Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

Zoinks, I'm replacing my work TZ with a personal Z, so I've been following this forum with great interest - especially your posts. But just so you know, these Sony laptops are very durable. I've abused my TZ for over 2 years, no protection, just tossed it in the briefcase with whatever junk was in there. I travel on about 50 flights a year, so all the airport screenings, etc. And all I have are a few slight scuffs on my "champagne" colored lid.

You might not need to go all out covering the Z. Just saying!

 

It costs $5k. I'll be protecting it however I can.

 

I was asking if you can scratch the premium carbon fiber. I have never had any of my silver computers chip away either.

If I would get the one from BB, I would have to go through the trouble everyone else does to do mocked up clean install or uninstall all the crapware that is out there. So I wouldn't just keep it as is, just would be more of a pain than getting the clean install from Sony. So space would not be an issue. Also, 128 gb should be just fine for me. I have only put 35 GB on my work PC and 15 GB on my personal PC. And half the crap on my personal PC I won't need since we have been using it for a business we no longer have. Now I know windows will take up between 16 and 20 GB, but still that 50 GB includes two copies of windows, office, etc.

 

I managed to get two long noticeable scratches on the lid of my premium carbon TZ a while back... If anyone knows of any way to repair them, I'd appreciate knowing...

 

Got my CTO today. Have some quick questions:

1. Those with 4gb ram configs, are you seeing the usable ram reported lower than 4gb, like 3.83 or something?

2. Those with 4gb configs, what wei score do you get for memory?

3. Lastly, does your vaio button mute and unmute sound? I found it strange that it ha that function instead of openig vaio control panel or something.

Thanks in advance.

 

when you're on integrated intel graphics, they use some of your ram for video. try switching to nvidia and check your available ram?

 

Also check out the SmartWi app that Sony includes. It has a switch for Bluetooth there as well.

 

Goiod idea. Will give it a try.

 

Still shows as 3.68gb usable under system properties even after restarting with switch selecting speed mode.

 

Yeah i work with a UK based agency in Africa, so we use UK procured laptops, im also used to the UK layout now (and the crazy location of the '@' symbol). I thought that saving the £305+ on VAT which is pretty worthwhile - cuts a AUD3999 machine down to AUD3300? And im stopping through dubai so yes, no bamboo dice... gah.

My friendworks nearby the tottenham court store, i'll ask if he can get them to reserve one for a wayward traveller... Im not in town for that long before returning for and extended break back home in Oz. Not sure they like to reserve anything at stores nowadays.

thanks for the heads up

 

If it is something you do not mind experimenting with I might suggest car wax. I've used it to repair light scratches on defective DVD movies and once it is done there is always a bright shine, and of course a less scratchy look. Mind you it may end up looking more like a glossy premium carbon laptop though!

 

I think they're really bad. I will be calling Sony on it when I have a chance to breathe.

 

Cool, I may try that, cheers... How should I apply it, just rub it into the scratch in order to 'fill' it (then the rest of the lid so is uniformly glossy)..?

 

Thanks! I ordered premium carbon but I'm having second thoughts now. Hopefully I'll like the carbon. Also, I got a 10% educational discount and I didn't have to buy any warranty.

I do agree that silver kinda looks like Macbook. I'm not certain but the sales rep told me that the extended warranty cost goes up if you purchase after getting the laptop.

I couldn't take a look as there is no Sony store nearby where I live.

 

You can eanble VT in BIOS

 

Can anyone please confirm if they are seeing usable ram less than 4gb? If I go to resorce monitor and click on memory tab it shows that 331mb is hardware reserved.

Under system properties it also shows: installed memory: 4 GB (3.68 GB usable)

 

From another thread ...

Anyone else seen this problem?

 

How would you compare the performance of your TZ vs. your new Z? I am running W7 on my TZ and it seems to do just fine. However, wondering if I will notice significantly better performance with the new Z. Thanks.

 

I believe few end-users will notice that as long as the VAIO recovery centre works fine...So probably SONY will never fix it...

Anyway, it doesn't matte too much if the DVD-Rom worked properly in Windows...

 

Third and last time I will ask. Has anybody ordered a ShaggyMac for their new Z? Or know what size the new Z requires. The Shaggy from my SZ is much too large.

Thank you. I will not ask again if nobody chimes up?

 

Has anybody got the i7-620 and the 1080 display and the standard battery..? If so, how long does the standard battery last with the top-end cpu and display..?

