New Z model with Intel Core i5 CPU

You may not know this, but a perfect absorbant is also a perfect transmitter.
If you have two devices side by side, one silver and one black, the black one will exchange heat with the environment better, both ways.

But I believe this is really largely irrelevant, because the hot parts of the Z is the same colour on all models.

 

You are a lifesaver! +rep for avoiding my mom the stress of buying it at a physical store.

But with this comes a minor issue... What is the ETA buying from jr or amazon? how many extra days from sonystyle availability? Anyone has a previous experience regarding availability at these stores when buying a newly released model?

Thanks!

 

Hi guys!

I just wanted to update all those interested.

I was at Sonystyle HK today in Causeway Bay and I purchased the highest end Z model (Z117GG) for 19980 HK dollars which is roughly about 2500$ US if I am not mistaken. They started taking preorders today and delivery date is on the 10th of March.

I chose this model because it's the only one with the full HD screen. The laptop comes with noise cancelling earphones, XP downgrade disc, original VAIO carrying case, some pen, some knife and I participated in some lucky draw and won a strap and a card carrier. I also have the option of purchasing any accessories I want with 10% off.

I also played with the Z117GG for about 20 minutes. The screen is more glossy than the old Z but when I looked really hard for the diagonal lines...I managed to find them. They are less visible though than the old Z. The laptop looks a bit thinner and the palm rest looked and felt like plastic to me. Overall the laptop felt pretty snappy and the screen looked great (text was readable for me even at the full HD resolution). The cheaper model with the hard drive and no optical drive comes bundled with an external DVD drive for free.

Feel free to ask anymore questions.

 

Finally the prices in HK are released!
the i5 version with the 1600 screen and 128 SSD is priced at 18K HKD (1 USD = 7.8 HKD)
the i7 version with the 1900 screen and 256 SSD is priced at 20K HKD...
i think it really worth spending the extra 2K ...

Edit : Damnit, Ota-con was faster

 

Good prices and cheaper than sonystyle US but all of them come in silver color. I am a bit desperate to get premium carbon

 

Hey ota-con, I am thinking of pre-ordering the same thing sometime this week when I get a chance to drop by. I was wondering what are the benefits of pre-ordering? Do I need to pay up front? Do you get the "fresh start" option (no bloatware, just windows installation)?

Thank you.

Edit:
I forgot to ask what case option do you have? Or did they just have Premium Carbon and that's it?

 

Hey there,

I preordered because I wanted to get it ASAP and preordering it ensures that. I understood from the VAIO representative that they have limited numbers of the new Z at the moment. Preordering means paying everything upfront. I didn't see any option of fresh start and I didn't ask. I am assuming it will come with some trials. Regarding case options...the low end version come with silver keyboard slab/carbon black lid cover, the middle version comes with black keyboard slab/carbon black lid cover and the high end comes with black keyboard slab/premium carbon black lid cover.

 

i have to stop coming to this thread.

i'm afraid if I go to my local sony store and look at this Z, I might leave $2,500 lighter in the pocket.

 

FWIW: The new Z is now the default one on sonystyle.
On an unrelated note, is anyone else making the move from netbook to vaio z?

 

The new Z became the default selection yesterday on Sony Style.

I actually did move up from the eee pc 1000h to my current Z. The eee was too slow for anything beyond basic web browsing. Now waiting for the new Z and will sell my 3 month old Z820.

 

man i gotta go to the causeway bay showroom then to take a look at the new Z.

now that u mention it, i went to the website and indeed, the lower end model with hard drive has no internal dvd writer. i wonder if that makes it lighter?

oh man, i dont want another glossy screen. i really disliked the TZ's screen and was hoping for a matte screen. i guess i have to see the new Z's screen in person.

 

as soon as we find a black Z for sale outside of sonystyle i'm ordering! I can wait a week or 2 to avoid paying $200ish on taxes

 

My TZ has a matte screen...

 

Thanks for the quick reply, I guess I am going to take a trip to the sony style store tmr during lunch break and pre-order this thing, cause I fear the i7 model may run out.

I am pretty lucky that the high end model is speced exactly how I wanted it... I can imagine a few HKer being really annoyed that they can't get the i5 model with 8GB of ram and Quad SSD, or the i7 model with the 1600x900 screen.

