New Sony Vaio Z speculation/news thread

Coming from someone who owns both a VPC-Z and a 2011 MBP 13" (among other machines) - there's a hell of a lot more difference than just the GPU.

Apple wins on battery life, touchpad, period, and PERCEIVED build quality.

Sony wins on screen quality (hands down), GPU (duh), weight, and size.

The 13" MBP is downright huge and overweight compared to the Z. It's hard to describe how significant the size/weight difference is in real world use.

Aside from the MBP screen being quite bright, the quality (both color and resolution) is so poor compared to the Z it's hard to use it.

Just my $.02

 

That may be a RISC-y move.

 

ARM cpus are RISC? So they are similar architecture to the cpus that IBM make for servers and supercomputers?

 

^ hmmm that's like an iphone or ipad processor. but maybe they can string 16 of them to make the new MBP go really fast

 

I seem to recall SPARCs having some horsepower...

 

I agree about the touch pad and multi touch implementation. Although, it sucks under Windows. I use a mouse anyways.

In regards to the battery, if your running Windows 7 on it in bootcamp, the battery life takes a nose dive and becomes almost equivalent with the Z.

OSX has really good power management/throttling.

I like my PC games. I have tried to tote around my new 15" 2.3 MBP because I thought I would rather have more FPS under games. But I have found that the games I play most, COD/Valve, are completely fine with the 330m. Don't get me wrong, I would rather have the Z in a 11" MBA form factor, but thats not going to happen. Apple better make room for a GPU in the next MBP 13" redesign. They are missing out on a grip of sales.

Even MW3 will still be fine with the 330m because it is still using the same engine as MW2. So I will be good for awhile with the current Z.

Good thing i'm not a Battlefield nut.

 

please....please, stop that now.

 

:rolleyes2:

 

computex in 1 week!! hopefully we'll hear some sony vaio announcements

 

Aww but you're missing out! But yeah, the 330m cries trying to run that, low settings across the board, but at least it's playable . I'm sure playing on a 13" screen is making me worse than the lowered fps/settings

 

MacBook's will not be moving away from Intel CPU's any time soon, trust me...

 

Does anyone know anything about the screen? IPS? brightness? Do you think it will have a better screen than samsung series 9 13.3 ? (I dont care about resolution)

 

> While I agree with most of what you have said, the problem here is
> that Apples 13 inch lines suck donkey.

Yup.

> Sony's Z is the only 13" ultra portable laptop that has balls. It has
> a beautiful screen and a dedicated GPU. Game over Apple.

Yup.

> Now on paper and spec wise I know that the new Z will be an upgrade
> from the current Z. I just am not sure that I want the separate
> component approach. I'm sure that I will upgrade to it, but on the
> second revision at the earliest.

I personally like the idea. My daughter would like it too. She has
something light and small to take to class and can plug it in for
gaming when she gets back to her apartment.

> Now, if Apple made a 13" with a dedicated GPU, it would be hard to buy
> anything else.

I don't think that Apple is going to do anything hi-res on the 13 inch
model. The vast majority of people don't care about high-res screens.
The other thing is that Apple would need to get away from their Unibody
Aluminum approach to get the weight down and I don't know if they are
ready to do that.

> yeah the 13inch MBP isn't much more powerfull than the upcoming sandy
> bridge MBA. Next year apple will do a complete redesign of their MBP
> range, so maybe things will change.

The rumors are that they bought some IP for a new material to make
their laptops lighter and maybe stronger. If they can get into the
Sony Vaio Z weight ranges, and get an HD screen, then it's
interesting. After telling customers how wonderful the Aluminum
Unibody screen is (it is wonderful but they pay a weight penalty),
it's going to be hard to sell a new material.

> Apple wins on battery life, touchpad, period, and PERCEIVED build
> quality.

Their touchpad is really nice. I use a mouse most of the time but
it would be nice if Sony could beef up their touchpad, similar to
what Samsung has done (copied Apple).

> ARM cpus are RISC? So they are similar architecture to the cpus that
> IBM make for servers and supercomputers?

The term doesn't mean as much anymore. IBM uses the Power 7
architecture for their big iron which was the same (or very similar)
to the PowerPC chips that Apple used prior to going with Intel.

Going to ARM would have a lot of drawbacks, particularly marketing.

