New Sony Vaio Z speculation/news thread

I really look forward to your results, Nick! This is very good news by the looks of things!

 

Definetely very good news! Battery life was my biggest reservation regarding the new Z!

Nick how does hinge feel when you open the lid on your lap? Basically is it comfortable to use it on the lap with lid open ?

 

And how is the battery drain with the Z turned OFF? Has it been fixed or improved?

S

 

Could you post some pics please?
Does anyone know if there is a glossy premium carbon option for the new Z?

 

^ If you take a look at the config options on sony uk then you will see there is a carbon option. Not sure if it is glossy though.

I do wish Sony would do a global roll out at the same time. I cannot find the Sony Z2 on the Singapore or HK websites yet.

 

@Sick Nick,

What about hinges, are they solid? Many VGN/VPC Z owners had complaints about fragile hinges, though I don't have such issue.

Also, does the bottom (where twin fans located) get uncomfortably warm?

backlit: is it stronger comparing to previous Z?

How does trackpad feel? is it comfortable? You do have physical buttons below glass, right? What's their travel, is it shallow as keypad?

Cheers,
Miki

 

^The model I saw sure didn't have any physical buttons below the trackpad. It was a click pad.

It didn't get warm really at all, but I didn't exactly tax it either.

 

I thought buttons were masked under glass. But you still get physical "click", like an actual button? Not like it's sensor or anything.

 

^Correct..

 

how is the texture of the glass? i mean does it feel as smooth as the MBP trackpads?

on the macbook pro, there are two buttons on each of the bottom corners. However, each button only covers about one-third of the length of the trackpad. Basically, if you click down immediately to the right of the middle line, that is NOT a right-click, you have to move your finger significantly to the right in order for that right-click button to actually get pressed. Does the new Z have this problem?

 

Questions about the backlit keyboard.

Is there any way where we can "manually" turn on/off the backlights of the keyboard? Or will it still be dependent on the light sensor to trigger the backlights of the keyboard?

 

Nice vid!
Interesting to see the hinge working as the laptop opens up @30sec
You can see how the hinge has to slide on the table. Interesting as it doesn't seem like those grey feet are on as it appears to be direct aluminium contact with the table. Bit strange as you'd think that'd wear down the aluminium and make ugly markings on it.

 

depends how far you open your screen. i know personally, he opened it way more than i would have

 

Sony VAIO Z hands-on - Engadget Galleries

Depends how the switch is but i would say it would be the same design as the mac. If it's a completely mechanical switch with 3 positions, one left, one right, and one neutral position, then how can you press right in the middle and still get it to click? If there was no rocker in the middle, then you will end up pressing both right and left at the same time. The only clever way around this that i can thinkn of would be to have a single two position switch without any rocker of course, and then the touchpad sensor would be used to determine if you were pressing on the right or left side.
Not sure why sony didn't make the whole panel the touchpad, seems like wasted space having the whole panel one peice, yet not using it all. I really don't understand all the wasted space on this laptop, being an ultra portable.

 

How to configure the keyboard backlight to turn on whenever a key is pressed? : FAQ : Sony Australia

 

i'm not sure exactly what you're asking here...

but on the MBP trackpad, there are 3 defined clickable areas: the bottom-left-third, the bottom-right-third, and everywhere else.

 

ahh ok so the mac clickpad has 4 switch positions.
but anyway, what i was saying was that where you press for the left and right buttons on the new z, it does not appear to be an active part of the touchpad.
see pic: Sony VAIO Z hands-on - Engadget Galleries
i'm asking why wouldn't you have the bottom area as an active part of the touchpad, therefore increasing the effective size of your (already small) trackpad

 

Seconded on the nice vid!

A few things I hadn't noticed before about the media dock:

• Ethernet connector - nice!
• Only three USB connectors - bah, probably will need a USB hub as well.
• VGA port? Why?? I can understand why on the laptop itself, but why on the dock instead of DVI??
• Cable between laptop and dock seems very short.

 

I noticed that too. When he opens it the screen is almost facing the ceiling. Doubt many would go quite that far!! I would be more worried about the wood on my desk or that of a clients being damaged. Only time will tell if they scratch.

