New Sony Vaio Z speculation/news thread

If you buy a 16-17-18" laptop, you will get much better specs than the Z for under 1000 USD. But it will be huge, bulky and will weigh 3-5 kg (6.5-11 pounds). You can also get an even better desktop config for under 1000 USD.

The Z is unique because it includes relatively good specs in a very small, very light, very nice (that's subjective) chassis. The thing is to get those specs in a laptop weighing under 1.5 kg (3 pounds) and this costs money.

I personally would not consider anything else than a 13" laptop (maybe a 12" or a smaller 14"). And in this category the Z is the best. Several years ago, when I got my first laptop, I was considering a huge 17" monster with high-end specs, but fortunately my father convinced me to get something portable. I'm thankful since then, that I got a 13.3" laptop and I never missed the extra specs.

 

ha I guess I meant. the order page from sonystyle.com
launch dates tend to be... er... flexible.

 

IMHO, that's most likely because solely from a business point of view (not talking about any technical aspects here such as R&D costs, price of "mini" components & so on), if you are able to charge the premium that Sony does for their VAIO Z series & still sell them like hotcakes, why would they want to charge less?

 

This all assuming there is even going to be a new Z (well, there will be a new something).

Given [that which must be moved beyond] it's possible the Ultimate Mobile may not even be called a Z and may have different specs. If that were true, then a SB Z refresh for the old form factor may be in the cards once the new whizz toy is announced.

 

It was stated multiple times pretty clearly, that the new thing (probably the "ultimate mobile PC") will be called VPCZ2 and will replace the VPCZ1.

 

^ Indeed it was. Whether that information is still operative is another matter.

 

I think it would be pretty late for them to start changing things now. But you are of course right, we can't be sure until it is officially introduced.

 

If this is really the Z, Im quite sold on it. I was going to wait for Ivy because of the chipset improvements, but since it appears that it packs thunderbolt and USB 3 there is no need for it.

 

Maybe the SonyInsider article was right about the connection between the main and the external unit.

Because on the picture the power jack and the USB3 port are next to each other, so maybe these 2 ports will be used by the connector of the external unit.

 

Is this new?

http://www.sony.com.ph/product/resources/en_PH/flash/vaio/vpcz2/Concept.swf?xmlFile=null

 

nope, nada, nein

 

That's the current VPC-Z11/12/13

 

They were waving some Amazon bucks on me via email and so I took their survey on the net. Would have done it for free anyways since I already have a whole house Sony. Their new/future laptop survey had some very good questions and some weird questions. I hope it isn't the new Z because I don't need so many colors for a laptop body even though it's cool... in the end I'll still buy a black or blackish laptop because I can't bill others a whole lot if I show up with an orange or lime colored laptop They probably figured by now I don't care about any 3G/4G plug-in/feature - it's even less important to me than price (which comes in at 3rd) after two other important must-haves. Also had some questions about competitors, other laptops and perception of other laptop brands hmmm... Also enough people must have complained about the battery life that they asked a bunch about it too. Anyways... that was a good survey. bye.

 

I don't understand Japanese. Are these models listed on the Sony Japan website new versions of the Z?

VPCZ14AHJ · VPCZ14AGJ · VPCZ14AFJ

 

no. the z14s have been in production in japan for sometime now. they are simply the most recent update to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehalem_(microarchitecture) based Zs. This upcoming "ultimate mobile pc" will be based on the Sandy Bridge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia architecture.

 

Okay, so then basically these particular Zs were just not sold here? I mean a 1 TB SSD would be really fantastic!

 

Yep they just weren't sold here. Uhh... that 1 TB SSD also commanded a crazily high price too...

 

So you guys think it could be better to wait for a new z line or buy the current z serie as replacement for my european vgn-z ?

For me the question is how powerfull the 330m gt will be in difference to my current 9300m gs.

 

the 330m is much better than your current gpu, but why get the current z when you can wait 2 more months and get the next z, or at least the current z for a much better price

 

The problem is to get the current z - today its very difficult, in 3 month i think theres no chance to buy one new...

Hope sony will give us an z-like modell with also a better gpu

 

I'm glad to hear I'm not completely alone in liking what seems to be the new Z. It's more and more likely I'll be buying this one.

 

While I like the idea of the new Z, I can't say i'm sold yet. I need more pics, technical information and pricing to make a decision.

 

Yes I didnt like at all the old Z, it was a not powerful enough gpu, with a chassis that by design flexed a lot, with problems, like the palmrests that are not to be expected in something that you drop that amount of money.

I also didnt like the design and the chassis sturdiness, It wouldnt handle commute/battle for your life time

I also dislike a lot RAID 0.

 

are you talking about the VGN-Z?

I think the VPC Z is pretty solid.

You can turn RAID off, you don't have to use it.

 

Depending on how thick it is with the extended battery, the battery life with the extended battery, and the price, I might buy one instead of the X220...

The only thing the X220 doesn't really have going for it is the lack of a video card and the huge bezel which is extremely annoying to me. The IPS screen I heard is fantastic, though.