 

I've just received my Vaio Z and already have problems with inserting the extended battery into the laptop. Could someone please help me.


edit: found it

 

Received my CTO late last week and have been playing with all weekend. I'll try and write up a more complete review in a while, but for now here are my initial thoughts. First, my config:

- i5-540M
- 8GB RAM
- 192GB SSD RAID0 (3x64)
- 1600x900 display
- Blu-Ray ODD
- No WWAN
- Extended Battery (additional standard battery coming soon)
- Premium Carbon lid

I'll start by saying this laptop is an absolute work of art, inside and out. I am absolutely blown away at how fantastic everything about it is. Unimaginably fast, so lightweight its almost silly, high resolution screen (1080p would be too much, 900p is perfect), battery that lasts forever, and extremely quiet. Its only 72hrs old and already I know its the best laptop I've ever owned.

- OS Setup: I went with the "Fresh Start" as an experiment to see if it was good enough to avoid a format+reinstall (every laptop I've ever owned has started with a clean format), and I'm extremely pleased to report that the answer is YES -- Fresh Start is clean enough to avoid re-installing from scratch. The only changes I've made is to uninstall the Corel media burner, and install the updated Intel RST drivers and updated touchpad drivers (love 2 finger scrolling). Everything else is dialed in basically just right (for me).

- Speed: Boot times are under 30 seconds (from bios logo to usable desktop), from the "Starting Windows" screen its under 20. Everything feels fast, regardless of Power mode or graphics system setting. As for the SSD array, I can't imagine anyone *not* wanting this. With the 9.6 Intel drivers, CrystalDiskMark 3 is reporting 495 MB/s Read and 280 MB/s Write top speeds on the sequential tests, ie. holy *#%! fast.

- Weight: The only thing I can say about the weight is it is crazy light. Really, it feels like one of those prop models that doesn't have the internals in it, yet it is fully functional.

- Power Usage/Battery: As I mentioned, I got the extended battery. While it does stick out a bit, surprisingly it doesn't seem to add significantly to the weight, and it does help the angle of the laptop when on a table. The included software has a bunch of interesting power management features - the BD drive will automatically power itself completely off, there is an auto-brightness feature for the display (which is a bit aggressive in my opinion, I'd like to see more controls on this), and you can set the refresh to 40hz, which as long as I'm not watching videos doesn't seem to have any ill effect. I've already clocked in a battery time of > 8hrs of continuous use of light web surfing / typing, more than enough for my needs. Charge times are not bad either.

- HDMI: I've had several laptops with HDMI ports, however audio has always been somewhat problematic. Not so with the Vaio Z: Plug in the HDMI cable and the audio automatically re-routes to the HDMI output, the "extended vs. duplicate" setting is remembered between connections and a simple utility can be used for quickly switching between HDMI resolutions. Pull the cable and audio returns to the laptop speakers. In otherwords, it just works!

- The wristbar being plastic: I guess it is plastic, but I'm telling you, it doesn't look like it visually. It looks and feels great, it being plastic is not a drawback to me at all.

- The 1600x900 screen. The setup came with the DPI resolution increased to 125%. I reduced it back to 100%, and at first the window title names, menus etc seemed extremely small. However I was able to adjust and now I am very happy with the dot pitch. I also do not regret for one minute not getting the 1080p screen, as it would absolutely require an increase of the DPI setting in Win7 (negating the additional resolution in my opinion) and the amount of real estate on the 900p screen is just fine for web, outlook and document editing. HD video looks fantastic on it as well.

Really there is almost nothing to complain about. I wish it had a built in smartcard reader, as having to use an external reader for my work access is inelegant. I find I'm missing media controls a little bit, but I don't know where I would have put them if I had been the designer of this thing.

A couple of questions for the FNRC community: Any advice on how to remove the hardware stickers (core i5, nvidia, etc) without causing any scratches? And is there any way to remap the "VAIO" and "ASSIST" feature buttons? (the "manage windows" button can be remapped in the Sony tools).

 

millercentral, i'm glad you're pleased. Just out of interest what BD is Sony using in the new Z? May be you could check in the device manager?

People have also improved their SSD results by enabling write cache but may be that is done by default, i cannot remember right now.

 

Hi guys,
I'm a contracting and self employed DTP/web designer and coder (and a massive geek )and have been scouting around the web for my first laptop to allow me to take my work further afield with clients and not rely on crappy IT support when contracting. I've long been a fan of the previous core 2 duo Z for it's 1600x900 screen and overall weight and size and I've pretty much decided that the VPCZ core i5/7 refresh is the beast for me as I'm all about screen real estate.

