SZ650NC Pics and Review

if i remember correctly, not just you who has complained about the light leakage. I am afriad that probably most of the SZ650 will have this problem. It could be a design defect. An exchange may not work.

 

Mine has light leakage too.


It will not run a 24" & it's LCD. While you can configure it, the 24 is jumping all over - unusable.

I haven't tried just pushing the 24 by itself.

 

I don't have any light leakage on my SZ6 and the bloatware isn't really a problem as it's not to hard to uninstall.

But, I do agree with you that the keyboard is loud and can be an annoyance if you're working in a quiet environment.

 

Where did you get them?

 

I suspect that the recharge rate is slow because of the past Sony battery recalls. The slower the recharge rate is probably safer (battery does not build as much heat) and the less likely a very expensive battery recall.

 

Yes, but another user reports 2 hours. Is he wrong or is mine defective?

I'm going to be calling Sony on Monday about this and the screen's light leakage as well as the SZ650 drivers for Vista from their website which will not install...

 

I got Vista, nVidia's 16501 driver and nTune (overclocking app) running.

Cranked up the GPU to 550mhz and the memory to 800mhz.

This increased the 3dMark05 score in Vista to 2596 (up from stock clocking's score of 2187), only 126 points behind XP 's 2722 w/ the GPU in stock form. A 16% boost from overclocking.

I can't seem to get to the overclocking features in XP yet, it'll be interesting to see what I can get it to do once I get it running. XP is 20% faster than Vista at the same clock speed.

Oddly enough the Vista performance index does not change with the overclocking of the GPU/mem. Stays at 3.5 for graphics.

FYI: nTune's auto overclocker doesn't seem to work in Vista. The above 550/800 was a wild azz guess. Just tried 600/900 and was getting a lot of bad pixels (running 3Dmark) so I killed the task before doing any harm. I'd say 550/800 is close to the upper limit, but still a respectable overclock from 400/600.

 

Got the OC working in XP. D'oh.

Auto tune still doesn't work, but I worked with the manual method and the test feature. Anything over 700 on the bus and 825 on the memory failed the test.
676/810 passed. Ohh la la. Up from stock at 400/600 is a pretty healthy OC.
edit...oops, passed once, failed the 2nd time....hang on, redoing it.
passes consistently at 676/795, but won't accept the changes, resets it to factory shipped clock. Odd...


I'm stuck again. XP nVidia will not OC. Iv'e changed the coolbits registry key to 3 and that doesn't help. It passes the test at these OC values, but won't take them.
Some more digging to do to figure out what the problem is here....

 

Can you please specify the difference in the battery life of a SZ with a 7200rpm and 4200rpm drives? I was thinking about getting a 7200rpm, but I want to know what will I have to sacrifice.

 

Just got off a long convo with Sony Support. Spoke with a L2 named John. Very helpful and considerate (a big improvement from the last call.)
ASK FOR LEVEL 2 SUPPORT


Reported problems with
Vista drivers on the website will not install, stating that they are not for this machine.
Lack of XP support
Severe light leakage around the display
Long charge time (6 hours)
Shaking of external display.

Response:
On the Vista drivers he says that someone had probably put the wrong drivers up. They'll work on correcting that.
On XP support they are working on drivers, anticipated release is end of October He'd see what he can do about getting me a Fn Keys util in the meantime (the biggest one I'm lacking now.)
Light leakage would need a depot return
Long charge time may be normal, he'll check the specs, if defective - depot return.
Shaking of external display needs more investigation. He says that one model Vaio couldn't drive any of the Samsung displays and needed a bios update.

I'm not playing with this depot service (had a bad experience with this in the past.) He would not upgrade me to onsite service. I don't think I should have to accept significant downtime on a brand new machine. It's going to be returned.

Sony has a 30 day return policy. Just give the reseller the case ID and it will be accepted. I called JR and got an RMA, they were very nice about it.

RMA's good for 30 days from the date of delivery (8/7) so I'm going to give Sony a little time to chew on this, they have my contact info. Should they decide to repair this machine on site I'll keep it, otherwise it goes back.

 

So, Sony USA will accept it, even though JR imported it? Or did I misread that your model is a HK spec one?

 

Mine is a USA model. JR is a authorized USA Distrib. No problem.

 

Ahhh. Best of luck then. I bet they would rather just accept the return. I would, however, make sure that they had a replacement available before returning it.

 

Sad news! Looks like sz4xx series have less problems. A little bit old CPU makes little difference in my mind.

 

Hi MM, did you buy onsite service? or they just cannot do it onsite?

