I remember when this Sony Forum use to be a cool place to unwind.

:hi2:

Hey Guys,

Wassup! Remember me? Haven't posted in a long while since the downfall of the flagship Sony Vaio Z. I'm contemplating on a Z replacement. Any news when VAIO will launch in the U.S.

I miss this forum. It doesn't seem to have much activity anymore. Pretty sad to see things dwindle.

 

Sony never made another game changer like the Z. Worse, they abandoned the switchable hybrid graphics technology, leaving all their Z owners in the lurch; no new drivers; no support for newer versions of Windows. Finally, they sold off the VAIO division. We have very little to be cheery about, hence the doom and gloom vibes that you've picked up on.

There are several threads here about what to buy to replace our aging Zs. That should keep ypu busy for a while. I'm leaning towards the Razer Blade 14", but currently it is too expensive for me.

 

only problem with the razer blade 14 is that its 8GB max and for the crazy price you would of expected 16 or at least configurable.

Its a good laptop but no true Z replacement. Its somewhat larger and quite heavy compared to a Z almost double the weight. It also has a apple mac feel to it where as a SVZ13 carbon fiber special anniversary edition is just pure art, such an amazing machine. Its a sad day for mobile computing when Sony left the market and specially with the its last pro 13 incarnation and dropping the Z.


Not much left to say really .

 

It truly is sad about the Z's downfall. I remember a time when people use to anticipate the leaks of the Z iteration here at the Sony forum. I couldn't keep up with the vast postings. I see how things have slowed down. It's a shame Sony couldn't market the Vaio Z to a larger audience. I had to stop by as I was curious to see what's been happening here since I haven't been around in a while. I'm surprised I still remember my password. But then again, I was a fan of the Sony Forum. Hopefully VAIO, the new ownership, will bring life to this forum. And I shall return.

 

I'd have to say that the Vaio Z was one of the best notebooks Sony ever made, if not THE best, and I never even owned that model haha.

I am really going to miss Vaio. ;_;

 

Well. In the same boat as Geeee.

Had the VGN-Z for a good six years. It's puttering out now with the hard drive clicking, the graphics switch is stuck on nVidia (and it's overheating now to boot), optics drive seldom working, amongst other things.

There is no Z replacement in this day and age. There are laptops with similar form factors as the legendary Z, but as far as performance goes, nothing. Nada. Zilch. Form-factor and performance ratio wise, there was no beating the Z right now. Period.

I've bought an Intel NUC earlier this year (a D54250 miniature desktop which I've maxxed out), and as for a portable machine I thought I'd try a Toshiba Encore (an 8'' Windows tablet running full-fledged Windows 8.1, none of that RT mumbo-jumbo). I've benched the Encore and despite being fanless, and despite it running an Atom processor (a quadcore Z3740), that thing is faster than my VGN-Z's P8600 CPU. That's how far computing has come in 6 years. Too bad for me that the Encore has a soldered 32GB eMMC (slower SSD), and out of the box it has 10GB free despite every storage optimisation known under the sun...

So. I went out and bought a Vaio Tap 11 on sale. That's right. The fourth-to-last one in the entire country (from a chain of Sony stores) as I'm told. Reviews are okay for it, minus the build-quality issues (lol). Received and I was immediately disappointed:
- I daresay the thing is flimsy like no tomorrow
- The screen despite having decent reviews suffers from localised light bleeding (though only noticable with darker images)
- The opti-contrast panel as it is known in the Oceania region ripples with every touch, like my C6603 phone does.
- Had the processor 'buzz' at me once already*

Minus the buzzing, I admit the VGN-Z wasn't too differrent with respect to the above issues. Though the Tap 11 is probably going to replace my VGN-Z either way. I bought it to replace the Encore's dismal 10GB of usable space woes (that and, the Tap 11 uses mSATA drives so modifiable to boot; currently have stock 128GB). As for form-factor and performance though, I fear that I will never see a suitable replacement again, and the Tap 11 best meets my current-day needs. I've seen things like the Acer S7 which are epic slick machines (glass facade for example), but in terms of performance AND portability, the Z really set the bar.

Yeah. My two cents worth

*Will probably get it returned and get a refund if it ever buzzes me again in the next two or so weeks... The buzz happened during the first of many Windows updates so still burning the thing in.

EDIT - Sucks to see the forums here dwindling too. I remember the good ol' days when people were furiously trying to test Windows 7 on the VGN-Z (and were failing because of the lack of a BIOS update with respect to the hybrid graphics). Good times.

 

Problem is - we've hit a wall with hybrid graphics drivers for the VGN-Z and VPCZ1 family. The drivers we have now are the latest ones that work. OK, they're are a lot better than the stock drivers provided by Sony, but all that can be done has already been done. There's been nothing new for years now. Newer drivers simply can't be modded for our switchable hybrid graphics.

We get a little flurry of activity when a new OS is released and we try to figure out how best to install the drivers, but that's about all. I guess one of these days I too will bite the bullet and install the BIOS hack (that's available for the VPCZ1). That will let me install newer drivers, but then I'll have to reboot each time I wish to change the graphics mode (flip the mode switch and reboot).

I'm keeping my fingers crossed we'll at least be able to use our modded drivers on Windows 10 (haven't tried the preview; waiting for the full release). We got no help from Sony for Windows 8 or 8.1, so their demise is no big loss for us.

 

I had been resisting the BIOS hack for a long time now SInce I had to figure out a way to make Cinema 4D R16 to work on an i5 VPC-Z13 and went through the whole hack Thing I am confident that this is a good way. I can perfectly work most of the time on the Intel vga ,using the newest Driver If neccessary it is not such a big thing to reboot since I have a i7/quad ssd VPC-Z1. Then I know I have the newest available nVidia Driver and eveything works fine, as far as the 300M allows for it

Unfortunately the Support policy of Sony Vaio has always been a pain and could be partly overcome by getting a newer model. Now we can Keep our Z1's allive as Long as they suit our Needs Personally I even Keep my SR1K alive for simple Tasks, and that machine is about 15 years old or so

Timiboy

 

Hey Rahul, I remember your avatar and your contribution to the Sony Vaio Z forum. Just like old times. I'm hoping one day Sony can revive their computer/laptop market and reinvent itself. Laptops are still a way of life for business people.