Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 (VPCZ1) Official Owners Thread Part 2

Word on the street is that we shall be seeing a significant sale possibly on Cyber Monday... at least, that's what I hear from some of the sales folks after mentioning how many computers I buy on an annual basis.

I will go on the record now saying that if the price does not drop by at least 30% at that point (meaning, under $2,500 for an i7 and 512GB quad-RAID), I probably will simply purchase something else, most probably a tried-and-true Dell. That's about as much as I believe such a configuration for the Z to be worth, especially considering the positively abysmal level of support from Sony for their premium product.

This would all change if they'd simply show a little competence and care for their customers, but from what I have been reading here on these forums over the past ~30 days, it sure doesn't seem like the extra 20-30% cost buys you anything in the way of customer care.

Regardless, I truly appreciate all of the feedback you Z owners have given us prospective buyers. I hope I end up finding the courage and rationale to purchase one in the next couple of months and join your ranks.

 

The US version now has a TPM chip as well.

 

Well then you might as well pull the trigger on that Dell now, because there is no way in hell you are going get get an i7 Z with the 512 SSD option for $2,500.

 

Had I lived in Canada I would have had the option just a week ago.

Considering market pricing on such items, it isn't unreasonable to expect such pricing. I think I'll wait a bit longer and see how it trends.

 

Careful there, buddy. I'm pretty sure by this time next year, or in two years max, this is gonna be totally possible (as long as the us dollar is not devalued )

 

Haha, quite true there; you just never know these days, do you?

Perhaps I ought to transfer all of my assets to gold, then trade back to USD prior to my purchase just to be safe


EDIT:

Hell, even now, with the 1080p screen, in Canada the pricing with the i7/512GB SSD options comes to $2766.99, or 2,730 USD.

By extrapolation you ought to be able to subtract roughly $100 from that for the 1600x900 screen option, leaving you sitting at $2667/2630 USD. That's pretty darn close to what I'm talking about.

That same configuration in the USA (if you include the 1080p screen for comparative purposes) currently will set you back $3,549-ROFL, with "ROFL" being part of the actual price quote, as that is how comparatively ridiculous the US pricing is.

I have faith that someone at Sony will be slapped upside the head within the next couple of months and pricing will plummet on the Z13s even... we'll see. Fingers crossed, because I'd still like to own one.

 

Maybe Sony is selling their VAIO Z series so well, even with all these "ridiculously exorbitant" prices, that they're becoming "arrogant" with their pricing?

 

Perhaps that's the case, but it certainly doesn't seem likely... especially in such a strained economy. On one hand, demand for such "luxury goods" typically is pretty inelastic even in negative economic situations, but the thing is, the way I understand it, many of the Z purchases are by companies looking for a suitable PC for their mobile professionals. And I know most companies have been cutting back pretty deeply on such purchases.

That's not to mention the fact that any savvy shopper looking for the 512GB SSD who sees the same upgrade for less than half the cost on the Canadian side of the border will likely refuse a purchase on principle alone.

Maybe it's possible that they just haven't finalized the pricing for the US model of the Z13 yet. I suppose that's not unthinkable, because from what I see there are no discounts on the current lot of parts listed on the CTO page. Of course, that still doesn't help the fact that the Z12 is so insanely high-priced.

Are there any Sony sales folks lurking around these forums? It'd be fantastic to get some actual non-robotic feedback into why things are trending the way they are in the USA vs elsewhere.

 

It's also strange that there's no black option for the Z13 CTO in the US while Canada has the same options + black. Also, note that the Canadian CTO doesn't have a 1600 x 900 option.

 

DELL? lol What is DELL's competition to the Vaio Z?

If you want disk space and performance and don't care about the display go with something else than the Vaio Z. You cannot have everything in this small notebook for cheap (yet). Why do you want the 512GB SSD ? Why not 256GB, or 128GB with DIY upgrade like others?
Also the Vaio Z is not really a business laptop because you can do dual monitor only with USB adapters and the docking station is actually only a port replicator.

 

I agree... just because SonyStyle Canada has a cheaper price, in the US the price was never that low and us, being residents of the US should compare it to the US market. If we didn't, we'd complaining about Toyota's practices in China where the Toyota Camry used to be (still is?) a luxury model priced at 30k+ USD.

