Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

I've noticed that the bluetooth driver dates back to 2006!!
Any suggestions to download a new driver? I have the new sony vaio Z.
thx !

 

I was just doing that, since I'm very impatient, been waiting on a z11z9eb for more than 3 weeks. To me the Z beats the new 15" MBP needless to say, it beats the crap out of the 13" MBP, but the 13" is really an old new macbook... design wise (yeah, imagine the bold if it makes you feel better), it's the same macbook.

EDIT: i guess the great benefit from the new macs are the slightly better batteries.. 8h-10h sounds insanely good

 

Can vaio z owners please post a screenshot of their windows experience index scores. It will be interesting to see if theres a difference in these scores! Thanks.

Heres mine:

 

Interesting indeed.

Looks like specs wise, Sony has the 13" on every point, but is much more expensive and I don't know if the 13" MBP was refreshed.

It even has the same or better specs compared to the 15". The Z and the 15" are closer on price when compared to the Signature collection edition (subtract $500 from the Sony for BluRay). It's also interesting that the 330M has 512MB of RAM compared to 1GB on the Sony.

 

MBP won't have blu-ray until Jobs says so

To get close to the top Z model one has to get the 17" MBP which is a little less than 3kg in weight (as compared to Z's 1.4kg).

Nevertheless the battery performance of the MBP is pretty good.

 

On the battery

Sony:
Standard Capacity: 5200mAH, 6 Cell
Extended Capacity: 7800mAH, 9 Cell

How do you convert Apples "75-watt-hour" statement on their specs?

 

Standard Capacity: 57-watt-hour
Extended Capacity: 84-watt-hour

 

You'll really start appreciating the Z after this refresh

http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MC375LL/A?mco=MTc0Njg1NzE

This is the best they came up with

http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MC373LL/A?mco=MTc0Njg1ODE

 

The new 13" MBP is an utter failure. Even the cheapest Sony Z you can buy destroys it.. and I'm sure most consumers wouldn't mind paying an extra $500 for the massive performance gains over the MBP.

 

I didn't see any option for an integrated 3g Modem, is this not available on Mac ? Shame !!

A further good point for Z.

 

I would start from what does the 13 mbp have rather than what it doesn't have

 

Especially as in comparison to the Macbook Pros - whose cooling looks to be unchanged - the Z's look to be able to dump heat a tad better when in intensive use. So not only is it staggeringly lighter, it'll probably end up working better. And if Apple says 9 hours, it's more likely 7 and a bit hours (fanboi reviews with stupid runtime tests notwithstanding) - which really isn't that far off what you can eke out of the Z with the standard battery.

You really have to hand it to Sony for this refresh - they've come through. I just... well, I guess some of the more frequent visitors may be aware of my Sony design foibles

 

When one looks at the competition in the 13 inch laptop range, all the complaints on the new z look silly to me

 

You are surely right, but I ordered a Z mainly for:

• intel i7, 3G Modem
• Dual graphic mode
• HD Screen
• Weight and battery
• Form factor, thinness

 

So...

Sony:
Standard Capacity: 57-watt-hour
Extended Capacity: 84-watt-hour

Apple:
15" MBP: 75-watt-hour

 

I cant get bluetooth drivers to work....The drivers actually start but its like it doesnt find them.
In my device manager under network adapters it find miniport, n6200, and the gigabit nic but no bluetotth.
I installed the share library, and the bluetooth drivers but nothing did I miss a step?

 

Interestingly, the 15" MBP is available in i7 but the 17"' is not.
Also, I am surprised there is no 7200 RPM drive option (much less SSD)

 

17" has i7 as option. Likewise 7200rpm HDD is an option.

Less SSD?

 

when you hit configure you can see all the options. they have i7 for the 17" and i think the SSD options went up to 512 but they mightve only gone up to 256..can't remember..

 

It does have 512GB SSD as option. Price? $1,300

I think the 512GB RAID 0 SSD in the Z is a better deal considering the cost and performance.

 

Indeed, but the MBPs do look better than before. I wonder what SSD implementation that is, and if it is easily upgraded by just swapping the drive, as opposed to Z.

Both machines look good, with some advantages to the Z in the 13" category:

1. CPU
2. Screen (I dislike the intensely glary screen on the MBP, and it seems you can still only change that on the 15")

MBP has the advantage of an excellent keyboard (I am still not too enthused about the Z keyboard), and possibly the SSD drive depending on the implementation.

