New Sony Vaio T series coming in July

This is depressing news! Was hoping for more then minor upgrade, if any.

 

With the SZ series being one of Sony's most popular notebooks, I doubt we'll see a major change to it until they retire it and come out with a replacement. It's the way they seem to do things, keep something around until it's not as fresh (S series, TX series) and then replace it with something even better (SZ series, TZ series). I'm sure after this SZ500 series either we'll see one more slight upgrade or we'll see a series overhaul and we'll get something better.

 

Wait, if the SZ5 doesn't have Santa Rosa, then what will the difference between the SZ4 and SZ5?

 

Probably a price hike.

 

Ahh, some good clarification for you. The SZ5 looks like it's going to be a Europe model series, and quite possibly still with the current Napa platform. The new SZ600 series will eventually be out here in the states with Santa Rosa, but in the meantime until then we'll only have the SZ400 (for Vista) and SZ300 (for XP Pro) here. Looks like we'll be skipping over the SZ500 here in the US.

 

I'm sure, but how many people really need vPro support? Your general person surfing the net/using Word doesn't.

Remains to be seen. My SZ90 didn't suffer from a drop really after going to Vista. I do agree the biggest difference is the two cores. Sony should have implemented it long ago in their T, U, and G series with the U2xxx series.

 

Hmm, this info is different than the preliminary "leaked" info on the sz4 series. I hope the customer support person is correct as I am really interested in the sz line with santa rosa.

It makes more sense for the sz5 to be differnt the the sz4 as why would they bother release the same machine again? There were differences between the sz4 and sz3 series as well.

Hopefully, we will get more info after the 9th of May when Santa Rosa officially launches.

 

Any chance we can keep this dicussion focused on the TZ? Start another thread on the SZ5XX please, thanks!

 

Unfortunately my information, that the FZ11Z would have a Geforce 8600M was wrong. Like the other FZ11 models its got only a Geforce 8400 GT.

New FZ pics:

http://scr3.golem.de/?d=0705/SantaRosa-Firsts2&a=52185&s=8
http://scr3.golem.de/?d=0705/SantaRosa-Firsts2&a=52185&s=9
http://scr3.golem.de/?d=0705/SantaRosa-Firsts2&a=52185&s=10
http://scr3.golem.de/?d=0705/SantaRosa-Firsts2&a=52185&s=11
http://scr3.golem.de/?d=0705/SantaRosa-Firsts2&a=52185&s=12

 

Since none of the new Santa Rosa Sony laptops are officially announced yet, I'm taking a wait and see attitude at the moment. In the end, I may wind up getting a Core Solo if the prices really drop. Could I use a Core 2 Duo ULV or Core Duo ULV? Sure, but at some point I'm not going to wait forever

 

Nice to see so many GT cards in the specs, but one can never be too sure with Sony! They may be "wrong"..like..spelled specs... ^ ^
However nice if it´s true!
What does X-Black -->2<-- LCD stand for?

 

It'll be called X-Bright HiColor here in the US. It's Sony's extra extra nice version of their X-Bright screens. Has better color reproduction or something along those lines. The FE series used to have something similar when they first came out as well.

 

Ok, btw are the FE versions being replaced with the new FZ?

 

Difference between SZ4 and SZ5 in Europe is ONLY in HDD !

SZ4 has 120GB HDD
SZ5 has 160GB HDD

BTW, US SZ4xx already has 160GB HDD.

That probably means that US will get new SR SZ.

 

As pointed put above: Please keep this thread to Series T matters only!

 

French Data Sheets for TZ Series:

TZ11MN/N: http://images.grosbill.com/docs/doc54880.pdf
TZ11XN/B: http://images.grosbill.com/docs/doc54882.pdf

 

so when is this tz coming to US??? maybe by August??? I can't wait too long...

 

VGNTZ11VN/X remains a mystery to all because of the 'CARBON' label. This laptop may be the thinner of the three. The laptops from the two French data sheets above may lack carbon fiber, hence a thicker lid is needed, and judging by the pics from the data sheet, the lid does look pretty thick. Maybe 0.1" thinner for the carbon version?

