New Z model with Intel Core i5 CPU

Sony style usa website

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...alogId=10551&langId=-1&cmsId=zseries#overview

 

Wow, it has started in the US too, as I predicted it would ! Even though when you click on "view models", it does not allow us to do anything more.

 

So the US model doesn't come with a full HD screen?

 

If you want as many CTO options as possible then you should try sites from Japan like Conics.net. If you want it as soon as possible then probably your best bet will be sony style US.

 

According to the specs on sonystyle, the 512GB version is 256x2, which means the 512 is also dual-SSD. Maybe there is a quad-SSD option in the mix but most configurations might still be dual-SSD.

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...10551&langId=-1&cmsId=zseries#/specifications

 

At least it is some progress. maybe days before we can (pre)order?
I went to the SonyStyle store and a rep said it would be a few weeks before he had models and specs for the Z.
BTW Rachel, I like your avatar.

 

I just noticed that too, which is a bummer. I was all pumped up about a Full-HD screen. I will wait if need be, till it gets here.

 

Strange!!!!

just yesterday I have looked on Sony Style and I didn't see it,

thank you Pepero

 

Thank you Rachel,

next month I'll be back to work in US so I think to buy it there and I hope the unit come without Verizon locked wwan or otherwise I have to do the same I have done with my Z790DLX and the TT290NBX.

 

Does anyone know if i could buy sony laptop from sony style USA from Australia billing address and ship it to a US address?

 

you must have shipping and billing address in US,

 

And regarding the docking station, it looks like it will come with a power adapter (unlike the one for the previous Z):

Quoted from a translation of this site

I'd really like to know the ports that will be on the dock, and whether it will be able to drive two external monitors (through VGA and HDMI) like my current ASUS can...

-Peter

 

Always from the sonystyle US:

Estimated battery life (with standard) 7.5 hrs, which it would be 5 hrs of real usage and tweaking...great in my opinion. With the extended one, Sony states 11 hrs, which would be around 8-9 hrs.
I am quite happy Sony keeped the 1600x900 option, for me it would be too much the full HD. It seems that instead of the 1366x768, now the lower is the last model highest.

 

2.66GHz Intel® Core™ i7-620M processor

PRICE?
any idea?
the special edition glossy black is around $4800......

 

Did anyone see its a 330 GT graphics card, not a 310! This is a monumental upgrade if I'm to understand how these work, especially for a super thin 13", alongside the Core i7 620, which is the highest of the "lower" models (ie. the higher power using, high cache 720, 820 and 920 are another grade above).

 

Yep, it was always been 330 GT, from the moment that appeared the new Z! Look the first post.

 

Anyboy know how much the model with the Core i7 620 is going to run, or hoe much extra over the default i5 processor?

 

Yeah, but reduce the SSD size on that from 512GB to 256GB, and you can shave off $1500 from the price - during the CTO build.

 

I am guessing it will be another $300-400 or so, based on the cost attached to the processor upgrade in the new F-series.

 

Hello roweraay ,

I wrote about the Special Ed. price which is around $4800,

so for sure the CTO will be less ,
and as you say $1500 less for the SSD for the 256 this meas that we can get a nice configuration around $2300...
Right!

 

@roweraay, you staying with the F or still thinking about getting a Z? Or both? I'm all in on the Z. I returned the F yesterday. As you stated I got a lemon. If it would've worked right from out of the box I would've kept it but the problems I had made it easier to part with.

 

Exactly ! And I intend to max out some of the specs (processor, RAM, bluray burner, Full-HD screen etc) but cut down the SSD size to the base 128GB.....as we know, 128GB is more than enough to house all the primary applications and also a significant amount of documents/data and with regular/periodic backups, should get the job done.

That should allow a top-notch machine overall, at a fairly/relatively reasonable cost.

 

I am planning to return my F-series shortly (I am planning to call Sony up today and ship it out by evening), even though the machine itself works like a charm. I then intend to wait to see what the new Z-series comes out with, and my strong inclination (75% possibility) is to go with the new Z with specs all maxed out except for the SSD size, with a lesser chance (25% possibility) of going with another F-series but this time around with the SSD than the HDD.

To be quite honest, I don't feel good about returning something that is perfect in pretty much all respects but this is something I intend to keep for several years and want to get it as right as I can.

 

As the Hulk would say:

ME WANT ONE!!!

 

That might pay for the expensive upgrades by halving the SSD storage, thanks.

 

I'm not very good with computers, so forgive me if this sounds totally stupid. If it's 2.66 GHz, doesn't that mean it's slower than the outgoing Z? I see that they mention something about 3.33 GHz, but I don't get how it can have two numbers.