 

On mbp you just click with 2 fingers to right click. On z you click bottom right. There may be a 2 finger option but I didn't mess with those settings.

 

The multiple switches on mbp are only there to make clicking smooth from anywhere on the pad. It doesn't matter which switch gets activated because it knows where your finger is because, well, it's a touchpad

 

Ah. Lol. Forgot that you can always buy another set of AC adapters if you must absolutely take the dock between two places (say work and home).

But while traveling I think depending on the scenario I'd either bring the dock and be judicious about battery mgmt... Or I'd leave the dock at home?

In any case I think the onboard graphics are probably plenty for graphic design...
I probably will be fine just leaving the dock at home.

 

How did someone already get a review unit? Sony VAIO Z Series (2011) review | Sony VAIO Z (2011) review | Laptops | Reviews | PC Pro

Anyway, if the review is legit, it pretty much reaffirms a lot of the stuff we already discussed. Battery life is great, screen is awesome, igpu is fairly capable, ext-gpu is ok for playing games at 900p, keyboard has little travel but you will get used to it, touchpad is one giant button and a little small but not a dealbreaker.

 

Ok, a practical question. I work in three places. I had planned of getting three of the "power media docks", one for each location, to avoid carrying them around and plugging/unplugging all the time.

Given the exorbitant cost of the docks, I'm thinking of alternatives (for two of the locations.) A universal dock seems like a reasonable compromise. Does anyone know if USB 3-based docks have started to come out yet? I'm skeptical that USB 2 is enough to serve a 1080p monitor... Anyone have any thoughts?

 

not if you don't like click-drag and you need to drag.

EDIT: you know, i'm not even sure you can do click-drag if you're not moving a window.

 

What the hell?? 860:1 with 353cd/m2 maximum and an avarage of 4.3 in delta E in a laptop??? Stunning..

 

VGA port is because the vaio z is a bussiness notebook, so you are more often to do presentation with a proyector, and the standard dock of the proyector are VGA, thats you can find the VGA in a vaio z.

 

Yes, that's why there's a VGA port on the laptop. It doesn't explain why there would be one on the media dock instead of a more useful DVI port.

 

if you have a projector at home? lol. but i tink they're just honestly covering all the bases. this way they have an analog port.

 

I have an early Z1 and in my home setup I run 2 1920x1200 monitors via USB graphics adapters, a 1920x1280 via the docking station's DVI port and the Z's monitor itself. In my office setup I run 3 1080P's via USB, a 1080P via the docking station's DVI port and the Z's screen itself.

I have two main functions for these setups: software development and image processing.

While less than ideal, the USB-driven monitors are 'OK'. They're rather slow and the color balance isn't great, but it's livable for my needs.

My suggestion is to try one.

 

Did you guys see the videos from the Taiwan Sony page?

Link

Sorry if it was posted already...

 

not yet,

thanks

 

Thanks for sharing. I cannot believe these guys took a photo with a BSOD (and then posted it): Sony VAIO Z Series (2011)

Let's hope Sony sorts out any BSOD/driver issues before shipping

Indeed, looks great to me... Battery life, overall performance (don't care about gaming), and screen/display are my priorities. Pity about the somewhat compromised ergonomics, though.

Seems to me (as it does to others in this thread) that perhaps Sony should have created this as a new series given that it is such a departure from the much loved and unique all-in-one-featherweight-performance-powerhouse design of the previous Z series. I really don't see why Sony could not have created a "regular" Z as people were expecting, as well as this "ultramobile" version (Sony VAIO Z Air? )

 

Probably cuz' with two separated products.. the regular Z would have had the same price.. so the Z "air" would have had a lower price with less earnings I think.. and two many products in the high end stream it's difficult to handle..

 

what a fast boot time speed.. makes the 2nd gen Z very slow...

 

And there is a 3rd gen SSD option that is even faster than the 2nd gen SSD option.

I wonder if the 2nd gen or 3rd gen SSD comes with the Asian versions of the new Z.

 

wasn't because the GPU can't output to that many digital sources without eyefinity enabled? and practically speaking, forcing use of VGA and HDMI, which have relatively low max resolutions, limits the possibility of seriously over-taxing the GPU that would result from trying to push multiple 27-30" monitors.

