Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

ooh man.. the Backlit keyboard on the Z is different style to the backlit keyboard on the S series.. !!!! S series the lights light up the edges of the keys... but on the Z series the lights light up the letter itself....

 

Pretty sure they both do.. both?

 

I'm pretty stoked. Just configured me a "Z." Pretty much went all-out. Total came to $4149.99.







Of course....I didn't actually order it though ;-)

 

I hear you on that... I pulled the trigger on the signature series after a 15% discount and savings of $675.00.. I thought that was pretty good so I included the 3yr accidental damage.

 

how did you get a 15% discount?

with my company's discount, the cheapest i can get it for was $1710 + free shipping. it's better than paying the base price of $1899 + tax + shipping...but more discounts, the better.

 

I'm interested to hear about this as well.

 

Update: I received tracking information already from Sony, and learned that the new Z is sitting in the warehouse next to my apartment building. Because I reserved delivery of tomorrow morning (couldn't reserve today during Sonystyle checkout), I called the shipping company and will receive it between 4-6PM today, a day ahead of schedule. I'll be tearing it apart to install my own SSD in less than 7 hours!

 

Keep us posted immediately when you get it

Congrats btw!

 

awesome, can't wait to see what you have to say about your new baby!

 

Sony's employees have 15% discount at "Sony Style Family Center"

 

Picture of the camera-less model: http://upload.fam.cx/cgi-bin/img-box/s0l100306105303.jpg

http://upload.fam.cx/cgi-bin/img-box/rmx100306112559.jpg

 

Now thats hot. Whats that green thing right below the top of the screen?


Oh btw, the "silver" color looks white to me..how much more white could it be

 

Oh please do! I have the exact same setup on CTO here (but have to wait another month for delivery!!) with the 1080p screen and the optical drive-less option. Looking forward to your (hopefully) good news on ripping out that HDD and replacing it with the Intel X25! =)

 

The new Z is available in Australia, just picked up mine from Sony Centre in Brisbane. Awesome machine.

13.1 inch VAIO Z Series (Premium Carbon)
VAIO Z Series with Quad SSD in RAID 0 for unprecedented speed, Intel® Core™ i7 Processor for ultimate performance, NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 330M GPU for smoothly rendered video and graphics.The "Carbon" top panel with Black palm rest assures a stylish and modern look.

• Intel® Core™ i7-620M processor 2.66 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.33 GHz
• Genuine Windows® 7 Professional (64-bit)
• Quad SSD in RAID 0: 256 GB (64 GB x 4, Serial ATA)
• Automatically controls Gfx mode: Dynamic Hybrid Graphics System
• High Durability & lightweight: Carbon top cover & single-piece milled aluminium palm rest
• 13.1" wide (FullHD: 1920 x 1080) ; VAIO Display Premium, LED backlight, Adobe RGB 96% coverage[/SIZE]

$3,999.00 (aussie price)

 

Looks fantastic!

Can convince you to post more pics? I'd be happy to host them for you.

 

These aren't from my notebook; they're from another person in Japan who posted them to the 2ch thread. I'll post some of my own photos later this evening on my web server.

 

Please do and congrats

 

Silly question... is this normal? I took the screen snapshot about 2 minutes ago.

 

Thought you guys may want to see the new Z-series being taken apart by its lead design engineer.

http://translate.google.com/transla...ined-by-project-leader/&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&swap=1

 

Yes. Mine's been at 02/08/2010 since ordering and states 'shipping update' as well.

Stefan

 

It already was posted at #3597 in the New Z Model Intel Core i5 CPU Thread.

 

Someone already beat me to it!
Well, this answers the feasibility question on the HDD->SSD switch.

http://upload.fam.cx/cgi-bin/img-box/66v100306133725.jpg

 

So ill take that as a giant yes?


If so, then does that mean you could hypothetically actually have SSD + SSD? Via taking out your optical drive? Or is my obliviousness talking and the optical drive connector is totally different and incompatible?

 

There is free room in the lower middle part, where the SSDs are normally placed. But if you compare the photo with this Engagdet photo, then you'll see that the port on the mainboard, which the SSDs are connected to, is now occupied by the ribbon of the HDD (or SSD).
But maybe there's a workaround.

 

You'd have to splice that ribbon cable. But it's definitely possible. The port appears to support four separate SATA channels, so if you can make the cable, you can connect four separate SATA drives to it.

 

I just assume that the optical drive-less/HDD model only came with a connector for the HDD where as the SSD + Optical drive model would need a connector for the optical drive and a connector for the SSD.



Please tell me I didnt mis-label where the SSD was

 

^ yup thats the normal ssd location.
sony ssd would be green colored.

and from what dimension post, seem like the position spot on dvd use by another ssd (as in the photo, Intel SSD)

 

Just still curious here about all this..never really had or thought about having two seperate drives in my laptop so its all new to me.


