighs more than the laptop itself lol.

Inside the VAIO box as some have shown already were the standard contents, though there were some interesting points to note. Perhaps because it was a CTO, the battery pack's taped package was already cut. Some of the paperwork that came with it was crumpled into the box, like it was done very quickly.

This being Vista Business, it came with a flyer inside that says I qualify for a free downgrade package for XP Professional, and that all I need to do is contact Sony to order it. I'm definitely going to get that lol.

The AC adapter was my first real disappointment. It's not big or heavy by most standards, but the wall socket side is unfortunately 3-prong (contrary to some of those review videos or unboxing videos), and is very, very short. I would say it's about 2 feet long. The VAIO side of the plug is about double that, maybe 4 to 5 feet. On top of all this, the wall socket side does not fit into the AC adapter via a standard-type socket, so you can't use your own, longer cord. Maybe this is Sony standard-issue, but I've never had a Sony laptop before.

Starting up this beauty, it does take a bit to go from BIOS screen to Windows setup (first time boot), but it's pretty smooth through the settings.

There is little to no buzzing or zapping feeling on the keyboard area that you sometimes get from rubbing your fingers over the metal parts of a laptop, which was a concern to me. However, the unique keyboard will take a little getting used to, and they feel more pillowy than I'm used to. The strokes don't end in a "tap" like a lot of laptop keyboards... instead it kinda bottoms out in a "muffff...." This would be great in a classroom or meeting situation where you don't want to be the loudest typer in the room.

The screen... oh wow, the screen. I have the 1600x900, and it's very sharp, and text is easily readable from what I've seen so far. The colors are vibrant, but I have yet to compare it to anything but my really crap Toshiba Tablet PC screen. However, I do see what someone had mentioned earlier about the diagonal distortion lines... This screen does have it, and so far it's kind of annoying. Do note that I do graphics-related tasks for a living, so my eyes may be extra-sensitive to this kind of thing. It is worth pointing out that the lines are hard to see, as I only really notice it when my eyes are darting around the screen looking at stuff. The screen is physically very floppy and bendy, but after seeing the video on why they made it like that, I'm not worried. On the contrary I appreciate that touch. The diffused, semi-gloss (semi-matte?) screen is very nice. Though I prefer glossy screens, I can more than easily live with this screen.

The sound is certainly a step up from my Toshiba, which had only one speaker, but there is no bass and the sound is expectedly tinny. At higher volumes there is distortion. Headphones are probably a good idea for anything other than basic sound tasks. I see why you'd want to turn off that Fn beep now. My God it's annoying! And contrary to what I thought, you can't change it in Windows' sound settings... I think I'll change the name of that file to "annoying". (thanks sounddust!!)

On the subject of noise, the fan IS loud. I thought maybe it was just a relativity thing, that maybe everyone saying that it's loud based on quieter laptops, but I have to admit that it's loud. It's not annoyingly loud, but it's more than noticeable.

So far I'm loving this thing. Gonna install some apps now to see how it handles it.

 

Too bad that these early reviews point out that the blu-ray drive is kind of a ripp off. A lot of noise and pretty slow. Anyone has recieved the Z with the BD to confirm this?

 

Thanks for the initial impressions. I think the Z is just about the perfect laptop except for the fan noise issue.

 

I haven't received mine yet (ordered from P1 on the 15th), but so far I have only seen one review that suggested the Blu-ray drive was a problem - and it was a preproduction model.

If you take a look at this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6LS8bhoUF0

They do some pretty crazy things with the bluray drive (moving a running video all over the screen, across multi-displays, etc, and supposedly experience no skips. So I think we'll need to wait and see a few more reviews before making any determination.

 

Oh my the day has finally come!
Ordered 8/14, Building 8/25. delivered 8/29

Here are my specs:
2.5ghz / 4gb / 320gb / dvdr

I'll write more about it later but I've got to hand it to sony with the clean start option - it actually truly doesnt have all that crap pre-installed... nothing at all! great !

 

Ok, well I talked to the guy, he was really nice on the phone so I couldnt B*** at him too hard. He said that the system got updated this morning giving a date of the 7th for ppl that pre-ordered (Like ourselves). He said thats a good sign for ppl that pre-ordered. Then he went on to say that ppl that order today for example, will get it on the 18th to 20th of Spt. He concluded that he really doesnt have much control over the situation after that, and I mean thats understandable obviously, and he is the Manager. He said I can cancel the order anytime I like if im not happy. He'll do it right on the spot. So I couldnt really argue too much with him there. This is somthing that Id need to take up with HR (Human Resources) of Sony Canada. These Managers in reality can't do shii. Again, ill keep ur a** posted.