I guess that's a little optimistic, but making it 0.1" thinner is enough to be smaller than the TX

 

The keyboard looks entirely new and more like the one in a MacBook in that the keys stick out from the top of the laptop. At least that's how it appears. It's not a whole mechanism. That could be a pain to replace.

Unfortunately, it's still the GMA 950 and your other standard stuff, so it looks like it's the same motherboard married to the new Core 2 Duo ULV processor.

I would prefer the U7600, and while that second core may help, I'm not sure this is going to perform that much better than the current Core Solo with the U7500.

 

"I would bet that the battery life would be cut between 35-40%."

Really hope you're wrong about this. It would mean a great loss from TX to TZ!

 

Perhaps they'll offset the increased power consumption by putting a larger battery as they did from the TR to T to TX?

Sounds like the TZ isn't all that its cracked up to be huh Sonywhore?

 

Too bad if battery time drops as assumed, but I still hope there will be a good battery time, for this is a key feature of the T models, I think.

I am also worried about the power button placed with a risk of inadvertantly turning the PC on, for instance when it is in a bag. And more: Hope that the fan noise is much lower than in the TX. (The TR was excellent with almost no fan noise.)

 

Yes, a little research goes a long long way...As we know now is not Santa Rosa in the TZ...very definitive.

Hope that the price of TXN goes down when the TZ is released,what do you think?

 

What exact TXN model are you looking for? I have seen some cheaper prices at several online outlets, shaving a bit off the price. The TZ may have a "Santa Rosa" processor, but it still has the Napa GMA 950 graphics for instance and no N wireless. Its not Santa Rosa at all but then again, ultraportables never get the latest tech and components the same time as their bigger brethren as when Napa had just came out, the TXs were still using Pentium M processors and it took a few months for them to go to Core Solo and the Lifebook P series just recently adopted Core Solo here.

 

Sonys TZ ultraportable series gets official-er

 

thx for sharing~

 

Well exactly. The TXN in some cases has dropped in price, but I fully expect the TZ to be at the current TXN prices when it's introduced. I think it'll be another refresh or two before Sony's ultraportables full incorporate all of the Santa Rosa feautres (i.e. GMA x3xxx series graphics, not GMA 950 or even 965). Sony even skipped the Core Duo ULV 2xxx series.

So I'm not sure what the dig was in the post above from exetlaios, but I was correct - Sony is using the Santa Rosa ULV chips, but marrying them to some cosmetic changes in the casing/keyboard and using essentially the current motherboard design. It may not be a full SR implementation, but it's still a SR laptop.

I would think by Q4, full SR ultraportables (down to motherboard and all internals) will be ready. At this point, I'm not in the mood to wait another 6 months to find out.

 

Actually, there are two versions of the U7500 CPU, one for Napa and another for Santa Rosa, as shown in this chart, and according to the recent Engadget article, the upcoming TZ will be adopting the Napa platform and use the Socket M version CPU.

 

The only real difference is the socket of what it fits into. The specs and the chip itself - sans IDA - are the same. The full SR ULV chips look to be due Q3. Again, it's not a different processor, just a different socket fitting essentially.

 

Well, those differences (the new socket P and IDA) are what really sets the two platforms apart, and since the TZ still uses the GMA 950, one of Napa's features, I'm having a hard time understanding why you think it's a SR laptop.

 

I'm having a hard time why you think it's not. We're talking semantics. SR doesn't *require* the use of a specific GPU. For example, if Sony decided to put the 7400 (i.e. the one used in the SZ) as the GPU, would it not be SR? Intel did this to get the chips in the stream while they finished up the other socket. No ultraportable yet that I've seen has the new GPUs yet. It's a 1a, and the 2nd come coming is really 1b. It's a slight Napa refresh, but the guts are essentially the same (M pinout vs. P pinout for full SR motherboards). Yes IDA can potentially make processing faster even for some single threaded apps, but it's not even proven yet to see how well it works (and well is it going to work in ULV for that matter).

