Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

The quad SSD is looking strong.

http://www.microsofttranslator.com/...o.jp/sonyfan/special/100301vaioz/pages/18.htm

 

One rich guy in Taiwan somehow got 3 different Zs 117, 116 and 115 has posted all the benchmarks! Go to the below link to see for yourself.

http://www.mobile01.com/topicdetail.php?f=258&t=1452570&p=1

 

Dimension6 (or others).....I am not near a sonystyle store and can only view pics online....what would you say from firsthand knowledge regarding the build quality, keyboard feel/layout, and so on? I'm leaning towards a z but just wish I could see it in person.

 

Man, that site's never heard of "thumbnails", have they.


Edit: um, OK, there are multiple pictures of a GREEN TEA bottle in that set. Seriously, there's even a picture of a WET STIR STICK.

Now I know. And knowing is half the battle!

 

my 1st post,

so its possible to get a quad ssd setup and replace the optical dvd with a 500gb hdd but does anyone know where to get the part to fit the hole

 

Answer currently: no.

Answer in future: probably, but it will be prohibitively expensive as you will need to order special parts from Sony, who charges a fortune for everything. And I don't just mean maybe $80 instead of $30, I mean it'll probably run hundreds for a chunk of plastic.

 

If I get anything close to this on my machine, I'm going to be very pleased. Who knows, the 512GB could be even faster although the SATA bus may become a problem. This is a problem I can totally live with.

 

I can report that both Mass Effect 2 and TF2 are completely playable and awesome on this machine. I've been playing at 1360x768 resolution, with effects turned way up. The FullHD display frankly blows away my previous-gen Z. I didn't bother to change the DPI settings because the text is so clear despite its small size (I did run through the ClearType wizard to optimize the text for this display, however). I would like to do a proper display calibration, but don't have any equipment. Does anyone know where the default calibration files are stored? I could check on the originally installed HDD if Sony included a color calibration file for the FullHD display.

I sold it because I had difficulty getting all the drivers working in Linux (particularly the GMA500 and suspend). It's too slow to be practical in Windows 7, IMHO.

I was originally worried about the heat generated by the i7, but I have to say Sony did an excellent job with the cooling system (actually, probably better than any other workstation-level laptop I've ever used). The palmrest never gets warm to the touch (the Sony Building display model must have been warm from otaku's hands over it all day long!). I'm glad I went with the i7.

As for the palmrest, I don't think it blends in all that well, but it makes typing very comfortable. Aluminium is either hot or cold to the touch, so on a chilly day like today in Tokyo, plastic has a nicer feel. Removing the decals is also a good idea, since they are placed exactly where the left palm rests.

The keyboard is nicer than that of the previous Z, and the backlight gets the job done. Functionally, it works in the same fashion as the MBP keyboard. A screenshot of the settings utility is attached. I think there are already a number of photos of the backlit keyboard out there. Because I'm not an incredibly serious gamer, I think it would be best to wait until we get some proper gaming benchmarks. As I mentioned before, if someone would recommend some benchmarking utilities, I'd be happy to run them.

 

The build quality is excellent. There isn't a single creak when I pick it up from one side (unlike the previous Z). The keyboard is also better than the previous Z, with the keys more flush to the body. It's a bit similar to the MBP keyboard; just the key size is slightly smaller. The Synaptics touchpad is a big step up as well. It's much more sensitive than the Alps touchpads Sony uses (such as in the previous Z or current F series). If you have any specific questions, just let me know.

 

Man, even in quad raid 0 the Samsung SSD has abysmal random read/write performance.

 

I must say im happy to hear about the i7. Oh and I lit up like a little kid on christmas when you told me ME 2 worked smoothly..thats the first game Im playing on that thing.


Ive been reading around and its been implied that if you have an SSD with TRIM, then you dont have to worry about keeping your SSD at only 70% full; Storage capacity to performance is irrelevant. Is that true that if you have TRIM you wont see a performance loss when your drive is almost full????

 

Here's a laundry list!

* Any danger of the screen hitting the keyboard when closed and pressure is applied?

* Can you confirm that the Synaptics is multi-touch?