I mean no one is really stopping you from moving to Canada, i'd still think i'd prefer my own healthcare plan over $1000 savings on a laptop. (not to mention they've got higher taxes too)

 

Well, regardless, I hope we can expect some additional discounts in the US in the next month or two. For starters, the SSD upgrade has been at least a few hundred dollars lower in the past, even in the US. I suppose we'll see...

Competition from Dell? Perhaps not in the way of the total package, but to be perfectly honest, everything I've read and experienced as a technician over the years suggests their best machines are at least built more reliably (the Studio 14 is honestly one of the best 14" laptops I've seen on the market for the price). And if they aren't, it's hard to deny that their support is an order of magnitude better than Sony's.

Still, I'd love a Z for the SSDs paired with the screen, i7, and portability... something you can't find anywhere else yet.

None of this will matter as much if the discounts that are rumored to be in the works actually transpire. Like I said, fingers crossed... I'll give it until the end of November before I give up on it.

 

Sony as notebook manufacturer is not really a competitor to DELL because Sony has only a small market share compared to DELL and Sony is more focused on small notebooks and portability.
DELL covers a wide range for notebook models but is not as good as Sony at the small notebooks and subnotebooks.
At the company I work for we only have DELL and they are really durable, cheap and the Latitude D and E are ideal for business use. We even buy the used D series laptops throw a SSD (Intel or Real SSD) in there and run Win7 on it.

 

Same for the ssd, the z1390 don’t have the 128ssd they only start with 256ssd and that's why I ended up taking the z1290 (1920x1080, i7) with no significant discount since it will come the same price as the z1390 with less 350$ for ssd upgrade.

 

Maybe that's the reason why the "business-line" pre-config VAIO Z13 models have got the black lids but not the premium carbon lids?

Something like... If you want a premier carbon lid, get a CTO Z13 from SonyStyle? If you want a Z13 with a black lid, get one of those "business-line" Z13 models?

 

Is here anyone, who changed LCD in his Z? The screen (mainly it resoultion 1600*900) is just too much for my eyes. I would love to have the 1366*768 LCd version from the previous Z. Is that possible to change it?

PS. I know about DPI scaling etc, but it is not working as good as I would like.

 

you can sell the laptop and buy a toshiba r700. almost the same laptop, but with a 1366*768...

 

Isn't possible to run the LCD in it's non-nativ resolution? Maybe it's not that blurry...
But yeah, get yourself a r700 ;(

 

I think you can change the resolution on your vaio Z inside the nvidia utility. but if you want 1366x768, better going with the Toshiba r700 it's a very good notebook and it's cheaper. I think that all of those interested in the vaio Z are looking for the screen 1600x900 at least, and now we are looking for the i5/i7 and Full HD . no other notebook in the market offering those in less than 3.5lb.

 

is there any way to reassign the quick-launch buttons ? I don't really use the vaio care or vaio media that much.

 

Well, I was looking for 1600*900 too, but now I find it just a bit smaller then I would like to (my eyes hurt).

R700 would be the one, if the keyboard wasn't that cramped...

 

Yes, VAIO Control Center > Special Buttons

 

I tryed but I can only change the S1 button (the middle button) and not the two other buttons - the VAIO and the ASSIST buttons

well, I have the Z and my sister has the r700 and the keyboard in the z is indeed nicer but not by much. If you type alot it might be a concern. you can also check out the E4310. same weight, good keyboard. but it has it's own problems too, like people don't like the touchpad, etc.
what about changing the default font size to 125% ? I find the text to be small too, but in VS i can set to bigger fonts, in Word i can zoom to 125% and in internet explorer i can zoom in with ctrl+. not that big problem for me.

 

Someone has changed the palmrest?
If yes... how much it cost?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...al-owners-thread-part-2-a-50.html#post6735902
But I did not replace the palmrest, there are video's on youtube how to do it.

 

hi all,

im looking to get a new i7Z (currently got a 4gb Z11 and its groaning under windows 2008 with HyperV!) from the UK - im a bit upset i cannot choose a DVD drive as well as a hard disk drive ....

if i purchase the 128SSD model - can i replace at a later date the SSD in the new Vaio Z13 with a normal hard disk?

