New S Series?

There's allegedly a new S series released in Japan. What's new? The GPU finally got upgraded to the NV 6400 which is equivalent to an X600, but it still retains 32 MB dedicated and 96 MB shared. There's also a new cooling system to accomodate this change.

http://www.jp.sonystyle.com/Style-a/Product/S/index.html

 

You can go to 256 MB total with NV 6400, but I am not sure if it is 64+192 or 32+224...

 

True, but the site says 128 MB total. At best, that's 64 + 64, but I'm leaning more towards the 32. At this rate, the new 14" BX series is looking pretty good with the X700 (which is equivalent to a 6600). Hopefully it's still very portable.

 

You are right, the 256MB version is still not available for order in jp.sonystyle, even though vaio.sony.co.jp says you can do it. Oh well. I am more interested in the fan anyway. It looks like it's just of a different shape. I wonder if it could be retrofitted to older S.

The 14.1" BX90 weighs (including standard battery) 2.3 kg with weight saver and 2.5 kg with optical drive, so it's about 5.5 lb. Pretty heavy compared to Sony's own Z1 or B and some other Toshiba models, but I guess it's not too bad against the cheap HP/Compaq 14.1" wides, especially with X700 inside.

 

It says the 6400 will run with 256 if you have 1 gig or more, not sure how much dedicated memory it has i hope 32, since it would be a really nice firmware flash for us

 

Where did you catch the 2.3/2.5 kg figure? I've been looking everywhere for that.

2.5 kg is 5.5 lbs, and the old B series was already 5 lbs. with the battery, so it's not a bad increase in weight given that it has a very powerful card for its size.

 

http://www.vaio.sony.co.jp/Products/VGN-BX90PS/spec_ownermade.html

Way, way down in the bottom.

Notice that there is only 14.1" BX available in Japan.

I personally think BX is not very stylish, somehow reminding me of HP DV1000/4000 series look.

I think TX is the best in the line-up and the new S earns a solid 2nd place.
:sony:

 

In terms of looks I'm assuming? (The BX will tromp both in gaming)

It definitely does remind me of that HP DV1000 look. I don't really have much preference between the various designs as long as it isn't (Dell) ugly.

 

I was thinking in terms of a product that shows a strong overall competitive edge over other products in its category, style included. I don't think BX is that strong a contender, even in gaming -- there are a couple 15.4" with X700 out there already.

Style alone, BX is just not attractive to me.

 

I don't know if it's really fair to compare it to a 15.4" system, especially since there a ton of those out there, and it's not an engineering feat at all to stick in a decent graphics solution. It's when you get down into the smaller "thin and light" and "ultraportable" range (13" & 14") that things start to get interesting. Even right now, there are still few 14" laptops that have any dedicated graphics solution (IBM T43 and that HP business laptop are the only ones that pop up to mind) and those that do have been restricted to an X300/6200 or maybe an X600 in the best case scenario. Sony broke the mold last year by sticking in a 9700 in its S series, and it's doing the same thing now with the X700 in the BX. Maybe not breakthrough perse, but it's clearly ahead of the game.

I myself was very, very close to getting an S series last year, but I desired a better graphics card and a slightly bigger and higher-res screen for post-processing large photos, exactly what the BX is offering.

Edit: I stand corrected. There's the Tecra M3 which is a 14" laptop with an underclocked 6600. That said, it's gotten very low marks in many reviews (both professional and user) that quoted poor/cheap construction, so-so battery life, and so-so performance.

 

Well, since BX is going to be sold in US in multiple form factors, I don't think it's unfair to compare it against other 15.4" or 17" laptops as long as I am comparing the 15.4" and 17" BX to them. In that ground, I see a decent design, but I don't see too any "wow" factors.

For the 14" BX, the X700 is definitely a "wow", but that's it. Every other feature is oriented to business needs and all of them are "me-too" really. With the below-par weight (compared to other 14.1" Japanese business laptops, such as Toshiba Dynabook SS LX), it makes you wonder what this machine really has to offer that fits the business needs and is not there in other machines.

From this perspective, BX is not a really strong contender in this somewhat crowded area. The X700 set it apart, but the fact remains that X700 is an overkill for business and it is entirely possible that the X700 is underclocked in someway or limited by a under-powered fan that fits the business demand for quietness. Basically, the business features that are useless to gaming are dragging down the potential of BX to be the best mobile gaming machine and if Sony put a lot of effort into these business me-too features, they may also put in some effort behind what we see now that will degrade the performance further.

For me, I don't think BX is in anyway a very strong design for its purpose (which is not gaming). For gaming, I will reserve my verdict till the actual benchmark and user experiences come out. Maybe Sony has worked some magic in BX's fan just like they did with the new S and people can release the full power of X700, who knows?

 

That's all I've been comparing all along. The 15.4" model is actually lower end in price and build, and the 17" version is merely average apart from the screen which I'm assuming is the same as the A series one.

Alas, it's a business notebook, and that may have some net effect either on performance, price, or both. If Sony offered a consumer laptop with the same specs, I'd definitely go for that, but they don't. The 14" model has always seemed to be reserved for their business line.

It's worth nothing that HP has been doing essentially the same thing for years, and non-business users have been buying those models in droves, citing the better build quality (when compared to consumer models), decent graphics, and fitting form factor. As far as I know, HP never "dumbed down" the performance of these machines.

I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. So far, I haven't seen Sony noticeably underclock the GPU's in its computers unlike a certain T company. They simply go for lower and provide that model at full capacity.