 

yeah right try to get a rush hour metro with it, lets see if the screen handles and the hinge wont break

 

Vaios belong in a boardroom/table. Take a panasonic toughbook/Lenovo Thinkpad into the field...

 

The new z is going to be my first vaio. I just hope the quality is better than the MBPs which I have owned 2 and am not happy with their quality.

Can anyone comment on vaio vs macbook pro in terms of quality?

 

nonsense. a premium notebook, with exceptional build quality should hold. If I needed a tank I would buy one.

 

Aren't you stuck with Sony's "Genius" SSD implementations whether or not you go with the current VPC-Z or the upcoming VAIO Z series? I mean it's not like the upcoming VAIO Z series is coming with HDD drives, is it?

 

No but I hope that they have made some with non RAID 0

 

I humbly think it will not happen because of one thing: the thinness of the notebook (which wouldn't accommodate the height of a standard notebook HDD). Of course, hopefully I'm totally wrong.

 

rush hour metro? is that like a busy subway?

 

I thought about it too, but I gave myself some hope, due to the nand chips being cheaper this year, so that they would put some with enough size without resorting to RAID 0

 

^What do you mean "resorting" to RAID 0? What does cost of flash have to do with them configuring in RAID or not? Either way, you can always disable the RAID if you want to trade the extra speed in for reliability.

 

well last year Z had some different sizes for the drives, Like some got 2x 128g, leading to 256g, and some got 4x 64g. I wonder if there will be some models that would have the 128gb option without RAID.

yep like that, in Sao Paolo getting a car depends on where your job is and where do you live, sometimes its worth it, sometimes not, in my case I get 30 min of subway, if I choose car, I would take 1:30 h.

 

All of those config still come being set up as RAID 0 as standard. No?

 

^They do, and I'm trying to understand the point MM is trying to make.

The raid solution is obviously more expensive due to the extra controllers needed. While I understand why some people don't prefer it, I don't see how we could see Sony as "resorting" to RAID due to cost, etc.

 

Yes the hope was that due to the lower cost of the nand with the added storage for it, Sony would put plain 128gb (meaning proprietary form), but without all the fuss of RAID, and with each increment in storage capacity a new 128gb chip would be inserted, but since you guys brought this up, it wouldnt make any sense at all, since the controller would have to be in the same board as all the nands so no plug and play, they would hhave to be designed for that.

my mistake

 

^OK. The point I was trying to make is the raid solution is likely more expensive than non-raid. Even today, it surely would cost sony less on a 256gb ssd to use a single drive than raid 0 with several drives(same amount of flash, fewer controllers). They opted for raid for the performance (I assume).

 

Sorry my last post was not proof read.

So yes I agree with you, and thats what I thought. But as I said in the earlier post it wouldnt make economical sense (unless sony gets a great deal in the SSDs) to make different non raided models, since you would have to incur in the cost of the SSD, and that would include:

the research for the RAID
the controllers
the custom boards
the nands.

So yes, since its possible to unraid them in the bios, thats probably what im going to do.

 

@MM
I take it you don't like RAID 0 because it is not as reliable? If that is the case why don't you just turn it off. You could run RAID 1 or JBOD. If you configure RAID 1 then it is suddenly twice as reliable. I don't get it. RAID is awesome, always has been, always will be. Back in the day it was all about SCSI RAID and Dual Processors. I still have a PII Xeon also a PIII with 15K Cheetahs. How is it that these ancient computers are still running, and running Server 2008 I might add, the answer is RAID and DP. The storage medium has always been the slowest part of the system, form punch cards to floppy disks to magnetic disks and even now with solid state. RAID takes the slowest part of the system and makes it much faster. The difference between running my Z as JBOD and RAID 0 is more than a point on the WEI score, not the best benchmark but you get the point. End rant.

 

I liked the part of punch cards, recently we got a very ''new'' machine running with some cobol programs using those cards, it was fun for the moment

Yes the problem with RAID is that its not meant to be used in laptops, but I like more raid 10 and raid 5

 

Just turn off raid and use the 2 or 4 drives (and gain TRIM). Also, instead of 2 drive letters you can use windows 7 to mount the second drive as a folder on the first drive (IE your home folder). Works well.

 

Didnt knew that win 7 could do that, its fairly interesting

 

I could be wrong. If the upcoming VAIO Z series is like the current VPC-Z series, wouldn't one have to flash a hacked BIOS in order to run the notebook in AHCI so as to be able to take advantage of TRIM? I would think that not everyone are that keen to flash their BIOS with a hacked version & so on....

 

Beaups tried to explain. Since RST 9.6, TRIM is functional on RAID if your SSD are separated. Don't need to flash to do that.

 

Ah, I see. For some reason, I kept missing that.

 

Hi,newbie here. Just wondering when the new Z is coming out?is the SA replacing the Z or what?thanks for the clarification

 

Rumour suggests June. Probably not available 'til July. Z2 replaces the VGN-Z [Edit: VPC-Z], oops. The SA does not replace the Z, though it does if you want an in-built ODD.