Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

In this case I'm not sure if it could be called false advertising. The component listed is:
Component: 128GB (128GBx1) Solid State Drive with RAID 0
The only way to have RAID 0 is with at least two drives, so there is at least some indication that there is more than one drive, although not explicit.

Advertising as 64GBx2 could potentially be misleading too - Someone who opened up the laptop could complain they only found one physical drive.

 

I asked about this today as well, Apparently its 2 years standard on business vaios and 1 year on consumer purchases. Plus the 2 years additional.

I'm proabably going to have to check the T&C's carefully and maybe try and elicit an email confirming this.

Incidentally I bought as a business consumer so I should have 4 years - Do these things actually last 4 years?

 

For a very peculiar definition of "independent" -- Microsoft paid for that piece of research.
First of all, the report only concerns itself with "Socially Engineered Malware" -- not direct exploits. That it also tests 492 hand-picked sites, and not random URLs is another clear reason to invalidate the whole report as irrelevant. I've never seen a more cherry-picked results from any report.

But sure, go ahead, use IE if you like. Just do the rest of us the favour of shutting your machines down at night, OK? I get enough botnet-initiated spam as is.

 

I think it is 2 years for notebooks running win 7 business/ultimate and 1 year running home. This was written in the section where you chose your warranty.

 

As I said above, you should be able to get a 20% discount. No need to be a student or otherwise qualify for a discount.

 

Just got off the phone with sonystyle and they are cracking down.. They told me that people who have received a 15% to 20% discount should not have received that discount and their is an investigation going on as to how that was possible or even approved. If you got that discount you are one of the few fortunate but as of now I highly doubt it will be possible to get such a discount. They told me 5% max 7% is the only discount. They also told me that they are aware of notebookreview.com and the discounts people have been getting and I never mentioned it. I received a 15% discount on my signature series order I placed on 3/5/10 so i consider myself to be lucky. I called 3 times and spoke to different people to confirm this.

 

The SSD models are back.

Thanks for the information! AFAIK in many/most EU countries standard warranty is usually 2 years, so it'd be good, if I got 2 years from Sony UK as well.

 

That Best Buy deal looks like a good deal if I were interested in silver paint job.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Sony+-+...lver/9740911.p?id=1218165345006&skuId=9740911

But their shipping next day claim is difficult to believe with their 1.89 out of 10 rating at Resellerratings.com

Wow that's a low low rating. No way.
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Best_Buy

 

That's weird -- are you in the US? I called this afternoon at about Noon, PDT, and got the discount. I suggest you call again -- for some reason I seem to do better when the sales person is in Canada.

 

Well if they are aware perhaps they would like to comment on the SSD TRIM situation, and I wouldn't mind hearing that battery drain is not a 'feature' on the new Z...

 

They're not going to cancel our orders and the reps aren't going to get in trouble, right? I'm sure if the reps gave out discounts it was because they thought they could. After all, we are spending thousands on their company. What's a few hundred to them? A few less hundred to us just means we'll be happier with the company and more likely to buy their products in the future, giving them many more thousands. I hope the reps don't get in trouble since the ones I spoke to were extremely nice and left a very good impression in my mind. I'm definitely buying from Sony again whether or not I get a huge discount.

 

The point here is that no browser is safe, if you think Firefox is any safer you're deluding yourself. All browser are inherently unsafe, be it social engineering or direct attacks. You only need look back to last month to see a 0 day Firefox exploit in the wild.

Add in Flash and any browser becomes an invitation to exploits. So lets cut the attitude and admit we need to be our own champions for security. Demonizing one insecure product over another isn't really going to help anyone.

Stefan

 

Does anyone know the release date for the vaio z in the UK?

 

Surely for that kind of deal, most people will be willing to wait for an extra day or two, no?

 

I bet u took Economics for ur GCSE

 

yes im in the us and yes i was speaking with reps in canada.

