My current experience with TZ150

I've decided to get this baby. I've had it for a week now; I've got another week before I can't return it for refund, so I'm putting it to lots of stress, just to make sure it's the right one. So far, I'm not disappointed, but not happy about it either.

The best thing about it is its freaking design. Damn it's purty. And that's about the only good thing I can say about it, though I do appreciate its crystal clear screen, but I'm not all that concerned about resolutions on a laptop. My toshiba sucks compared to TZ in resolution, but I honestly don't really notice it after a while. Even for movies, after half hour or so, I get used to Toshiba's inferior resolution and then it's really a wash between the two.

Now the bad, which are many. First, it's sloooow. However, given that I got this for school and travel, it's not a dealbreaker. What's a dealbreaker (almost) is the 5 min long start time. That's just unacceptable, and this is after I removed tons of crapwares. (here's a finger to Sony. I've never f**king seen so many crapware on one computer!) I didn't do a clean install, because too many people seemed to have gotten it wrong and got messed up. Instead, I did the George Ou cleanup, which worked reasonably well, and cut about 3 min off the start time, which still gave me 5 min startup time and that ain't right.

Another thing is that HD dvd playback is wonky. I have powerdvd and gom, and since I got 100 gig hd, I might as well as put it to use, given that games are kinda useless on it. So I ripped dvds and then played them back... The playback was distinctly slow, sometimes becoming a slideshow. What's up with that?! At the very least, I should be able to watch a movie without having to lug around dvds! But this doesn't happen all the time. Only sometimes. Sometimes, the dvds play fine; at other times, not so. Drives me bat insane.

BTW, I have Vista business, and I don't plan on getting XP on it. Vista's been working fine so far and I really like the improvements over XP, despite vista's reputation as being unstable.

The one game I did put in was Civ 4 Warlords, and it played fine. Thank god it did. Civ4 actually didn't play all that well on my Toshiba, so I was apprehensive about TZ, but TZ handled it with aplomb. The next game I'm gonna try is black and white 2. I don't really play shooters on computers anyway (that's why I got a PS2), so if TZ can handle strategy games, then I'm all good.

One thing about vista that bugs me is the crappy bootup, where I get annoying white stripe on the gadget section sometimes, instead of the desktop theme covering the whole screen. So my default theme of Spiderman 3 would have its right 1/8 of the screen a white bar, with my two gadgets on top (speedometer and the clock). Then I have to restart to get rid of the white, and since startup takes so long, it's a major annoyance.

I've not really tested my Office yet, and I need to. Need to get the powerpoint up and see how it fares, because I might decide to return it.

So far I'm on the edge. I really like its look, but that's about it. That it's not even the lightest notebook on the market sorta takes away the other factor I like about it. Oh well, I got another week before I need to return it.

 

If you don't plan on installing xp then I'm afraid you are stuck with the slowness of vista.

If you don't have 2gb, you should at least upgrade the memory.

 

What type of drive is in there? Is it the 4,200 RPM? If it is, you should return it & get one with a 5,400 RPM drive. When I got my Vaio S-170 a couple of years ago, it came with a 4,200 drive and it was painfully slow. I swapped out the drive for a 7,200 RPM and the difference was night & day.

 

Maybe you can return it and pay some more to get the SSD + 2GB version and it should rock as current owners say:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=130621

 

Some replies:

1) I don't have an unlimited budget. TZ150 is already breaking my bank; SSD imported from Japan would be too expensive, and I'm not sure if I like swapping the dvd drive for another HD.

2) My HD is 4200. I have not seen a 5400 HD offered in the US. In fact, I don't think it's possible to have a 5400 HD, because of the size difference .

3) I do have 2gb memory.

 

I'm surprised our seeing such long start times.
Mine certainly isn't 5 mnutes, and all I've done was remove the crap ware fairly thoroughly and install 2GB's. But even before installing the extra memory it wasn't that bad. With all the crap along with Norton and Spy sweeper installed performance was hideous, ad I'm sure the 4200 rpm HD isn'y helping this.

Sony is really hurting itself with the crap they are installing.

I've been mildly impressed with the performance in Vista, and for the most part I run in power saver mode, the only thing I've really disliked about it is the excessive time it takes to connect to a wireless network when first powered on.