* If you have a previous Z handy, can you do a side-by-side showing the two screens (in fairly high resolution) when set to normal DPI?

* How bright IS the power light? Looked rather vibrant in a recent photo I saw.

* Can you post what RAID options are available in the BIOS and/or Intel RAID BIOS?

* How's the docking cover on the bottom. Looks identical to the one on my old SZ, which tends to want to stay open when used on a lap.

* Any problems with the battery being kind of loose? Had to add felt shims to my SZ.

* How is the cooling fan noise, both in idle and when working. I know some people don't have a problem with fan noise, and "silent" to one person is "noisy" to another, but in your opinion...

 

dimension6,

Are you using japanese win7?Just wondering if i could get english win7 in japan at the same price.

 

Also wondering if you can set the "assist" or "vaio" buttons to different functions.

Did you play the game on your desk or on your lap (desk I'm sure)? Is the bottom is too hot to touch when under load, especially the part right under the fan.

 

With regards to the 2nd question, unfortunately no. I've been to the Ginza store multiple times and the only way we can get english is 1) buy the ultimate version and download the language pack or 2) install a separate English windows 7 ourselves (but they said that would void your warranty).

 

Oh wow, there's a new generation of ZeroShock cases, and it's available in 13.3"! If I get the Sony Z I hope I can ask one of you folks in Japan to help me buy one of these: http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B002XQ1ZS0

 

dimension6,

Can you also test Intel SSD with CrystalDiskmark 2.2 so we could see how does it compare to Sony Quad SSD solution?
Here is the link to the benchmark http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html#CrystalDiskMark

thx!
borys

 

thanks for the quik reply!! and im not that much of a gamer as well but since u were able to get those games running smoothly in that setting im sure i wont have a problem runnin some casual games... enjoy! and thanks again

 

Would it be possible to hook up my ps3 controller via bluetooth to play games on the Z??? that would be awesome for fighting/racing games...

 

hey

i am anxiously awaiting sonystyle.ca to have the new vaio z available for cto ...ive saved up enough to finally purchase a high end laptop and it seems to take sonystyle.ca forever to update their website.

 

so i'm trying to configure a Z on the US sonystyle website, getting it brought here to australia.

what would be the performance difference between 128GB and 192GB SSD? i'm a touch confused about dual/quad SSD and so on.

also, the full hd screen won't be a configurable option for the Z? the only prebuilt model with it is 4000+ sadly.

cheers!

 

Upon researching those benchmark numbers for the Quad SSDs, the sequential read and writes are spectacular. Chirality is right though, the 4k random reads and writes are pretty poor.

How important is it for a storage drive to have great random 4k read/writes? Obviously the OS + apps drive does alot of small writes/reads but if you only used the Raid array for the storage would this poor random read/writes be a problem?

 

Actually the 4k random read/write is not that bad. You should take a look at what a normal HDD's 4k random read/write is. It's just that the Samsung drive has half the speed of its competitors.

 

Looks pretty awesome but isn't one of the main points of ssd that worrying about mechanical shock becomes a thing of the past

 

I don't understand those tests... how much faster is the i7 than i5?

 

Don't forget that on a mechanical drive this is kind of a torture test because the head has to travel to some random spot, read a few bytes, move to another completely random spot...

So it's dominated by seek time and rotational latency time. That happens to be an area where ssd's offer their most significant advantage (no moving head and no rotating disk means no seek, no latency)

That's why those numbers blow any mechanical hard drive out of the water by more than an order of magnitude .

How much that actually matters is another question...

 

Anybody have verdict on i5 vs i7 in terms of performance, temp and battery life?

 

It's still helpful to protect other components, such as the screen. It may be less of a problem with the new Z, but from what I read the old Z's screen would flex under pressure and gain dead pixels after coming into contact with the keyboard when closed.

 

Nope. I think that issue has been resolved. The lid is even slightly arched inwards (is this on purpose?) so the screen doesn't hit the palmrest.

It has pinch zoom, but two-finger scrolling is not in the options. Is this because of patent issues? I'm sure by using a different driver you could get two-finger scrolling. The version included by Sony is newer than the one at the Synaptics site. I don't know if there's anything custom in the Sony driver.

