New Sony VAIO X Series Announced

I read that today and I nearly fell off my chair laughing. Who in their right mind would send that much money on an Atom? I might as well buy an SR or a P!

 

Somebody who only do work with office, IE, msn, skype...and need a machine that is very light, thin and have great battery life

maybe that kinda people?

 

Oooo, Office, IE, MSN, Skpe... all that together with Aero on might be too much for the X.

What I mean is there is no use producing a super thin laptop when performance is severely compromised. The balance at the moment is tilted way towards thin-ness.

 

To be honest, i think this vaio X is neither here nor there.

1. the design is not "groundbreaking"
2. the price is overwhelming. I bet you can get a cheap vaio Z + vaio P with the price! 2 for the price of 1
3. if the CPU is made of CULV ... i think this would be in a class of its own, with the ability to command a premium price.

but as of now, i say meh

 

I could not care less about performance. As long as I can write in Word and listen to some music, and do that for 15 hours with a machine which weights 1kg, Im sold.

I dont mind the smaller keyboard. I actually prefer a smaller keyboard - then I dont have to move my palms, just my fingers.

So yeah, for a writer it probably is the perfect machine.

I also asked the reviewer from PCpro how the fan works. He basically said, its off, unless you do benchmarking or some 2D gaming. So its a totally quiet machine, which is awesome.

So, heavenly_wild, can you suggest a cheaper machine that can do this?

 

Why would anybody use Aero anyway, its a very useless feature, IMO. I've turned it off ages ago.

I dont know how old are you, but in 2003 computers were pretty much worst than this Atom and we still managed to used them for daily work, we even played games. 2003 i said because of office 2003

 

I was/am very interested in the X. It's going to cost me £1700 if I go for the top model. However, what is putting me off is not the price (as obscene as it is), it's the fact that it struggles to run Windows 7 out the box. If it's going to struggle with the OS, how will it cope with OS & a few apps running?

I am hoping the SSD will 'assist' the CPU in some way with the sheer speed advantage it has over standard HDD's. But the PC Pro review clearly states that in order for the X to run anywhere near an acceptable level then the graphical features (Aero) needs to be disabled!

I'm prepared to make a few sacrifices for such a small machine but I don't think I'm ready to accept dire performance from day 1. I'm going to wait for a few more reviews....

 

Is AERO really that usefull, that you need it ON? If yes..why, because I have it turned off and I dont know what i am missing...

 

No, I don't consider it useful, but it's a shame to have to disable things on a brand new machine in order to get it to run properly. I've only ever had to do that with old hardware! It goes back to what I was saying about sacrifices though, but it's one that can easily be made as it makes no functional difference.

 

i got my laptop in 2003. it ran centrino platform already, which is faster than Atom.
and the programs that were ran back then require lesser processing power...

compared to the programs these days

 

Just wait a couple of months and I am sure the likes of Dell, HP etc would come up with something similar with a better price tag.

I am not against Sony at all, in fact, I love the Sony Vaios but the prices they ask for are just rediculous. Sure, they are a premium brand... yet, it begs the question, does that give them the right to over-charge us?

 

I agree! We will have to wait though...

 

oh well, i have vaio SZ6XN, which have 2.1Ghz cpu and 8400 Nvidia and I disabled it, because it was not flawless...and my laptop is MUCH batter then most of the low priced laptops that are on sale now.

i think aero is a bit ahead of time and laptops that run it smoothly will only be on sales in a few years.

unless, there is an issue with drivers....then..it will also run smoothly on X, i do believe so.

 

Just read about the upcoming 11" Timeline, and well, I'm starting to wonder whether it's worth spending money on this... for a much cheaper price you get a dual-core CULV processor, 4GB RAM, 3 USB ports... well ok, so it's about twice as thick (27.94mm as compared to 13.9mm) and heavy (abt 1587g as compared to 760g) than the Vaio X, and well, less cool looking, but well, the price is like half of it as well....