IMO, the i5 model is really not worth it. For HKD2k you get the full HD 1920x1080 screen, the extra 1MB cache on the slightly faster i7, Quad SSD and an extra 2GB of ram. By far the best HKD2k ever spent!

 

Hey arth, I know I have been playing the Devil's advocate for the entire time in this thread but I see many people basing their decisions on one extreme without taking into consideration a gazillion of variable that may for some reason or other affect the seeming end result and using whatever experience I may have I try to level the field.

As I have said before I have the old Z and I am very happy with it, it does not exhibit a single one of the many problems people have encountered and that will obviously make me appear biased (which I probably am.)
Same goes for SSDs which, be that as a result of sticking to high quality or pure luck, I have a relatively spotless history with the kind.

Aside from that, I hear more and more posters mention how they hate the plasticky feel of the palmrest and I think I should plan on making more carbon fibre or carbon fibre with a top layer of aluminium pieces for anyone interested.
I do am not going to do that as a business to I will simply charge for materials, so I estimate the cost will be around 20-30$ per piece plus 5-10$ depending on shipping costs.
Do not hold me to that as I may find a way to buy a large roll of CF and it may cost less.

 

The million dollar question:

Does anyone know if there is any place outside the continental US to purchase the new Z with a full US-English keyboard layout?


The shipping part doesn't bother me at all. I would rather pay an extra $100 bucks to have the thing shipped from another country if that means I could get the Full HD screen. My thought process is, if I'm paying $2k+ for a laptop, why not buy the best screen possible? I can always reduce the resolution, but you can't go 1080p on a 1600x900 screen. My dad is a licensed customs broker and does business with people on literally 6/7 continents. Worse case scenario, I would order the laptop, have it shipped somewhere locally to someone he knows, then have it shipped over here.

Bottom Line: Does anyone know where you can order the new Z with 1920x1080 screen with a full US-English keyboard?

-Acree

PS. First post on the forums. Thanks to all of you guys posting. This is by far the best source of information I've found.

 

According to the spec sheet....the model with the hard drive doesn't seem to be any lighter than the other models. The screen isn't glossy and is matte....just that it is bit shinier than the old Z's screen.

 

conics.net (well known Japanese site)

 

I absolutely agree. The specs of the Z117GG is definitely worth the price. I advise you to go order it before it runs out. Lot's of people were asking about it in Sonystyle HK Causeway Bay in the evening. I ordered it first thing in the morning at 11:00 when Sonystyle opened...even before they updated the website and the callcenters. Let me know how it goes.

 

you got a KNIFE with your vaio?!

 

In the dutch SonyStyle shop and AFAIK in Japan you can get US keyboard. SonyStyle doesn't ship abroad, but some other Dutch webshops will surely sell the Z (e.g. the preconfigured VPCZ11Z9E model), too.

 

I also didn't quite understand what it is...the guy said army knife...

UPDATE: It's a VICTORINOX Gift Set

 

That's terrific Sony offered all those extras. I don't think that ever happens here in the U.S.A., maybe a cheap printer, but you have to mail-in the rebate to get your money back, which can take months.

This is just a hunch. The same hunch I had in Dec. when I had a feeling Sony was going to announce a redesign Z at the CES2010. When those CTO's ship in March, I think SonyStyle will have the preconfig. Z for sale in-store on Mar. 9th. I'm content with the 2499.99 U.S. pre-built model. I decided to hold off 'till March 9th. Those that CTO and those that purchase in-store will get their Z's in and around the same time. I plan to just walk-in on Mar. 9th and make the plunge on the 2499.99 model and get the 10% student discount - just a suggestion unless your truly in a rush.

 

Ah yea, didn't know she wanted the black lid and I do always forget about the 520, I wonder why they put a 520 in the pre configs and not the CTO's? Originally I thought it was a typo when I saw it on Sony site but I guess not if it is here also.

Nevertheless I will probably go with this because the 540 is not worth 200 over the 540 imo, just from the base price and then throw in the tax and the bing cashback and it's definitely not worth 500 dollars more! everything is the same except for the mhz. 520 is 2.4/2.93 and 540 is 2.53/3.06. I'll take 100 less mhz for 500 dollars savings

 

Reposting since no one answered them...

1. So is the consensus that the Z's i7 is only marginally faster than the i5 and that the i7 is noticeably hotter? Or do we not have enough data yet?

