New VAIOS Are Available Now...

at the Sony Style store in NYC. I know a few of you wanted one ASAP, and they're available there pre-configured.

I'm know they have a handful of stores throughout the country.

 

wow even the Z series?

 

That's pretty good news. Let us know if the Z is available, because that would be really good news .

 

I'm not 100% sure on the Z. My friend works in the building and I asked them to check out if the FW was in on Friday, and it definitely was.

Regardless, I'll be heading there tomorrow to check it out. I'll report back then.

 

cool please do. i've been checking my local sonystyle store as well, but they do not have the Z on display yet. they have the SR and FW though

 

I would be very surprised if the Z is available now anywhere, we should see it in early to mid August at the earliest.

 

I just got back from my local Sony Style store and the FW is available NOW (preconfirgured/limited supplies) none of the others are until August. The new ones are awesome.

Drake

 

But none with a HiColor screen, from what I understand.

 

i agree, they have really odd preconfigured modules with most of them with P8400 cpu

 

All three models, including the Z, are on sale at the Sony Style store in Manhattan.

I am in the market for the FW - I'd get the Z, if I could afford it. Looking at the Z in person, I was a bit turned off by it. I don't think the 16:9 screen ratio works well with the 13.1" screen.

I really liked the SR and would get it, only if it had Blu-Ray. It looks like I'll definitely be getting the FW...

 

Wow. This is good news. Maybe I can get a Z in time after all (even though I'm a long way from Manhattan, maybe they'll be available from other stores soon also). Or even better, maybe someone will be able to write a review on it soon

Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. According to my calculations, the screen has the height of a 12.1", and the width of a 13.3", "thanks" to the 16:9 widescreen.

This is nice in that it gives you a full sized keyboard with the footprint and weight of a light 12.1" laptop, with only a little less total screen space than a 13.3" laptop. But the disadvantage of course is you lose about 9% of your vertical space coming from a 13.3" 16:10, which of course isn't good for reading fixed-width text. Although the actual pixel space (vertical) lost is only 4% due to the slightly higher resolution.

Anyway, it's all a tradeoff between screen space and portability.

P.S. Don't forget, if anyone living near Manhattan decides to buy a Z, we'd all love a review

 

So what are your thoughts on the FW?

 

It was solid. I went to the store to mainly check out if it would be too big for me. I currently have a 13.3" Fujitsu and love its size, so I was wary about 16.4".

Anyway, the size was not completely overwhelming, which I was happy about. However, I longingly looked over at the SR, which is perfect for me, except it doesn't have Blu-Ray and would cost about $200-$300 more.

The geeky-looking sales associate, as soon as he saw me whispered to me that the FW was a "steal." I don't think he was on commission and seemed to genuinely love it.

I tried to ask him about the difference between the ECO and HI-COLOR screens while I was there, but he wasn't much help and told me it was about the same. He showed me a FZ that supposedly had HI-COLOR and it seemed to be somewhat better, but it's difficult to tell with merely a Vista desktop running. The ECO screen was nice, but I know there is better out there (i.e. HI-COLOR).

 

That sounds exactly like my story.

I've got a 12.1" laptop now. Love the small size, small footprint and light weight... but the screen is kinda small. I really love the way my 20" external monitor looks, but I'm tired of being tied down to it.

So, I went to SonyStyle to look at the FW. Looked good, not nearly as monstrous as I had feared... but I also liked the SR. In fact I had to remind myself that I wanted a larger screen -- otherwise I'd be very tempted by the SR.

By the way, I too asked the sales guy about Eco vs HiColor screens, since I wasn't crazy about the FW's Eco (yet loved the SR's screen), and he too said there's barely a difference between Eco and HiColor. I felt like (sarcastically) asking why they charge $100 for it, but what's the point, right?

Anyway... I do like the FW. But since I'm still a bit apprehensive about the size/weight difference, I'm not rushing into anything yet. A 15.4" laptop with 1440x900 resolution might be just right for me. Or who knows, maybe the 13.3" SR would miraculously seem a lot bigger than the 12.1" I have now, and might be perfect. Who knows? Obviously not me.

 

As someone who has had 13.3" for the past four years of college, I give that screen size a thumbs up. I've never thought it was too small for me.

Why do you specifically need a bigger size? Unless you are a hardcore gamer/video editor, I don't think you really need bigger than 13.3". Then again, to each their own.

 

I'm not a gamer (at all) but I'd like to do some video editing (just family/home videos).

The real reason why I want the larger screen is to replace the 20" external monitor that I use when I don't mind staying at my desk. I'd like to free myself of being "stuck" by the external monitor... so I figured the bigger the laptop screen the better.

 

Hey NYYankeeGirl, just wondering. where is the store? I may go there after work since I work in midtown manhattan

 

Its at by E 55th St. and 550 Madison Avenue. I went there last year on my trip to NYC, very nice store, sure beats the SonyStyle store in Houston.

 

thanks rahul.. you guys think that the bare minimum Z specs would allow me to play wow smoothly?

 

inert, just to give you heads up there are two parts of the store that aren't connected - one closer to 55th, another closer to 56th. It can get a bit confusing. Also, make sure to check out the downstairs area with all their HDTVs. It's pretty amazing.

I'm not sure about wow, but as I wrote above, beware the Z is quite small with the 16:9 ratio. You might be sorely disappointed playing on such a tiny screen. You'll find out tomorrow though, I guess! Unless you're looking for a SSD or Blu-Ray you should check out the SR - it's much more manageable for gaming.

 

nyyankeegirl did you happen to see what resolution the Z on display was running at? how did the resolution look compared to the SR?