 

that is true ipporek, you can even get sony vaio TT at a price aroound 1000$....you can get many many many better machines for 1/4 of vaio X price.

but you cannot get anything that is similar to 0.7kg and 11"

 

Hey, these transparent X series images are pretty cool...


http://chinese.engadget.com/2009/10/13/transparent-vaio-x/

..and I think the first two images of the guy lifting the battery out of it's seating help to clear up the way the removable battery fits in around the trackpad. I think it's also the reason why the trackpad is so small and NOT wide aspect like the screen. If it were wider, the battery would be smaller... oh well.

 

Thanks for the transparent pics! looks sweet :-D

 

Hmmm, I'm going by the official spec here (click the specs tab) which says that the GPU in the X is a GMA500. I don't see any mention of VGN-X in the notebookcheck page for the GMA950?

Link for GMA500 (which I provided)
Link for GMA950 (which you provided)

 

Yup exactly the same for me; I expect a performance hit due to the impressive size of the machine, but only to a point. It has to be usable for basic requirements. I do, however, have tremendous faith in Windows 7 helping it along. There is a very good chance that the pre-release X has pre-release VAIO drivers and utilities, if not a pre-release copy of Windows 7 on there, which would damage performance. I am also preparing to factor in the bloatware performance hit that will no doubt impact the first batch of reviews of retail units.

Having said that, I still have that unnerving feeling that it's going to take a lot to STOP me from buying this machine

 

OK - now we're undestanding each other

I heard the GMA950 mentioned on here, thus I linked to the GMA950.

You went to the Sony site and it lists the GMA500.

I just looked through the lists of laptops - the X is't mentioned in either.
I thought I saw it in the GMA950 list - but now I don't...

 

With some tweaking X will be a very usable machine.

 

you see, that's the problem. Why do you even need to tweak for it to be useful. I mean, it's $1400!! They better add the core i3 the second it comes available.

 

exactly...but even the 3000$ vaio runs better after tweaks...thats just sony, they put a lot of bloatware on their laptops.

 

I always do a clean install from scrap anyway...not from the restore partition...
nlite and vlite are the keywords here vlite works for win7 as well.
I want to control what I put on my slow laptop

 

After watching this, you can't help but want it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00JjvOymvvo

(from early Sept)

 

I've taken the bold step of pre-ordering one from Amazon. Insane price & I must be insane too.

Still have my get out of jail card to play should I bottle it (as long as I play this card before they ship it!).

 

Now that the specs and pricing have been released it might be the right time to start an official owners thread for the X series.

Steve78, I see that Amazon has this listed at £1,899. This will most likely be sold a couple of hundred cheaper from other retailers when it actually starts shipping. Or may be that does not matter to you. Some stores already have it listed £150 cheaper.

 

The cheapest I saw was around £1700 for retailers I've never heard of. Always best to stick to retailers I trust....

 

ppl from UK have to pay THAT much?!?! The online listing price from the SonyStyle USA webpage is $1300 for the low end and $1500 for the high end. Seems like you guys are getting scammed :/ Even the high end is vastly cheaper than the UK prices.

 

In Europe always the prices are muchmore high than Japan and US. It seems that Sony doesn't care a lot of the european market, or they think that because the euro is strong, we can afford these ridiculous prices. Also in Italy the two models of the X series cost the beauty of 1499 euros and 2099 euros for the high spec model. If I would like to buy a X, I would import from Japan. But I don't because is really insane to pay such a premium for an Atom-based notebook.

 

I haven't read all the pages, but since I've sold TZ, I was looking for something like this.. And because pricing in europe (and specially Czech Republic) i would order from pricejapan again €925 - WOW - http://www.pricejapan.com/front/e_result_goods.php

but firstly I have to find some job..

 

(lol) Join the ranks of the 10,000,000 here in the U.S.A.

 

Good man! Did you go for the GBP1,399 or GBP1,899 version?