My question is this can someone (probably a fellow Brit) please give me some feedback on the FHD screens colour gamut. I work alot with images and get all girly and excited when someone shoves "96% adobeRGB colour gamut" under my nose. I know the screen is just a TN panel (if only IPS/S-IPS/MVA/PVA/OLED/AMOLED were available on anything other than a phone/IPAD or convertable tablet) and I'm guessing it's 6 bit and has a White LED backlight. Seems God only knows what screen Sony are using but I gather sony screens are slightly bluish in colour. Anyone got a colorimeter? How does the screen look once it's been calibrated properly?

I've been following this thread amongst others, and googling each day for decent reviews or info but still nothing concrete.

Many thanks in advance.

 

I don't think the palmrest is made to look like carbon. It was apparent it looked like plastic when the first photos sufaced, but IMO, as others have also mentioned, it does not look cheap. I can't say, however, how it will hold up in the long run. For me, I'm not going to worry about it.

As for the lid, I've had the SZ matte carbon and Z matte carbon and never did I experience any chipping. IMO, I wouldn't worry about any chipping, because its not coated with an layers of anything, unless for the glossy carbon, maybe. The only documentation of chipping is from that Silver Demo someone posted. I'm not sure of the ratio in mixture - plastic:carbon. It really feels durable and not plastiky.

Boot optimize too? Where do I disable this?

In the S Forum, everyone was complaining about the speakers. They installed the new Audio Driver from the Sony Site and it drastically changed the audio experience.
Go to Sony's eSupport
site and search for your model.

I've had the matte carbon and no scratches. Some have reported that the premium carbon can easily scratch.

Be careful, wax tends to penetrate. If you wax one area, you'll have to wax the rest. If you decide to do this, can you post before and after photos.

 

Hi folks!

I just bit the bullet and purchased a new Z as well! Only option I had in the US to purchase the 1920x1080 model was the Signature Edition.

ANyone know if the US models have a SIM Card clot built into them or are they like the last gen where the SIM slot was sealed off?

Don't really want to use Verizon. I'm already on AT&T and would prefer to go down that route.

 

Maybe that's why Sony gives us all get free awesome headphones

Is there a more extensive bios screen available? When I enter Bios the only thing I can do is set the date and decide whether the Raid screen displays at boot.

That's pretty much standard for Windows

 

I have not ordered a ShaggyMac. I just tend to use a piece of Microfiber cloth. I buy the box of them from the supermarket and use them for everything.

The ShaggyMac does look more professional though.

As per Arith's recommendation:

 

Do you get that as well? I was under the impression that x64 addresses all of of the memory. Unless that 330mb is somehow reserved for the integrated intel card, however even when in speed mode that amount still stays reserved.

Some people have managed to fix this by changing something in bios, obviously with the limited options we get with sony bios this is not possible.

 

Okay, many apologies for the post. I realise there are better threads for his type of question, I just couldn't find them very well at first. Registered seach tools rock!! I'll post my questions elsewhere once I've read up on the rest.

Just like to say that this forum is awesome, those that know realy do know what they're on about. Medals all round. Keep up the good work and enjoy your Z's you lucky lucky people.

 

ODD: It's a Panasonic drive: Mata BD-MLT UJ242AS (EDIT: looks like the forum filters out the full manufacturer name...)

Write Caching: I've just now enabled it in the Intel Raid Config app. Didn't seem to change much in CrystalDiskMark (but that may not be the best test case).

 

Thank you, it's good to know that Sony is using the newest Panasonic drive that supports writing to DL DVD's.
The older Z BD's did not support this.
Before long the OEM drives might start turning up on ebay.

 

If write-caching is enabled then CrystalDiskMarks will show a large jump in 4K writes. For example: If you had 10 MB/s before, it will become more like 30, and jumping as high as 200+ (due to the artificial effect it has on simple benchmarks like that).

 

So how are you guys protecting your Z? I've seen some sleeves but which should I get? :O

 

Haven't heard much about the screen yet, beyond what you've mentioned (pretty good TN, 96%). Btw, you win the award for Most-Interesting-Avatar-I've-Seen-In-Last-Few-Days

Since you're going to have a FHD screen, maybe you can help pasharoo

I asked about the SIM slot, haven't got a reply (I was thinking of adding the WWAN card later). I think the slot is there for machines without WWAN, not sure if it's sealed from the inside or not. Also, an issue could be the locking of the card to Verizon. In which case you'll need to swap the card for an unlocked one. I think eBay, Amazon has some. IIRC, it's not necessary to have WWAN activated to use the GPS feature on the card.