 

thanks Yankeegirl, but I'm not sure if the SR series has a good enough video card. It sucks cause the Z is gonna cost me about 3 grand for the specs I want..

anyone know if the SR series with the correct specs would work out for me? Thanks

 

and you are expecting Z's video card to outperform the SR's ATI HD2470...how?

 

i dont know anything about video cards

is the ATI better?

ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3470 or NVIDIA® GeForce® 9300M GS GPU

 

I believe the ATI card is better as far as I remember from benchmarks and maybe specs as well. don't quote me on the specs, but i'm pretty sure it had higher performance.

also, I like how ATI's card uses that feature that automatically detects how much graphics power to use, thus reducing heat, power consumption and probably fan noise

http://ati.amd.com/products/mobilityradeonhd3400/specs.html

 

cool, thanks i guess ill look into the SR series now.. thought Z was the only way to go.. thank god.. its cheaper too

 

keep in mind SR doesn't have HDMI output. I personally don't know crap about that since I never use it. Also, the SR has a lower resolution but the Z has higher options (higher res= more stuff on the screen...but of course they will be smaller. HOWEVER, you can always lower the resolution I believe) . Look into those factors too, if they are important to you. They weren't to me so meh..

 

The SR has Intel integrated graphics while the Z has integrated and dedicated graphics.

I recently took a trip to the Cincinnati Sony Style store to check out these new models. They had the FW and SR in stock, and all three were on display.

The FW definitely looks like a multimedia notebook with the large 16:9 aspect display and prominent speakers. I picked it up, and it felt pretty solid.

The display on the Z did seem weird. I don't want to lose vertical space for more horizontal on my current notebook, which has a 14" 1280x800 display.

I really liked the looks of the Z and the SR. The keyboards all felt the same as far as I could tell, which was pretty good. I'm glad they are using the chiclet style keyboard more. The power connector seemed somewhat flimsy on all of the notebooks, unfortunately.

 

Ken or nyyankeegirl,

Could you comment on the Z screen vs. the SR and FW? Most notably, glare, viewing angles, and black levels?

 

The cheapest SR has Intel X4500 integrated graphics, the more expensive ones have ATI HD3470 dedicated graphics with 128MB.

The ATI is only necessary for gaming and 3d work.

 

The two lower SR preconfig models are actually the same price ($1449), but has different video cards and otherwise same specs. Go check PortableOne's website, the models are 129 and 130. But yes, CTO models the ATI is $100 more.

 

Why that is so I was wondering... Maybe it's just plain stupid?

yes I think that is it. Let's charge 100 bucks more for CTO but nothing extra for pre-configured beacuse its really 100$ worth or effort to have to install a graphics card. /sarcasm.

 

I don't know why Portable One has prices like that, but generally speaking I blieve the ATI one will be more expensive than the Intel one when all other specs are the same.

That's how it is in Europe anyway.

 

Im wondering this also the hd 3470 128 megs vs 9300mgs 256 megs.
whats faster?

Also are these ram gddr3? or Gddr2??

 

And HD video editing, from what I'm told.

 

Can anyone confirm that type Z is on sale, rather than exhibition, in sonystyle in Manhattan please?

If it is true, I would take a trip to NYC this week.

 

My local SonyStore had real FWs, but prototype SRs.

 

I'm not too sure that a X4500 would not pull that off.

 

Is that an integrated card?

It says on these requirements that "Intel GMA integrated graphics not supported."

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSi...Home+Video/Studio+Family/Studio+Ultimate.html

(apparently you've gotta click on Specifications)

Notice that AVCHD editing has higher specs than "regular" video editing.

 

yep the X4500 is an integrated card. I really doubt it will be able to process AVCHD editing.

 

That makes sense because up till now Intel GMA did not have hardware HD acceleration. X4500 does have hardware HD acceleration so in that respect it may be sufficient.

But then the specs continue to say:
- Intel® Core™2 Quad 2.66 GHz or higher required for 1920x1080 AVCHD editing
- 256 MB required for HD and AVCHD*

So HD3470 with 128mb will not even be enough.

So if you want to do HD video editing, you'd better buy a desktop.

 

But it also says "Intel® Core™2 Duo 2.4 GHz or higher required for 1440x1080 AVCHD editing"... Which is why I record everything at 1440x1080.

And doesn't the HD3470 have 256MB of dedicated video RAM?

 

By the way, this is why I was asking about which of these new processors is at least equal to the Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz:

# Intel® Core 2™ Duo Processor P8400 (2.26GHz)
# Intel® Core 2™ Duo Processor P8600 (2.4GHz) [add $50.00]
# Intel® Core 2™ Duo Processor T9400 (2.53GHz) [add $200.00]
# Intel® Core 2™ Duo Processor T9600 (2.8GHz) [add $500.00]

 

I didn't even notice the ATI dedicated card option for the SR. All three of these new models seem like relatively good values. I'd like to see Sony offer Fresh Start on all of their notebooks regardless of OS, but otherwise, they're doing a good job.

I didn't look at them closely enough. I spent the most time checking out the SR, and it seemed decent. The other two should be just as good or better.

 

On the SR it has 128MB
On the FW it has 256MB.

All I'm saying is don't expect a huge difference between HD3470 and X4500 on the SR because there isn't.

 

It all depends on how serious you are about the 1440x1080 AVCHD editing.

P8400 can pull it off, just a little slower than P8600.
X4500 can pull it off, just slower than ATI HD3470.

 

Ohhh, I didn't know that. Sorry. I've been looking at the FW's specs and just assumed the SR had the same card. Interesting.

 

Just occasional family/home video editing. Nothing serious.

 

I called sony plaza in manhattan today. The sales agent told me that the model Z will start on sale 2 weeks later.

 

whats their number? i wanna make sure the SR is on sale before i head over there after work