I think there are already a number of photos that compare the two screen resolutions. Perhaps later I'll have both of them side-by-side again and I'll take a photo then.

It's bright from the side, and not so bright from above.

I don't have the RAID model. Hopefully, someone with the RAIDed SSDs will be able to answer this.

It's completely different, and is a removable piece of plastic rather than a sliding door. This is great for those of us who don't use the docking bay, perhaps bad for those that do. The loose sliding door really annoyed me with previous VAIO models.

The battery is loose just as with most other VAIOs. You'll probably have to add the felt shims if the wiggle bothers you.

[/QUOTE]
The cooling fan is quiet when idle (in both SPEED and STAMINA modes), and gets quite loud particularly when gaming. It's definitely quieter in idle and louder during periods of peak performance than the previous Z.

I'm using Windows 7 Enterprise (=Ultimate) right now, and have both Japanese and English languages installed. I don't believe English Windows 7 is available in Japan. As mentioned, you'd have to upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate and then install the English language pack.

I tested the games on my desk. It's not easy to play using a touchpad. The next time I fire up a game, I'll check the underside heat a bit better. It's definitely not as hot as a Dell or Apple (all of the Dells/Apples I've used!), partially because the fan really blows out a lot of air when the performance is pushed.

The test will be forthcoming!

 

Well, looks like the Pi test took 15.226 seconds and 15.943 seconds on the two 540M models, and 13.260 seconds on the 620M model. Which is a minimum 13% improvement, not bad considering it's only clocked 5% faster.

The only other benchmark is Street Fighter, which scored 9716 on the 540M and 9725 on the 620M (although I doubt that game is CPU-bound, thus the small difference).

 

I've been following this thread for a while now and man, this Sony Z is a beast. The only option that I wish it had was USB 3.0. But regardless, I'm still going to get one of these "light-weight" monsters.

I've been looking at Conics.net since I want a 1920x1080 LCD without optical drive and with 320GB HDD model. I have a Vertex 128 that I'm going to install so no need for SSD. And believe me, SSD speed degradation due to write cycles isn't a myth. It has happened to my Vertex within 6 month of use and it was never filled to capacity or at least I never filled it to capacity. Windows Vista, on the other hand, is a horrible write-loving OS and made my Vertex write performance to go to crap within 6 months.

When I first got my Vertex, I was able to achieve write speed of 150MB/s. Now it avgs 80-70 MB/s. Fortunately, I will be able to get it back to original performance levels once I flash it to the latest firmware. TRIM is supported so I shouldn't have any more write performance issues once I install Windows 7.

Btw, can anyone recommend another exporting service besides Conics.net that might offer better prices for the new Z's? I live in the US but I don't want any of the US SonyStyle models or CTO's.

 

What's the GPS like? Not that I'd ever use it! Does the pinch to zoom work everywhere or is it just for photos?

 

Ho-ly cow. This is the benchmark for my current laptop that im using right now... :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

120GB 5400rpm HDD




Yeah, nvm. I dont care about TRIM anymore, degradation cant get it to perform any worse than this. And to think I thought my laptop was useable!!

 

I'd be interested in this too. I read now that the Qualcomm Gobi 2000 supports GPS (didn't realize that the Z has it).
What application do you need to use it (any preinstalled ones?)? Does the GPS work well?

 

Just to clarify the only place I saw mention of GPS was on the sonystyle USA site under the features tab:

 

So speed degradation is not a problem with Windows 7? or is it a hardware issue with SSD's? Do you need to flash the firmware every time to get it back to original performance levels?

 

Well, write speed isn't the only thing you'll worry about once the SSD is saturated. I have experienced stalls of over 10 seconds on my over saturated Vertex (installed firmware does not support TRIM nor does my Vista 64). The length of stalls can vary from few seconds to what feels like an eternity. It is a huge pain in the butt as it happens every so often once the SSD goes into saturation mode. I would hate to own an SSD that does not have TRIM feature mainly due to this reason. Write speed degradation I can live with... stalls, I cannot.

 

If you're on Windows 7 and have a SSD that has TRIM, you'll be ok. If your SSD does not have TRIM feature, you'll need to flash your SSD to get it to original read/write performance. This will usually result in complete wipe of your SSD and you'll have to reinstall windows (or copy over a cloned image).

