New Z model with Intel Core i5 CPU

Thanks IzzyB68. That's good NEWS!

 

Agreed. Maybe it is an "exclusive" agreement for 6-months, when it comes to that specific configuration (with Widi). Other configurations may be available via the CTO process, even before the 6 months are up. Just guessing of course.

 

It may be for the entire S Series, because Sony Style has only the F and Y in there showroom. I'm just glad that the Z is not part of the agreement.

 

That backlit keyboard looks excellent..!! I struggle to see the keys on my TZ in low light, but I may even consider selling my SR just to buy an S... Although I may wait and see what this new Z is like first, when I materialises in the UK...

 

I'm sorry for being a bit harsh, but without being able to provide a good reliable source to support the image actually is (or even just could be) a leaked photo, that image of what could be the iTablet or iSlate, is most likely wishful thinking transformed into a nice image using photoshop, like all others before it.

 

And I don't see what it has to do with the new Z model, Vaio, Sony, or laptops in general.

 

So how many 13.3" VAIOs are there now? Z, S, Y, CW...? and not one of them comes without an optical drive, right?

I think the average consumer would have no idea how to start to understand Sony's product line.

 

If I am not mistaken the CW comes with a 14.1 inch screen and the Y comes without an optical drive.

 

True. But I think the point is that 13.1/13.3" laptops like the Z-series or the S-series are full-featured products with EVERYTHING built-in. High-end core i7level processors, mid-range GPU with 1GB GDDR3 like the 330, typically present in larger notebooks, high-capacity disk drives upto 512GB raided SSD, built-in optical drives upto a Blu-ray BURNER and so on......all the while weighing in at around 3lbs in case of the new Z.

THAT is impressive ! Otherwise, simply creating a 13.1" laptop is pretty run of the mill, nowadays.

 

I absolutely agree with you. I love my Z and I am waiting for the new one to become available

 

Oh cool, you're right, I didn't even notice the Y has no optical drive. Here's the thing though.. it has a ULV processor, no optical drive, yet weighs a pound MORE than the Z. This seems like crazy product differentiation to me.

How many people here would prefer the Z to have a no optical drive option, or to have a second battery there instead like some Lenovos do (or did?)...?

I use my optical drive about twice a year, I'd buy the Y series if it weighed <2.9 pounds.

The basic concept of the Y is what many people were hoping for from Sony, but comon! it weights a pound MORE than the Z - it's all backwards

 

I completely agree. I have portage r600 with optical drive WE index 3.2 and it has jus over 2 pounds (1 year old machine).

On the other hand there is nothing like Z. New Z is almost gaming machine packed in to little over 3 pounds.

It is advertised mostly to business user. I think it is serious overkill for them. Typical business user will mainly used it for sending mail or Skype conference, reading and writhing documents and sometimes for a business application.

People who deal with image and video editing, post processing will have a problem with the small screen.

If you ask me they should be targeting freelancer developers

As independent consultant developer working with Microsoft tools (VS2008 + SQLServer + at least one virtual machine running for application testing purposes) I am traveling a lot, and I want to be able to work while I am on the move. Sometimes I want to fire up some good RPG.

So this is my dream machine.

 

The Y series is a lot cheaper, which is something you notice with the used materials.

If given the choice between a bluray drive or extra batteries I'd be faced with a dilemma Hmm... most likely I'd go for the batteries and get an external bluray drive. Yup, perhaps not such a dilemma afterall

Edit:
Business users may not necessarily need it, but they want to be absolutely sure it can handle all tasks without hickups and can provide more muscle should they need it.
Otherwise I agree that feelance developers are an open market deserving more of their attention. Although perhaps it is too expensive, and perhaps the focus is intentionally limited to business users for the product image.

 

I believe they charge over $1K for a built-in bluray drive, if buying after the computer purchase.

How much would an external bluray burner cost ?

