Does the new SZ4xx have same keyboard as SZ3XX?

I assume that the keyboard is unchanged but can someone please confirm? Did the keyboard on the SZ3xx series carry over to the SZ4xx without any improvements? Thanks.

 

Yes, I believe so. The only difference in the new series is the name and Vista preinstalled. Someone can correct me if I am wrong.

 

what seems to be the problem?

 

It's funny you just asked that. I just unboxed my SZ450 from Amazon and I could swear the keyboard is significantly "firmer" than the 340 I just returned to Sony. The key travel is the same, it looks the same, but the whole keyboard itself seems to flex a whole lot less. It even seems a little quieter although not a lot.

I fully admit this could be my mind playing tricks on me since I just spent a little more money (not much with he $150 Amazon rebate) on the Premium model, but it was the very first thing I noticed.

Other stuff, there seems to be some extra padding or something in the battery compartment. Could have been on the 340, but I didn't notice it. My Winodws experience on Vista is a 3.3 (due to lowish score for the Go7400 card.) The others are in the high 4's. FWIW, the 7400 card only shows up as 64MB dedicated memory. IS that right?? I thought we had 128MB and the rest shared!

Finally the LED screen is way cooler and actually stronger. With the magnesium screen I could see the finger prints on the LCD if a pressed a little firmly on the top. Not so with the carbon fiber.

cgardnerma

 

ch28kid - the problem is that the keyboard has a very mushy feel to it and is somewhat loud.

cgardnerma - thanks for the update! I'd be interested to hear if others feel the keyboard is somewhat improved. I too had a SZ340 or 330? and returned it. I would consider the SZ340 if the keyboard is better. I had a couple questions:

Do you think the premium is worth the price?

Is 3.3 really that low of a vista score? How does it run?

Are the fans any quieter? My 330/340 was pretty loud.

Thanks!

 

I do think the Premium is worth the price. I really like the LED screen and the lighter weight. I figure I am going to have this for 2-3 years, so I am worth it, dammit.

Vista runs perfectly. I don't see any hint of lag and it is running with all the goodies on (with NVidia card). I have not tested with Intel card yet.

Fans seem the same, but they never bothered me. It is audible on high, but mostly seems to run on the lower speed--even with the faster card going.

Finally, I think we have all been duped by marketing sleight of hand on the real amount of dedicated memory on the 7400 card. It is 64MB. I suspect is had always been so. Sony is vaguein their specs and almost everyone on the net says 128MB dedicated, but I can't find anything more definitive than th Vista utility. I'll keep looking.

 

Cgardnerma
Is your PC a carbon meaning you have that mesh grill like cover for the LCD housing? I think there are two types of LCD screen cover. One is ugly hazy lookin black cover and the other is a bit shiny cover that has woven cloth like shade. If you have the shiny carbon cover how do you like yours? Do you think it's worth a extra cost?

 

• Office productivity. If you use your computer almost exclusively for office productivity experiences, such as word processing, spreadsheets, e‑mail, and web browsing, then high subscores in the CPU and memory categories are important. Subscores of 2.0 or higher are usually sufficient in the hard disk, desktop graphics, and 3‑D graphics categories.

• Gaming and graphic-intensive programs. If you use your computer for games or programs that are graphic-intensive, such as digital video editing applications or realistic first-person games, then high subscores in the RAM, desktop graphics, and 3‑D gaming graphics categories are important. Subscores of 3.0 or higher are usually sufficient in the CPU and hard disk categories.

• Media Center experience. If you use your computer as a media center for advanced multimedia experiences such as recording HDTV programming, then high subscores in the CPU, hard disk, and desktop graphics categories are important. Subscores of 3.0 or higher are usually sufficient in the memory and 3‑D graphics categories.

 

There are two types of Carbon fiber lids for the SZ. Mine has the standard carbon fiber lid which looks more like painted plastic. If you look very, very closely, you can see the underlying diagonal weave, but mostly it looks like plastic. I do think it is worth the extra cost for a couple reasons:

1) The screen itself is different. The backlight is LED-based instead of fluorescent. It is more evenly lit, brighter and has better color balance. It also uses less power.

2) The screen is much thinner which makes the whole notebook thinner.

3) The whole notebook is .4lbs lighter because of the carbon fiber case.

I traded in my 340 to get these upgrades.

cg

 

You are totally not crazy. The keyboard on my SZ340 was TERRIBLE compared to the keyboard on my SZ360. Something seems amiss with Sony's CTO models.

 

Cgardnerma.
I do understand that there are two types of carbon lids. I was eyeing on the other lid type, the one tht looks a bit more fancy, shiny, bluesih woven like material coated with clearcoat paint. I was going to go with the LCD type screen anyway.

The reason I asked you is that the lid type I mentioned cost a lot more than the the lid that looks like typical plastic. It does look nice but a a cost of $400 -$500 more than the other (and they are equipped better spec than the rest). That's why I don't know if it's worth a cost of getting the fancy carbon lid. Because I like the lid I'm even thinking about getting the older version of SZ carbon lid.