 

@dimension6: Are you planning to see how Linux plays with the new machine..? If so, I would be very interested to know what works and what doesn't...

 

Although I don't plan to use it on this machine, I want to see how Ubuntu will work. I'll test the live CD without installing later.

I've attached the results from my X25-M. Are these 4K speeds normal for the G2 X25-M? If not, what might the issue be?

 

Dude, run the garbage collection app that OCZ provides. No reason at all to have ANY stalling on the Vertex series.

 

Those numbers are lower than average. 20/60 MBs can be achieved with G2 according to numerous tests. What is your block size?

Well... I'm a bit worried about Z and its cooling system. Good to hear about fan being able to move some air under heavy load though. Can you do some tests? Best thing is to run 3DMark06 benchmark for 10-15 minutes and look at CPU and GPU temps.

This is clean and useful software for GPU temperature monitoring
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1761d/GPU-Z.0.3.9.exe
This one is for CPU
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1691d/RealTemp_340.zip
3DMark can be downloaded here for free as well
http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/3dmark06/download/

Thanks in advance!

 

+1 on last post.

Would love some temps after heavy load!

 

Thanks dimension6. Doesn't seem too out of line based on this page (they have a whole listing of CrystalDiskMark scores here):

http://kettya.com/notebook2/crystaldiskmark.htm

Using a 100MB block size as the test file, and from 3 random scores listed on that page based on the X25 (non-RAID):

254.80 / 82.47, 204.10 / 86.13, 16.28 / 33.03
252.70 / 75.01, 196.50 / 67.56, 14.05 / 19.93
252.20 / 70.12, 179.20 / 58.36, 12.11 / 14.43

 

Your random read/write speeds are way better than the dual SSD RAID 0, and even slightly better random write than quatro SSD RAID 0:
http://image.itmedia.co.jp/l/im/pcuser/articles/1002/24/l_tm_1002vaiozr2_20.jpg

So it doesn't look bad to me...

 

I would if I could... the firmware I'm on doesn't support it. I have to down-flash first and then re-flash to their updated firmwares in order to use their utilities. Somehow I got a borked firmware that will not flash to the updated firmwares that permit the use of GC apps unless it is flashed to a lower version first. I have resisted flashing the Vertex up to now because I did not want to go through the painful process of installing all the drivers and programs that I use.

I was going to get around to it and the write speed degradation and stalling started happening. So I guess, thankfully due to my laziness, I can say that I have personally experienced how a saturated SSD performs and it is definitely not fun. Stalls are a real pain and it happens often enough to make me realize how lucky I am that I got a SSD that has TRIM because I bought it before I knew anything about TRIM and GC.

Anyway, once I get my Sony Z, I am going to flash my Vertex to the updated firmware before installing it.

 

Just ran the test on my old SZ160, which I upgraded last year to a Seagate 320gb 7200RPM...

Sequential: 68.88mb/s read, 66.04mb/s write
Random: 28.14mb/s read, 45.83mb/s write
4kb: 0.384mb/s read, 0.830mb/s write

Not doing that much better.

 

I also ran the test on my old SZ and had numbers close to yellowfrizbee.

With number like these it is hard to understand why anyone would opt for HDD if money is not an issue. Sure you can get more space but with portable HDDs and network drives around 200+ GB should be enough for an average user.

If I drop at least $2000 for a laptop Im willing to invest a bit mor to get SSD.

TRIM or non-TRIM I would go for Quad SSD because it seems to have higher sequential speed and little lower 4KB speed. Wiping the drive and re-applying image every 6 months or so is a fair price for up to 20-40 faster drive than conventional notebook HDDs.

Changing the HDD to SSD is another option but like most of us Im not willing to open my new computer and try to change the drive.

 

I agree that quad is the most interesting. Problem is it looks like, in the US, you can only get that with the 512gb model (256gb is listed as 128x2, not 64x4).

 

The SSD's are custom made for the Vaio Z and they are 64x4.

Is it true that when you clean install your Vaio that it voids the warranty, someone said that a few pages ago. I doubt thats true but can someone please give me a clear answer.