 

No our orders will not be cancelled.. The reps im not sure about because they would have to get an ok from their supervisor in order to confirm the 15%-20% discount. The customer rep told me that they are investigating this with the supervisors and reps who placed those orders.

 

What's there to investigate? I don't get it, lol.

 

Did you take English Language for yours?

 

The question is not whether you can find a vulnerability in one program vs. another. Yes all programs have bugs, vulnerabilities, issues...

[rant mode enabled]

To my mind, IE/Outlook stand alone as one of the most irresponsible and arrogant implementations of anything. Ever.

I have been following their development since their inception. They have always been piece of c**p (imho ). Microsoft started with this idea that safety was not an issue and they initially built into these two programs, hooks that allowed people to do Anything, absolutely anything via remote control. Basically arguing "What could possibly go wrong with this approach?"

So basically, after all this time they have made it a little better, to the point where YOU feel safe using it. So what.
I don't buy the no browser is safe argument just because you can invoke the social engineering argument (yes people will always be stupid and what did PT Barnum say about a sucker born every minute?). That's just a way of diverting from the inherent flaws in IE. I don't imagine those flaws are going away anytime soon as long as folks keeps pretending that all approachs have flaws so why bother to look into the actual differences and implementations.
[rant mode off]

Anyway, back to the Z. What about that VGA resolution eh?

 

very funny zendar. Let me rephrase that: I bet you took Economics for your GCSE lol

 

Hi, Drvec!

Holy Cow! While I've currently broken down and ordered a CW trying to get decent performance at a decent price (though at obviously disappointing weight), your information about the HK configuration is exciting as heck! As it turns out, I do travel to Asia relatively frequently - detouring through Hong Kong is trivial. I've asked our CEO if we need a face-face with a key partner. If so, I may be able to save $2,000(!), with the only downgrades necessary that it's non-glossy carbon (better, as far as I'm concerned), a 256GB SSD that's still 4-way RAID0 (unlike the USA 256GB configuration, which would seem to be 2-way), 8GB of DDR3-1066 instead of DDR3-1333 RAM (not at all important), yet with the very significant benefits that it has 1GB of graphics RAM instead of 512 KB, plus the Adobe 96% color space improved 1920x1080 screen! What a deal - thank you again!

Cheers!
Mark

P.S. Just to add to this, I don't give a hoot about the warranty. Saving $2,000 leaves a heck of a lot of buffer room for potential repairs (as I could clearly return any DOAs during my purchasing stopover)!

P.S.2(!): Sony HK also has the extended battery for almost $40 off, plus it seems that they offer pickup delivery at their HK location. Terrific!

 

I will be getting my i540 256gb ssd 4gbram 1600x900 tomorrow before 3pm EST

what was the final verdict on JBOD the ssd? did someone get TRIM to work om JBOD ssd from Sony? does it require complete reformat?

 

has anyone try to play mkv files using hdmi output to lcd tv?, i try mine but can't hear any voice in the tv or notebook, the picture is ok

 

My Z did not ship today...as a matter of fact my order was cancelled!!
I have a daily maximum on my debit card and saw that my order was on hold. I called SonyStyle and was told to get my bank to authorize the payment...call them back and it would ship today. I got the bank to authorize the payment and when I called SonyStyle back....my order had been cancelled.

I had to reorder my Z and was pretty furious when I found out that my new ship date is March 30th. They said that they were sorry.....and I demanded an increase of my discount from 15% to 20% and they obliged. I saved another couple of hundred bucks....but....I really wanted to get my hands on my new Z. Now I have to wait two more weeks.....sheesh.

 

Regarding the Best Buy Z (VPCZ112GX/S).

128GB, silver, no WWAN, but has headphones

Sonystyle sells that exact one for $1900. They would have to mark it down by ~11% to get to the BB price.

CTOing gets to the same price, but no headphones and you get an i5-540 instead of 520.

 

nice.. at least you got the 20%. what is your new Estimated ship date?