 

According to all information I read about TZ, I don't think it is a Santa Rosa laptop. It's just a NAPA with a new CPU.

When you see these on TZ someday, it becomes a Santa Rosa laptop.
1)Recent Intel Core 2 Duo CPU
2)Mobile Intel PM/GM965 Express
3)PRO/Wireless 3945ABG & Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN/4965AG

 

No ULV will have 800MHz FSB. The ULVs have always been rated lower. I think all Napa ULVs are max 533MHz. If you look at that chart linked above, the ULV SR processors are also 533MHz (U series). The L series of ULVs are 667 or 800, so 800 is not a 100% requirement of all SR chips.

 

Yes, all ULV's currently including the Core 2 Duos have 533 mhz FSB whereas the LV and normal voltage ones with Napa have 667 and Santa Rosa have 800. I'm looking foward to the LV L7300 and L7500 myself in an Asus S6 11.1" notebook refresh which use LV processors.

 

Yes, this is just semantics, but to be clear, the GMA 950 is a part of the 945 Express chipset and is exclusive to the Napa platform, which is why there is this disagreement. If it had used the 965 Express chipset, I'd agree with you.

 

I concur ! TZ isn't based on SR platform beacuse SR involves couple of more different things besides CPU, mainly new chipset.

 

100% agree on the cores - especially in a ULV. A Core Duo (or Core 2 Duo) 1.06 or 1.2 may not necessarily outperform a Core Solo 1.33 - if ever depending on what you're doing. It's like someone saying 64-bit is going to be 2x faster than 32-bit. NOT!

Where the cores help is if an application can take advantge of multithreading. Not everything can, so that's where the new technology that Intel is introducing is supposed to help, but all it's really going to do is throttle one of the cores.

I do also agree that the battery life of the new Napa refresh or Santa Rosas may not be better, and will most likely be worse due to power consumption. The new GPU will help if it offloads some tasks onto it instead of the main processor and memory of the system, but I don't think it's going to be a night and day improvement.

I think the trend will be bigger mAh batteries to compensate for the bigger power consumption.

This is one of the reasons I'm most likely going to get a current gen Core Solo ULV. I see no advantage any time soon until clock speeds go up to be closer to the L range (or there's more of an L equivalent in the ULVs), ULVs get better memory bandwidth, and manufacturers stop using crappy 1.8" 4200rpm hard drives.

 

SonyWhore wrote: "Not to mention that WORD/Excel/Outlook/WinDVD and everything that this computer is designed for would never utilize the two cores, BUT the experience will be smoother/appear faster."

If the experience will be smoother or appear faster, isn't that important in itself? Or what do you mean?

 

I'm not sure what you're really asking here, who you're asking it of, or even what you're referring to, but I'll take a shot. I assume you haven't ever used a laptop with a Penitum M 1.0 or 1.1, right? I mean, other than a lack of expandability for memory, slow hard drive, I'd rank processor as problem #3 on the list. Memory is no longer the problem in most cases since you can go to 2GB on most ultraportables. Hard drives and I/O are a huge bottleneck on ultraportables, and arguably the biggest problem.

On my SZ (CD 2.16), I don't notice any Office app running smoother due to two cores. I've used both XP and Office 2003 and Vista with Office 2007. They perform the same to me. I've had a few ULV laptops in the recent past, and never, ever noticed a problem with Office with XP and the older P-M 1.0 or 1.1. Where ULV processors struggle is with things like VMWare, and those usually work well with dual cores.

So I'm not quite sure what program I've encountered that's still single threaded would truly benefit from throttling one of the cores. And if it's throttling two other programs at the same time, how's it doing a slicing algorithm? At what point would something affect the other? That's what I was talking about. If you're running a single threaded app and you beg from Peter to pay Paul, where is the breaking point where even that will affect performance?