 

Just a random example of an external bluray burner: $299
http://store.iomagic.com/detail.asp?product_id=IBD1E

No doubt it can be gotten cheaper and more expensive, but it costs a lot less than $1k

 

Well, you know, the last time Sony offered Y, they shrunk the then-perfect S from 13.3" to 12", take away optical and ATI graphics, lost 0.5 lb, used the same Pentium M and the cute little thing lasted for a season.

So, I think Sony are actually learning from their lessons... You just have to hate those Japanese consumer and business that told Sony that is not the way to go in 2005.

 

Sony is much easier to understand than Asus! I got lost on their page and can't figure out if I would like any of their models.

Others have already corrected the other stuff, so I won't get into that.

 

Lets just forget about the tablet, the post has already been 'deleted' by the author.

 

haha, so true...

 

Nope, mods took that ability away. So a mod deleted it.

Forgotten the Vaio G?

 

I would have love to get a Vaio G, but at las it not offered here, nor does it come with a web cam. I think I read somewhere the optical drive is swappable for a battery when needed, something I wish the TT, and Z offered.

 

1.5 months left!

 

Till it comes out?

 

At least!

 

That is the official period. I bet it will come in earlier than their estimate. I think I will go with early February, when it comes to CTO and pre-built availability.

When I bought my A900 camera, Sonystyle had predicted an end-of-November-2008 availability but opened it for pre-ordering by 8th October, 2008. I got the camera in hand, by 10th October, 2008 !

So I would not totally go by these official dates either. They almost always beat it.

 

No, I didn't, but G is not a "spin off" like the previous Y or this Y. Besides, G only weighs 2 lb in the lightest possible configuration, it's really in a league of its own, along with the like of Toshiba RX1/R500 and Panasonic Let's Note (Toughbook) T & W series.

 

Nope. The optical drive in the G is not swappable. 100% wrong. I own two (G1 and G2).

When I get my Vaios from Japan I always order them without the webcam (my Z doesn't have one) and without the fingerprint reader. I have zero use for a webcam.

My Toshiba R600 has a webcam and it's useless for me. Just one more thing to break.

Right now I do like my R600 a lot - mainly due to the 512GB SSD more than anything else - but 5GB of RAM is a bit limiting. The Z I have (I really need to sell laptops that I'm not using at the moment) was the 1st gen, and overall, a bit big for me. Outside of the limitations of memory and HDD/SSD, the G to date is still the best ultraportable I've owned in terms of overall quality. I also like the G's screen a bit better than the R600. It's not the Z's screen, but that's OK.

As of now I'm leaning towards getting the TT from Japan with the 1.6 ULV, 512GB SSD RAID, and the second HDD. I'll add the 8GB myself

I like the new Z, but I wish it was like the TT and had a ODD or 2nd HDD option. I also don't like 1600x900 resolution (my Z was the 1366x768), so the new Z is probably a non starter for me.

 

Well, you just have to wait till Japan makes their own announcement and see if they still keep the 1366x768 option, since they still have that option for current CTO Z, despite everywhere else 1366x768 is extinct. On the other hand, if you get TT, 1366x768 in 11" is pretty similar to 1600x900 in 13", in terms of dpi.

I do hope to see a successor for T or G coming from Sony soon.

 

Just surprised that there have been no more leaks on the new Z from the perspective of some of the finer specs.....does it come with DDR3-1333 ? What kind of SSD drives does it have ? etc.

 

Yes, it is sad that the 1366x768 is no longer offered. I need to read documents and do coding a lot so 1600x900 is painful to me

 

Except the picture of the device manager with GPU and CPU node expanded, seams like nobody of the people that were on the CES bothered to check device manager on the new Z and tell us about it . Not one hard core fan of Z series went to CES to make video for youtube and ask some real questions about specs.

If that was new Apple tablet we would have at least 100 new videos on youtube by now. Apparently Sony is doing lousy job of promoting update of their flagship laptop.

 

You can increase the dpi using software. It's even a setting in Windows, somewhere in accessibility section I think.

 

Indeed. Change the DPI to 140 (which is correct for 1600x900,13.1"), and the fonts will be the exact same size as before, just better defined. If you use apps that aren't high DPI aware, and they appear blurred as a result, right-click the icon for them, go to properties and set "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings". (If you almost exclusively use old apps that aren't high DPI aware, you can check "use Windows XP style DPI scaling" on the screen where you set the DPI, and all apps will get this as default.)