 

I just ordered mine (Germany) - i7 2620M, 8 GB RAM, Full HD display, WWAN, additional battery, 256 GB SSD (gen3)... no dock for the moment (I'm gonna wait and see if something better will come from 3rd parties)..

Sales rep. told me that CTOs are going into production (assembly, I suppose) on 7th of July - and finished Zs should be on the way on 4th week of July.

I am also planning to get the additional 128 GB Mini PCIe SSD and replace the WWAN card with it. If all works, I will make photos how to do it

 

Will 256gb SSD will have much better performance then 128gb one in z21?

 

All I know is that "3rd gen SSD" they advertise is using 6 Gbit/s SATA link...

Will it be faster than the Quad-SSD in old Z? I dunno... I'll do test as soon as I get it. I was thinking about getting the 512 GB one, but the price is just too high (they ask 850 EUR more compared to 256 GB... which is ridiculous).

I do have extensive experience with SSDs (I am using them since 2007, and I've been through early SLC models, X25-E and several generations of Samsung and Intel MLC SSDs, including the "Quad SSD" in the old VPC-Z11) - and, to be honest, the difference in typical work between, say, good MLC drive of today and Quad RAID0 setup from Sony, is minimal - if noticeable at all.

Same goes for SLC flash (X25-E) - you would need to have server-type workloads with large number of I/O requests to justify the difference in price. SLC does have an advantage of theoretical lifetime in decades... but I am not really sure how much sense all that makes in a laptop which you use for few years tops...

Anyway... what is interesting is if they are using 20nm NAND flash.... As you go lower in production process, the number of write-cycles is decreasing, so more emphasis has to be put in the controller "smarts". I am not a big fan of all that... but let's see how long these things will last..

 

Will doubling the size of an SSD increase its performance?

 

It depends on the implementation of the SSD - that is, if they are doubling the number of NAND chips, or if they are using same number of NAND chips.

So the only certain way to tell is to know the part number and check its specification. I am assuming Sony is still using Samsung SSDs so I guess soon we will know everything about them.

On the other hand, even if the number of NAND chips (and I/O channels in the controller) is the same, larger SSDs do tend to achieve higher performance for the same workload due to bigger amount of free space - as you go lower with the free space, the performance decreases as the controller has to work more to find the suitable available block when performing write-leveling.

 

^^^
I don't think Sony is using Samsung SSD in Z. Last year only some Z11 models used Samsung SSDs. Later models used Toshiba SSDs. And IIRC the Z Quad SSD Raid 0 was the fastest SSD implementation last year.

 

Does this look like the SSD connector is proprietary? If not, anyone recognize what connector it is? Is it ZIF?

 

Yes the Z217GG comes with 3rd gen SSD. If you noticed, the webpage is about features of Z217GW (the Taiwan version) which is the same as Z217GG. So yes it does have the new 3rd gen SSDs
I'm slowly liking the new Z more and more, can't wait to get my Z217GG. Hopefully its launched soon

 

I just couldn't see 3rd gen SSD in the specs and they posted a video of a 2nd gen SSD vs 3rd gen SSD and they are both in the new Z.

I see in Europe you can only get the 3rd gen via CTO.

I certainly hope the Z217GG gets the third gen SSD.

The Z217GG is supposed to be available in Taiwan on the 23rd of this month. I hope HK will follow soon. I am guessing Sony HK will put up a preorder page sometime next week.

 

Little OT.. did you see the new prices for serie S??? There's 300€ more by the starting price... strange and suicide decision..

 

94800 Taiwan dollars.....that's......3300 USD

 

I am guessing in HK the price will be around 2700$ US or 20980$ HK.

 

I'd say it's closer to $23000. The last generation VPCZ139GG (Same config as mine in my signature, with blu-ray added) costed $22980, so it's safe to assume that the new Z will probably be somewhere around that pricepoint. If you take the taiwan Z's price it's actually $25600 @.@

For those of you who don't know already, HKD is pegged with the USD at a rate of approx 7.78:1.

Then again, Hong Kong has no import tax, so prices can go cheaper, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's closer to $20000