New Z model with Intel Core i5 CPU

Hi,

For business use on Z (excel, docs, web, e-mail,...) it´s better 1920x1080 ou 1600x900 LCD ?

It seems that on 13.1" panel the icons and letter will be so small.

Appreciaty comments.
Alex

 

Yes. i7-620M does exist and i7-620QM does not.

 

So, it´s a Web Error at SonyStyle USA ?

 

There is only one question I have about the SSDs. Sony USA says no TRIM support but that is meaningless. All that means is Sony does not offer models with TRIM by default - they all have RAID - and that sony tech support won't support TRIM. It does not say anything as to whether or not the drives are or are not able to support TRIM from a technical standpoint.

Someone needs to kill the RAID array, put the SSDs into JBOD, and see if TRIM works. Why none of the so called reviews have done this, at least to see if it is possible, is beyond me. Guess we will have to wait until actual users get their machines.

I am technically capable, I don't care if Sony "officially" supports TRIM, so long as it works.

 

Exactly. They mentioned 620M at the same page as well.

 

WOW! All this time i thought i was the only one who felt this way, glad to hear i am not alone

 

Amen brother !

 

I see the new Vaio Z series doesn't have USB 3.0 but does it have any other high speed connections like firewire or esata?

 

Here in the netherlands at least; its possible to pick
- 3x USB
- 2x USB + 1x ilink (aka firewire)

So don't know if other country's can CTO with that option.

 

is it firewire 400 or 800?

 

Sorry if I'm covering old ground, but I have a question about the 1600x900 version Z: the specs for this version state "Max. External Display Resolution via HDMI™ : 1920x1080". Does this mean I can view content/programming from the Z on my HD 1080p TV using HDMI at full 1920x1080 resolution, or would I need the 1920x1080 signature version to do that? I think the 1600x900 resolution would be better suited to my general needs, but I'd like to watch content on my TV at Full HD w/o scaling or other similar problems. Thanks.

 

1600x900 Screen res + 1920x1080 output through HDMI

 

Signature and non signature Z series, whether the older 1600 x 900 or the upcoming new 1920 x 1080 when connected to a supporting hdtv will output the full 1080p video with audio as well. Supported means the hdtv has the hdmi input that is connected via the hdmi cable from the Z and if the hdtv is 1080p. It will scale down the image to the tv's native resolution...ie:720p if the tv isn't full hd.

 

Hi,

My mom is going to the us next month, and we would like to know if it is feasible to buy the new vaio Z specifically at the miami sonystyle.

1) People that have bought new models in that store, how much till the get them in stock? (Let's say the model is estimated to ship in march 19.)
2) If they don't have it in stock, how much time would it take for them to get it, assuming i go to the store, pay for the laptop and wait for them to ship to that particular store?

Of course, for anybody that has experience with other sonystyle's stores feel free to answer too.

Thanks.

 

You can contact them and confirm availability (maybe reserve a piece even...?)
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...ngId=-1&identifier=S_Retail_Aventura_Location

 

Indeed it will.
The audio through HDMI has a "feature" that is rather irritating, though -- the audio will only work when the picture is on and detected by both sides.
Which means that you can't use it for playing music through an amp without everyone else present being able to see everything you do on the TV. If you turn off the TV, the audio stops. And if the screen saver turns off the screen, the audio stops too.
Whoever designed the HDMI auto-detection didn't think it through, so there's no way to get sound without an image.

 

Thanks!

 

Keep in mind you don't get an international warranty in the US.
If you need to return it, you'll have to send it back to the US.

 

I believe the Z gets an international warranty. Are you sure?

 

Yes, I believe they do state that the Z gets a 1 year international warranty - but you have to specifically register for it.

 

Just wanted to point out that this is wrong - only the 512gb version is quad SSD. The 192gb and 384gb models are triple, and all other sizes are dual. Although some countries appear to have a quad 256gb version (in the US it's dual).

 

I'm sorry if this question is a repeat, but how will the Z handle gaming?

I have an m17x as a primary computer, and I ordered an m11x with the 335m for mobile gaming, but I'm seriously thinking about going with the Z instead because of what a monster this machine is turning out to be.

I understand the differences between the 330 and the 335m, that isn't really my question. My concern is more along the lines of, "will there be adequate cooling for prolonged gaming?"

