Nice Vaio Z upgrade. Ugly "wrist rest"

I love the new upgrades... incremental but needed. The wrist rest. UGLY? Am I alone in thinking from an aesthetic perspective that this is a step back. Building a strong Z frame is important but this visually is far less nice than the current Z.

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You're not the only one. I thought the new palm rest design was ugly ever since I saw the leaked pictures of the F-series. Of course, this trend started with the CW but I never paid too much attention to it because I never thought Sony would use that ugly design on their more popular, nice-looking laptops.

Despite all this, I still think the Z is one of the nicer laptops out of all the new redesigned models.

 

UGLY!!! But very nice specs! I would love to have a backlit keyboard on my Z.

 

The Signature collection model looks awesome with the glossy premium carbon finish.

 

I'm starting to like it more and more. I think it grows on you after some time. Overall the new design is more appealing. The old model might have fallen more into the prosumer market, this is heading in the right direction.

 

I personally liked the unibody surface on top (current version). Now we have what looks like a chunk of plastic or metal glued on to the base on the laptop. The new design bulges out unnaturally vs before it was a seamless piece of metal with laser etched details.

 

two outstanding issues, that I feel are legitimate:
1. Will there be permanent keyboard marks in the screen etched in over time as there are on the current Z b/c it's so flexy? It looks like that top lip jutting out may help a little bit more, but likely not.
2. Will those wavy diagonal lines that I keep seeing be remedied?

 

You know what, the keyboard layout looks darn similar between the legacy Z's and new.

We won't know until the new Z's are available, and more importantly when the parts start showing up on Ebay, but a retrofit of the backlit keyboard in the older models may be an interesting mod opportunity.

Time will tell

 

I think the wrist rest is something you'll just have to get used to. If you want a lot of power in a small package, this Z serie is the way to go. I hope they fixed the battery draining and the scratch issue when it closes (or was it only the sr series that suffered from this scratch issue?).

I think sony's new models aren't as nice as the current ones, but lets face it, it was practicly impossible to make those timeless stylish designs look even better.

 

The previous design looked a bit better at the wrist rest, but I find the new one looks better overall.

- The tube thingy is no longer separate, but part of the main body.
- The drive no longer intersects with the top top layer.
- The touchpad is better positioned in the wrist rest.
- In general the ports are better positioned, although I don't really like the audio ones at the front.
- The screen is slightly curved at the top and bottom.

And I expect some of these points not only make it look nice, but also more durable, resolving some of the issues often remarked upon.

You know what? I think Rachel is right. I'm starting to appreciate the new wrist design more the longer I look at it.

 

They somehow managed to reduce the thickness of the Z. That could be one of the design drivers for the new palmrest shape.

 

I personally don't mind the palm rest and it may fix some of the design issues with the screen that we had before. But only time will tell if that is true or not.

 

Seems like the palmrest being a bit raised, might solve one of the biggest gripes against the Z-series on these forums, which is the screen jamming against the keyboard and leaving marks on it.....right ?

This design essentially means that you will no longer have to carry that silly cloth with you, which you have to slip in between the screen and the keyboard to prevent those marks on the screen, I suppose ?

Seems like it is "ugly" (for some people) but very, very functional. I consider this a serious step in the right direction.

 

I ok, with the palmrest thing being a separate piece, though I think they could have integrated the raised area into the aluminium block like they did with the old model and it would have been more attractive. What I don't like it that it seems to be a painted plastic insert, and plastic always tends to wear down its texture finish or paint over a couple of years wherever there's repeated contact. The metallic palm rest of the SZ and Z have been great in my experience in terms of durability.

I wish they made the palmrest insert out of the same carbon material with the same raw finish as the premium lids, then it would be a feature rather than a drawback.

Overall, I'm going to try and figure out how to sell my first gen Z series to get one of these... The only thing holding me back is the battery bulge at the bottom, a big drawback for me as I like using the notebook style leather covers that Sony do for Z and T and Gs.

 

is it possible that the palm rest is no longer part of the aluminium plate for thermal reasons?

 

I'm positive the palmrest isn't plastic. Part of the marketing of the Z is that it's made of all alum & cf.

 

Wondering, how much can you get for the first generation z series? mine (sz-18gp) has been on the market for a few months now and there are no takers.

 

i got $1100 for my now former Z

 

It might be like what was used on the AW series...a leatherette. Or as Chrysler used to call it.."Genuine Corinthain Leather".

 

I hope you're right, but either way the finish is still just metal-colour paint from what I can see.

Seems unlikely as the processor usually lives under the keyboard on the Z/SZ/S lineage.

I sold my SZ6 for over $2K aussie dollars just after the Z was announced, but before anybody in the general public was aware that the SZ was about to become defunct. I only got the good price because it was premium carbon which was not available in Aus. I think now now now is the time to sell an "old" VGN-Z.

How longer ago now? I think to get a good price on my Z right now I'd have to buy a Windows 7 license and advertise it as being a W7 machine (I use W7 but I am still using the free release candidate RC1).