2. People were mentioning that the engraving on the Z is barely noticeable, and I know if you get one they won't let you return it... so does anyone even need one? What other ways do you guys mark your laptop? My last one was stolen so I'm a little anal about this.

3. Do we know when people will start getting the Z?

4. Do we know when the Sony stores in the U.S. will have them on display?

EDIT: 5. Aaaand, this is probably stupid to ask, but are we expecting the next refresh to have anything radically different? I heard that the new Optimus technology is a software version of the Z's hardware switch, so is it possible they'll remove it for the next refresh? Or do anything else?

 

Wow, I JUST found out there was a sony styles store near me in Orlando. Way to go me. How was I clueless for that long?

Anyways, do you think they will have the new Z out for display?? And when do you think the stores will start selling them? Bleh, guess I should call for this info..I have a dirty feeling they wont be any help though.

 

surfer jon, your questions were not answered bc no one here has any way of answering those. we can't predict the future

1)it doesn't matter what the consensus is here, until we have them in our hands to compare we won't know the facts. obviously i7 is faster but how much? how does it affect battery life? we can't possibly know. it's likely depending on what your use for the Z is, that the i5 is more than enough.

2)engraving won't stop your laptop from being stolen. it might affect their ability to resale but I don't think they'll be putting it back from where they took it because it has your name on it.

3) we can only go by what sony says but you can't put much weight on that. They say preorders won't be shipped until mid-may but they could very well be available to sell by tomorrow. it's whatever sony feels like doing.

4) no, but you can call your local sony style every single day to find out if they have it, but why torture yourself?

5)we don't even have answers for this Z and you're asking about a refresh?

 

I think you mean mid-March?

 

please please please be a typo.
Man what a typo! My heart stopped mid-beat you $#@^@%$^

 

The same boring reply

Thank you for your inquiry to Samsung Semiconductor.

It was designed by Sony therefore Samsung can not inform whether drive support Trim or not. Please download crystal disk info from below link and check the trim support.

http://sourceforge.jp/projects/crystaldiskinfo/downloads/46055/CrystalDiskInfo3_5_1-en.exe/

If you have any further questions, please send us more question again or visit our Homepage( http://www.samsungsemi.com).

Sincerely,
Semiconductor Business
Samsung Electronics Co,.Ltd.


This is an automated response. Please do not respond to this message.
If you want to make any comments or ask another question, please use the link provided in this mail.


Subject : TRIM support

Hi,

I want to buy a sony z series notebook which has a modified Samsung Solid state drive, Model no: MMDPE56GQDXP-MVB
Firmware: VBM42S1Q , Serial No:1F1390D944SYT44C0261. Can you advise if this SSD has TRIM support? Does this SSD have any type of Garbage collection?

Thanks very much.

 

I have 2 questions that may be premature since no one has the new model in hand yet, but I"ll ask them anyways

I currently have a Thinkpad T60p and one of the best things about it is that I can run multi-mon out of my docking station to drive two 24" LCDs, one DVI and one VGA.

1. Can the new Z laptop run BOTH the VGA and DVI at the same time out of the docking station?

2. Is the Vaio Z110 the correct docking station for the new Z series? The description says it's "Only compatible with VPCZ110", but in the compatibility tab, it lists compatbility with the entire Z line. It also refers to a broader compatbility model VGP-PRZ1 docking station, but that is listed as "no longer available".

 

1) I'm with you on the dual monitor thing. Unfortunately, according to the user's manual, the laptop and the docking station can only support single external monitor output. My workaround will probably be a USB or express card external monitor device to handle the second monitor.

2) The right docking station for the new Z is VGP-PRZ10 (as opposed to the PRZ1 for the older Z). The link you provided is the correct one.

-Peter

 

God I hope so LOL I am getting desperate waiting for this thing!

 

Why does the Canadian website still not show the new sony z
Too bad I'm not travelling to HK anytime soon, or else I would pick up the Z117 too.

And it's confirmed that the 1080p panel is 8-bit, says so on the HK sony website, that means it isn't a TN panel which is very good news.

 

lol yes typo sorry!! mid-march

 

If I get the Z rather than a MacBook Pro, I will either do that, or dual boot Win7 and Ubuntu. I'm not doing that currently because my current laptop is too old with too little RAM, so I've been making do with Windows versions of the Unix tools and Cygwin. But I would like to avoid having to run two OSes, whether dual booting or running one inside a VM, because I would have to maintain two environments to my liking and requirements, and have to management my work files across two file systems. OS X is the best solution because I can use that one environment for my productivity and coding, and only use Win7 in bootcamp for gaming, and won't have to worry about customizing Win7 to my liking because I will only fire that up for games.