My budget may only accomodate the GBP1,399 version... 128GB SSD should be plenty enough for basic storage, does anyone know how upgradeable that SSD may be in a year or two?

I'm also wondering about the 1.86Ghz CPU. It's still faster than my Acer Revo, but I'm wondering if that 2Ghz really makes the difference...

 

This may interest you all. Its on the Vaio P, but it should give us a good idea of what to expect. http://www.pocketables.net/2009/03/benchmarks-of-all-sony-vaio-p-models.html

 

I went for the 2GHz, 256GB SSD option....for an eye watering £1899 from Amazon! I'm keeping a watch on other retailers I use in case I can get it cheaper.

 

I would like to think that in today's economic climate retailers would be quite aggressive in reducing the price of the GBP1,899 version.. otherwise it'll blow my shiny-gadget budget for the year.

Oops, just noticed that I incorrectly used the € symbol there a few posts back. Apologies. Hope nobody thought those were official euro prices..

 

Which benchmark software was used here exactly?

 

Another review of the X:

http://www.t3.com/reviews/computers/laptops/sony-vaio-x-series-review

 

Hey guys, im new to the forum and am in the market for a notebook. I noticed this new X series from and Sony and must say that its looks nice but know that its not all about the looks. I am not a computer guru by any means and in fact know next to nothing about them but was wondering if this notebook is adequate for me. I don't play games on the computer, honestly if it can run Microsoft Office and the internet at the same time then its probably fine for me.
Thanks for the help!
O and I forgot to add that I will be replacing my Macbook with this PC. I got my Macbook back in 2006 and it has the 2ghz processor and 1 gb of RAM. It ran fine for my needs but honestly I just got sick of the Mac OS. Lastly, does anyone know exactly when the X will be released?

 

for sony asia, it will be launch at oct end this year

it definitely can run m$ office and internet at same time.

but remember this is atom cpu, which is *not really good* in processing power... ur macbook prob run faster even though its 2 yrs ago.

 

For those of us who cannot get enough information about the VAIO X, here is a series of interviews with the X design team.

With a slight touch of irony, the Youtube videos are available in HD, which I'm not sure the X can actually play just yet.. until Adobe release the GPU accelerated update to Flash... EDIT: The LCD engineer mentions Youtube HD, so I suppose Youtube HD is not a problem for the X

 

Got an update from Amazon regarding my X series order:

This item is due to be released on November 20, 2009.

Bit of a wait...

 

The X can be configured in the UK and probably in some other countries in the EU/ and may be in North America but i've not checked yet.
https://www.sonystyle-europe.com/SonyStyle/VAIO-Laptop-PCs/X-Series-11-1

 

Looks good, much better value if you go for the 128GB SSD option, even with the 2Ghz processor and premium carbon finish.

What's also good to note is that virtualisation is definitely good to go on this laptop, as the default OS option here is Windows 7 Pro with XP Mode included.

 

i just saw the X offered for preorder today on sonystyle site. est delivery date 11/20 (yikes). dont want my money tied up over a month so may wait. it's only offered with 2G of DDR2 memory on a 32 bit operating system. how about 4G or 8G of DDR3 on a 64 bit system? it seems obsolete from the start. 2G max DDR2 RAM will require big compromises with 2010 software.

 

atom does not support 64 bit OS

i also doubt chipset supports single memory module with 4/8 GB of RAM, 4 maybe..but i doubt about 8

 

Depends on the atom.
Some do, some don't.

 

You hit the nail on the head right there.

Couldn't agree more

 

I cancelled my order with Amazon and ordered through Sony Style. I save £100 and it will be shipped between 23/10 & 30/10 so that's nearly a month quicker than Amazon

 

Why would you need such extreme specs for what is essentially a Netbook? It's for basic use (internet, MS Office etc). Therefore 4 or 8 gig of high speed RAM is not needed. Nor would you be loading something like CS4 on there or any other resource hungry 2010 apps.

I think you are missing the point of the X series.