Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

Frankly, I did nothing to achieve that. I was getting that on the first day with no settings changes.

This morning I lowered my refresh rate to 40Hz and I will see what the improvement is. So far so good. I have been web surfing for about 1 hr and the battery gauge says I have 3h 55m left (we'll see tho)

 

Ok, I bought a CTO and a laser mouse, my card was billed in full, everything perfect.


This morning I got the mouse, and when I go to online banking I see the charges have dropped! Is this normal? I contacted the customer care, they say they don't charge until the item ships out, but why was I then charged the first time I buy?

Any comments?

Btw, below's my specs:

CTO's (disclosing only the changes from base model)

*i7 processor
*premium carbon fiber
*192 ssd

+

bms33 laser mouse

I got 10% off with these, so total is $2284 something.

 

MicroCenter, sorry.

 

I think I know how to get that price.

One thing to note is that you'll only get that price is if you don't get charge sales taxes. Go to TigerDirect.com:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...dpNo=5732733&sku=S170-13105&srkey=vpcz112GX/S

Obviously, you'll need to use Bing & then go to that one. The price is listed at $1,899.99. But wait for the Bing Cashback to be 15% for TigerDirect, which is quite often. Then buy it & when you do the math, it will come down to a final price of $1,614.99 (with free shipping & only if TigerDirect doesn't charge you sales taxes depending on where you live).

Good luck.

On that model, VPCZ112GX/S, I'm puzzled why Sony doesn't add in the Verizon WWAN card so that one can also make use of the GPS functionality....

 

My LCD screen brightness fluctuates (sorta pulsates) from bright to slightly dim .. Anyone else experience this?

 

After trial and trial, finally I found a "cure" to my battery life problem! I've to do the followings:
1. Lower the resolution to 1366x768. I constantly have to "zoom in" in Firefox to read the content properly any way, so 1366x768 is not that bad.

2. Remove "CPU, Mem & Network" gadget I got from Microsoft as they constantly update the status may cause shorter battery life.

3. In Power Option, set the Power Saver and CPU state to 1%.

So far, I am able to make Z last to around 8 hours. This morning I came to school at 9:30AM till now, 3:12PM, I still have around 40% of battery life. That is when the screen is shutdown and I only listens to music with no other activities! How sad my original plan was to use Z as all day computing without power brick.

 

Anyone find a cheaper WWAN unlocked module than the Gobi 2000 on eBay for $200 to swap?

 

I want to gouge my eyes out when I see someone using a LCD panel in a non-native resolution, and this feeling is THAT much worse when its being done on this laptop.

 

Man, this is outrageous. I've had the worst experience ever trying to order this thing. I really wonder how Sony has been in business this long. Here is my tale:

I ordered a pretty expensive CTO machine (i5-540, 8GB, 384GB drive, 3 year warranty with ADH, with no discount) back on the 8th of Feb . Estimated ship date was March the 16th. I thought it was a long wait but whatever. Then March 16th comes and goes and nothing happens. On March 17 I call sony and ask what's up. Nothing was up. The order was simply ignored and nobody seemed to know why. They offered as the next ship date March 30th. However, since that was also the estimate for new orders at that time, i decided to cancel it and try to get a discount.
So i called in and explained what happened and asked for a discount. However, i suspect that because they figured out that since i was ready to pay the full amount anyhow, i was told no discount was available. I tried like 4 times. Eventually i gave up and i decided to try a new strategy.
I called in and instead of telling them how they screwed me over once already, i simply demanded the discount and after the mandatory "let me talk to my manager" routine, they said sure thing, 15% off. So i build the same machine on a new account, this time with 15%. New estimated ship date was March 30th. (of course the sales agent managed to misspell my address even though i spelled it for them and then in order to change the spelling of the street name i had to cancel and place the order again.. yup, no kidding.. )

So anyway, i see sony put a hold my card and then guess what.. March 30th comes and i get a new estimated ship date .. This time it was the 6th of April. What's an extra week when i've already been waiting two months, right ? Next thing yesterday the status of my order changed to "in production" and from reading the forum i expected that it will changed to "shipped" pretty quickly.