But anyways, if you have two drives (for example, two SSDs) how does your computer know which drive to use when it loads up games and game servers or runs applications? Is it basically just whichever SSD you install your OS (Wind 7) on?

 

I believe the SSD and HDD versions come with the same connectors but use slightly different cables. Here's a picture I made that hopefully explains what they did. As you can see the cabling is entirely custom-made for this machine (including a special two-ended cable that is used to connect both the optical drive and a daughterboard), so it will take a lot of work to install your own drives. But there are two connectors you can use to connect your drives, provided you can make the cable.

 

So... soldered or socketed CPU?

 

That is the Sony application software called VAIO Gate.

 

THAT there is a uSATA port!!!!! (the one in the middle)
DEAD easy to connect to normal SATA

Did it for my 2x OCZ setup in my old Z using the sony original ribbon.

as you can see, I cut the heck out of that cable...

EDIT: oh, and the three pins you see a little darker than the rest are the ones I masked out to make it work for a normal sata connector.
That is because normal SATA is made to accommodate tripple voltage 3.3V, 5V and 12V

 

So what does that mean for those of us that got the CTOs with the SSDs?

 

It arrived about an hour and half ago and I'm currently in the process of writing the recovery disks (the first thing anyone who buys a VAIO should do). With the Japanese model, there's an option of 2xDVD+DL or 4xDVD-R. I'm writing it to a pair of DVD+DL disks using an external USB drive.

A few unboxing photos are here. I also confirmed that the battery from the old Z does not fit and that the new Z uses the same AC adapters as the old one.

 

I haven't even ordered mine, but I'm still happy for all you guys!

To repeat myself... GIVE ME NUMBERS!!! (Bench, temp)

Cheers

 

Lucky owners
In France, I expect receiving mine around march 22th.

 

stunning!!!
is that the carbon fibre black or just regular black?

 

What about battery drain? Si o no?

 

dimension6

Here is the video on how to open new z, in case you are plaining to open it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaPWc0Tu3qc

Seams like piece of cake. You just need one screwdriver.

 

That's the old Z.

 

It's the premium carbon fiber (non-glossy) lid.

Much too early to answer this one!

Taking the new Z apart was seriously easy. To be absolutely proper, you just need two different sizes of Phillips screwdrivers (preferably anti-static). There are no hidden clips or anything; the keyboard module just comes right off. Just be VERY careful not to break any of the flexible cables inside. They are extremely easy to rip, as I found out when I took apart the TT.

I'm currently fashioning a nice system to mount the Intel SSD without its aluminium casing. The original Toshiba HDD wasn't mounted with screws; it was held in with pieces of rubber.

 

Yes you are correct, date of upload is two days ago so I thought it's new Z. Let's hop it is even easier with new z

Edit: thanks for good news dimension6

 

The Intel SSD is the same size as the original HDD, right? Why not just mount it exactly like the HDD was mounted? Is it to cut out even more weight?

 

Yes, I got rid of it to reduce weight. I used some small pieces adhesive cork I had lying around for some speakers, and the SSD is mounted perfectly securely now, with a weight of: 1325g, a record, I think!

I'm installing Windows 7 right now from scratch. I already copied the Recovery partition and Drivers folder so I can extract the necessary drivers/software (and ignore the unnecessary stuff).

I've updated my VAIO Z unboxing site with closeups of the innards and particularly of the Centrino 6300 and casing-free Intel SSD mount.

 

Can you point me to a how-to that shows how to do that? I would also like to re-install Windows 7 without the bloatware ..

 

I will probably need to open my new z to replace WWAN if way to unlock Gobi 2000 modem is not found out soon (in japan it's locked to NNT Docomo). As far as I can see you don't have WWAN modem. It should be close to the battery just above HDD/optical drive. Did you find any clues about it when you done HDD replacing?

 

Really nice pictures, thanks for taking the time to do that. So just to be clear, you got the system completely without the proprietary Sony SSD? Also (apologies if I missed it), where did you order from and what did you pay?

I'm thinking I'd want to boot Windows from an X25-M G2 in the optical bay and maybe use the 128GB (2x64) Sony SSD as a storage drive.

EDIT: As a side note, I wish they'd make that "Metal Mosaic" pattern a CTO option on the U.S. site:



Fly as hell. I hope I don't end up having to order from Conics or something.

 

Very helpful posts dimension6, rep added.
Enjoy your new machine.
I'll be looking to reading your thoughts about the performance, fan etc.

 

GASP! I pre-ordered the Z (currently available only in Silver in Canada) under the assumption that Silver had that appearance!

Oh well. After checking the US sonystyle I prefer Silver for its smooth, solid tone as opposed to the pattern

 

Okay, now we need someone to try to put some X18-M's in the original SSD area.

Oh and thank you everyone, for your information and pictures. Can't wait until I get mine.