New Sony Vaio Z speculation/news thread

any idea when the carbon fiber option will come to the us?

 

^love the backlight

 

^
You can get carbon fiber with the signature edition.

 

yeah but i think ill wait until its a 50 dollar option vs buying a 4500 dollar laptop

 

^
There is the other signature editiion for 2999.99$

http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/st...10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666350161

 

Interesting - 6730M rather than 6650M!

Looks like the main difference is the clock speed:

Radeon HD 6730M 480@725MHz
Radeon HD 6650M 480@600MHz

 

I think this is a driver info error.

 

you know...i wonder if sony will ever offer two slices. one is pure battery, and the other is a eGPU with some battery as well. one slice at a time and not for the Z2...but it seems like an interesting concept.

 

I'd like to see a battery / 5.1 speaker concept; a "multimedia" slice dock with an additional 4 hours battery and 5.1 speakers (incl. subwoofer) built in, and maybe even a 1TB 2.5 inch HDD for storing a few hundred movies!

Since the builtin speakers are reportedly quite bad this would be kinda cool. But of course for those who still use optical discs there would really have to be a Bluray player in there...

 

512GB was $1000+ in the US originally. Still not as bad as €1000, but it is down $150 with the back-to-school specials. I decided to go with the PMD without Blu-Ray, I'll almost certainly never use it, which brings me down closer to an almost a justifiable price for the 512GB.

 

That is the only vaio wallpaper i've seen that isn't hideous.

Also, I think you guys have convinced me to reorder to save the $240. Ill do it tonight.

 

Do you think 128GB is too small? Debating whether to get the 128 or 256. The 128 will be for just OS, programs and I will use about 10 GB for Linux on VMware. It's about 200 dollar extra so I'm trying to weight my options.

This is not my only pc, I also have a 6TB Raid 5 server and PC

 

can someone explain what raid 5 is? I've seen pop up alot.

If you get the 128, you might have to consciously manage your files. I didn't want to worry about that, so i got the 256.

 

My current laptop has a 128 GB SSD. I've been able to live within it, but I really wish I had more. I ordered 256 GB this time.

 

Is it your only laptop or do you have other means of storage.

 

It's basically a RAID with a 1 disk fault tolerance, which pretty much means one disk can go bad and you can still use the volume.

 

yes.. i think 128gb is too little, remember you don't get full 128gb, probably more like 110, and after OS and page file, it'll be around 90GB of actual space, then 20% for temp files, hibernation files, etc. would be approximately 20GB, so you're really left with about 70GB for actual use

put in 10gb for linux, and let's say 10gb for other programs and you're left with 50GB .. which in my opinion just isn't enough

this is assuming you did a fresh install, sony has perhaps another 5gb of useless programs

but hey! remember the days of desktops with 500mb of storage?

 

so raid 5 is like a less extreme version of raid 1?

And iirc the 128gb model i saw at sonynyc had about 80gb left.

 

Well RAID1 is just mirroring, just in case a drive goes down you can swap it out and not lose data. RAID5 is more for performance and is better as a file server.

 

^ Are you running hardware or software RAID? (if software, what program?)

 

No, but I remember the days of 10MB hard drive which was nominally an improvement over the days of dual floppy drives. Aside from some mostly non-substantive graphics, those dual floppy machines gave me about 90% of the functionality of current computers. The rest is just bells and whistles.

Now there's ViDock for Thunderbolt.
VillageTronic planning Thunderbolt version of their ViDock | Ubergizmo

Will there be a Light Peak version in the semi-near future?

 

software RAID Linux, CentOS 5.5 to be exact.

 

Nice to see that confirmed.

Excuse my total newb question, but is there a difference between ThunderBolt and LightPeak beyond the connector style? Is it possible someone could release an LP-TB adapter at some point?

 

^optical fiber vs copper and usb vs mdp. tb is a subset of lp.

 

I have a 256GB SSD plus a secondary 1TB drive in the optical bay of the laptop I use now. Switching to a 256GB in the Z would be possible, but somewhat painful compared to what I'm used to. I'd have a really hard time surviving with 128GB (which as Brawn said is more like 70GB of usable space).

 

Neat, I'm debating between getting a small server box with Linux or using a NAS for my storage (movies, music, documents, etc.). Ideally I really should have two copies of my data in storage since the Z2 will become my primary machine and movies and such won't be saved here.

 

Even if there was, or if there was such a thing as a LP-TB adapter, isn't Sony's Light Peak implementation in the Z essentially proprietary?

It would be awesome if it worked. I'd love to have the Z2 plus ViDock and basically ditch the PMD altogether.

 

So Sony did carry over the barrel hinge design. It just happens to be obscured underbeath the silver crossbar and not part of the design focal point. Interesting. LINK

 

RAID1 is mirroring. That means that for every disk, you have another disk with an exact copy. In other words, exactly half (50%) of your storage is devoted to redundancy.

With RAID5, one disk is used for redundancy using a scheme that involves parity. This would let the system matematically calculate what data is on a disk should one disk go missing and then rebuild onto a new disk. In this case only 1/x of your space is used for redundancy (x being the number of disks in the RAID array). For example, if you have a RAID5 array of 4 disks, 1 disk out of the 4 or 1/4 of your space (25%) is used for redundancy.