Build qualitywise it's not an IBM, but it doesn't seem bad and it is pretty, other than that, my gripes are mostly minor the memory card slots are slow, and the fingrprint scanner seems to ignore me swiping my finder over it, but notice everytime I brush against it.

 

Antisocrates,

have you tried a clean install of Vista? edit: ok you did not.

Have you tried switching Aero off?

Also someone says that SP1 beta for Vista greatly improves performance. I only heard this from 1 source though.

 

Um, maybe that's your problem! You're legally blind!

 

Phil,

Would turning off Aero make a difference in terms of startup speed? So far, I'm ok with Vista once it's on. Nothing's been slow as to make me wanna chuck it, though ripped dvd playback does slow down a lot sometimes. Of course, once I start experimenting with Office, I may see see vista slow down to a crawl. I really, really needs to install my office on TZ.

My main problem so far is the interminable startup. I've pretty much removed everything with autorun, except drivers, and I don't know enough about computers to feel safe removing drivers. I've read of people who got the blue screen of death after removing too many things with autorun.

ubercool,

I think I am legally blind.

 

Without the SSD, you'll cringe at using PowerPoint 2007, it's pig-in-a-poke slow.

 

I've removed spysweeper and Nortcrap too, along with most of the things that show up under autorun. Actually, when I get home, I'll run autorun again and post the rest of the stuff that's still enabled. Maybe you can tell me which of the remaining crap I can further remove.

However, I do run zonealarm, but it shouldn't make that big a difference. I mean, it doesn't on my Toshiba. Maybe it's different for vista.

On buildwise, wow, IBM has better quality? I thought Sony had better quality for flagship products, and TZ is Sony's flagship. I mean, I'm pretty impressed with my TZ, but then TZ is the most high-end laptop I've ever bought. I've decided that buying crap laptop ($1200 - $1600) is just not worth it. Maybe I should look at IBM instead. Any ultraportable IBM for $2500 (not including tax and warranty) that's better than TZ?

I'm hoping my $2500 TZ (not including warranty) will last me a while. That's why I'm still debating between TZ and R500; R500 seems it won't be so quickly obsolete as TZ in terms of performance. I mean, performance-wise, TZ is already close to the bottom for a laptop, with slowpoke processor, old graphics card, etc., etc.

 

How do you switch off Aero?

 

Let me rephrase that: The TZ you ordered, with the 4200 rpm HDD, and with the OS you are running, is a slowpoke

 

To turn off Aero:

1. Right-click the Windows desktop and select Personalize > Window Color and Appearance.

2. Click Open classic appearance properties for more color options.

3. In the Color scheme drop-down box, choose Windows Vista Basic or Windows Vista Standard, and click OK. Aero will now be turned off.

 

Sure I'll take a look later.
But I don't think I removed anything that wasn't obvious, I did also disable a few unused bits of Vista.

Thinkpads are pretty ugly looking units, but you really can't beat the build quality. I'd bet money on my old T41 thinkpad surviving a 3 ft fall, I'm not sure I'd say the same about the TZ. I don't like the 4x3 form factor on the X41s or I'd own on of those.

 

Most of IBM's notebooks are built to be able to handle some rough handling.

Also, the TZ is not Sony's best built laptop. That honour goes to their business targeted notebook: the Sony VAIO G.

 

Heh.

I think the prob's also with the processor. I noticed on dynamism that all their models offered u7600, whereas mine's u7500-- 1.2 vs. 1.06 mhz I think.

Basically, I think sony usa's screwing over their american customers.

 

I'm gonna be keeping my tz after all. I'm on biz right now, which will take me over the 2 wk trial period, so it'll have to be a keeper.

Nanaki,

Damn vaio g looks nice. It's too much of a slowpoke for me (solo, 1.5 gb memory, no dvd drive, etc), but it's a very nice design though.

 

The Core Solo 1.3 GHz is what gives it its great battery life to weight ratio.

You can also have 2 GB of memory and there is an option to have a DVD drive.

It's a well thought out business notebook. Any decent looking notebook that is rated to survive a 72 cm drop while on and 90 cm drop while off has to be well designed. My only dislike of it is its 4:3 ratio.