This isn't a concern on AW's, because they're designed FOR gaming. Z's aren't. And should I purchase this laptop, it will be used for fairly heavy WoW play amongst a few other titles.

Do you think there will be cooling issues? For this much money, I'm not looking to incinerate it. I'd be going with the i5 for better battery life and less heat also.

 

Mind you, based off the responses to my question I may be purchasing a Z today. I'm eagerly awaiting "there should be no cooling issues, GO FOR IT!"

 

I thought the same. Before the new Z was announced I had a mail exchange with the Sonystyle US support about the international warranty, just to be sure. I was surprised with the end result, which was that only TT and BZ models can have international warranty. And you indeed need to activate or purchase it within the first year.

The Z features page lists 'international service'. I don't recall whether that was there before, but I would be extremely hesitant to assume service equals warranty.

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-330M.22437.0.html

read the page. look at the charts. if that's satisfactory for your needs, buy it.

 

You didn't read my post. I know how the 330m performs. I'm worried about cooling.

There have been concerns that due to the form factor and the fact that Sony did not design the Z with gaming in mind, that GPU cooling could potentially be an issue. I'm not looking to fry the computer.

 

ah.

I doubt it would fry. but if you want this computer, why not get it? you have 2 weeks to send it back. in that time, you should be able to run all the temperature monitoring apps and do all the game testing and benchmarking you could ever want to do.

 

The Vaio Z isn't really a gaming machine at all. Yes it sports a 330, so it has the potential to run a lot of games without a hiccup, but I certainly would not consider buying a Z for gaming purposes. So far I've owned a Vaio SZ, SR and the current Z, and cooling is pretty good. With that being said, when any of the aforementioned machines are under load, the fan noise can be quite loud. I understand noise is a very subjective matter, and everyone's got a different definition of loud/noisy. Another thing to note is that when I run CS:Source, LFD2 and MW2, the computer does get quite hot. With such a small form factor, the m17x would definitely run a lot cooler than a 13.1" laptop.

However, the new Z has a resigned cooling system from the current generation. You can find the video on youtube where the sony engineers/design team discuss the heat issue with 330 in the new Z. I'd suggest you wait for a review and see what people have to say about the cooling/noise issue when the new Z arrives.

 

^ The review is already out: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/11/sony-vaio-z-series-vpcz114gx-s-review/3#comments

"With all that Sony has managed to fit into the Z we were expecting extremely warm temperatures from the bottom of the chassis and the palmrest, but the system actually ran quite cool. There was some fan noise when we fired up graphics intensive applications, but it wasn't too bothersome. Similarly, the optical drive was no louder than usual when watching a DVD."

 

Based on the reviews, how long do we think the extended battery will last? 8 hours? Also, is it better to buy it from Sony or wait until someone else carries it (even if third party)?

 

Well the 128gb drive is actually 2 x 64gb drives, the 256gb drive is 2x128gb drives. So I assume the 384gb is quad ssd because it is 1 128gb + 1 256gb = 4 HD's. They are doublesided HD's each HD is 1HD on each side of the card so 1 card = 2HD's.

The 192 though is a 128gb + a 64gb so that could actually be tri unless they had a 2 x32gb on the 64gb. I just assumed all the HD's are doublesided so any configuration with 2HD's would be quad ssd. But thinking about it if the 64gb is doublesided why wouldn't they put 2x64gb in the 128gb version for quad ssd?

 

Read the Engadget review they say it runs quite cool. Heat is not an issue.

 

So you are telling me if I want to play an occasional game I am supposed to buy a 17" laptop that weighs close to 10lbs and is 2" thick? That's nonsense. I guarantee you a good number of people who are looking at the Z are people who want a small light form factor, but want to be able to play games on occasion, and play them well. With a strong CPU/GPU combo, the Z should be perfectly capable of this. From the endgaget review, it sounds as though heat is not a big issue. This should be even more the case if you have the laptop on an elevated stand as I usually do at home (connected to external monitor, keyboard, and mouse). And fan noise, to me, is a non-issue for gaming - I've either got headphones on or have external speakers with the volume up. As long as the laptop is quiet under normal load, loud fans while gaming doesn't bother me.

 

Results with normal battery range from:

1h8m - heavy load
6+h - stamina light use

Extended battery will offer approximately 50% more, so:
1h40m - heavy load
9 hours approx - stamina light use

I'm also undecided between Z and M11x, it depends on whether you want the bottleneck to be the cpu or the gpu. As i'll be selling my desktop, i'd rather be gpu bound as i can always lower the graphics settings, but with a cpu bound system you'll always get low frames at certain games when cpu intensive moments come.

