Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

Is there a good reason for those of us with the non-RAID model to install the 12.6 RST drivers?

 

1) click on customize
2) On the Graphics page, make sure the filtering is set to Anisotropic with Anti-aliasing ticked. Also the global texture resolution should be set to very high.

3) then go to the Scenery page, set the level of detail radius to Large. Mesh complexity:35
Mesh resoulution: 5m
Texture resolution:30m
Water effects: Low 2.x
Scenery Complexity: Exteremly dense
Autogen density: Normal
Special effects detail: medium

 

I recently purchased my Z through an importer. You can check out the details on this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=468611

You can contact them directly at:

[email protected]

On you email, specify exactly how you want the notebook to be configured and ask for a quote. These guys are legit and they won't try to overcharge you like conics or geekstuff.

 

Will give it a try but probably not for another day or so.

 

I'm totally fine with that. When you have the time, please show a screenshot showing the Frame rates when using the settings I specified previously

And also lower the Traffic to medium.

 

Thanks for posting those Photos. I'm really liking that Glossy Carbon Lid. Unfortunately, it's at a $premium. It reminds me of that glossy carbon lid on the X505 that was released only in Japan. It might be the same design. WOW! AMAZING!

Do you think in the long run that gloss on that carbon will peel?

Makes sense. What's the cost to ship back approx.?

 

I hear that the VAIO Battery Care Function really won't make a difference because the circuitry in modern computers won't allow a battery to overcharge beyond 100% and degrade itself, otherwise it would explode. Is that true? Or is charging to 80% still recommended?

 

For those of you who have purchased the Z:

1. Did you buy premium carbon or silver? why?

2. Did you purchase the service plan? I can't decide whether I should get one or not.

Thanks!

 

The idea of not charging it to 100% is because at 100% the battery is stressed, therefore the battery care function limits the charge at 80% to keep the stress level minimum and lengthen the life of the battery.

 

1. Pick the color you like. I got silver. I am very happy with it. Others got carbon. My impression is they all seem quite happy, color wise.

2. I generally don't purchase extended warranties. I did so in this case just to get the discount. But Sony has indicated that I can cancel it. So I will. I know others really appreciate the security that comes from not having to worry about a large potential repair bill. Again, it's what fits your own personality. That's not something anyone can answer for you.

 

How does the Sony MS card and the SD memory card fit in their respective slots? Are they flush against the body or do they stick out? Is there a locking mechanism that keeps the cards in place? Pics would be awesome.

I'm thinking about placing those cards in their slots for additional storage purposes. If the card sticks out, obviously I won't be doing this.

 

I got silver mainly for looks, and it looks sharper in my opinion. Also, (sorry to say this) it looks a lot more like the MacBook Pro.

I dont know if I have to purchase extended warranty. I know there is a lot of proprietary parts, but at least I have a year to decide (according to one sales rep.).

 

I dont think someone else can make that decision on your behalf, after all ur gonna b the one using it... I think you should go to a sony store and check them out... or rely on the pics posted here in the forum... but just like u im torn between these two colors and im waiting till my sony store gets one so i can decide... I m leanin more towards the silver as well but I'm waiting for a hands on look to decide!!!

 

Did any of you think the screen has too much red in it or any other color imbalances (1600x900)?

 

Hi, Gang!

I bought the non-glossy Premium Carbon unit, and in fact have been waiting for it to come out. One of the influences was that ota-con had reported seeing paint that had already chipped off on early Japanese demo units, and another was that I knew that the base material is inherently black - by definition, any wear through or chipping of silver paint on top of black carbon fiber will be quite visible. Moreover, when I saw the units at my local SonyStyle store, both the standard silver and the Signature Metallic Mosaic units didn't look as classy (to me, anyway) as the Premium Carbon units. In addition, I flat-out prefer the feature set of the VPC11ZCGX/X to the other standard units available in the USA, while getting tired of the wait for custom builds.

It turned out my choice has delighted me - I'm extremely happy with this machine, and the extended battery and extra 2GB of RAM I've added makes it just about perfect (improved typing angle, speed, battery life, and all).

Cheers!
Mark

 

I stand corrected! I haven't re-installed FSX for so long!

Did you fly around the city again? Wow that's really good news, the 330M can actually run FSX in high details!

in regards to SP2 -
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...FamilyID=204fee1e-f8de-4b21-9a32-5a41a3e27ff0

Choose your correct language from the drop down

 

has anyone gotten bluetooth working? i click it under program-startup-bluetooth and get nothing.

 

It works for me. Check the icons in the notification area (lower right). You may very well have a bluetooth icon there and not know it.