 

I seem to remember that it's a matter of space inside the Z. In order to have a rotating HD you have to get rid of your DVD drive, as that space is used by the HD. To cut a long story short, you cannot have a rotating HD and a dvd drive, at the same time.

 

maybe. But why would you want to slow down your computer?

 

Without trim, it might slow down on its own

 

Guys, what should I do to my notebook, if I need the Garbage Collection to run?

Is there any manual way of triggering it?

thx

 

GC is part of drive logic, no action necessary. In fact, inaction is required to trigger GC

 

On my laptop i run Windows Server 2008 R2 - i run big databases (20-50GB) and use these through HyperV - some of my virtual environments are 100GB+ and i need the disk space!- - in my current laptop (Sony Vaio Z11Vn) - i stuck a 640GB hard disk in there to replace the 320 as i was running out of disk space!

 

@Z series owners, esspecially with 1080p Display:
how does the display feel? would you recommend it? or is 1920x1080 a little to high for 13.1" screen? as we can change the font size, the only difference between 1920x1080 display and 1600x900 one is the brightness?

 

I like my FHD screen. When I tell people about that, they usually go I find that amusing I think in general it's sharper, and I'm ok with the dpi scaling. I don't really have any complaints.

I thought about something similar yesterday: it's not necessary to have FHD to support BlueRay, because we can always use the HDMI output to show the movie on a large TV.

 

The 1080p res feels very small to my liking for extended periods of reading so to me its just about having the option to run at 1080p mainly for multimedia purposes. Even though it might defeat the purpose of having it, you can always lower your resolution to whatever is comfortable for your eye's with minimal degradation. I have a dual monitor setup and none of my screens run at native resolutions. I have my Samsung monitor which is 1600x1200 native running at 1024x768 as well as the Vaio Z's screen doing 1024x768 and all looks fine to me. In fact you can run the Oh so popular 1366x768 as well. I don't mess with the dpi settings since some programs don't like it changed but as far as the brightness, I've owned both displays and in my opinion the brightness levels are the same. I say get the 1080 display

 

ok thanks
I think I would order a Z13 mit 1080p and 256GB ^^

just another question: on youtube I've seen the serveral designs of the Z, but found nowhere the real pics of the "infinite strips" or "infinite octagon" design? does anyone have it? or does it look so bad that no one would have it

 

I don't want to try to annoy you, but, seriously?? 1024x768 looks FINE?

About the dpi settings, well, windows 7 loves it, as far as windows and microsoft software in general. Others, do not scale graphically so well, but, that's a lot better (and more logical) than going all the way down to 1024x768...

In addition to this, 1024x768 is not even the proper aspect ratio, so everything should look deformed. Even if you feel comfortable at such a low resolution, you might want to try something like 1280x720 (below that, there are not any options that keep 16:9).

May I ask why you chose the best small screen notebook if you did not want the super resolution it can achieve?

 

It all boils down to preference.. Sometimes I'll run it at a higher Res it all depends on what I'm doing. But in most cases when using it along with my 20" monitor i use it as my extended desktop and since real-estate isn't an issue in that case, I choose to go with the lower res on the Sony. As for scaling 1024x768 on a 16:9 screen the video card's scaling works well. If I'm on the road and need the extra real-estate I'll go into 1920x1080 mode and probably apply DPI scaling in that case. I wanted super_ti to not feel as if he or she was obligated to only using a higher resolution which is the impression i was almost given when making my decision : )

 

Hi guys, i'm interested in the new z13

just wondering if anyone knows whether the battery performance would be enhanced with the i5-580 over the i7. Idealy i want the fastest computer, but i think for what i do the i5 should be good as long as it helps increase battery. If theres no difference, then I'm going with the i7 option.