My main concern is if the m11x will be able to handle sc2... so to be sure i think ill go with Z.

I recommend you to wait as much as possible to get reviews from both m11x and Z. Alas, i wish i had time to wait for reviews, too but i have to make my decision by the start of march.

The only thing i'm hating is the Z's ssd. I f you go m11x you can buy a nice intel or ocz ssd and avoid headaches.

Oh, and by the way, I think M11x's worst feature besides cpu is the screen. At that low resolution, WoW might be a little bit uncomfortable to play, specially if your addons clutter your already reduced screen real state, and I haven't heard good things abot the quality of that display. The Z however, has a top notch display, and resolution-wise, even more pixels then my desktop's monitor!

 

They tested a Z with an i5-540M CPU. I'd like to know though, whether the i7-620M will have any heat issues.

 

I'm with you on this. I too was looking at the M11X but whatever I buy will be my primary computer. A primary computer with a slow C2D leaves a lot to be desired. Sure the 330 GT isn't *quite* as beefy as the 335, but they are close, so I think the CPU power of the Z makes it the clear winner for most folks (taking price out of the equation).

The SSDs are all that worry me. I am eagerly awaiting the actual arrival of these machines so someone can say for sure whether the drives can be taken out of RAID mode and TRIM enabled. If not, I may be continuing my long wait for the "perfect" laptop. If the SSDs were replaceable I wouldn't worry about it - but as is, you're stuck with what you order for the life of the machine, so TRIM support will be the deal maker or breaker for me.

 

They are both 35w TDP so I would expect heat to be similiar but will have to wait for a review if you want to be certain.

 

IMHO, one should always take reviews "with a grain of salt." I mean just because the reviewer feels one way or the other about the notebook after testing it out doesn't necessarily mean that this may be the case when you get your notebook. It is also important to note that sometimes there can be an amount of bias being shown in product reviews.

IMHO again, I'll highly suggest that one buy it from Sony (or an authorized dealer/reseller that has a fabulous return policy) & actually try & test it out for yourself for like at least 2 weeks, running whatever programs you want/need & at the working environment that you regularly will use the notebook in order to "best" judge whether the notebook is running "cool" enough & that the cooling fan is not too "noisy" that it bothers you. Good luck.

 

If purchased in the U.S. & directly from SonyStyle, they have a wonderful 30 days return policy.

 

Where do you get those battery numbers from? Engadget got 4hr 25minutes solid video playback which is a substantial load 1h seems like a huge jump?

I agree on the screen 11" is very small I can barely cope with 12" in my netbook for extended periods. That and the processor...comparing a ULV [email protected]/1.7ghz to a standard i5@ 2.5/3.0ghz is like comparing a yugo to a ferrari

 

I agree, that's why the Engadget review was so convincing to me, that site usually slams anything that isn't Apple. I was astonished they actually gave a non Apple product such a glowing review.

 

RAID 0 usually requires that all participating drives be the same size. For 384gb to be composed of 4 drives would require that each drive be 96 gb.

 

Why is trim such an issue? Will these ssds degrade that badly without it? Also, if the lack of trim was such a bad move by raiding ssds like sony did, why would they disallowe you to configure the z without a raid setup?

In the nicest way possible I'm essentially asking if you're just being picky or if this is a legitimate concern to a non picky consumer.

 

I always thought that too but look at the configurations from the Sony site:

# 128GB (128GBx1) Solid State Drive with RAID 0 Technology
# 192GB (128GBx1 + 64GBx1) Solid State Drive with RAID 0 Technology [add $200.00]
# 256GB (256GBx1) Solid State Drive with RAID 0 Technology [add $400.00]
# 384GB (256GBx1 + 128GBx1) Solid State Drive with RAID 0 Technology [add $600.00]
# 512GB (256GBx2) Solid State Drive with RAID 0 Technology [add $1,000.00]

Oh wait, yea I get it now 384 is 128gb x 3 and 192 is 64gb x 3. So only the 512GB is Quad ssd the rest are tri and the 128gb is dual. These double sided HD are a bit confusing LOL I stand corrected and I better go get a cup of coffee LOL

 

I think its a bit overrated, the TRIM issue that is. Sure it's alot more handy when it's available, but it shouldn't be that bad without. Sure performance will be down faster but stock performance is like 600mb/s read, i guess it would take ages till it reaches say ''80mb/s'' (aka harddrive level like speeds), and at that time you just pop a new image on your setup and your back up to 600mb/s (or maybe 595mb/s).