 

OK, so I am looking to order the Z this week, I am just looking at a couple more things. So I went to SonyStyle store on Friday and I was actually surprised that I didn't mind the Silver color at all. In fact, the keyboard part I liked better in Silver than in the Prem Carbon Fiber. So now this really caused me to make a huge decision.

1. I can get a CTO where I only select Windows Professional, Carbon, & Clean Start. With Student discount and tax it comes to a little under 2k

2. Or I purchase the Best Buy model which has Windows Prof, but is silver. With Tax it should be around $1810. But I signed up for Bing, so I should get 5% back, I have a GC for $120 and a reward zone cert for $75. Plus I will get more reward zone certs via this purchase and it will help me towards upping my silver membership for next year.

Pros of Best Buy - Cost way less and I have GC and Reward zone things. Also, it will ship out right away and won't have to wait until April.

Cons of Best Buy - i5-520m instead of i5-540m on Sony CTO, no Fresh Start.

Do you think my Cons outway the cost savings? I am starting to think no. My other worry is the silver will chip and scratch over time, which I have in my current silver PCs, but I imagine the black could do the same too.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions......

 

Yes, I came up from SFO and flew NE over downtown. About the same point as the screenshot I posted earlier.

As to SP2, I did bring down the ENU version and it just won't install. And this is a version of the software I bought yesterday at Fry's! Couldn't be more English. I'll do a little exploring on the Web and see what I can find.

 

It was a known registry issue. May have been because I started with the Demo version.

Will run stuff for you guys in the next day or so.

 

Thanks mate, and if you could do a screen grab of your graphics settings, that would be wonderful Saves you from having to remember the settings you have set!

 

Isn't it interesting that the Z's official release date (at least in the US) coincided exactly with Intel's release of TRIM for RAID.

 

Guarantee you will notice zero difference between a 540 or a 520. I'd put money on a double blind test to anyone with a fresh install of both. In your situation, it sounds like a no-brainer imo. Get the BB model. Use your bucks and all that good stuff and have fun.

 

One of my concerns about the premium glossy carbon fiber is that it will be a fingerprint magnet. What is the experience of those who have that finish?

 

so if this is indeed the case can we safely say that these ssd wont encounter degradation of its performance? and what is the process to enable trim for the ssd in the vaio z?

 

The Premium Carbon Black has been out since the SZ's, and I've never seen or read a post of anyone experiencing their Prem. Black Carbon to chip away. That's why I questioned whether the Silver was milled with Carbon Fiber. It just didn't look like it did when I saw it in person.

Also, I noticed the Silver Demo at Sonystyle only had 85.5 space left out of 128 SSD. That's a lot of crapware. Doing a clean install is suggested. Space may or may not be a CON for you. Something to think about.

According to what I've read from the past 10 pages, just the Intel Driver that supports it.

 

no its not there even when i go to customize and click show icon and notifications it doesnt show up

 

The process is: Just install the latest Intel driver.

One way to do that:

1. Fire up "Intel Rapid Storage" application. Click on: Help | Online Support | Download Center

2. At the Intel site type into the search dialog: Rapid Storage

3. Grab the latest driver. Supposedly TRIM is enabled as of version 9.6. (Note: It seems all you really need is the one that has "AllOS" in the name. You don't really need the flpy zip file)

4. Run it. Install. And enjoy the TRIM.

Note: If you do download the 64flpy file, you'll get some nice readme files to peruse.

 

Is the "Wireless" switch on? It's located at the front of the laptop by headphone jack.

Other things to look at:

1. Hit "Start" Button, start typing: blue
You will see "Change Bluetooth Settings"
Turn on discovery and "Show Bluetooth icon in the Notification Area" if it is not already on.

2. In Device Manager see if you have a "Bluetooth Radios" item. It should have a couple of entries in there.

 

Oscar2

Do you still recommend that DEFRAG be disabled once the Intel Driver is installed? Thanks.

 

Every glosssy kind of material is a fingerprint magnet.

 

I'm still a bit confused about the material used on the Z--especially the carbon fiber model. I understand that the palmrest is made to look like carbon fiber but is actually plastic. So the paint could certainly chip on that.

Someone said the lid is carbon fiber reinforced plastic. I don't understand what that means though--that it's a 50/50 mix of carbon fiber and plastic all throughout? Would that be any less likely to chip?

And is it apparent to the eye or hands that these 2 areas aren't carbon fiber?

 

Well. I think it's better to disable it.

