Considering Sony Z, comments, suggestions?

by torch, you mean overheat? I'm only asking because I had an M11x and it could game for two hours of Bad Company 2 without a problem.

 

No I mean you can just drain it quickly. BFBC2 get's 1.5-2 hours on my Z.

 

Ok, that's good to know.

 

Alright, I'm going to make a trip to MicroCenter this week and check out a Z for myself. Maybe I'll be convinced and just get it. My biggest problem is that I would prefer a larger display. 13.1" is small if I'm going to be using it a decent amount, compared with the Envy's 14.5".

 

I've had notebooks/netbooks from 10 to 17."

From what I experienced 15 to 17 is way to large and you probably won't taking it many place.

11-13 is about right, 14 might be a bit too big.

 

You could always hook it up to a larger display when it's on your desk. I'm with blue13x. I think a smaller screen laptop is the way to go, because it is portable. The size and weight of the Z are a significant advantage over the Envy 14, imho.

 

FYI the $1699 price is only good until today.

BTW, purchasing the Z you qualify for a $300 trade in from any old laptops 2ghz or up, making the Z almost a no brainer. See the thread by travfar for trade in details and tips on trader procurement.

 

I use a 15" right now and like the size, but 13" isn't too bad.

That's the thing, is it won't be on my desk, in my kitchen mainly when it's home. My den is in my finished basement, but I'm watching the kids all day every day, and don't let them downstairs to often, so need a place to compute...

Where do you see the $1699 is only good through today? That sucks, well I won't have funds together until about July 14, so Envy 14 may be my only option. Plus I don't have an old laptop to trade in. My current one is worth ~ $900 resale.

 

It was on the price tag, said 7/4. Who knows, comes tomorrow it might magically get pushed up.

As for the trade, you look for used P4 2ghz for ~$50 on CL or eBay. I've already secured a fully functional Dell 9100 2.8ghz for $50, lucked out on CL this afternoon.

 

It'll be 1699 again tomorrow and all of July.

 

MicroCenter runs their ads every two weeks, and I rarely see prices go back up, unless it's a rock bottom deal. I think the $200 off is just an advertising ploy.

Either way I'll try to get my butt over to MC and check it out. Will probably have to drag my kids with me, but they like to get out and see different things. Mall is right next door so I can take them there to play on the indoor playset. Too damn hot out right now.

As far as $300 off, probably really about $230 or less off (after buying the laptop, shipping and fees, etc) so about same as MicroCenter and don't have to worry about buying and shipping in a laptop. My biggest concern is size of the SSD. 128GB is a little tight for me. 256 would be best, but that's another $300. And doesn't seem like sony offers any coupons or Bing Cashback incentives or anything either.

And where do you see $300 for any laptop with CPU 2GHz and up? I did one at the sony trade-in program and it only showed me trade-in value of about $70.

 

The z122 is a good deal. The $200 off is not a ploy, micro center tends to stick with their sale items for some time.

I have z112 and the 128gb is good once I killed the recovery partition, disabled paging file and disabled hibernation. After installing office and the ~10 other Programs I use for work I had about 80 gb left. I have a 64gb expresscard ssd just in case.

 

My thing is that I plan to game on this with a handful of games: Battlefield 2, Bad Company 2, C&C Generals, Civilization 4/5, Sins of a Solar Empire, Starcraft 2, and a few games on and off that are single player mainly: Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, etc. That's probably a good 40GB right there. I just wish you could use a regular SSD. I'd start with 128GB and six months to a year down the road maybe throw in a larger SSD. I doubt I'll be able to get the 256GB as a $300 part in six months.

I would probably kill hibernation, but keep paging file to 2GB, and limit system restore to 2GB. So you're looking at probably a good 40GB for Win 7 + apps + system management files + 30GB for music, photos, videos + 50GB or more for games. Kinda tight...

 

I have bfbc2 and aa3 on there now. With my 7gb outlook ost file I have about 58 gb free.

Word is the drives in the new z12 series may be replaceable as they've at least ditched the custom physical connectio.

 

So it's standard SATA II?, but what about size? Will a standard 2.5" SSD fit?

 

I know money was a consideration, but if you can wing a few more hundred dollars the VPCZ124GX/B (ie 256 sdd)+bing cashback is currently 1979 at Tigerdirect, with free shipping and lots of states where they don't charge sales tax.