 

I guess Sony will use the same LCD than current Z (I don't see why they would spend money and time in a new LCD). So I suppose: Edge LED, FHD, TN (Grrr), good brightness (like almost all Sony's).

Note : The current Z has a contrast about 500:1 (FHD version), the Samsung is about 760:1. But color calibration is perfect on Z (Delta E < 2) whereas Samsung is very bad (Delta E > 11). Moreover, Z screen complies more than 95% of Adobe RGB color space (don't know on Samsung).

 

Right. You can say the same thing about Retina display on iPhone 4. No one cares about it.

I think there's a good chance the 13" Air or MBP will get a 2560x1600 or so resolution, and Lion will make use of HiDPI mode to make text and images look extra crisp and beautful, ala Retina display. Within 2 years.

 

> Right. You can say the same thing about Retina display on iPhone 4. No
> one cares about it.

I certainly don't. My vision isn't good enough to make use of it.

> I think there's a good chance the 13" Air or MBP will get a 2560x1600 or
> so resolution, and Lion will make use of HiDPI mode to make text and
> images look extra crisp and beautful, ala Retina display. Within 2 years.

I have a Dell Pentium 4 laptop from around 2003. It's a 15.4 inch model with 1920x1200 resolution. The display is very nice but the laptop overheats without external cooling. WUXGA on 15.4 inches has been around for quite some time. This company called Sony has had HD on 13.3 inches for a while. If Apple wanted higher resolution on their laptops, they could have done it years ago.

The entire market (except for the Vaio Z and the 17 inch MacBook Pro) is moving to lower resolutions. It's nice to have a few options but it would be nicer to have more. My current solution is just to use a triple-monitor system connected to my MBP via Synergy. That would work nicely with a Vaio Z too.

A coworker with a Z just sent his in for a screen repair. He was pretty blase' about Sony introducing a new one but he's getting excited about the specs now. I don't think that he likes the idea of a dock but the new Z, even with the dock, is still lighter than a lot of similar laptops.

 

A nice dock option would be an additional HDD.

 

It's muy understanding that the ODD/GPU isn't a "dock" in the traditionally sense. As far as an external HDD, given the use of Thunderbolt, there's no reason you wouldn't be able to attach one to the ODD/GPU (or without it).

 

I'm hoping that the dock has the same footprint so that you could grab the two together, toss it in the backpack and go. If that's their design, then having an internal HDD would be attractive to avoid carrying something extra.

 

mmoy, you still owe Latitude C840? Terrific. I do the same, 1400*1050, wonderful IPS 4:3 matrix... But one on Z is better .

 

Mine has a beautiful 1600x1200 screen... I remember paying more than 500€ (775$) for the 512Mb extension (total 1Gb) in order to be able to run Windows Server 2000+SQL Server+Documentum in a VMware virtual machine together with my Visual Studio development under XP... Something impossible to do in 1Gb now...

 

Hi all. Pls let me know where could I buy a Z with 3g GSM WWAN (e.g Z134GX/B or better) in USA site at the moment (May 2011), my friend is there but couldn't find the address. Thanks a lot.

 

Yes, I still have the Inspiron version. I don't remember the exact resolution but 1400x1050 is in the ballpark. Unfortunately the CFCL backlight in both of my old Dell Inspirons is pretty weak and those models do weigh eight pounds. They are relatively thin for that era. The really bright displays started around 2003 I think. The Inspiron 8500 has a wonderful 1920x1200 screen but it overheats. It doesn't help that my daughter spilled some coke from a can in the keyboard area several years ago.

Dell introduced the XPS 15z yesterday - 15.6 inches and HD resolution. Maybe high-res is making a comeback! Dell's new model is a MacBook Pro 15 inch clone. I have nothing against it.

The only thing about buying a Z this year is that Ivy Bridge is out next year.

I suppose that I could buy and hand it down to one of the kids.

 

^ but then haswell and a new z will be out the year after

 

> but then haswell and a new z will be out the year after

Well, I could just keep using my MacBook Pro for the next five years but I have a very large tax refund burning a hole in my pocket.

 

If you keep waiting for the next best thing, you will never buy anything.

 

Well, my current system will eventually break or I'll run into an application that runs poorly on it. My current system has the infamous nVidia 8600 and it's outside of the three-year warranty period. If it fries, then that would be a good time to replace the system.