On the one hand, the argument is that SSD's have a limited number of write cycles so why spend so many of them doing disk defrags when they don't really give the huge bang for the buck that they give for mechanical drives.

On the other hand, one can't help but notice that even ssd's are faster when streaming than when delivering highly fragmented files. Also that the once severe limits on ssd cycles aren't quite so severe these days...

But yes, my defrag and boot optimize are staying off. I'm just sayin'... I can see where someone may have an argument for the occasional cleanup.

What do others say about this?

 

thx oscar clicked on the smartwi button and wifi was on but the bluetooth wasnt. i is dumb

 

Does anyone know if the UK pre-config Z models are available in UK stores? i.e. london sony centres? Am in town 28th March - 13th April and wanting to pick one up sans VAT on my way back to Oz.

Cheers for all the Z info, drivers and reviews, been following these z threads since mid feb!

w

 

So, did you have to do anything special to turn on or enable the gps hardware? I pointed Mapquest to the com port the gps was on but is not seeing the NMEA stream.

Edit: Ok, never mind. I see where it can be turned on in the SmartWi utility.
rmcx: With regards to it turning off on you. I noticed a checkbox in the driver under Power Management. Have you tried un-clicking "Allow Computer to turn this device off to save power"

 

Anyone know of any sort of driver or software that can improve the sound on this thing? It's fuzzy and not loud enough.

 

I was in the Sony Center on Tottenham Court Road yesterday and they had a couple of models not sure exactly the specifics but one was i5 and the other i7, There are a number of Sony centers in london so you should be able to get one

Mappy

 

Cheers mate, sounds good - ive been calling the kensington store but they keep telling me 'no idea...'

can't believe these things are now cheaper in the UK than Australia or elsewhere with the ££ how times have changed...

 

@Mappy & yellowfrizbee:

What case are you using (if any) to house the Z with the extended battery..?

 

I purchased a Tucano 13.3 Work Out Case, In that I can fit the vaio with extended battery, the power cable and a mouse. Plus theres room for a small external hd.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=0BTMX4FR126KTA0QR0TD

 

Cheers Mappy...

 

Will: 1) don't forget the UK keyboard is different to the US keyboard we use in Aus. I live in the UK now but I'm going back to Aus in a few weeks and won't buy one here for that reason.

2) I live in Nottingham, and went to the Sonycentre here yesterday. They had no VPC-Zs and hadn't had any either. Definitely don't assume a particular store will have them in stock, plus they may be selling out quickly. You may be able to reserve one.

3) If you are flying back to Aus from the UK, then you are undoubtedly stopping over somewhere, probably HK, SIN, BKK, KL. In the case of Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur, I know they both have US keyboards, English OS and are waaay cheaper than the Aus and the UK even without VAT/GST. If you're stopping in Dubai/Abu Dhabi then no dice.

Cheers.

 

If worse comes to worse, just buy it from PortableOne in the use, and they will ship it to you. That is what I'm doing (and have done with an Asus and Sony NW in the past). Then you can pick what you want, get a good price and they will ship it to your door.

 

I'm in HK now, im interested to buy Z 117GG, but no stock

if you know anyone that selling z 117gg in HK, please pm me!

thank you.

 

It's v9.6 and I don't think so. It installs/uninstalls very easily and cleanly. Couldn't hurt to try.

This is why I ordered several 12"x14" sheets of 3M protective film. I'll be applying it to the VPCZ11FHX/XQ.

Yes, I'm the crazy person who did this to their TZ
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=232943

 

@fam

I am also trying to get the HK model (though i am trying online). I got the following answer from 'kevinhk' on the SSD thread... hope it helps.

"The pre-sale started on Mar 22 and due to very limited pre-sale volume and supprisingly low price (HK$5000 cheaper than in China or Singapore), the Z117 model was sold out as of Mar 23.

The Sony staff told me there were only 7 Z117 models in each store for pre-sale (3 stores in HK, so totally 21), and luckily mine was believed the last one for pre-order.

The product is not restricted to HK residents, but I believe they won't ship it abroad. You may call SONY HK for when new models would be available. These days I saw ads of the new Z models all around in HK, thus I believe new ones would be available within a month, although "Made in Japan" would still potentially limit the supply."

 

On a different note, (while I am waiting for stocks in HK to replenished

Has anyone noticed the effect of the 1080p display on battery life? Great news on the TRIM issue btw

Lastly, are the speakers really that bad?

Thanks

 

Just in case anybody here is interested in watching the process, Nautis and I are trying to get Nvidia's Optimus to run on the Z11.

We aren't to a fully working solution yet, but things are looking promising.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=342947&page=107