And i guess it would have somekind of ''garbage collection'' mechanism on there, so it really should'nt be that bad.

 

I think you should re-read my post with greater care. I did not suggest you to get a 17" laptop to play games and I did not disagree with you that the Z is incapable of playing games. I merely expressed that the Z is not a gaming machine whereas the mx11 seems to be catered to gaming. The heating issue depends on what you're running. Like the previous user said, you should take these reviews as a grain of salt and it'd be even better if you could play around with it in person. But again, packing so much hardware (i5/i7 and the 330 GPU) in a 13.1" form factor is definitely going to create lots of heat. I am not saying the new Z will be inefficient in cooling, but based on my experience with the current Z, playing Left for Dead 2, CS:S and MW2, it runs quite hot.

 

]

Because SSDs can in some cases be SLOWER than a hard disk drive when fully degraded. This is particularly true of Samsung drives, which Sony is using. If you don't mind re-imaging your computer every few months, it may not be a problem. For me, $2000 is too much to spend to have to deal with that or to have a drive that performs worse than a hard drive. As for why Sony did what it did - who knows? I'd say marketing. To most consumer RAID 0 sounds fancy, and by the time the SSDs degrade, it's too late to take the computer back.

I disagree. It has been repeated several times on this thread. For the vast majority of users RAID 0 with SSDs is completely and utterly USELESS. Unless you regularly transfer multi-gigabyte files you will notice no increase in speed. Most users do a large number of small reads and writes - programs opening, writing to virtual memories, browser cache, etc. These are just the operations that will be slowed down by SSD degredation. I have a buddy who has an SSD and is a computer engineer by trade. He said in no uncertain terms: "Do not buy an SSD unless it supports TRIM."

Convince yourself TRIM is not a big deal if you want, but it is. It's huge. For the VAST majority of users a drive with TRIM will be way faster than some "quad-RAID" marketing nonsense.

 

It's a legitimate concern. Sony can do what they do because people buy their products based on the design and spec figures, not for durability.

Striping increases the speed, no doubt about it, which also increases sales. That it also kills TRIM means that the laptops will, inevitably experience the saturation syndrome after a certain amount of use. It also greatly decreases the longevity of the system (if a single drive in a stripe fails, all the data is lost from all the drives).

However, judging by posts here, the target group for the high priced Sony Vaios appear to be those who would buy a new laptop every year, and refer to one year old models as "old".

 

The speed isn't the issue, the worst case latency is. When it jumps up to 0.5-1.5 seconds for a single write of a single byte, the user experiences "stalls".

Even though the average speed remains faster than regular HDs, and read speed isn't affected at all, it becomes unbearably slow for random write of small data.

Apples and potatoes. Garbage collection works by erasing the blocks that the drive knows are empty, so writes don't have to do a slow erase operation before the write.
TRIM works by telling the drive which blocks are considered empty from the file system's point of view, so the garbage collection can erase them. Otherwise, the GC can only work with overwritten data: When you change some data in a block, the drive doesn't write it back where it were, but reads the old block, overlays your new data on it, and writes it to a new area. The place where the old data was can then be garbage collected and pre-erased.

But GC won't help one bit once ALL blocks on the drive are marked as potentially in use, which will happen sooner or later as you delete files instead of overwriting the data in them. That's what TRIM safeguards against, and GC doesn't do anything at all to even alleviate that problem.

Yes, it's a big deal if you intend to keep your drive around for a while, and don't just use the drive for storage, but active use with lots of deletes as well as creates.

tl;dr: TRIM makes garbage collection more effective, but garbage collection does absolutely nothing of what TRIM does, and won't prevent saturation write slowdowns.

 

Oh thats too bad, i really heard from many people the TRIM was nice to have but ''a fully degraded SSD would never be slower as an HDD'' so i was told.

But apparently that isn't the case? If it really does become slow every 2 months or something that's way too often for my taste. If you guys say that is the case, i will buy myself the HDD version. Since i just thought the SSD speed to be nice, but not necessary.