 

FenderP, thanks for trying to understand and for the answer. I am not very much into the technological stuff, but find it interesting to try and understand and find out what it means (and doesn't mean!) for the daily practical use of the PC. Most of the time I write in Word and surf the web. With my TX1 running XP SP2 (1,5 years old) I find it quick and OK writing and editing in Word. But the keyboard of my TX1 is bad just above the space bar and the space bar itself: Some keys require a harder hit to respond.

TX battery time is very good, and that's important. There is, however, some fan noise that bothers me.

Perhaps the TZ will have a better keyboard? And less fan noise, or perhaps not a fan at all? And perhaps Vista and Word 2007 will be nice to use?

BTW, the full screen view in Word 2003 is excellent. I have heard that there is not a similar full screen view in Word 2007? Anybody who knows?

But I am afraid it will be slower and that the battery time will be shorter.

So I also consider to try and get a TX3 with XP, if such machines still will be available this summer? This will imply a wait til next winter, and then see if there are new editions of the TZ (more colors and SP platform?) And perhaps also included a SSD, which can make the PC up and run in a second?! That would really be a good thing.

 

No problem. If you're doing normal daily tasks, I don't see where a Core Duo - regular or ULV - will enhance your experience that much more. Now, Vista may use it, but not necessarily apps, so where you may see benefit are more OS-related things and the app integration with that. But again, is a ULV 2400/2500/7500/7600 really that much better than a Core Solo 1.33? I haven't measured it myself, and I know there's benefit, but I doubt it's going to be night and day like it would be if you stepped up to, say, an SZ. That's where you'll see the difference as I have going from the P-M to the CD 2.16.

Memory will help Vista, so where a 1GB system was fine on XP, I'd go with 2GB for Vista. The TX and TZ can handle 2GB. For normal tasks, I wouldn't think your experience would be much, if any, slower. AGain, your biggest bottleneck on an ultraportable will most likely be I/O.

Sony has yet to produce a fanless ultraportable, so I'd expect the TZ to have one. I'd be surprised if it didn't.

The TZ keyboard seems to look like ones on the MacBook laptops, so I'd go check one of those out if you're interested in the Sony. If you like it, it may be better for you.

As for battery, there's a lot of speculation in this thread about it. Some have seen a dip with Vista, but it remains to be seen if going to the U7500/U7600 will have a significant impact on battery life. We just don't know since pretty much no one here as measured it. On paper it would make sense - it consumes more power. But we also don't know how Sony may or may not compensate for it (bigger mAh battery, for example).

SSD will most likely be an option in Japan, but who knows about the US. Although it won't get up and running in a second - you're a bit off there. They boot and run faster, but it won't boot in one second. There are various videos out there which show current SSD performance. Also, SSD is very expensive and 32GB is right now the biggest consumer version on the market (64GB coming soon), and generally sells for $500 give or take. SSD will help improve battery life and I/O speed in an ultraportable - there's no question there. It should make them closer to full fledged notebooks like the SZ since the I/O should no longer be the bottleneck.

If a current generation machine will suit your needs now, I don't see the point in waiting since you should not have buyer's remorse.

 

FenderP, thanks so much for the very informative and interesting post! There are many variables to consider, and I have to find out which will be most important for me. Your post clarifies this, as much as it is possible at the moment!

 

Yes, but in my experience, the TX is definately the loudest out of their older T and TR series. With my TX790P, the fan turns on shortly after Windows boots up and NEVER EVER shuts off, no matter what I am doing with the machine, no matter what power settings I apply, nothing works. This is the biggest complaint I have with the TX and I really hope they can mitigate it with the TZ, lessen the fan noise please.

I don't have a problem with fan noise, but it is absolutely ridiculous to have a ULV notebook's fan running constantly, nonstop as long as the notebook is on, no matter what! And I have seen others complaining about this issue as well, but I have also heard that later TXs have solved this problem slightly as have later models mitigated the problem with the bottom backlight bleeding due to the LEDs.