I like to play around with new ISAs too. Intel could always add a new vector instruction set extension and that would be a good reason to upgrade. I also could use a travel laptop. My MacBook Pro isn't really for traveling and my wife took my Dell XPS M1330.

 

Maybe use that money to buy the largest available 3D LED TV for your home?

 

We're not into television. Our only TV is a 21 inch CRT model. It doesn't get much use.

To Sony and Apple: just announce your products please. Or intentionally leak pictures and specs.

 

As already stated by Louche directly above this post of yours, it is NOT a dock! It's just an external unit lying or standing next to your notebook. Footprint is like an external ODD.

 

The SA is out. About $3700 with an i7, 8gb ram, 512gb ssd, no FHD and no Thunderbolt. I think I'll wait for the new Z and hope it's not too much more expensive.

 

^Awesome!

An i5-520 (2.5GHz) with 256GB, 8GB, Windows Professional, Bluray player, and the optional sheet battery
is about $2370. Not bad at all.

 

Does anyone know the specifics of the SSDs being used in the SA for 256 and 512gb configurations?

I'm guessing that they will be the same in the new Z unless I'm informed otherwise.

 

lol nice prices.

 

Apologize for the off-topic.

Yeah, the prices for the VAIO SA series are very affordable. This is definitely an excellent move from Sony. Hopefully, the 1600x900 screens on the VAIO SA series are just like the ones on the VPC-Z series.

 

If you look on the CTO page, they did something interesting with the ram. They have 4gb fixed on the mobo and then an open slot. Hopefully they do the same with the Z, and save everyone quite a bit of money to have 8gb ram.

 

Huh? Isn't the VAIO SB series the same too (nothing new for that in the SA series), with 4GB soldered onto the motherboard?

Sure, I can understand your logic when you say save money this way.

However, I think the motherboard in these VAIO SA/SB/SC series & the upcoming 2011 VAIO Z series can probably support up to 16GB of RAM (like the SandyBridge MBPs), even though Sony officially supports only a maximum of 8GB. If 16GB can indeed run on the VAIO SA/SB/SC series & 2011 Z series, then if you've got 4GB soldered, then the maximum RAM you'll be able to put into it in the future will be 12GB (4GB + 8GB) while if no RAM modules are soldered onto the motherboard, then you can go the full maximum 16GB (8GB x 2).

I could be wrong. Please kindly correct me if necessary.

 

The SA CTO page specifically denotes 4gb fixed ram + open slot. The SB CTO page just says 4gb x 2 or something, leading me to think its just 2 open slots.

And i was unaware that you could have 16gb of ram. I dont think i would ever need more than like 8 tho.

 

The only reason I can think of for more than 8 GB would be running multiple VMs. My old MBP has 4 GB and I can only run 1 VM at a time with the VM configurations that I have.

I'm sure that there are some applications out there that can use a ton of memory but they probably aren't that common.

 

Ok quick question, do you think 1080p on 13.3inches is too much pixel density? Like will icons and stuff be too small?

 

No, I think it's perfect, have a 13.3" 1080p right now on my VPCZ1. That's the one feature I will demand of my next laptop, hopefully Sony continues the tradition...

 

All the specs for the new SA are great... except for the weight.

Once you have a 3lb notebook you can't go back to something heavier.

I hope a new Z is on the horizon.

 

Do you think you could post a screenshot for me?

 

yes the SB has it, its not something new for the series.

and for 16g of ram the chipset and the cpu must support it. Although the i7 2630qm, dont, in reality it does. For the dual cores, I have no clue, since support for so much memory is kind of a moot point

sincerely? try to find a MS store that still carries it and see for yourself. For me its too small.

 

There are hundreds of screenshots of the 1080p Z around this forum.

 

Just for the record, Z is 13.1" not 13.3" so the screen is even higher in pixel density than originally thought.

 

Uhh... dude... what will screen shot even do? 1080p describes the number of pixels... you don't need a screen shot of a Z... just take any old 1080p screenshot and open it in a 13" screen.

 

According to Computex's website, Sony isn't an exhibitor.

 

that is weird... they should be there... there's a TON of Shenzhen companies though . Hey hopefully one of them will come out with a Veio Z

 

I am pretty sure they will
let's see though