 

I returned mine for exchange also due to the screen. But everything else was fine. No screen shaking, not too long charge time (less than 4 hours), and I plan to use vista, so no driver problems. I really like this laptop (although I would have prefered the white keyboard of the sz680).

My SZ was made in Japan, but the company had no objections with an exchange or return. Sony did offer free Onsite repair (7-10 days). They offered to send me a box so that I could send it to them, or that I simply bring it to service center in my city. But I decided I would rather get a new one rather than risk the repair. I don't think the light leakage is a common feature on the SZ6, since Sony acknowledge the issue and said it should not happen and immeadiately offered to repair it. I will let you know if my new one suffers any problem (end of the week).

 

so you return it to SONY through warranty service, or you return it to the retailer?

 

I returned it to the retailler (J&R).

 

Whenever I turn my computer back on after being on standby mode, the resolution changes from the original (1280 x 800) to 1024 x 768. Does anyone else have this problem?

 

no, what driver are you running?

 

Few questions

1. What exactly is light leakage and how do you test for it accurately?

2. Can anyone else report charging time (2 vs 6 hours)?

3. It is disappointing this unit comes with so much bloatware. Is it difficult to uninstall it all? If you have a copy of Vista Ultimate (OEM), will it boot from the SZ6 CD drive and formal/reinstall ? Are additional Sony drivers necessary and available?

 

1. Light leakage is common on a lot of LCD televisions as well; particularly to ones that really try to push vibrant colors (Sony XBR2 anyone?) by having a very bright backlighting source. Usually near corners or edges (basically anywhere the panel meets the bezel) you'll see a black background becomes a lighter gradiant of grey. (at least this is what I assume happens) Sometimes clouding or "mura" as it's often referred can also be visible on some televisions. Because the SZ is LED backlit I doubt clouding is an issue, however.

3. I'm guessing it's not difficult to uninstall the program itself. Typically the most difficult part is getting rid of the program's remnants such as registries, duplicate entries, and changes stored in system files. Granted, with a decent cleaning program getting rid of even that stuff shouldn't be too problematic.

 

Jeez, Sony really needs to pull their heads out of their butts.

Early yesterday I reported to them that several of the drivers on their page for this model will not install with the error message: not for this model of computer

The Alps touchpad is one of them. I can load the XP driver I got from Dell, but it spits an error on boot.

So, fed up with waiting for Sony to fix it I went a' huntin again today.

What did I find? Another Dell driver that works perfectly.

Come on Sony, remove these restrictions from the drivers, it's only causing your customers grief. Why are you making it hard on us?
Wake up, smell the caffeine and learn from your mistakes.

 

It's there to protect users with little or no clue. They would probably get a lot more calls, if they removed the model check.

 

Well, OK. I can see that for the clueless...but most OSs protect against invalid drivers. They just don't load them.

Still, if they put a driver up, at least get the right one.

then again, Dell seems to be able to survive without putting dummy protection in ever driver. (thank god)

 

I wonder...wha about the webcam..
is it 640*480 or 1.3 mp.

but 1ç3 or 2 mp is a dream for sony users..dell have it but why sony dont have this kind of technical perfection

 

I just got this computer, I have some light leakage. Its not noticeable so far except on black backgrounds, so not during normal usage. Should I try and exchange it or just leave it?

 

It's your $2k. Do as you will. I know for my $2k I'm not going to accept defects.

 

Hi,

I just got my replacement unit... and although the screen being uneven lit is now fine, the leakage is still present. Hence, it seems that most SZ650s are suffering from light leakage (many people reporting this); at least the first batch. But it really isn't a big deal; only noticeable if the lower part of the screen is all black (which is never the case for me since the taskbar is there). But I may decide to let Sony fix it eventually... it is a 2000$ notebook afterall.

Oh, and somehow the keyboard isnt as loud on this one either! Still louder than an average laptop, but much better than previous. Kind of strange.

 

The more I use the SZ the more I like it (the more I think the T61P will be too big)

Do a discharge and recharge test. How long does the recharge take? If this can be fixed (6 hrs is ridiculous in today's technology) I may keep the SZ or at least get this one exchanged.

My biggest fear was no XP support. Now that I've been assured that there is I could limp along for a while.

 

I have an SZ680 on order so all this talk of light leakage was not pleasing...
However, it seems as though this is "normal" for the SZ range, not only SZ6. There are a couple of old threads discussing this very issue, for example:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=48329

So I guess it is just something we have to accept as part of the package. Duchesne's exchange experience confirms this I guess, but don't think it will turn out just to be the "first batch" of SZ650s - these screens are still exactly the same spec, and (presumably) come of the same production line, as the ones in previous SZs so why would they suddenly be any different?