After doing this, all text should be quite readable; more so than on a 1366x768 display.

 

Agreed, completely ! I am just surprised that the folks at CES, who had the hands-on with the product (even professional reviewers), never felt the urge to read through the device manager. What a shame.

 

Didn't work well. I had a Z with the 1600x900 (the Z590UAB US version) first, and changing DPI doesn't work well with all programs. It had nothing to do with blurry. Things were out of proportion, etc. It just looked really bad under Vista.

So I CTOed my Z from Japan and all was well.

While true with the TT and 1366x768 - I was a critic of it - I saw it in the Sony Building in Ginza in December with Windows 7 set to 125% (not a DPI thing, but an even 125% increase across the board) and it was VERY usable. I thought they changed the screen. So I agree and disagree with you at the same time.

Seeing as how the T series never really went away in Japan, and here in the US you've got the Y, Z, and X, I don't think the T will be seen outside of Japan for while.

I'm secretly hoping for a G-like machine with updated specs.

 

Regarding the DDR3 - It's more likely to be 1066 since on the intel website the i7 chip supports 1066/800 http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=47341,43544,43560

 

This is weird and may cause complications since the i7-720QM is DDR3-1066/1333 but in the F, Sony offered DDR3-SDRAM-1333 so surely they wouldn't put slower memory in a premium laptop, especially since the current Z has 1066.

 

Thanks for the info!

I have been wondering for quite a while which DDR3 will be in the Z.

 

can anyone tell me how rigid does the new Z has? flex? the keyboard mark on lcd do exist? :/

 

Could very well be. However, typically, when Sony equips a computer with RAM, it is supposed to last out the lifetime of the series. Going by that logic, even though the current crop of Intel chips can only use upto DDR3-1066 RAM, the next versions that come out in another 4-6 months could very well leverage faster DDR3-1333 memory.

Also, going by what they did in the existing Z-series, it came out in early-mid-2008 with DDR3-1066, when the CPUs were all optimized around DDR2. However, the latest Core 2 Duo processors like T9900/T9600 etc that came towards the end of the current Z-series's life-cyle, could take advantage of DDR3-1066.

So I will wager that the Z-series will come out of the gate with DDR3-1333 memory, even though the system bus of the CURRENT i5 and i7 processors won't be able to take full advantage of it.

The F-series gets the Quad-Core i7s that are optimized for DDR3-1333 and thus can fully leverage the speed of the faster RAM, unlike the Dual Core i7 and i5 chips that come in the NEW Z-series currently, which are all optimized for the slower DDR3-800/1066.

The F-series i7 chips, also gets 6MB (in the i7-720QM) and 8MB (in the 820QM) of ultra-fast Cache memory, while the Dual Core i7 in the Z only gets 4MB of Cache. That is a huge difference right there.

Having said that, I do believe that the Z-series (unlike the S-series or y-series) - being a premium product - will be given fast(er) DDR3-1333 RAM, like the F-series, since the next group of dual-core processors from Intel, could very well be optimized for DDR3-1333.

 

Thanks Drvec for this awesome list, really appreciate it, ad IT SHOULD BE A STICKY

Will

 

I assumed the new Z series gets the same i7 CPU options as the F series (comparing the options for the previous Z with the FW). Did I miss some information, I didn't know the Z is getting the dual-core i7 and not the quad-core ones.

 

I don't think you guys remember the early days of the SZ. The CPU supported faster RAM in specs, but the front side bus/motherboard of the SZ did not support that speed. So it depends on how Sony designs the new Z and/or what they decide to include for parts. I agree it would be silly not to support what the CPU can, but it wouldn't be the first time Sony would have done that.

 

To my knowledge, the only i7 option (in addition to the i5 options) in the Z-series, is the i7-620M, which is a dual-core (with 4 threads). We won't know for sure, till they release the full specs and all available options.

