The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
The SZ [whether on battery or plugged in] is one of the quietest notebooks I have ever owned.
Even under stress and at full speed when playing Half-Life 2 the noise is barely noticeable.
In a quiet environment when the optical drive is spinning at full speed or when the drive arm is accessing data you can hear it if you listen for it but in my experience it has never been bothersome. Same goes for the CPU fan.
If read some of the posts here, you'll find people describing the SZ as being too noisy and its keyboard rather crappy. Well, good thing I didn't listen to them. I have the SZ Premium for over a month. The notebook is pleasantly quiet most of the time even with the CPU fan on. The DVD drive, when on, is not as loud as other notebooks I've used and is expected given its size. The HD is barely noticeable. The keyboard, at first I thought it felt a little cheap, especially given what I read here. But that is just an initial impression. Perhaps because I've tested so many notebooks with 'firm' keys, Sony's seems very thin & light in comparison. But after using it for a month, Sony's key pads are large, light, goes deep - I actually type faster and make less typos than my old notebook. It is definitely built with speed and comfort in mind. [Although if you are a fast, heavy typer like me, the typing does make alot of noise!]
Here's what CNET has to say about Sony's noise issue:
"The laptop runs very quietly and coolly"
and its keyboard
"One of our favorite things about the VAIO SZ is the keyboard. Though it's not quite as firm as the Lenovo ThinkPad Z60t's and has considerably fewer keys, the VAIO SZ's keys are impressively large and nice to type on, even for long periods--a rare quality for such a lightweight laptop."
Which seems to be my experience exactly. No I'm not a SONY rep. Just trying to give you personal experience. And yes I still think its too expensive. Lucky I got it as a gift, or I'd probably pass.
The SZ is fairly quiet during light use but does get a bit noisy when gaming. As soon as I start up WoW, I can hear the fan kick in and stay on until I stop playing. In comparison to the Toshiba M100, it is loud.
The reason I posted this, is because my prior laptops did not have fans in them, and got quite warm. I presume while gaming, that the gaming sounds usually override the drive and fan noise.
tyranimo - WoW runs fine with all settings maxed out except for AA. The latest patch actually screwed up my video settings so I had turn off all shaders. Still looks great. I can see my character fine and it is very smooth. Note that I do have 2GB of ram. A bigger screen is usually better for gaming, but it's been fine for me so far.
ronaldheld - That depends on how loud you have the sound...the laptop speakers don't get too loud so I can still hear the fans. The bottom of the laptop gets very hot- specifically where the cpu is located at the top left. It actually gets hot enough to burn my leg if I were to have it on my lap.
Some people have complained about the Fan noise under load, but IMO its on the quieter side of notebooks with fans. Unless you compare it to something like an R100, on which the fan strikes me as a token gesture.
The DVD drive is another story. When spooling up it sounds like theres a screw loose in it. Not sure if thats been improved on the newer ones, but it was one of the main complaints early on.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