If you had 5 disks that drops to 1/5 or 20% space used for parity. With 6 disks only 16.67% is used for redundancy, etc.

I'll add one more to the mix here: RAID6 which is becoming very popular these days. RAID6 is just like RAID 5, except that you give up 2 disks to redundancy. The advantage of this is that you can have 2 simultaneous disk failures and still recover whereas with RAID5 you can only have one disk go out. This becomes important when you have very large disks. With RAID5, it can take a very long time to rebuild a disk that has failed. If another drive fails during that time, you've lost the whole array. RAID6 assures that if one more drive fails you're not dead.

Hope this helps.

 

Where are you seeing the 512 for only $150? It says $1000 when I try to configure...

 

Sorry, typo. I meant down $150 not down to $150.

 

It's a fair question. I would think it would be technically possible to create an adapter between the two...

 

Hmmm, just got another mail from sony.nl, regarding my order:

"On 04/07/2011 you placed an order through the shop, on a Sony Vaio Z series laptop. We just received notice that the delivery has been delayed by two weeks. Our factory still waiting for some components, which delayed production.

For this we offer our apologies on behalf of Sony. You will receive an email as soon as possible with a new delivery date.

For the inconvenience we offer an extended warranty from 1 year to match your order"

 

Thanks ota-con. Seems obvious to me from the video that the screen flex is an intentional design choice and not an unintended flaw. Well, I guess if it doesn't last, it still will be considered a flaw, but it is too pronounced not to have been a clear choice.

 

True, but is comes with 6 gigs of RAM, not 8. To me the cabon fiber isn't worth that trade. Sony is one mysterious company!

 

Interesting. I just rung up Sony UK today and was told that my Gold (without PMD) has been built - its being shipped to the European warehouse but, sigh, it won't arrive there (in the Netherlands) until 10 August. And then obviously still needs to get shipped to me afterwards.

 

Yeah. I just don't understand that. I would have been all over that laptop if not for the 6GB of RAM.

 

I've got 128GB and find that it has enough space to comfortably fit my programs (Photoshop, Illustrator, MS Office, and a few lightweight programs). I've got about 50GB left.

I also purchased a 32GB memory stick to store some video files that I may want to watch. I have a 1TB and 500GB externals to store actual files (audio, video, photos). I don't really store any big files on the computer itself. Basically, 128GB will be enough to get you by and install programs, but if you've got a lot of audio/video files, you'll want to upgrade the SSD or use more external media like me.

 

Interesting. I hope Sony gets with the program and refreshes the PMD along with the Z. Somehow, I doubt this will happen, seeing as Sony's refreshes are mostly processor upgrades.

 

Well maybe the next-gen PMD I assume they might release alongside the Z22 at some point will be backwards compatible.

The ViDock would still be my preferred solution if it was possible.

 

The OS drive in my desktop is 80GB and I still have a little bit of space left so I reckon 128GB will do me just fine. I have all my large files stored on other drives.

I can afford the i7/4GB/256GB preconfig model, but I don't think I can justify paying that much when I only really want the storage. It doesn't even come with 8GB of RAM...


Anyway, I went to my local Sony shop today and they will have the 3 different (i5/4GB/128GB & i7/4GB/256GB & i7/8GB/256GB/PMD) preconfigs in stock in the middle of august. I'll get an offer for the laptop (i5/4GB/128GB) + DVD dock + VGP-CKZ3 case. Should be able to get a decent discount. Excited.

 

sonystyle canada has 100$ off Z now.. (the S promotion just expired), looks incredibly crappy compared to the usa discounts

 

How come people aren't sharing more discount strategies? so far i've had two different chats on the Sony US website.

I usually start by asking why the edu discount is no longer 10% and then lamenting that fact since I got 10% Edu discount on my 2010 Z12.

This chat representative told me today that Sony is no longer even offering 10% off w/extended warranty and accessories.

She said the current edu discount along with the PS3 is the only thing offered currently. She also suggested the extended warranty is an excellent value on it's own merit given the price of Sony replacement parts. I told her that I was familiar with Sony's poor customer service and predilection towards gouging. I told her of the time that when al i needed was a missing key but had to buy an entire keyboard. I politely thanked her for her useless bit of advice.

I then asked about her how to stay abreast of new discount promotions. She told me to keep checking the sony edu store which is BS.


So guys, what's the deal? Anyone pull off anything greater than what's offered in the edu store?

 

^ you need to wear a cowboy hat and recite an incantation while on the phone for it to work

 

i LOLed

/10char

 

Yea, I think the edu store is only 5% off for me (not sure if it's school dependent), but I'm ordering mine through my discover card, and they have an additional 5% cash back offer.

 

I am using Discover as well. Did that w/my iMac. Went through edu store and then had it shipped to a buddy's house in NH.

This time around. I have to use a Sony Style gift card in the amount of $2457 which cuts down on the 5% through discover i can get back.

 

^ did you guys with the Discover credit card realize afterwards that there is a 5% cash back from sonystyle, or did you know before getting the card... meaning there's some place with a list of ways to get discounts from sony that i don't yet know about?

it just seems so random to me, if i had a credit card that gave a discount from sony, i don't think i would have ever found out

 

^^ Brawn... just get the card!! they have lots of stores with discounts!!
ShopDiscover - Browse all Cashback Bonus Partners :: Discover Financial Services

 

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