On the 15" side the situation is a bit more murky, and it's a toss to me, with MBP possibly being more attractive.

One thing that may also be more attractive on the MBP side is it might be easier to get good configs at the Apple store instead of the weak ones for the Z at brick and mortar (US).

Since I wanted a 13", it was a good decision. I still wish Sony would have offered 8 GM RAM versions in stores, and of course, I wish they didn't do the proprietary nonsense with the SSD.

 

Regarding my previous post, since there were no replies:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=6125986#post6125986

I am curious, is anyone using external storage with the Z? If not, I guess I will have to be a guinea pig, but if anyone has any insights, even theoretical ones, I will appreciate them.

 

I read that but there's not really a good solution: eSata needs power, USB2 is too slow. What to do except wait for USB3?

 

New-super-happy-proud-owner of Sony Vaio Z reporting, Sirs!

 

Generally speaking I use external drives via USB2 a lot - and for the sort of use you describe, I have no issues. Of course, if you don't like it you could do what you propose, or try using iSCSI. DroboPro for example.

 

I'm wondering if Apple didn't give the 13" MBP an i5/i7 CPU because it thinks it's canbalized the 15"/17" MBP's sales. In which case I think Apple should have listened to its customers and focus on the 13".

The MBP 13" has a different Nvidia chip: 320M. Here's an article on it:

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...ially_for_apples_new_13_inch_macbook_pro.html

 

I received last week my new Sony Z and I was afraid about the release of macbook pro 13, but finally, that's a deception for the new Macbook Pro 13 and my Sony Z still really better (lighter, geforce 330m like in macbook pro 15/17 but with 1 gig ram) I don't know for the screen (excellent on Sony Z, better than my 22inch Viewsonic) but don't know yet for the new MacBook.

I like the raid 0 of 3 SSD 64 gig of my Sony Z (3x64 gig = 192 gig) it's very fast, that's a very big evolution (comparing to my previous laptop with hd 120 gig 5400 rpm)

I really love my Sony Z, (maybe too much hehe) The last time I really love a laptop it's when I bought the first one (a fudjtisu pentium 3 600 mhz with windows 98 hehe)

The backlight keyword is very beautiful, I like it but need time to been use to, there's a lot of space between keys, but very good quality keyboard.

I hope 2 thing in the future for this model : Trim supported (have to wait for Intel for that, all ssd have the same concern of ssd raid) and ssd replacement (and not to expansive too!) Becayse If I want more space, I think it will be difficult !

for the rest, it's excellent, very light (the macbook pro is 4.6 lbs, this one is 3.07 lbs!) good build quality. not hot on the bottom, etc. I played Left 4 dead 2 and it's very smooth, the loading of this game and the maps are very fast ! (faster than my desktop core2quad with 7200rpm hd)

Overall : Very recommended ! Buy it now !

 

USB2 may be slow for multiple streams of uncompressed HD video (for compositing or heavy editing). But for Photoshop? IMHO USB2 is plenty fast for 120-150MB files that I worked with.

 

That is my take as well. However, read on at the bottom.

For individual files it is okay, but for backups I find it slow.

Going back to USB3. There are already Express Cards on the market with 2 USB3 ports. One can also find USB3 enclosures for SATA drives. Has anyone tried to do that and can tell me how successful it was? A home-made USB3, so to speak.

I doubt I will go with eSATA. The power requirement is too cumbersome when traveling.

 

there's no esata on Vaio Z unfortunately (i dont' understand why Sony don't put a port usb/e-sata like Dell.

I read today a usb3 pcmia card will be available soon, but I don't know how much.

 

I'm debating whether to get a Z and have a quick question: would it be better to go with a bigger SSD (192gb or 256gb) or just the basic (128gb) and an external HDD? It's a good $200 per addition and I'm not terribly rich, but I do like the look of the Z.

Thanks for any help!

 

You can basically multiply the amp-hour rating by the nominal battery voltage to get an estimate for the watt-hour energy capacity of the battery.

I think that most laptop batteries are 3x3.7V series-wired Li-Ion/Poly stacks (including the Vaio Z) with a nominal voltage of 11.1V, which is where he got those numbers. That's why most batteries come with 6 or 9 of the standard 18650 Li-Ion cells.

