SONY VAIO SZ6 with SANTA ROSA IS HERE!!!

Does anyone know if the SZ6 was announced in Japan? I couldn't find any articles on the Sony JP sites.

 

AFAIK the SZ6 has not been announced anywhere on the planet yet. It just sort of slithered out.

 

"Estimated ship date for this item: August 30, 2007 - September 13, 2007
Sony VAIO VGN-SZ650N/C 13.3" Notebook PC (Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7500, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, Vista Business)"

no... nonono... That can't be... It has to come out before the school year starts...

 

The price at Sparco.com for the SZ640 is now $1,431.90 with a retail price of $1,529.97. I think this is further evidence there will be a non-premium version similar to the SZ430.

 

I placed the "preorder" on July 27. Currently my status still says:

Shipping estimate: August 1, 2007
Delivery estimate: August 2, 2007

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

 

Stand in line with the rest of us...

 

where can I order the SZ670? any other online retailers you guys are using besides sparco and amazon?

 

another quick question, what's the difference between the SZ670 and SZ690? just the hard drive storage? (670: 160GB/5400rpm/256RAM hybrid, 690: 200GB/4200RPM).

and what's the difference between a premium carbon fiber version and carbon fiber version? is the SZ670 premium carbon fiber version or just a carbon fiber version?

Finally, why is the hybrid hard drives so bad?

thanks for helping
John

 

If it was already out, I may have just purchased it over the TZ90. I wont regret my purchase, though. I will mainly be using it for Office orientated uses.

 

i dont think amazon will ship soon... it's not even on sonystyle.com yet... ahhh... school starts in 20 plus days... i really hope i can get it before that...

 

You'll have to look at the specs between the two to see what the difference is, just compare them, if that's it, then that's it.

The hybrid drives aren't so bad, but they're not as fast as the 7200rpm. They are supposedly more stable, and save power, and don't produce as much heat. Theoretically you could be sitting in class all day taking notes with the hard drive turned off. The problem, however, is that it wears more every time it turns on, and it takes more power to turn on than keep running, so the power consumption in this model almost equals out. They may improve this, but it's brand new and it's just not working that well yet. Furthermore, it doesn't say what brand name it is. If it's the intel chip, you may be able to get more flash memory, but not with any other brand. With only 256mb, the hard drive will have to turn on a lot. If it was 4 gigs, then it would be better, but it's not. It'll get there eventually, but it's just not yet.

I am confused about one thing, though. The flagship model, 691N/X, says that it has a 4200rpm hard drive, but as the flagship model, it should have the best: the 7200rpm hard drive. The 680 which is the build to order model says the 200gb hard drive that's available with the series has 7200rpm. On a number pad, 4 is above 7. Anyone think it's just a typo? If I could be sure, I'd order it off amazon, but as is... I don't want to order something with 4200rpm... I tried calling sony style, but even the business section didn't even know that they were making a 6xx model...

 

Unfortunately Sony went with a 4200rpm hard drive in its flagship knowing the average customer only looks at the size of the hard drive, not its speed. So the best option for a SZ6 series is definitely the SZ680 Build-to-Order.

 

but that means your skipping out on the "premium" carbon fiber casing...wahtever that means

 

That was the case on the SZ4 series, but I believe all the SZ6 premium models have the carbon fiber detailing on the lid.

 

well august 1st is almost finished ... and still no sz6 to be found.... i don't understand how sony is takeing their sweet time to relase a model that hasnt even changed. same keyboard / screen etc.. just different colour and santa rosa i mean how hard can it be. they are now officially behind in the santa rosa game!

 

haha.. you're right, but some of us are still eagerly waiting for Sony to catch up.

 

Indeed! And it is frustrating to hang onto trickles of clues over the weeks and months only to have disappointment. But there are a few hours left to 8/1 in Pacific Standard Time.

 

Apart from the lack of benefits for the extra cost, I can see two more problems with the hybrid drives.

1. Hybrid drives use flash memory which has a duty cycle of about 100,000-300,000 writes before it wears out. Even with the Vista flash-aware file system that spreads writes over the memory, how long will 256 megs of flash last before wearing out?