 

Well, I'm interested in answer to your question as well.
I'm concerned about actual difference between 1080 and 900 models ( viewing angles ect.) because
1) 1080 may not become available through CTO in US
2) 900 is usable without DPI scaling and 1080 isn't

 

Thanks for the info TofuTurkey! I know there are some mods on the net which show you how to install it as well as the process of unlocking the verizon wwan card (which is apparently capable of doing both AT&T as well as VW at least the cards that shipping the VGN-Z890)

Pasharoo, as soon as a I receive my new Z, I'll ping you back with some info.!

 

I'm using the Full HD screen atm and the viewing angles are pretty good in my opinion. When I look side by side, the screen really doesn't go black. Also Vertical moving doesn't make the screen black but only a bit dark. I'm sorry that I can't show this through a movie.
Also the DPI is set to standard atm, which is 125, and I'm getting used to it At first I thought it was small but now it's okay

 

On the US version it seems as though the slot is there (there's a port of the right size) but there doesn't seem to be anything behind it. So the good news is is that the chassis can support a SIM we'd just need to get the SIM slot component.

As far as the WWAN card, it's a Gobi 2000 card... I'm not aware of any unlock being available for it right now.

Stefan

 

Oh yeah, first thing I did was write the recovery image out to a single DL DVD using the built in drive. Worked perfectly.

 

Anyone else try Linux out yet? on page 168 someone reported some sort of graphical issues. This is the only thing keeping me from buying the laptop right now.

 

I have yet to see anything better than I have for the price.

http://s117.photobucket.com/albums/o41/AshleyT99/?action=view&current=Incase1.jpg&newest=1

http://s117.photobucket.com/albums/o41/AshleyT99/?action=view&current=Incase1.jpg&newest=1

Both the Sony BT mouse and the AC adapter with plug cable fit well inside. Incase from the Apple store for 13" macbook.

 

Thanks for the suggestion but I've already got a bag A Crumpler 15 hours delay, I don't know if you know the brand. I think I only need a sleeve but a good one

 

Cheers, He's called Mint Sauce and is a mountain biking sheep in cartoon strip form: www.thisiswhy.co.uk

I'm not too bothered about the difficulties that the high DPI will cause with text. The software (Adobe CS 4, text editors, scp/ftp) I'm using I know like the back of my hand so I'll be using keyboard shortcuts mostly. I want the pixels for photo editing and to compare docs or websites aganst code, side-by-side. The firefox plugin should take care of most websites. There is this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=469364&goto=nextnewest
with links to images and a video comparing the screens. Seems to me that the 1080p screen is less vibrant in certain colours (I know it's impossible to know what the factory or showroom settings are) but I'd have thought the higher pixel density would make the screen more vibrant, darker with higher contrast. It does indeed seem (from these images) that the 1080p screen is brighter tho.

That'd be awesome, thanks.

 

More gadget pr0n...

Detail shots of the 128GB SSD module

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=6050427&postcount=275

If anybody has a 3x or 4x SSD, please post pics. I'd like to see how they are connected to the main board or each other.

 

Thanks for the info. Stefan. Here's a link to someone who did an awesome mod to a p-series (although verified by Z users on another forum to work on their's as well) to unlock the gobi as well as installing a Sim Slot:

http://forum.pocketables.net/showthread.php?p=16274#post16274

 

Hi Dilwaala,

I saw that article, unfortunately that work was on the Gobi 1000, the Gobi 2000 can't be unlocked using that same process. I haven't seen any unlock for the Gobi 2000.

Stefan

 

You're right Stefan. I didn't realize it was for the Gobi 1000 only. Bugger!
Ah well. It'll have to be ebay then

 

Tip on removing stickers:
If they leave residual patches of glue on the hand rest use the decals themselves to remove the glue by pressing them onto the glue surfaces. You can press and use fingernail rubbing on top of the decal for stubborn spots. I got all of the glue patches off this way; every bit without rubbing the glue spots off with my finger, which smudges the glue and makes it much more difficult to remove. The absence of stickers really brings out the natural beauty of the laptop, which was a surprise to me.