New Sony Vaio Z speculation/news thread

But my imagination's not as good as some of them CGI in the movies today

In a way, I find my imagination driven by movies more these days. Not sure if that was the case before...


Edit: It'll be great if
1) The secondary unit of the upcoming Z houses the ODD
2) The secondary unit can be attached to any future Vaios with the appropriate interface

That'll be good for the consumers, but less so for Sony.

 

That's been confirmed.

 

right.
Downloading on the other hand is LEGAL, even without owning a hardcopy. (at least her in my country)

 

If Sony can make the dock unit compatible with various VAIOs to come, then I will have their babies.

Imagine you own a Z and an upcoming new 11" VAIO, and each work interchangeably with the identical external units. One dock at home hooked up to a big monitor, the other at work. Grab either laptop and plug in to either location.

Unfortunately, this is just a pipe dream, Sony have a bad history of not seeing this kind of vision.

 

That's a good one, future compatibility and Sony in the same positively constructed sentence.

 

Sony is just about selling, if they happen to make a nice high end product that sells that is great for them. Sadly their business is like most other businesses out there. They all just sell the most crap that they can.

Sony is on the other hand one of those companies that does make some unique high end products that sell. They also are not afraid to try new and different things. Those new and different things don't include things like making a universal dock that works for all their computers.

They might make some other stand alone non-bundled thing that you could get that would work with multiple computers though. Accessorizing is the name of the game.

 

hey guys, have you seen this? New LG P330 laptop has it all: brains, brawn, and beauty -- Engadget

look at the little bezel... sadly it's most likely a 720p screen ;(

 

well, just because the plastic component of the bezel is thin I won't call that a thin bezel, considering the margin between the display and the edge of the notebook isn't THAT thin.

 

looks really nice..time will tell...i have a feeling its going to be 1366x768 tho.

 

Wow cool laptop, with IPS screen!

Reminds me of Chromebook...

 

Nice laptop, good alternative to the Z, the GT555m is not much less powerful than the 6770m. What we really need is a laptop with an external GPU dock(like the Gigabyte) and a desktop card that can be replaced. That would be cool.(kind of like DIY Vidock but a much more elegant solution.)

 

wake me up when another 13" lappie has a 1080p screen

 

Maybe they will use a graphics card with a MXM connector in the ODD module?

Larger gaming laptops (for example Alienware) use this which makes it possible for the user to upgrade the graphics card.

Mobile PCI Express Module - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cards:
MXM 3.0 Cards Store

 

I wouldn't count on it... see my post Sony is all about selling

They would rather sell you a new thing, what are upgrades?

 

Even if they make it replaceable on the Z there is no use as long as it is a mobile GPU, they are too expensive to replace, should be a desktop GPU like on the Gigabyte.

 

the problem with either approach is that inevitably the desktop gpu would have to have removed the cooler and other stuff, and the pcb is larger, and that the cooling solution needs to be custom too, so plainly getting an egpu system like the ones sonnet provides is cheaper and less clunky

 

Here is another shop which lists the Z21:

VPC-Z21L9E
NB SONY VPCZ21L9E/B.IT1 13.3"LED BLACK I5-2410M 2.3GHZ 4GBDDR3 128SSD W7PRO64 WIFI BT 3G HDMI CAM FP 2USB 2Y
€ 2.014,56

VPC-Z21M9E
NB SONY VPCZ21M9E/B.IT1 13.1"BLACK I5-2410M 2.3GHZ 4DDR3 128SSD W7PRO64 WIFI BT 3G HDMI CAM FP 2USB DOCKING =DVD±RD-VGA/A1GB-LAN
€ 2.446,56

VPC-Z21X9E
NB SONY VPCZ21X9E/B.IT1 13.1"BLACK I7-2620M 2.7GHZ 8DDR3 256SSD W7PRO64 WIFI BT 3G HDMI CAM FP 2USB 2Y
€ 2.734,56

VPC-Z21V9E
NB SONY VPCZ21V9E/B.IT1 13.1"BLACK I7-2620M 2.7GHZ 8DDR3 256SSD W7PRO64 WIFI BT 3G HDMI CAM FP 2USB DOCKING =DVD±RD-VGA/A1GB-LAN
€ 3.166,56

From these specs it seems that some models (L and X) come without the external unit.

 

I'm wondering what 'FP' stands for...

Quite expensive, even without BR...

 

I was wondering about that too. I think it stands for fingerprint reader.