The F-series on the other hand, gets 2 i7 options in the US, both of whom are Quad-core (with 8 threads). These are the i7-720QM and the i7-820QM.

The Quad-core options are of course optimized for fast DDR3-1333, while the Dual-core is not. The quad-cores also have a larger Cache, which speeds up the processing by quite a bit, through faster I/O (input/output).

Of course the Quad-cores might heat up quite a bit, and thus might need a larger chassis like in the F-series and as a consequence, may never get into a small chassis like the Z-series. The Quad-cores also consume more power, which is counter-intuitive to the purpose of the Z-series - which is all about portability (small/light chassis with relatively high-end specs and long lasting battery power) than functioning with CPU horsepower like in a desktop replacement model.

I think when it came to the previous FW series, the FW functioned as a middle child - lying between a true desktop replacement model like the 18.4" AW series and the smaller 13"/14"/15" versions.

Towards the end of 2009, Sony did water down the AW series to the point of making it irrelevant (probably since it did not sell in high enough numbers), while bringing the FW up in specs and positioning it as their "desktop replacement" flagship product.

However, even though the i7 Quad-core note-book processors were released in September of 2009 or so, they never made it into the FW series - since I am assuming that some of the fundamental properties to take advantage of the i7 Quad-cores (which are the availability of more modern DDR3-1066/1333 RAM etc) were missing in the FW series. Thus Sony waited until they released the new F-series, before introducing the i7 Quad-core chips, with all associated optimizations, including availability of DDR3-1333.

Bottomline, the quad-cores never made it to the FW-series, because they were fundamentally not equipped for it and thus could only accomodate the older generation Core 2 Duos, which obviously was also available across the board, all the way from the SR-series and onward to the F-series and the AW-series. The new F-series is now fundamentally capable of being equipped with the Quad-cores, but in turn the quad-cores may not be truly suitable (power consumption wise and heat generation wise) to be put into a smaller chassis like a 13" or 14" like in the Z or CW series - which is why they only get the dual-core versions.

 

whats the supposed price with the GT330M and a non SSD hard drive? and when its planning to start shipping?

 

All versions of the new Z-series gets SSD. No more hard-drive options in the Z-series, which IMO, is a good thing to drive in the premium nature of the Z. Please note that for a $100 premium over the previous base Z, the new base Z-series comes WITH a 128GB SSD and noise-cancelling earphones. The new base Z-series begins at $1899, and comes with the 128GB "quad-SSD" in Raid 0 configuration, and noise-cancelling earphones, which is a considerable upgrade over the outgoing Z-series (IMHO).

They claim that pre-ordering will begin in Early February but I personally think they will start shipping in early february, as soon as it opens for pre-ordering.

 

It seems a little expensive to me, not that it isn't a great machine, but 1899 is expensive these days... will the weight with a GT330M be 1,4kg???

My obvious competitor for it is the new Allienware M11X, the obvious reason the price tag under 1000 USD and a faster GT335M wich has 72 SP whether the GT330M has only 48. In sony advantage I can name: Much lighter (2kg X 1,4kg), much better screen (11,6'' x 13,3'' and probably much better quality and resolution for sony) and removable battery (allienware is said to have a non-removable).

 

I believe the new Z-series will weigh a bit LESS than the current Z-series.

Note that many of these competitive 13" screens are not as full featured as a product like the Z-series.

The Z comes with all kinds of ports all around, comes with a 1600x900 resolution 13.1" screen, comes with a built-in Blu-ray Burner in the optical drive, comes with i7 620M level CPU, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, upto 512 GB raided Quad-SSD drive, a 330M GPU with 1GB GDDR3 memory etc., while weighing in at around 3 lbs.

It is a near desktop replacement type machine in a very tiny form-factor. The Z is expensive but well worth it, IMO. Its primary purpose is not gaming but otherwise is a VERY slick product that can serve as one's only computer. Even now, I am debating between the larger F-series (which I recently bought) versus the new Z-series. Tough choice !

 

Will the Z only come in 1600x900?

 

that price of 1899 includes all that?