New SZ-series wont be out before March

As far as I heard from Sony the SZ-series which will replace the current S5-models wont be released before March - at least in Europe. Sony plans to announce it officially at Cebit 2006 in Hannovre. First sample will be shown at an Intel-event in Munich later in January. The SZ-series is said to have an more advanced cooling system so that the notebooks should make less noise. (Unfortunately that's what they also said when they introduced the las t s-refresh, but we can hope).

 

Well the cat is outta the bag already. Sony has already announced it at CES 2006. The SZ has longer battery life (7hrs), fingerprint sensor, carbon fiber casing (premium version)...Much more than a series S refresh

 

Well I would love to see it before. Still, press people keep saying here in Germany it wont be shipping before March...

 

There will be two versions of it: the standard model which will be available late feb 2006 and the premium model which will be available late April 2006. So start saving for this baby...
*drools*

and you can see it here
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=36252

 

the 7 hr batt life is sreally something to be proud of. prob due to the new dual core implementation
Let's just say actual test will be about 5+ hrs which is really commendable already for such a power machine.

 

Sony US website says we can place order to purchase SZ on 1/17/2006.

 

You can order the premium models without WAN on Jan 17th. The premium models with the Cingular WAN won't be available till April though.

LINK

I was about to purchase the TX651 this week but after seeing this I'm thinking about ordering the SZ premium on the 17th.

 

Interesting. What else to do know (other than Sony website positives) about this machine?

 

The SZ premium model will have a carbon-fiber casing similar to the TX series, weighs 3.8 lbs, will be about .9 inches thick, and will feature a thin LCD panel with white LED backlighting which I think is similar to the TX series as well.

I won't make my decision to purchase it until I can see it firsthand at a sony store but I'm hoping it will be between the TX and S series in size, providing a good tradeoff between the portability of the TX series with the power of the S series.

 

does anyone know what it'll have graphics card-wise?

 

Nvidia GeForce Go 7400. Same as the FE series.

No benchmarks have been released yet, but I would place its performance roughly around that of a GF Go 6600 or ATI X700, probably a little less.

 

How much dedicated ram does that graphics card have? I read of the option of using integrated graphics (for optimal battery consumption) and using an 'external graphics' processor for more graphics intensive work. Not sure how that 'external' card will work though...somehow connected to the machine physically?

 

Both video cards will be internal, with one using the integrated intel video that uses slower system memory and less power and the other a powerful video card with its faster dedicated memory (not system memory) like that found in the S series now. I think the specs list the cards will have 128mb of memory.

 

We have info and pictures of this in the news section too.