 

Reading the Dutch Sony Style site (as best I could) I would like a Z configured like this:

I7-620 4MB cache
Premium Carbon
500 GB 7200 HD
6GB DDR3 Ram
1920 x 1080 screen
Windows 7 Pro

total $1,918.99 Euros. This is my ideal build. I guess I'll have to order from a Japaneese reseller to get these specs. Are there any Dutch resellers that someone can recommed who can get me a CTO unit? Any idea of how much of a premium I'll be paying? Dam Sony, why don't they just allow us to CTO with the HD screen and the non-SSD drive here in the US. Bastages!

One question: if I want to add broadband wireless access later, is there a place to install an SSI chip to give me access without having to use a dongle (no real big deal but would be nice not to have to carry around a dongle in my briefcase).

Bronsky

 

Correct.

That, though, like many obvious things, isn't necessarily true. If the i7 runs hotter and causes the machine to throttle more, the i5 may very well end up being faster for many types of work.
But again, we don't know until someone can test this.

 

In my country Sony decided not to sell vaio laptops.

That is the catch 22 . You can't get CTO configuration even if you visit Amsterdam in person. You can only order it online. If you have friend in Nederlands not only you need him to receive you package but you also need him to pay for you since your billing and your mailing address need to be same.

I didn't manage to find any resellers in Europe selling CTO configuration (only one German site). From Japaneese reseller you can get your configuration for around 1,950 euros.

 

I'm using VMWare+Ubuntu on my old Vaio S (Pentium M and RAM upgraded to 1,5GB). When I need Linux, I just start it like any other app. I don't have to maintain it.
But of course, you might have to use Unix/Linux much more than I do.

 

Thanks. Was wondering if I could get on a plane and hang out in Amsterdam for a weekend while picking up a Z. I guess not. Guess I'll have to order from the Japaneese resellers. Wierd that Sony is not selling the Z in the Netherlands. What is up with Sony?

 

igorstef: The UK website does CTO with pretty much every option.
Also, you can wire them the money and have it shipped to someone in england OR you can wire them the money and have a courier collect it and it to you.
But first you need to call SonyStyle UK and ask for details (IBAN number to wire the money) and then when it is ready you will have to contact DHL or UPS and arrange for a pickup.

 

That depends on your definition of glossy and matte.
By my definition, if it takes fingerprints, and vinyl screen protectors will cling to it without adhesive, it's glossy. If it makes friction sounds when you rub a microfiber cloth over it, it's matte.
Most IBMs (sorry, Lenovos) have matte screens. Sonys have glossy ones, and the old Z is glossier than most. It has anti-glare coating, but IMO, it's still very glossy.

 

Instead of VmWare, checkout Sun VirtualBox. It's free and it kicks a$$ (and its better)

 

Here is another site selling the Full HD 1920x1080 display with extreme details in option selection..

http://www.geekstuff4u.com/sony-vaio-z11-series.html

 

Posted a message @ SonyStyle.ca's facebook page today, and got a response.

'Hey SonyStyle, when is the new Vaio Z going to be available for order on your website??? It's been available to order in the US and several other countries for weeks. Why is the older model still listed! I want the new one asappp' (as you can tell, my skills in consumerism are epic)

Sonystyle.ca:
The new Z Series, including the custom model will be available in early March on SonyStyle.ca.

Well...... that says nothing new at all. I guess we will see it populate within the next two weeks. Sorry gang! Gotta keep waiting on those prices and options.

 

Does SonyStyle UK really accept foreign payments/billing address (if you call them)? Do they give an invoice stating the non-UK costumer and address as well?

 

Using that site my Sonystyle configuration of $2585 costs over $3000, and that's WITH tax on the Sonystyle config.

Anyone else compare prices?

I'll wait for Portable One to get their web page updated.

 

holy overpricing, Batman!

 

I cannot believe that Sony UK are finally offering something worthwhile - after years of insane prices and crappy silver plastic tat, it is looking like it has finally paid off to be a Brit. Surely they will pull some 11th-hour Andy Murrayesque capitulation and bump the prices up by £1000, delay launch until December and cancel all CTO options?