 

just this past week. I did have Win7 on it though

 

Agree, and only if you intend to get a new laptop and can use these newer features. If I had a current Z (purchased over the past 6 months), I would not bother upgrading.

However, if I were buying a Z-level machine today, brand-new, I would not even consider the prior/current generation that is currently available for sale in the sonystyle site. I would just wait a couple more weeks and go with this later generation that has already been announced.

 

More like months, it's not out until the "end of the spring cycle."

 

Going by what Sony has done in the past, once the new machine is announced, it goes on sale in another 2-3 weeks at the most.

The F-series was available for sale within the day of the announcement. And going by the lack of some key parts in the prior FW series, I had suspected for the past several weeks that something was up....they were clearly building up inventory for the F-series and whittling down the stock of the older model.

I assume when it comes to the new Z, the models and parts are currently on their way from Japan and should start shipping in a week or two.

 

The Sony website says pre-orders for the signature model will be February. On the video release they said the model starting at $1900 (or was it $1800) would be released late spring. So I believe it will be months, not weeks before you can have a CTO Z.

 

I would not go by what the Sonystyle website has posted within it. They are notorious for putting things in there and then changing it at the drop of a hat. They probably don't want to over-promise and then not deliver. They themselves may not be fully aware of the delivery logistics.

When it came to my A900 camera, it was supposed to be available (as per Sonystyle) by the end of November (2008) or so. I was pleasantly surprised to receive my A900 on October, 10th 2008.....significantly earlier than the listed date !

 

I would have to agree. There is no reason for Sony to take so long to release the new Z. Every other manufacturer is releasing completely new models for Arrandale in a matter of days after the announcement and the Z is closer to a refresh.

 

I agree with roweraay too, but the reason for some delay compared to the competition could be Sony packs more into a smaller package, which adds to the design complexity. Quality takes time.

 

the new design seem good to me. i like the way the roll tube is not a plastic anymore and its alu integrate from the keyboard layout.

as for the wrist pad, i guess it would solve the mark issue on screen. hopefully not a plastic but something like TT use, carbon fibre just like the bottom casing of current Z.

 

I think the new Z looks better than the old one.

It still has this oversized power button but at least it looks more integrated now.

However I'll be keeping my lovely little SZ for a fair while - but if this lasts 2 years (this series) I might be in for an upgrade

 

so far no one has been able to speculate why Sony decided to ditch aluminium palm rest in this new Z? maybe the new palm rest material isolates the heat from the motherboard..that's my best guess.

 

There maybe other factors, but most likely is to control manufacturing cost while maintaining other functionality. The single piece of aluminum used in the current Z is pretty hard and expensive to make in the transition part between keyboard and raised palm rest area. Sony (in Japan anyway) made a big deal about it when Z first came out and claiming it as an engineering feat (just like what Apple claimed with their unibody) and a step further from their TZ.

For a person like me that deal with 3D turbine engine airfoils these (including Apple's unibody) really are not that much of a technical feat (unlike what Steve Jobs wants you to believe), but it is difficult to control the cost for these manufacturing process. So, using this two-piece palm rest approach avoid having to make that difficult curvature there and can save some cost.

And if you look at the price tag for the new Z, it shows. People were expecting $2000+ and even $2200-2400 when they heard about SSD only option, yet Sony managed to give you a new Z that is only $1900 with 128GB SSD and everything a step above the current Z.

Anyway, I don't like the look and I certainly don't like Sony going cheap on my in manufacturing, but if it is reflected in the price, I guess I can't complain too much. And it really does not look that bad, we are just spoiled.

 

1900 dollars is very impresive, thats like 1500 euros isn't it? I bet sony will sell it for the exact same amount in euros though...making us cough up 1900€. O well, this is another thing im going to add to my 'buy-in-america- list ^^

 

That's not just Sony, this is true for most products, its 1:1 - but this is mainly due to taxes.
Consider buying in Switzerland Dave sent me a link - no longer handy.. but the Intel SSD for example is at least 50€ cheaper - can be 140€ cheaper (depending on price you find in Germany)

The EOS 5D MKII is 800€ below the list price...

Most of that is due to taxes - not all though - and it would be closer to home

 

Thanks for your thoughts. It surprises me to hear that an aluminium plate with a raised area (palmrest) can be so difficult and costly to manufacture. Sony is probably right by going with this to balance cost and form.

 

I was going to suggest something similar to what Skyshade said. Machining a piece of aluminium is not difficult, but it does take a ballpark $1M machine with a multiple-bit carousel a few minutes to make just one chassis. Compare this to stamping out a piece of sheet metal, which takes a 100-year-old stamping press a few milliseconds.

Apple managed to pull it off with their unibody MBPs, and there's nothing technically impressive about it - in fact any engineering student could design a copy on CAD and walk down to the workshop with a machining program then hey presto on the CNC. What's amazing about the MBPs is that they managed to bring the process to mass prodcution at a reasonable manufacturing cost.

Adding the palmrest to the aluminium extrustion would certainly have added more material that would have to be machined out hollow; but looking at the part ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=43021&d=1262885319), there is already a lot of complex milling and drilling that has been done around the hinge area, and lots of material removal under the keyboard area. I can't believe that integrating the palmrest would have made a big difference.