 

For the average user, it really is no different than the current CPU that throttle down when load is low to get more battery life. It just now Intel gives you the median/average speed and lists the potential max. clock in turbo boost.

 

So basically it gets up to the 3 GHz when you're doing something work-intensive, but otherwise remains around the 2.6?

 

Yes, I understand but there is nothing morally grey about returning a product you're not completely comfortable with. They give a 30 day window to do so. That is tantamount to an invitation to do so if you're not happy. They expect returns.

When Sony beat up Toshiba during the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD format wars I'll bet nobody at Sony wrote, "You know I don't feel so good about costing Toshiba billions of dollars".

 

Agreed. But I still feel like a rat for returning something that is fully/perfectly functional, and something that I personally chose, just because I noticed something better, around the bend.

Either way, I am a long time Sony customer, and hopefully have made it upto them over the years. Just that I wish I had gotten my selections perfectly right at the outset, and also that the new temptress (in the shape of the new Z) was released alongside the F-series, and that I could have picked the Z up earlier and not have to return the F-series for the Z.

PS: My only gripe about the old Z-series was the GPU (with a pitiful 256MB memory) that came with it. Even the lower positioned S-series got a better graphics card. This Z-series of course no longer has any such limitation and has gone all out to the 330M with 1GB VRAM.

 

Yeah, maybe even lower if you are on battery and stuff.

 

The new generation of Intel processors, have something known as "scalability". In other words, they can scale up and scale down the processor's response, based on what tasks they are trying to do.

If the amount of tasks to be done are low, then they can "throttle down" the CPU's capability, thus allowing less amount of power consumption (and heat generation)....I believe the CPU can (when the job load does not require it), throttle down to less than 1Ghz too, if needed, thus consuming very, very little power allowing the battery life to be extended.

At other times, when there is a lot of things to be done (job load is high), the processor can increase the clock speed to 3.33 GHz etc to get it done quickly, also known as the "turbo" mode.

To summarize, this generation of processors are a quantum leap over the older Core 2 Duo processors, by being able to "scale" the processor response, based on the tasks at hand. So if in the past we would refer to a Processor's clock speed as say 2.5GHz or 2.8Ghz or 3.06GHz, we will refer to the new processors' clock speed as 2.6GHz-3.33GHz or 2.53GHz-3.06GHz and so on.....basically a range than a fixed number.

 

Here is a preview in Chinese:

http://notebook.pconline.com.cn/testing/J_Korea/sony/1001/2028169.html

DDR3 1366 Mhz RAM???

 

cool, couple pics we haven't seen before i think.... thanks for the link!

 

Is it just me or does life in Asia seem far more exciting?

Look at all the exclamation points and bright colors their websites have!

 

lol. Their websites are sure alot busier. I don't know if that means they're able to take it all in or if they're still learning about the psychology of web surfers and what makes a person stick to a site.

 

These are just culture differences. With such great masses of people packed together in their cities it takes a lot to stand out. This is also reflected in their websites.

 

Clearly a typo....for 1066 MHz RAM

 

A nice explanation, so it's sad that it's wrong.

Intel Turbo Boost(TM) is the ability of the CPU to scale up a core when other cores are not in use. This is nothing new -- the old P9500 has it, for example -- when both cores run, they run at 2.53 GHz, but when only one runs, it runs at 2.66 GHz. This helps for single-threaded applications.

For quad core, there haven't been any(?) consumer desktop CPUs with turbo mode before, but server class Xeons have had it for a couple of years now. If you run two cores, each of the running cores can be bumped up one step. If you run a single core, it can be bumped up three steps. That's simplified what i7 inherits -- the rules for scaling up and down are slightly more complex for the i7 (it can scale up a single core one or two steps even if all cores are running if and only if the temperature is low enough, for example[*]), but it boils down to "use single threaded apps, and you can bump up the speed, run multi-threaded apps, and you can't".

[*]: This is definitely not new. My old 8086 had a turbo button on the front that would up the CPU speed from 4.77 MHz to a staggering 10 MHz, but only if the sensor (onna stick!) showed less than a certain temperature. This is just moving the same logic into firmware.

As for scaling down, Intel's CPUs have had the ability to do that for years now. To use the same CPU example as above, when the load is light, the P9500 runs at 1.9 GHz. Other CPUs can scale down far more -- AMDs, for example, can often drop to a fraction of the original speed, and with multiple steps in-between "idle" and "full". The i5/i7/i9 class (Core 3) is getting better here, and can also scale multiple steps, unlike Core 2, which was a step back from earlier CPUs with only "idle" and "full".