 

Is the lower spec'd new Z i5 530 2.93Ghz at least better in performance than the higher spec'd old Z intel core 2 duo T9900 3.06Ghz? Or did you think they will both perform the same for basic use.

 

Thanks for all of the windows 7 comments...I am aware that IE is a bit of a liability when it comes to security and I won't ever be using outlook so no problems there. Back in my xp days I had to use a load of anti spyware and anti virus software that would a) slow the system down and b) sometimes restrict me from adding certain software/hardware that I wanted. From what I've read here, with windows 7 is there no need for this because of features built directly into the OS?

I really need to spend a bit of time playing with Windows 7, maybe I will try installing it on a partition on my iMac.

I'll go back to the store tonight after work and have another play with the Z too, I'm hoping that the new MBPs will be announced tomorrow and I will then be able to make a solid comparison.

 

Short answer: on paper yes. But it is personal preference as to whether you would see the difference in real life usage.

Longer answer please refer to the following benchmark it compares all 3 chips offered in the new Z to some older core 2 duo chips (a very minor step down or up from the T9900) also som i3 comparsions in there as well...

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Intel-Core-i3-i5-i7-Processors-Arrandale.25085.0.html

There is a lot of questions on how accurate the power usage benchmark is as most other sites are showing i5 and i7 much closer real life power usage, so take that one with a grain of salt.

 

Sorry, but while it is confusing how the US lists these SSDs differently than the International sites (which do list logical drives), I don't agree that it can be considered false or misleading. It states "128GB (128GBx1) Solid State Drive with RAID technology", the key part being "with RAID technology".

 

OK, you guys are really starting to make me jealous! SonyStyle Canada absolutely 100% refuses to increase their possible discount from a flat $200, which on the model I ordered works out to a mere 5.3%. Plus their prices are higher than the US models even with the exchange rate, so it's not like we're getting any sort of starting discount (ie. the 512gb SSD is 21% more expensive when the exchange is currently like 2-3%).

Yes, do NOT reference that review for power consumption information. Absolutely no other reviews have backed up that massive difference (not even their own later ones), in fact everything shows the difference to be very minimal. I believe the most recent shows an 8 minutes runtime difference between i5 and i7 on the actual Z.

 

I would not trust that review either.... it was advertised as going to release a review for about 2 weeks prior to the launch of the Z then rushed out within a few days, its "tests" show a hodge podge of generic stats blatantly stolen from other review sites, and some badly photoshoppped images from other sites as its photos. (the review even stated an 8 minute longer battery life for the i7 for the first day it was posted until they picked up the typo... lol)

It seems they just wrote the review to get a whole heap of hits from people seeking the latest review (which in turn means their advertisers pay them some quick cash based on the amount of traffic)

Nobody knows for sure what the power usage differences are at the moment, lets leave it open until some proper reliable reviews are released. Aside from the processor there is also the matter of the 1600 vs 1920 screen, which may have a significant effect on power demands...

 

Hello,

I am ugrading from Z591U to the new Z and was wondering what the difference between the "business" model from the b2b website and the consumer model from the SonyStyle site is. The model I would get in the business case would be Z11LHX/X, whereas, from the consumer one I will get the same configuration about $500 cheaper with the 15% discount. The business model is available at PortableOne. One thing that PortableOne mentions is that their model comes with a 3-yr warranty off the bat, whereas, the consumer one only comes with 1-yr. That is not important to me because I was going to buy the extended warranty with accidental coverage in any case. So do they make the business model differently because of which I should pay the premium or should I just go for the SonyStyle one?

Any help appreciated.

 

Has it been confirmed that the CTO versions don't come with the noise canceling headphones? I hadn't noticed that, and I'm a bit bummed by that if true, as I don't see those headphones available as an accessory (they have a special plug and interact with the audio drivers for active noise canceling).