2. According to Wikipedia, if your hybrid drive dies, data recovery companies are unlikely to be able to recover it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_drive#Drawbacks

 

My theory on the SZ6xx is that sony wants to sell more of the old ones. I think this is specially true now that they cannot be sold together with the old ones, because the laptop is not totally different, but also not totally the same. Before people could buy the 300's or 400's but in a way it was the "same" since it looked the same, they could save some money and just say this 3xx is powerful enough and it is a beautiful laptop.

Also the student value packs have run out except for the FZ and SZ which tells you they are waiting to sell more of them before the launch. In the example of the savings they even put the SZ491 which is probably the model they have the most of. My last point is they have a free shipping on everything ti'll thursday, another way of getting their old products out, not to mention the instant savings on the 400's series.

The good news (maybe) is that they are holding out the product and there will be plenty of computers at launch time, as opposed to a drastically different m1330 from its predecessor that has proven practically imposible for dell to build

 

except the SZ691, which has the "premium" carbon fiber detailing (the weave carbon fiber pattern or something I believe).

 

Amazon order has been pushed back to an estimated delivery date of August 31 - September 13.

Very disappointed right now.

To Sony's credit though, they never actually announced a launch. July 29 and August 1 dates were pure speculation. Still a better experience than I had with Dell. Will still wait for the SZ to be officially released.

 

Aug31 to Sept13? Uggghh... not fast enough for my school year. I just called the sonystyle flagship store in NYC and dynamism to see if Sony is sending any new shipments with a SZ refresh but they said they have no clue what i'm talking about and don't know anything about that yet. damn you Sony, why do you tempt us thus?!?!

 

I got an estimated shipping date of Sept. 4 - Sept. 18 from amazon. Ouch. Guess my S260 will have to hold on a little longer.

 

No, I think only the flagship has premium. The difference is the glossiness, I think, although I'm going to go into sony style in the next couple days to see how important the casing. On the premium, they just have a 'hand crafted' resin on top, so it's shiny and smooth. It does look really cool, from what I can tell.

I just looked through the specs. The 670 is exactly the same as the 691 except in two ways. The 670 hard drive is much better, and the 691 has the premium casing.
The 670 is $400 cheaper... Is Sony just banking on the fact that people won't pay attention and will just buy the flagship? How is it that the 670 is just... better, while being so much less expensive... I wonder whether the 680 customized like the 670 but with a comparably priced 7200rpm hard drive will be expensive like the 691, or less like the 670...

 

If it is indeed the intel drive, which logically would make sense, since most of the other brands that make the drive also make laptops, and because the intel drive was made for the santa rosa chipset, then they forsaw the problem of wearing out by making it separate, so you just replace it. And 256mb can't be that expensive.
But sony just isn't giving us enough details on this drive to make it worth it...

 

Sorry for posting three times in a row, but they're all unrelated...

A while back I went into Sony Style, they told me they hadn't even heard rumors of a new SZ and that there was definitely not any coming out. I called the 1-888 number on the Sony Style website, the lady had no idea what I was talking about. Called the business side, they also had no idea what I was talking about...

I'm pretty sure the santa rosa chipset is cheaper to produce than the old chipset, which means that the santa rosa laptops aren't going to be more expensive, which means they probably are trying to get rid of the old ones first.
But they really can't delay past the Canada date of the 15th... And I saw a website saying they're expecting to get their shipment of laptops on the 9th, but it's been shifty. So here's hoping for the 9th...

 

so basically, this can be released next year for all we know?

 

I'm very disappointed right now.

How is it possible that the Sony business side doesn't know anything about the new SZ's if they have them at its site?

It's been a couple days I've talked to sonystyle customer support (regarding the SZ650 pics with the WWAN antenna) and I was told they'd have this information July 29th.

Now what? Wait for it until September? Tough...

 

My estimated ship date is August 3 - 6th.

 

Premium carbon fiber has a blue "grain" in it that glistens in the sunlight. It's spectacularly beautiful. I have it on my TZ90.