 

You made my day man! I didn't this video, I think it also depends also from the specs...this one had 4 GB RAM and the higher CPU P9600. You're right let's wait and see...I would love to have the blu-ray drive.
If I order from P1 after how many weeks they ship?

 

By the way, if anyones order the Z555 ONLINE from sony.ca, pls keep us posted shipment dates and what not.

 

Toronto Guy ... just order from PortableOne?

 

Thanks for your review

Where did you get yours from? Sonystyle USA? P1? Other?

 

No Sony Store. Z555 preconfig.

 

I ordered mine from SonyStyle, USA. I would suggest to others to get it from P1... they're cheaper, and you can get more for your money there.

 

P1 delivers excellent service, but they are usually not the cheapest. For the cheapest prices check Google shopping, Nextag or Pricegrabber.

 

Two questions;

- 1. Suppose you're doing a test by performing the exact same activities on two machines; which will run cooler and make less fan-noise: Test 1: a 5400rpm 200GB vs a 5400rpm 320GB (ceteris paribus)? And test 2: a 2.53Ghz vs a 2.4Ghz (again, ceteris paribus)?

- 2. I'll be using my Z a lot, particularly a lot at home, nearby a socket. What's the best way to preserve the battery? I.e. keep it's battery life as large as possible. I remember a poll on this forum about some kind of "Windows Vista's 'battery saving mode'" (?). Possibly I should just take the battery out every time I can use a socket?

* edit/note: I am not looking to being able to get the maximum battery life possible; I am looking for ways to prevent my battery from 'breaking down'; i.e. preventing its maximum battery life to be reduced over time.
* edit2/note2: Example; I remember from in the past people would say you should your battery fully discharge before charging it again.

 

not true. p1 is more expensive when you add the warranty. sonystyle gives 300 dollars off with warranty and 2 accessories (get two cheap cases)

 

toronto guy, if I ordered mine 2 days ago, is that considered "pre-ordered"?

 

Quieter than the Z.

What if you paid Best Buys Geek Squad to do a clean install, how much do you think it would cost? And do you think they will be able to find all drivers necessary for your Z to function optimally? I may do that. I don't want to have to hunt for stuff.

Thanks for directing me to it. Your instructions were easy to follow. I vote you as the one to give us a step my step HOW TO on a clean install on the Z. How about it? In lamens terms starting with the words: Step 1: eject dvd drive to insert a blank dvd-r to begin the process. (lol...i mean it too.)

 

"When using a notebook computer running from fixed line power over extended periods, the battery should be removed, and stored in a cool place so that it is not affected by the heat produced by the computer."

"A Li-ion battery stored at 40% charge will last many times longer than one stored at 100% charge, particularly at higher temperatures."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery

 

Right, to avoid high temperatures you can put it in the fridge at 5 C. (definetely not freezing)

But don't store it too long without ever using it. i reckon once in every two months a full cycle is good.

 

I configured two laptops similar to mine, only with 1GB more memory (since P1 didn't seem to have my 2GB configuration). With the 3yr warranty on both, the Sony Style order (with 2 cheap $23 cases) came out to $2,634.52, including tax. The P1 order came out to $2,608.00, there was no tax or shipping added, and it comes with a case.

I'm not sure if it becomes cheaper at Sony's site for the lower-end laptops, perhaps I'm missing something, but at least for mine I'm pretty sure P1 had a better deal. I even tried to cancel on Sony and order from P1, but they had their ways of convincing me my laptop was ready to be shipped... how evil...

 

the extra case is worth 23 dollars (which is the difference in price). Also, how do you get no taxes at P1?

also did you select accidental coverage on p1? the sonystyle 3 year is accidental by default, i believe.

 

And put it in a freezer bag, I don't think the humidity inside the fridge is beneficial.

 

Try through Google Checkout. I didn't bother with creating an account with them since I couldn't cancel my Sony order, so I'm not sure if checking out through their system charges you tax. I'm also not sure if it's a State thing. Sure the extra case is worth the $23, but why spend the extra money on something you don't need?

Edit: I'm not sure if this is a technicality or not, since I'm not exactly sure what P1 means by "Carrying & AC Case," but if those are actual separate items and not 1 piece, that constitutes 2 cases, no?