I do, however, think it would have added weight. Sheet metal had been rolled to very high yield, and does perform better over large thing surfaces than a face milled billet, so the latter has to be a bit thicker to avoid denting. This is exemplified by the fact that the unibody MBP actually got heavier than the previous sheet aluminium model. The plastic palmrest, in comparison, would weigh nothing.

Anyway, just my stupid opinion. I hope they integrate the palmrest next time.

 

It'e the only way to have the body pressed from a single sheet of aluminium, to have the wrist rests added on as an afterthought. Besides, it keeps the 'cheap look' in the product which is in keeping with the actual feel of Sony's premium laptops.

 

Um, click the link in my previous post, the whole keyboard and hinge chassis is machined from a single piece of extruded aluminium billet just like a unibody MacBook. When it used to be pressed from sheet on the old model, the palmrest was integrated... so I admit to not understanding your comment.

 

The way I humbly see it, it may not necessarily be all about cost because of 2 reasons:

1) If Sony are to use a single sheet of aluminum for the whole keyboard/palmrest area, almost everyone will say that Sony "totally" copied what Apple is doing (in their unibody MacBooks/MacBook Pros). I doubt Sony wanted to give people these kinds of opinions.

2) I humbly think that with this new design of the palmrest area being an "add-on" & the fact that Sony are going to release both the silver & black keyboard/palmrest area color options at the same time in the product launch, it is highly possible that Sony may "bizarrely" release a set of very "shocking" color combination options in the 2nd half of the new Vaio Z product life cycle with the following choices:

a) silver keyboard area with black palmrest
b) black keyboard area with silver palmrest

How stunning will those options look?

Not me. As I mentioned in another thread, every new release is getting cheaper & cheaper. I was expecting the new Vaio Z (CTO) notebook to start off at the $1,999 price point, but amazingly Sony is doing even better, which is just great news for anyone in the market for a new Vaio Z notebook when it is finally released.

 

Do we know this for certain that the aluminium palm rest has been removed in this new Z ?

 

People were making all kinds of fantastic speculations that the price will go upto $2300+ and so on, but I had stated repeatedly, that based on historical trends, the models that follow, will come with FAR more advanced features and the companies "magically" hold the line on price. This will frustrate the people who bought the "older" model but unfortunately, that is how tech products are.

In another year or so, the current Z will be further refined with even more advanced options like say 1TB of SSD capacity, GT 335M graphics card, USB 3.0 support and so on, while the product price will probably remain the same as the current 256GB version and 330M etc. Sure, it sounds impossible looking at the options available currently but I personally would not be surprised, based on how technology and prices move/improve.

 

Precisely. This was the very same argument I made in several of my threads, prior to the release of the new-Z. People were thinking the price will go up in a big way and that they will have to immediately flip the switch and go with the current model, so that they can take advantage of the lower price and so on. They were simply a bit un-informed on how technological product prices "remain static" over time, where the price remains the same overall but the feature content increases.

 

Mostly true, except for inflation. Prices in the US have risen between 10 and 30% over the last couple of years[*], and companies are left with the options of either selling the older components in a new package for the same price, or selling new components at a higher price. Else they'll reduce their own profit margins.

[*] Unfortunately, the economic climate hasn't allowed for people's wages to increase accordingly, so Median Joe has reduced purchasing power. Which is one of the reasons why low-cost laptops have become popular, and why Sony may have problems selling their netbooks for 30% more than the competition.

 

And Sony did raise the base model by $100 to help with those inflated costs. But they manufacture some of their stuff outside the US, which would also help to keep costs below inflation.

I don't think they will have trouble selling the Z, they have lower models for people who cannot afford the Z. But I think you would be surprised at the number of people who do have money to buy the Z. You are correct, the average joe (which I hate that term - I like Middle Class families better) are suffering more and I hate that. But the upper middle, lower upper, and upper classes while they can buy less, can still buy an awful lot. And the Z has always been marketed to those people, not middle class or anyone lower than middle class.

 

That's not the point, right? The point is if Sony stick with current palm rest design and the same manufacturing cost -- which does not follow the price decay of other components since it's an already matured manufacturing technology, it would have to sell more expensively to maintain the same profit margin.

I know the $2200 price tag some expected are definitely on the high side, but I would not be surprised that would be the cost if Sony just cram all the new components into the current Z.

 

Pure speculation ! In fact, I would counter that if they are able to cram all of these newer components into the current Z (without having any heat/fitment problems), it would be WAY cheaper, since they would be able to save significantly in tooling costs by simply re-using something that has already been paid for - many times over.

Get used to it. The new Z is a quantum leap in every way over the prior version, much as we might want to hark back to the "good old days" of the old/out-dated Z. If the prices are same (or even a bit higher for the new Z), there is no chance in hell that I will go with the older model.

 

Count me in! I hate the new design of the palm rest.

 

the price of the new Z would be likely the same as the current Z, just like when Z release replacing the SZ. they (sony) maintain the price for their premium...