 

It's brown, not blue, in this case, apparently. It's just a resin coat, I wonder why they don't allow you to get it on the other notebooks...

 

The overall color texture may resemble brown, but the grain is blue, like I said. What, I need to take a picture to prove it to you?

 

Hi,

Where can I learn about the different specs of each model. It's quite confusing...is there a table?

thanks in advance

 

lets see that picture

 

let me ask you guys sth more useful than the color of the particles. do u know whether dell xps m1330 has the hard drive shock protector as in the vaio sz or as in the thinkpad ? I could not find any info on that...
P.S: I am talking about regular harddrive, not the solid state one.

 

Naw, I'll believe you, but that just makes it all the cooler and all the worse not to get the premium... Wouldn't mind a picture anyway, though

http://b2b.sony.com/Solutions/subcategory/notebooks/sz-series
There you go

 

Take a look.

http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=4185072

And at amazon.com, SZ650N/C in stock.

 

m1330 does not have hdd shock protector

 

Datavis - NYC

http://www.datavis.com/cgi-bin/product.exe?merfnbr=2003&prrfnbr=471467&tab=1

 

this is unbelievable. dell is manufacturing such a high end laptop and still putting no shock absorber? my dell laptop had a hdd crash and I lost all of my undergrad data. then 4 of my friends who own dell had the same problem. So, people who are willing to pay this much money to a laptop how come cannot consider this?

 

One word. Backups.

 

The shock absorber doesn't protect you from hard drive failure, only if you drop the laptop,

 

The Dell laptop is nice, just not as nice. Hence waiting for the vaio.
Which, incidentally, Sony Style is now saying will be out in two weeks to a month.

 

There will be one non premium version, the SZ40:

http://b2b.sony.com/Solutions/b2b/d..._86d27138dd2e8cf49fc779f046660ce2fc95567e.pdf

 

To SZ or to TZ? Hmmm...

 

I faced the same dilemma, DTX. If you want something that's more powerful, go the SZ. It will be heavier and have less battery life, so it depends exactly what your needs dictate.

 

In my thinkpad, the shock absorber runs at the back and stops the hdd when it detecs any acceleration. So, you do not need to actually drop the laptop to benefit from the shock absorber ... . Any kind of dangerous movement triggers it and saves you a lot of trouble.
But come on guys, do u think taking back ups everyday is the optimum way? It is a pain in the ass.
So, for me just because of this, I will go with Sz6. But , where is it man?

 

Mine is on the way (SZ650), shipped today.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=150291

 

Um, I have an M1330 that's ready to be returned to Dell. Based on my brief experience with it, I would say that Sony is still light years ahead of Dell when it comes to fit and finish, and backlit LED quality.

 

I wish I was that simple!!! Its not a matter of being powerful, but a matter of how long it would last me. My current W3J was purchased with Vista in mind. It runs Vista, Office 2007, Adobe Reader 8, and NOD32 fine. It should be able to handle Office 2010, Adobe Reader 10, and NOD32 v10 fine as well before I decide to get another notebook, or when its on its last legs.

The new SZ has everything I wanted: Santa Rosa, X3100, 8400, SATA (W3J only supports PATA) and Wifi-N (I need this as streaming HD1080p clips from notebook to Xbox 360 lags because the current standard does not have enough bandwidth). Also, it looks like the SZ will have the same form as the previous SZs, so replacing the HDD, CPU and RAM should be easy, as well as being able to upgrade to the 45nm CPUs Intel is promising, SSD HDD, and upto 4GB of RAM can last me a good 5 years. However, the new SZ have added more weight to their previous 1.68kg (which I considered light compared to the W3J until the TZ joined the party), and a battery life of around 4-5 hours (which is disappointing when you compare it to the TZ).

With the TZ, it is weightless, sexy, professional, beautiful, has a truck load of battery life and can handle most applications at this current time. However, i'm not so sure if the ULV CPU and the 2GB RAM limit can last 5 years, and the fact that you cant rip the TZ open to upgrade/replace the CPU is a big bummer!

In the end, it might boil down to a game of heads or tails to decide which notebook I should purchase to replace my reliable W3J.

Any thoughts?