 

Hmm, didn't realize they were selling at TigerDirect. Has TD ever done anything greater than the current 12% BCB? I know BCB is only in effect for another three weeks or so, maybe I'll just wait and see if anything stellar comes along. If it goes to 20% then it can be had for about $1800. Then it might be a definite deal breaker. Of course if Envy 14 goes to 25% HP Direct BCB, I can get 256GB SSD with i5-520m for $1360. Guess I just hold out and wait to see.

Tax is 6% in my state unfortunately, and charged at HP, not sure if tax is charged at Tiger Direct.

 

They apparently charge tax in FL, IL, NC, TX, GA, SD and ID.

 

Most states have Use Tax, i.e. if you don't pay sales tax because of purchasing from outside your state, you have to pay a use tax identical to your local sales tax to your local state. Not paying this is tax fraud, and subject to fines, audits and punitive taxes. Some states have started cracking down on this, requesting lists of purchasers in their state from large internet vendors, and then nailing people who did not declare use tax.
So unless you live somewhere without sales tax (like New Hampshire), this is a bad idea.

 

Yes, but it's a micro SATA connector (as in 1.8" drives). I'm not sure if this is a change from the Z11 to Z12. I opened up my Z, it has dual micro SATA going into the sandwiched 64GB SSDs. It *looks* like I can rip apart my 1.8" Intel SSD to put it in there, but since it's most likely a one way trip taking out the 1.8" SSD from its enclosure (destroying the enclosure) I didn't try it. This is unlike the drive Zoinks showed from his teardown pics. Don't know if this is a running change from Z11 to Z12, or just the kind of SSD Sony puts into the Z based on the SSD configuration (128/192/256/384/512GB).

All it is is a cable change - the connector going into the mobo is the same. The two connectors going into the physical drives are hanging off the other end of that cable.

Regarding the trade-in, you can buy the Z from anywhere and still get the $300 trade in value. What you do is buy the Z (must be an authorized source naturally), go to the Sony site and get an estimate (from what I gather it's always $300 as long as it's 2ghz or up). Fax your sales receipt of your Z to Sony, they ship you a label to mail your trade in. In 6-8 weeks you get your check for $300. Read the thread by Travfar for more details.

Again, you pickup any used P4 2ghz laptops to get this trade "rebate". It does have to be functional. I'm picking mine up in a little bit for $50. So after the trade in my Z is $1500 after tax and the $50 spent on the trader.

 

yeah you're right, it's still showing 1699 on the website. I guess it might be different on the Macs. When they advertise a sale on a mac, they don't kid - after the sale date it always goes back to MSRP. I guess it might be an Apple thing - no one is allowed to discount a Mac..

I just remember I snapped a pic of the price tag at MC. What was funny is I went to MC that day to see an open box MBP. It got sold before I arrived. As I was walking out something caught my eye, it was the Z sitting there at the end of the aisle by the exit LOL. So glad it caught my eye.

 

Wow, that's good to know. I never would have known that, based on the complete lack of information we are provided about it. Does that mean I should declare use tax on all my amazon purchases?

 

With my state income taxes, I believe there is an option to accept the standard use tax or itemize them. I think the standard tax is only like $30 or something like that. I just choose that because I spend a decent amount online every year.

 

I hope there's something like that for us too, considering I'd be up for almost 1k in use tax as I travel a reasonable amount and buy a reasonable amount online too. I wonder whether we can claim back the amount we were taxed over our local tax rate when in other states. Think you're going to wait a bit to see if bcb brings back the HP 25%?

 

It depends on the state. In some states, purchases under a certain amount are excempt, and in some, you can choose to pay a fixed sum instead of itemizing, unless your total exceeds a certain amount (i.e. you can't buy a luxury car in Delaware to avoid the sales tax, and then just pay the small fixed sum).
If you use a tax program for doing your state taxes, it will normally take you through this.

Where I live in CT, I believe we have to add up all out-of-state purchases above $250, and pay 6% use tax. If having paid sales tax to a different state, we have to pay (or deduct) the difference between that tax and 6%.
And the lucky guys up in New Hampshire pay neither sales tax nor use tax.