 

More and more apps are taking advantage of threading/multicore. I'm running Vista Ultimate with Office 2007 on my SZ right now and Task Manager shows me:

Word = 8 threads
Outlook = 27 threads
Excel = 11 threads
Windows Explorer = 39 threads
Visual Studio 2005 = 32 threads

 

I'm usually more of a reader than a writer but some of the *****slapping over here made me add a few comments:

Santa Rosa is referring to the CHIPSET, meaning that a 965 chipset equipped laptop IS indeed based on the Santa Rosa platform, a 950/945 chipset equipped laptop NOT. There is nothing to discuss about, Santa Rosa refers to the 965 chipset, not to the 950 chipset. End of discussion.

The CPU, GPU and WLan adapters used for Santa Rosa platform laptops are a different story, some match some older motherboards with the Napa platform too.

Regarding the Core Duo processors: they don't offer only an advantage regarding throttling/multitasking, some programs are actually already taking benefits from a multiprocessor platform, surprisingly even the new Office 2007. I'm working with Core Solo and Core Duo ULV machines and the Core Duo machines usually work with less "lag", especially if you're using a realtime antivirus/internet security program.
So there is a huge advantage using a Core Duo processor and although some of the new U2500 machines are using 1.2 GHz processor speed only, they're still performing better certain tasks than a Core Solo with 1.33 GHz for example. iTunes is a very good example.

Regarding battery life, some of you guys really don't seem to have a clue what you're talking about. My TX27N with Core Solo and standard battery runs for around 4.5 hours with full brightness settings, permanent WLan usage and no special energy saving setting. My HP nc2400 with the large battery (still not very bulky) and CORE DUO processor, runs 5 hours with the same settings under the same conditions. A LG Electronics A1 with Core Duo and GeForce Go 7300 GPU runs around 2.5 hours with the larger battery.
A Vaio G11VN with Core Solo runs 5 hours (one of my favorite laptops) and the TX27N runs 6 hours with the extended battery. Considering the performance of the HP nc2400 or even the LG A1, I think that they're doing pretty well regarding battery life. Keep in mind that all mentioned battery life times have been achieved using Windows Vista. Of course also keep in mind that I'm talking about 100% brightness setting, permanent WLan usage and no special energy saving settings.

That said, I just can't wait to finally see ALL ultraportable laptops using a Core Duo processor because the Core Solo really doesn't deliver anymore what it is supposed to delivery, especially with Windows Vista and new applications which make use of the multicore processors.

As a last thing: the new TZ11 is based on the current G11 series which isn't available in the USA. It uses a similar approach to ruggness and the keyboard is practically the same and a VERY GOOD keyboard. Who ever criticizes this new keyboard should try it first. It is one of the best keyboards I ever used.

Personally, I'm still waiting for a TZ series with Core Duo, Nvidia GPU, built-in UMTS/HSDPA broadband and a minimum 5 hours battery life at highest brightness display setting and permanent WLan usage. Unfortunately I think that this dream will come from a different manufacturer. The new LG Electronics A1 is a good start and it is an impressive little machine. Only two things really suck: battery life isn't great and it lacks a built-in broadband capability.

 

Im a noob.

when does TZ series come out for people in the US?

what is the main difference between the TZ and the TX series?

For an all-rounded, versatile notebook, how would you compare Vaio TZ series and Macbook ?

 

There will never be an nVidia GPU for the TZ. Only LG was crazy (brilliant?) enough to offer dedicated graphics in something weighing less than 3lbs. No one else has or will do so. Which is kind of a pity, but still, reality must be faced.

The battery life combined with the GPU will be really difficult. The best hope of that is the switcheable graphics kinda like the Sony SZ.

 

Will not the SSD 32 GB (and an optical drive, which for me is a must) be just too small as a storage medium running Vista? When will 64 GB SSD arrive?

 

We are in the same level mandersen! Same here, can someone answer this question?
External hard drive is good option mandersen, if in the future you will need more space. At least at the laptop you will have a fast 32GB SSD and not a slow hard drive like the 1.8".

 

So, can anyone tell me the price of the new Sony Vaio T series? i really like it!