The only thing really new (apart from the much higher bus speeds in the "top" models, and Yet More useless instruction bloat) is that i7 has a combination of turbo boost and hyperthreading, which makes TurboBoost work (in a limited fashion) even for multithreaded apps.
Up to now, HT has raised the temperature quite a bit compared to the performance gain, so it hasn't been smart to combine it with turbo boost.
With the i7, a "smart" app can run two threads on a single core, and not use the other three cores at all. That makes Turbo Boost kick in, and the core being used will run faster.
The question is whether that will make the app complete any faster than running two separate cores at lower speed, and that depends on the app. The better optimized the code is, with fewer branches and fewer single-thread bottlenecks, the more it will benefit from multiple slower cores.

In short, yes, the i7 is a step up from Core 2. But no, TurboBoost isn't new, and neither is CPU scaling, and no, the new CPUs will not be described with a speed range, but the actual speed when all cores are running flat out, just like before.

 

Thanks for the nice explanation, even though there was an un-necessary/un-needed snide-ness in the tone.

I assume that the application has to be created for having steps run in parallel, to take advantage of the multi-threadedness or multi-core model, enabling quicker processing.

However, I believe we are talking about one single app running on the computer, right ? Or should we also be considering situations where a laptop can have multiple apps running at the same time - say an Excel macro running, while a photo-processing batchjob is also running in the background, while the person is wirelessly browsing on the internet - these situations can also benefit from having more than one core and multi-threading, right ?

 

What is the release date for Canada? other than feb 8th/ march

 

Here are some great comparison pics from the sony store website

The New Z


The Old Z


I really like the new placement and design of the optical drive, as you can see the old one looks kinda big and clumsy but the new one is flush with just the bottom part of the laptop!!
The Screen bezel is nice and the overall darker color (duno if thats an option tho)

Cant wait to see it in person and compare it to a Mbp/a (outer looks wise)

 

Yes, and the more multitasking that occurs, whether it's by single apps written to be multi-threaded or by multiple different processes running at the same time, the less effect TurboBoost will have, and the more important the "real" clock-speed becomes.

Older apps that you run without other things running are those that will benefit the most from TurboBoost.

 

Did you see this? You can sign up to be notified and it looks like their offering full 1920x1080P LED, http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...&productId=8198552921666073686#specifications

 

So... cheking the specifications tab it looks like it'll be a 2 disc raid, which considering mtbf issues is a plus.

 

I can't even fathom what a 1080p 13 in screen will be like. Pure awesome I say

 

So if they are offering the full-HD screen for the signature model, it certainly provides hope that the US version (at least in CTO) will also come with full-HD screen (at least as an option).

 

For those that are interested, here's the PDF of the full user manual for the new VAIO Z

http://www.docs.sony.com/release/VPCZ110_series.pdf

Among the tidbits you can get from it is a look at the new docking station and the various ports on it (page 98, 4 USB-2 ports, 1 VGA, 1 DVI-D, 2 (?!?) Ethernet ports)

I'm looking for more stuff now...

 

still reading the manual, no multitouch trackpad according to page 36. Just the same we already have, including the circular motion for continuous scrolling from the latest ALPS driver...

oh well... not a dealbreaker for me

Still more, it looks like the 'Windows arrangement button' (the one between the VAIO and the ASSIST button, on the top right corner of the keyboard) is *not* performing the Aero Snap (putting two windows side by side) as was explained by one of the Sony sales guy at CES in a video, but instead:

"By default, the window arrangement button shows all open windows by resizing the windows so that they all fit on the desktop. To resume the previous window state, press this button once again."

So this looks more like a copy of MacOS Expose function, or the 'Switcher' freeware on Windows Vista/7 (which is very cool by the way if you haven't tried it )

Still more, for the person that was lamenting that there was no dedicated 'Mute' button, looks like the [VAIO] button can do just that:

" Launches the Media Gallery or turns the volume on and off, depending on your model."

... in progress, reading more now...

... more from the manual...

As predicted, the Noise Cancellation ear buds leverage the internal circuitry of the Vaio Z to function (as well as some Windows 7 setup). In fact, there's quite a bit of parameters that are adjustable on these (per page 90-96). They are still useable for other devices but would likely NOT provide much Noise Cancellation (ie: you'd get passive but not active noise cancellation.) You could also do NC with an other set of headphones (which do NOT have the built-in mics from the Sony ones, in which case the computer uses the internal Mic to determine the sound waves to cancel... still pretty cool ! )

So, you can watch a movie in the plane on your VAIO with those earbuds but if you want to watch the planes normal programming, no NC for you

No big deal I guess.