 

Yeah, here in TN sales tax on cars are factored in when/where you register your vehicle. I looked it up after you mentioned it, and I think we're meant to submit a separate form for every purchase we make per date. Considering I purchase digital music every couple of days, I'm sure the TN taxation office doesn't want 180+ forms for 89c each, but thanks for the heads up, I'll definitely declare larger things like groceries and a sony z

 

Groceries are usually exempt from sales and use tax

Anyhow, a separate form per purchase? That sucks -- at least we get away with paying it in one shot in April up here, and only for the "larger" purchases.

Hmm, we usually have a sales tax free week every year. I wonder whether that applies to use tax too?

 

Not in TN, groceries have 5.5% sales tax (as opposed to 9.25% general sales tax). On the website, it says that, per form, we have to include "a description of the purchase, price of purchase, and the date of purchase" so I guess that means a separate form per purchase. I live right on the border between TN and the neighbouring state, and for most things it's significantly closer to go to the next state to purchase items, never even thought about the tax issue. We have a tax free weekend for school stuff, computers and clothing, but computer purchases over 1500 don't qualify.

 

I'm sure most states are like mine in that they have a standard use tax that you can just choose because not everyone can keep track of all their internet purchases. As long as they get the standard use tax from everyone they're fine. If you want to pay less, either choose none or itemize. If you buy a large item, then best to claim it although, most states don't have the resources to track this. Way too much. Other than a car or $10000 TV, I'd just take the standard use tax. Either they need to find a better way (like always charge sales tax at all online sites) or leave us alone.

Now can we get back on topic please? Thanks.

I looked and toyed with a Sony Z12 today. Very nice machine, so friggin light. Granted the display models had the battery removed. Very nice design and overall quality. I increased screen brightness to max and it didn't look real impressive though.

But I got extra excited because it had a big price advertised right next to it for the Sony Z $1424.00. I was ready to buy it right there (although I didn't have the money). Then I saw on the price on the sticker that said it was for a Z11, but the ones on display were Z12's (as indicated on bottom of machine). I inquired about the machine and said I'm interested at $1424.00. He said hold on, went away, came back and said it's $1699. If I had the money ready I was going to make a fuss about it, false advertising, etc. and try to get the price, and then do the $300 off with a laptop trade-in. Heck even $200 off would have made it a complete steal. But alas, I had an empty wallet and no credit card... sigh. Not that I would have gotten it anyhow, but it would have been worth a shot. Instead I walked out with a tube of ICD7. lol.

 

The auto brightness is probably still on. When you crank up to 100% with auto brightness on, that doesn't mean it'll go to 100% brightness. You gotta go to Vaio Control Center to turn it off (can be assigned to one of the top keys, very handy), it will show you the exact percentage the current screen brightness level.

Someone started a thread. Supposedly 100% is not really 100% (which is plenty bright, it scorches my eyes right now over 66%). With a registry key change it goes even brighter.

 

Thanks for all the help guys.

I just ended up ordering an Envy 14 with i5-520m, 4GB DDR3, HD 5650, 1600x900 14.5" screen, 256GB SSD for ~ $1300 shipped after 30% HP Bing Cashback promotion going on today.

 

Congratz and enjoy. I've been following the Bing cashback promotion conversation in the Envy 14 thread today. A crazy whirlwind of posts, but I guess in keeping with the rest of that thread.

 

Yeah I ordered one too, and I'll really think about it now (will cancel if I change my mind). The 15's crippled CPU on battery and the constantly delayed HP orders really left a bad taste in my mouth, when they tie up your funds for the whole month and still no computer. I just canceled the TM2t after the long delays, better off I guess, I played with the tm2 at Microcenter and it felt cheap.

I've order 10's of thousands dollars of equipment from Dell in the past 3 years for work and person use. Delayed order was very rare (I really don't recall any). Dell doesn't charge until they ship. HP charges you immediately the moment you hit the submit button, and my 2 out of 3 orders with HP so far were seriously delayed. See a pattern here? Coincidence?

In all likelihood I'll be canceling the order, but at least I'm locked in with the 30% BCB now.

 

30% BCB is a great deal. Envy 15 is just such a tank and the screen looks positively ridiculous (oversaturation/overcontrast). With the battery slice on I swear it feels like a 20" notebook.