So this morning i look on my credit card and guess what, sony's hold is gone but there is no charge. So of course i call them and they tell me that their hold has expired (yeah, since they move so damn slow i'm not surprised) but my machine is "production completed". However it will ship on April the 13th. WHAT ? my machine is done but it will ship two weeks from now ? I asked but of course they have no idea why. The reply was "well i don't know why, i'm not the warehouse", as if i can call the warehouse and ask them directly... So I (very politely) asked to talk to the manager, in the hope that they might contact the warehouse and when i talk to him, he was really upset with me that i dare ask where my $3k laptop is and what is the delay. He had a lot of attitude and in the end told me that whatever Erin had told was not right, that i should wait until the 6th and call back (yeah, been through that before, thank you) and tells me to be patient.

Anyway, i have his name and title and i was wondering if anyone has a good contact in Sony where i could report him ? He claimed he didn't have a manager and i'm pretty sure he isn't the CEO of Sony and i'm also pretty sure he must get me his manager when i ask...

So i'll probably cancel my order and never buy anything from Sony ever again. I mean, how can i even trust the warranty when their customer support is this bad ?

Again, i can't believe how bad this is... How does Sony manage to stay in business ?

 

Ha ha, there are trade offs to make your thing work for you.
You can try to lower resolution, and see by yourself. It really is not bad at all!

 

I understand your frustration. similar thing happened to me.

Sony's order system is S*** incl some of their cust service. But their computers r damn good This is my first and I will keep coming back..


PS:Most of the cust service reps I have talked to were good

 

What store has Bing cash back of 15%?

 

Best Buy.

HP offers 20% upon occasion. I bought the Envy 15 with 20% Bing.

 

Best buy is 5%, not 15%. Tiger direct has 15% once in awhile.

The screen dims and gets bighter based on th light in the room. You can turn this off in the VIAO control center (I think) I turned it off already, but don't remember where I went.

 

You're right. It's controlled in the VAIO Control Center. Take it off Auto backlight. I had a hard time figuring that out....but it was nice and bright afterwards.

 

Does anyone have vaio update working? It worked for me the first time but doesn't seem to work now? Any link from where to reinstall? Thx

 

My vaio update is working, but I have Japanese version... just using default setting.

As for HDMI, is any HDMI cable ok for this vaio z?

 

They reserve the amount of money on your card and hold it so they know you actually are able to pay for it. maybe it was that.

 

@yobitake

Did you received your Z sooner then you expected. I am asking since my CTO was scheduled for middle of April and I placed order on March 6th (conics placed order for me). When did you placed your order?

 

That's just crazy.. They should definitely do something for you. RIDICULOUS.

 

Yes, I did receive my Z about two weeks earlier than expected. Placed my order on March 12th (thru BicCamera), estimated delivery was mid-April. However, two days ago I got status update and yesterday evening (April 1st) I got it delivered. Cannot complain yet, the Wimax card works fine too...

 

biccamera? Thats a japanese website.

 

Nice . Thanks.

 

Also, don't forget that if you set your power button to pop you into sleep mode. Then, whenever you press it you are back where you left off within 30 sec. If you are going to be using it all day periodically, this might be your best bet. The other thing you can do is just have it sleep after 10min of non-use when on battery (that way you don't have to remember to put it to sleep).

 

I'm starting to think maybe the problem is at the Sony site. When I first got mine the update didn't work, after a while it did. You're right today it doesn't.

So, I'm guessing they'll eventually get their act together over there

 

Sounds like Sony didn't have the update catalog ready. Works for mine now too

 

I'm starting doubt whether I should have ordered the Signature Z and get the new Signature Palladium: http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...oryId=8198552921644649998#/Compact Palladium/

 

Am I the only one to think that that design looks like an XL size ladies' makeup kit?

 

What is that thing?

 

its the future, man.

 

Thanks for the info. How'd they know you used Bing?

What exactly is it? At first I thought it was an external optical drive, and it didn't make sense with the Z, since you can get one built-in. It's not located in the Signature Series Section with all the notebooks.