 

Did anyone come across this

http://discover.sonystyle.com/rocket/

 

Did u guys read the translation of the review (notebookreview german). Didn't know if you all knew this but the GT330M graphics card is underclocked in the Z to ~GT325 speed, so at stock speed you should see about 22% performance improvements, don't know about the temps tho.

2nd - The Z has very good heat management, according to the review the case temp never gets higher than 40 degrees celcius (thats on one end of the notebook), rest stays below ~30 degrees celcius.

Just for info >_>, and the review;
http://translate.google.com/transla...t-Sony-Vaio-VPCZ11X9E-B-Notebook.28202.0.html

 

why oh why oh why did sony put so much space in between the keys of the z?

 

Your figure is close. Actually the watt-hour and voltage are printed on the battery itself. The nominal voltage is 10.8v.

 

So far the only reason I can think of is: in addition to people getting chubby around their waists, they're also getting chubby fingers

 

Indeed. Seems absurd to me. I am a touch typist and find it very difficult to type fast without problems on the Z. That is one of its biggest shortcomings.

My only solace is that I intend primarily to use external keyboard.

 

yeah i definately noticed the underclock. cant seem to keep it stable under what the card should be clocked at but when i game i overclock it to 550-1210-775 which gets a 3dmark06 score of just under 7000marks at 1280X800

 

Anyone know if there's a keyboard skin/cover and a skin/hard case available for the new Z's?

 

I have:

Processor: 6.9
Memory: 6.9
Graphics: 6.3
Gaming: 6.4
Disk: 7.9

 

By default the 15" MBP comes with a 1440x900 screen. Selecting the 256GB SSD and 1680x1050 non-glare screen brings the cost to $2800-$3000 (depending on CPU). Not cheap!

 

Very true with respect to price. However, the good thing about these MBPs is that the buyer can buy it with the base HDD, then buy the SDD of his/her choice (elsewhere) & do a straight forward swap.

 

@rmcx, Thanks for the Windows Experience Index scores.

Has anyone overclocked the Nvidia GT330M yet? If you have, does your vaio z turn extremely hot or crashes down?
Thanks.

 

do you guys do back ups on a cd or external drive?

 

So here are my complaints after a month of use:

- Speakers are totally, utterly pathetic
- Lid gets scratched easily (PCF)
- Complete fingerprint magnet and grease is easily seen on keys - have to keep cleaning it
- Screen creaks
- I've gotten use to the horizontal lines on the screen but they're still annoying
- Keyboard marks are appearing on the screen now
- Wi-Fi and wireless stuff drops at times. It almost never automatically connects to any of my networks immediately like most other laptops I have used. I could just come out of Stand By, open Firefox, and bam! Not with this.
- Combo keys you have to use for PgUp and PgDn
- Automatic brightness setting is a pain, making the screen go bright and dim continuously. I always yell at the brightness to stay at the same level! But no, it wants to keep dimming and getting brighter 10 times within a minute and give me a headache.
- Battery life could be better, but it's okay
- No way (that I know of) to reassign the ASSIST key.
- The hardware graphics switch seems gimicky, since I usually keep it on Auto, but maybe it's different for other people.
- The vents on the left get extremely hot (though I guess that means it is doing its job), but sometimes it's unbearable and can't be kept on my lap

 

They are called chicklet-style keyboards.

Look at your normal, full sized keyboard.



The contact area is roughly the same size between full sized and chicklet keyboards. The idea is to increase typing accuracy by removing the bits you shouldn't hit. I prefer the chicklet style keyboards on laptops.

USB all the way, CD/DVD/BluRay are too slow. Alternatively, Gig Ethernet is the fastest since the Sony lacks USB 3.0.

 

i'm hoping they will upgrade the docking station in a year or 2, to include USB3. that would mean not having to buy a whole new laptop! (i only use externals at home).

having said that, there's already gigabit ethernet as zoinks mentions, though i don't know what the lineup of ethernet external HDDs is like atm.

on the MBP refresh, the new 13" MBP is clearly no competition for the Z, which is really quite strange. it's almost like a standard macbook. the lack of i5/i7 is bizarre.

 

Yes I know that...the point is that the chiclet on the S, SR, F, CW, EB etc is more tightly-spaced and therefore more usable. Quite why Sony strayed from this for the Z is a mystery.

 

AFAIK an issue with Intel 13.*.*.* series of drivers. It's new and buggy. Hopefully they fix it sooner than later.