I'm surprised, that the more expensive model comes without BR. But these specs may not be fully correct.

 

There's no way that € 2.734,56 notebook comes only with integrated graphics, can't be right.

 

The cheapest model is also listed with a 13.3 inch screen...

 

On second thought, I suppose it's possible.

 

You may well be jumping to a conclusion if you are assuming that "docking" means the plug-in video card. Docking could also just refer to the normal sony docking station / port expander that sits on a desk.

 

^ FP means finger print sensor. Dock then includes LAN+VGA. Strangely, as the external card presupposes at least HDMI output. Wonder if these specs are true, as it undermines the statement about "bundled" computer unit and dock in one box for sale.

 

Perhaps in some markets it is possible to by the laptop without the odd/vga unit.

 

^ May happen. Yet why no HDMI on dock?

 

^Says who?

 

I'm not complaining, but I don't get why Sony is putting an ethernet port on both the notebook itself and the external unit? Same with the HDMI.

 

At home all the cables (incl. ethernet and HDMI) are plugged into the dock, so you just have to hook up your laptop to it. (-> convenient)
When you take your laptop with you and leave the dock at home, you still need ethernet port sometimes (I do) and maybe HDMI as well. (-> needed)

If the laptop did not have all those ports, it would be a deal-breaker for many people.

 

^Ah ok makes sense

 

Then there are the few (like yours truly) who have multi-homed LANs. I have one for accessing internal data, and one for internet access and external facing ports, with no routing in-between them. With my current Z, I have to use WiFi for the internet enabled network if I use ethernet for the private network. (And that in turn means uninstalling Sony's badly designed networking utility, which doesn't support multiple active connections.)

 

^Specs on the price links above provided by emev.
Perhaps, they mention only basic features.

No news about new ultra Core i 11"-incher in 2011?

 

According to sonyinsider.com the following ports are on the external unit:

HDMI Output
VGA Output
RJ45 Ethernet port
USB

 

So I just saw an article (sorry if this was already mentioned, but the concept of a 190 page thread is utterly absurd to me, so I can't go sifting through all that lost information to look first) .... an article which mentioned the new Z has a backlit keyboard. This was a HUGE bit of great news for me. Im really looking forward to that enhancement. Now I can only hope that it will come with a sheet battery. I tried one out with the SA model and it was outstanding. Brilliance in design. Killer long battery life (15+ hours) ... no swapping batteries needed. No change to the footprint of the laptop. Barely any difference in weight.

Anyone know if the new Z is supposed to have an optional sheet battery?

-NB-

 

@notebook burger: yes.

 

I'm in love <3

 

Is Sony waiting for the MacBook Air refresh before making an announcement? What is taking so long?!!! I mean, Shesh!, that damn LG lappy mentioned a few posts back say Q4 2011!

 

Since the GPU is offboard, is there any chance we might see a 6750 like in the MBP? Now that would be epic!

 

We might see a 6770

 

I for one hope it's not right.

 

Don't get your hopes up.

 

You just put a dagger through my heart

You basically confirmed it's going to have a 6730. I'm still going to buy the new Z but there goes my dreams of decent gaming on it

 

Yup, there goes any hope of playing The Witcher 2 on decent settings.

 

Don't get your hopes up for a 6730 either.3

 

I think that the vast majority of Z users are well-heeled, with lots of business users and some developers and that the vast majority don't need high-performance discrete graphics. Same thing with the MacBook Pro 17 inch - I have no need for high-performance graphics but it's one of the few remaining laptops out there with 1920x1200 which I like for development work.

It would be nice to satisfy the gaming market too as gamers spend a lot of $$ on their gear too and it would be nice to satisfy the casual gamer (main use is something else) but you can't satisfy everyone with one machine. Now if there were enough demand, perhaps Sony could make different models of the external DVD/GPU.

 

So no whistler XT or am I missing something?

 

Maybe it will have an even better GPU?

 

^haha, no

10char

 

Wrong. I require discrete graphics, and in-fact it was the primary reason I purchased my previous Z series.

Good luck to Sony, then. There's no way I'll lug around the equivalent of their old, bulky port replicator. The last time Sony bundled a port replicator with one of my older Vaio; it sat in the box - never to be used.

 

My guess is then it will use the same GPU as the F - GeForce 540m.

But I'm surprised that the rumor about the whister-XT is wrong, as the sonyinsider article had everything else correct.