 

It's your next computer! I think everyone who bought a Z is getting one of those for free

 

Does changing the resolution really help on battery? After all, it's not like there is REALLY less pixels on the screen so basically the same number of transistors on the Full HD screen still needs to be taken care of, the backlighting is the same, etc. You might use less RAM in terms of GPU processing but again, that would depend on where the scaling is being done (GPU or at the panel level, etc...) And you do get some global scaling which is not necessarily very good (ie: blurry) while you can just 'pinch to zoom' in Firefox to get a very well defined page content, especially for the fonts (granted, the interface, tabs, etc stay in the lower size font if you just use Zoom within Firefox.)

I'm just wondering how much of a difference changing the resolution could really on battery life do (vs. changing the color bit depth which obviously reduces memory, processing, etc...)

Anybody care to elaborate on that? I'm a bit puzzled

 

Anyone care to comment on these temps....91 for the GPU seems ridiculous.

 

did you overclock the gpu?

 

nope...stock clocks. 1 hour of css and L4D2. Stupid loud Fan in Balanced mode.

 

91 seems a bit high considering you haven't even overclocked the video card. I had the exact same model (returned it) that you have and remember the highest temp I got was around 85 degrees, but that was with the core clocked at 640mhz, shader clock @ 1400mhz, and mem @ 820mhz.

 

Does it support Trim? How's the Fan Noise compared to the Z? Should I get it with i7 or am I being overly ambitious? :GEEK:

 

Is it an April's fool joke? breath-powered battery? LOL

 

Hmm, i'm not sure if that was Sony's April fools joke or not as i cannot get the page to come up and it seems a little out there.
I don't know.

 

it was, in the Signature Collection. It had breath powered battery, holographic video conferencing display, hover touch keyboard technology or something like that... Some nice graphics too to show those features in the gallery

And if you clicked the 'buy it now', you were getting a big 'APRIL FOOLS' screen (instead of the expected 'Backorder' message )

It's gone now, of course !

EDIT: if you missed it, here are some of the infos and gallery pics in the official Sony blog. Cheers . http://community.sonystyle.com/sstyle/post/?id=9153124319971820010

 

Fry's is now carrying the Z112GX/S. I wonder if any of these stores will carry the Z114 (w/192ssd) or Z116 (w/256ssd). By July, I'm sure the refresh is out.

 

Thanks Treoford. It's indeed a dream that, hopefully, will come true one day

 

I was about to open my new Z (HDD model) in order to insert Intel x25 SSD, but (luckily?) I dont have the right screwdriver at hand, so I have to wait till tomorrow. In the meantime, I`d like to ask some of you guys who have opened up your Z (Dimension, Zoinks, etc.) - do I have to unscrew ALL of the screws on the notebooks bottom side (except the RAM cover)? I counted a total of 22 screws (including under the battery and excluding the RAM cover), seems like an awful lot... Could somebody confirm the count for me? I dont want my brand new notebook to fall to pieces...

Then after releasing all of the screws the top keyboard piece should just smoothly come off right?

Thanks in advance!

 

Hi yobitake,

After you open up the Z can you take a pic of the area where the HDD is? Thanks.

OzB

 

You need to open all the screws, and 2 under battery. Those 2 within yellow label. Don't forget 2 flat ones all the way in the front. I unscrewed also mem slot cover screws, I dont know if you need to take these too, because they are long ones. And note to your self where you unscrew long ones and where are the short ones.

Keyb section can be lifted right off after you have done unscrewing.

 

Regarding shipping times for Vaio Z CTO, I ordered mine on 3/22 with an original estimate of 3/31. Then the next day I saw that the estimated delivery time was 3/23. So I called support to see which was accurate, and they told me that they made a mistake and the actual ETA was 4/6. BUT it was then built on 3/24, shipped 3/25, and I got it on 3/26... five days from order to receipt.

I'm sure a lot of it has to do with their current inventory. It doesn't sound like they are built in order of queue.

 

Can anyone recommend a good computer case for the Z?

 

I have just bought the LaRobe for Macbook Air case, and it fits perfectly inside!

Totally unrelated but, have any of you been able to make a 3-finger gesture work with Google Chrome (i.e., to implement the "back" and "forward" functions. I think this is the single most useful function of the MBP's touchpad!)

Thx!