 

All of the i5s and i7s available in the Z series have the same lithography (manufacturing process) of 32nm and the same max TDP (thermal design power) of 35 watts, so the only difference is clock speeds. The higher clocked processors will use proportionately more power when they are being utilized at their maximum, otherwise the power draw will be nearly identical between the different choices. So I would say it really is more of a performance/price question than a performance/power question. In other words, get whichever processor you can afford, or can justify the cost of, given that the power draws will not be radically different between the two choices you mentioned. If the i5 is considerably cheaper, and you don't wear hats made of money, go with the i5.

 

The price difference is small, the speed difference is small, AND the power consumption difference is small. Think of it this way: 10% more speed, 10% less battery life. Whichever is more important to you, but either way, the cost difference between them is not that great. Personally I prefer the i5 because a half hour more batter life is more important to me than the speed difference.

But either way makes for a really great laptop.

As far as the physical differences between the chips. It's a combination of a little faster clock and the 3MB vs 4 MB cache memory.

 

Windows Experience Index dropped after 6 months of using the Z11
Processor and Ram both dropped to 6.8 from 6.9
Graphics stays at 6.3
Gaming Graphics... I THINK dropped from 6.7 or 6.8 to 6.3
HDD dropped from 7.9 to 7.6

Anybody encountered deteroriation ?

 

Yes and No. It depends on the day and time of the day.
WEI is a joke and really meant for benchmarking.

 

Hmm, my scores remained *exactly* the same. I never got 6.9 for processor (I have the i7), it's at 6.7.

 

I've had mine since March, currently am at:
6.8 for processor (i5-540)
6.8 for memory (8GB)
6.3 for Graphics and Gaming graphics
7.5 for disk transfer rate (128x2=256GB)

I haven't noticed any deterioration but, like people say, it really is not a very good benchmark. The fact that both the i5 and the i7 end up getting scored exactly the same is pretty indicative of the fact that it is more of a ballpark, guestimate, range type of a number than a true benchmark. I personally would not worry too much about what WEI says, one way or the other.

 

Got my system last week and this is what I got out of the box. It's really a rough estimate for the layman.



i5 520m, 2GB DDR3, 2 x 64GB SSD. Obviously, I'm gonna be upgrading the RAM on my own in the near future.

 

the new processor is nice, but I think the z15 (next October?) will be the Z for me. I am just hoping for a better GPU!

 

I doubt gaming graphics dropped... HD dropped because of write performance degredation on the SSD.

Before everyone flies into a panic, keep in mind that Velociraptors in RAID 0 were getting 6.3 on that test. So a FULLY degraded SSD RAID does a LOT better than the fastest desktop drive on writes. Reads of course always stay fast.

WEI, contrary to what many want to believe, isnt a total joke or whatever. Its not the most in depth test, but there is actual testing behind it. The write test on disk is what dropped the score.

 

Half hour isnt minor... A half hour difference in battery life would be very significant since the Z doesnt have stellar battery life to begin with.

I havent heard anything other than annecdotal evidence and possibly flawed objective results on this topic, for some reason.

What I have heard, though, indicates that the i7 and i5 arent nearly that far apart on bat life.

The other thing is, you could tweak power settings to cap the i7 at something less than 100% when on battery. This would make the i5/i7 pretty much identical on power... Possibly the i7 would draw a tiny bit extra because of larger L3 cache, but this might also be offset by fewer cycles needing to go out to RAM.

IMO, the i7 has no downside once cost is out of the picture. Its more power on reserve for when plugged in (esp when factoring in the turboboost ceiling being higher) and more cache, and when on battery, the system can just be capped lower so that there is no additional drain over a slower proc.

 

It has become a general consensus that, all else being equal, there is about a 10% difference in battery consumption between the two (when you say "the i7 and i5 arent nearly that far apart on bat life", that's the 10% )

I and many others get on the order of 4-6h batter life out of our Z's.

Therefore, all else being equal, I was just pointing out, in concrete numbers what you can expect for the difference. between the two: 1/2 hour (30 min) is 10% of 5 hours (300 min).

That's probably why more folks opt for the i5 than the i7. Because 1/2h is more useful to them than the ~10% or so speed advantage.

As far as slowing down, or "capping", the i7. That's true. But since you can also do the same for the i5. There you have again, all else being equal...

As I have said before and I will say again, Sony chose two good cpu options for this notebook, you really can't go wrong with either one.