 

Just FYI: Looks like a variation of the Z with an i5 540 and 384gb ssd popped up on Newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834127067

 

When i ordered my Z in the US, the rep told me that the noise canceling headphones do come with the Z, but then again it was a rep, they dont know much about sony products

 

I just got my Z115GG with i5 540 and 500GB HD. I need to know what program to keep and which program are not. So far so good and i have not problem but only 1 drawback on this Z, the camera is only VGA.

I am going to use it for running Pro/Engineer CAD/CAM/CAE Software. I will post the result of professional benchmark for this Z.

 

Hi Ozoneku69 - congratulations on receiving your new Z. Has it got the 1080p screen - if so I was wondering how you find? Is text legible with default font scaling settings?

Thanks

 

As a person sitting and waiting on the early-bird reviews, I was wondering if anyone here with the i7 CPUs notices it downclocking suddenly when doing CPU intensive stuff? CPU intensive could be Visual Studio script compiling / executing, or anything that uses raw CPU rather than RAM or SSD.

Also, graphics-wise; I read that it is extremely powerful (ie, games), but I'm not into Counter-strike and World of War thing (whatever children call these days); more into video encoding and editing. How is the heat on the new Z with such intensive apps?

@Ozoneku69. You wouldn't want a webcam that has a res larger than VGA since streaming VGA is in itself pretty bandwidth-demanding. VGA is enough to see others in full screen. I mean, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to stream video chats at 1.3MP (1024 ish pixels); that would result in lags... And larger resolutions do cost more (a wee bit but more nonetheless).

 

The only time anyone has complained of the new Z's heat in all of the posts I have read here is when it was on display at one of the Sony Style stores in Japan. Other than that one laptop, no one has complained of the heat yet.

 

According to dimension6, one of the forum members that firs manage to get new Z with i7 processor, processor is not throttling even under continuous heavy load, but fan will become little louder if you push it for longer period of the time. He was using EVEREST Ultimate Edition to check processors speed under heavy load.

 

Thats because only a handful amount of people have the laptop. You will see more in a couple of weeks.

 

And apart from the heat issue I am really interested in what runtime the Z has with i7 with normal use (as in: how long does the battery last)

I'm taking the notebookcheck site comparison with a really big grain of salt, and I am wondering what is it in reality

I will buy the Z anywho ) but I'll wait a minute to see if I should go with the i7 or i5 top model. (this will be for uni ... and it should last a good 3 years as my lappy & my only computer. So that's why I'm being a little bit picky )
At home I will have a laptop cooler underneath the Z, where I put it and have my external monitor & keyboard hooked on with a usb hub from logitech.

Anywho ... back to the Z
We will surely see more and more user-reviews during the up comming weeks.
So a little bit patience and everything will be answered

 

This is the crappiest "owners" thread ever.

Take the discussion of specific parts, your orders or whatever to another place, please. Let people who are interested in hearing about people who actually recieved their Z's avoid having to browse through 5 pages of BS...

Please.

Zoink2k, dimension6 - thanks for your posts so far.
Still looking for bench #s and temps..

 

Experience tells me that Visual Studio is very IO bound, and not nearly as CPU bound as one might think. Even when it spends a lot of time compiling something, most of the time seems to be spent writing humonguous amount of data to files. A better test would be to try to run something like a distributed.net client while encoding a video.

 

Sounds great! Yes, I noticed most of the accessories are concurrently cheaper as well. If you get that extended battery, I'd buy the regular as well, as the extended one kind of ruins the svelte lines of the laptop.

I'm still trying to work out if I have to preorder and pick up in HK, or if I can just waltz into the Sony store there and buy it on the spot.

 

Hey guys, just received my Z .

I already installed a 12.5mm 1tb HDD. No problem so far .

I ll keep you updated .

 

Have you got the 1080p screen? If so how is it? Glad to hear the 1tb HDD fits.

 

Congrats on your Z
what kind of spec did you order your Z?
with i5 or i7?
900p or 1080p?
And how is the screen?

And would you be so kind ... whenever you have time, run some benchmarks and tell us how the temps are