Every make of notebook seems to one problem or other. If this is the only serious one on the SZ range then we are lucky (and the positive reviews continue despite the leakage so it can't be that bad). This just a normal symptom of mass production at (relatively) low cost; compare with the car industry... Anyway, at least the SZ seems to be better put together than the Dell M1330 ;-)

 

where did you find 680s? and which config did you get?

 

A friend found, ordered, and paid for the SZ680 for me because I don't have the seemingly essential US credit card (I live in the Netherlands and am having it shipped over here). Not sure where he ordered from - will ask him. Meanwhile I can tell you that techontheweb.com today have in stock two SZ680 configurations; I just checked. Hope that helps.

 

Sorry I meant www.techonweb.com without the 'the'

 

I read somewhere that the SZ6 has only 64mb dedicated ram (8400 GS video card) plus some amount of the 2gb available.

Do you guys know if this is a matter of video drivers, that is, finding another ones could change it to 128mb (like dell xps have)?

Thanks in advance.

 

is what aacury said true? if thats the case im gonna get a macbook 13.3 2gb ram defenitely

 

I'll take a picture of my leakage tonight and post it here. As for the graphic card, it is 64Mb. But I don't think this will really hurt the performance when compared to the 128Mb card. We can tell through the benchmarks perhaps. And no, you can't change 64Mb-->128Mb through drivers.

 

Correct the SZ has 64mb of Vram. This is physical, not drivers. It does use system ram, I beleive this is a dynamic allocation based on need up to 700ish mb.

No machine is perfect. The macbook has it's problems too.
Weigh the factors you need and make the call. Are you planning to run Mac OS?

 

I dont know much about computers, just the basic stuff. If i buy a macbook i plan on running Mac OS, if i buy the sony i plan on running vista. I just use the laptop for browsing, music, minor picture editing, office, and maybe some games, but im not sure. The sz is much better-looking than the mac. the mac seems unimpressive next to the sz650 really. but im still not sure what to get.
i have one week to make a desition. im looking for a rather small laptop to take everywhere. I was thinking about the new TZ but ive been reading everywhere that it is slow as hell. (the 1gb ram) would adding another gig of ram make much difference? thanks for the help

 

Well, according to the XPS review ( http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3826) they achieved these results:

Super Pi: 58s
3dmark05: 3,116 3DMarks
3dmark06: 1,408 3DMarks

Now, according to various posts I've read, they had for the SZ:

Super Pi: 55s
3dmark05: 2,733 3DMarks
3dmark06: 1,022 3DMarks

I don't know if this difference changes significantly the SZ performance compared to the XPS...

 

Yeah, those marks could be the difference between the 128MB and 64MB. I have to try to run them once the system is cleaned from the bloatware.

Here are some pictures of the light leakage. As I previously said, you can only notice on a black screen. And Sony has told me they will fix this within 7-10 days if I bring it to the drop off center. I just debating if its worth it now...

Oh and does anyone know why there is those holes underneath the laptop (2 of them near the battery on opposite ends)? It seems kind of strange.. maybe for docking station?

 

You won't get the 2733 w/ Vista. That's my XP score.

In Vista it will pull about 2100

At one point I was able to overclock the GPU in Vista and get almost 2600. But the driver was causing intermittant flashes and when I downgraded to an older driver I lost the ability to overclock.

I've not been able to overclock at all in XP...I should say that I can't get the values to stick. It will test the settings and Iv'e achieve a lot of overclocking, but for some reason when I try to apply it the setting goes back to stock.

 

second time...
is there any change about webcam..is it still same (older sz like 2xx)

0.3 mp?

 

2100??? It's more disappointing than I thought.

sebenlim, as far as I know the cam didn't change. It's still 0.3mp.

 

im still not sure what to get.. tz150 or sz650.. they cost exactly the same at best buy... is the tz painnfully slow? I still cant decide...

 

yeah, webcam is 640x480.

 

can someone confirm that they will release XP driver for SZ series?
Does anyone know the comparable fujitsu notebook of Sony SZ660?

 

That would be the S6410, which I just recently got. Will give impressions of it soon vs the SZ.

 

does anyone know if the sz6 series is scheduled to hit australia or will sony aus skip this release??

 

Australian lines of most notebook brands are refreshed every 3 to 6 months. A refresh is either an update of specifications at the same price point or the introduction of new models.

What Sony Australia have normally done, from my dealing with them when I was in sales, is that they time their releases of new lines around current levels that they have of stock on hand.

It's my assumption that it will be released in this or the next refresh of their line, which, for Sony, is normally every 3 months.