SZ650NC Pics and Review

when was the last sony refresh? i remember that they recently updated the SZ4 series, but i cant remember how long ago.

Surely it'd be getting close to the '3 months' you mentioned.

 

I haven't been in retail since before last Christmas, so I don't know any recent news. Ring up your local Harvey Norman store (which I used to work) and ask to speak to either their Product Manager, Sales Manager, or Hardware Manager. While at Harvey Norman, I worked as both a sales manager and helped out with product management, and I was always able to get information out of Sony.

If you don't speak to one of the managers, though, you won't get very far. The sales people are generally left to focus on selling current stock, not stock that will "soon" be coming.

 

Duchesne, I am relieved! Your light leakage looks quite minimal in those pictures. From what I read on previous SZs, this is an improvement. Anyway, am still waiting for mine but if it looks like this I will be quite pleased. Thanks for posting the pictures.

Btw, Sony said they would "repair" the light leakage: Does anyone know how they would do this? Isn't it all to do with how the LCD film is bonded to the light diffuser? And I am guessing here, but the brighter the light, the more any slight impercfections in the bonding will show up? Can this every be fixed or isn't it just (to a greater or lesser extent) an inevitable outcome of the inherantly inefficient design of these screens - i.e. produce a very bright light (LED or CCFL), diffuse it, then block most of it out depending on what colour you are displaying?

Any ideas?

 

SZ4 was released around the same time as Vista, so around Feb. There was another refresh of the SZ4 series in Australia, which bumped the CPU speed from T7200 to a T7400 only a few months ago (around the same time as the SZ5 in selected countries). So yes, the next refresh is close.

 

In Sweden, SZ4 was announced in March followed by SZ5 in May, so the SZ6 should just be around the corner here.

 

I also did a battery test on stamina mode. I got 4 hours or so on it with birghtness at 2/6 and 71 processes runnning (I've started unistalling a few things), but I just left the computer on idle most of the time (wifi off). I then charged the battery. It took 4 hours to completely charge (again, I left it on idle).

Maybe the charge time will increase if you are working on the computer, I don't really know. But I am impressed with the battery life.

 

fyi: I didn't get back on Ram useage in Vista.

Pre-crapped and bloated Vista install from Sony: 900mb of ram to boot, 27GB on the drive
Clean install of Vista: 470mb of ram to boot, 10GB on the drive, with a reasonable amount of programs installed 12.6GB

Better?

 

hi MM, is a clean installation of VISTA donable? any miss functions?

 

Donable? = doable?

Yes, a clean install is doable. There are still a few driver errors from Sony's SZ650 (I notified them on Monday)
However I was able to get around this with a Dell driver for the touchpad and the SZ4's XP driver for the fingerprint reader.

 

would mind if you can share the link to the dell driver?

 

MonsterMaxx, I've been reading about your OS/driver nightmare so I'm presuming you'd be the one to ask whether the vista business it comes with is x32 or x64?

 

It's Business32

Dell Vista Alps Touchpad Driver

 

So were I to do a clean Vista x64 install the drivers probably wouldn't work on it

 

Don't waste your time. There are no drivers.

 

No option for XP. You are out in the cold on this if you need XP. I am making some progress on installing XP, though am not finished yet.

Have u finished installing XP, I am interested in it cuz I found that Windows Vista makes me feel my SZ650 slow.
I hope I could clean install the Vista...or EVEN XP! cuz I duuno which program I could uninstall just as u said..lots of junk.

Would u also tell me about which programs I could uninstall it...cuz as i saw from control pannel, there're like 85~87 programs..installed, and I never use a VAIO computer and a computer have pre-installed softwares like this..hope u could give me some suggestions or a list of ...programs that is not neccessary.

For something I would keep is like Vaio utilities or the battary function I would know; however, I still have no clue about it. I really need help so please tell me about it. Thx

 

Uninstall is a waste of time, it'll still be crapped up.

A clean install will require M$'s anytime upgrade disk and download drivers from Bony.

As to XP, yes, today you are out in the cold. However a Level Two Tech Support agent assured me that they were working on XP Downgrade drivers and expected them to be released around the end of October.
I've been able to get mine about 95% functional with drivers from a variety of sources. See my 'installing XP on a Vaio SZ6xx' thread for more details.

 

hi MM, does it have to be the "anytime upgrade disk" ?

I googled, looks like it requires a new license = a new purchase on OS?

 

You do not need a new license. Use the one that comes with the notebook.
But Sony does not give you any way to clean install the OS. If you make and use recovery disks all you'll get is the same crapped up thing.
CompUSA has the Anytime Upgrade for $5 shipped.

Yes, I know, Sony is being ridiculous for not supplying something you paid for, but there's only so many windmills I'm willing to tilt at.

 

Link please? Sounds like a good thread to subscribe to.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=152762

Here is the link you want, and i am just finishing reading it @@"... It's hard...hope I could be more profession in comp...and "LAPTOP~!!" = =..
Whoo......>< I want a clean install XP or vista...make my SZ faster!! not as fast as my 3 yr old laptop plz...LOL

 

Hello

Looking at the picture you post I notice something difference between "SZ3 and SZ4" and SZ6

We don't have the little plastic thingy near the bottom of the LCD display.

And

We don't have that big "VAIO" Logo.

Anyways I got 1 question.

Is your laptop palm rest black or is it just your camera? Thank You

Ch28Kid

 

Hi, Does anyone know if/how I can install some software initially present on my vaio after a clean install? I'd like to do a clean install, but then have the oppurtunity to install windvd and some other of the software initially present.

Thanks

 

Does anyone plan on posting a review of the SZ6 for this website? Notebookreview still has the SZ2 review up...

 

I was going to wait until I got it right. Otherwise I'd have to gripe about the light leakage, long charge time, bloatware and lack of drivers to do anything about it.

It has potential, but is not quite there yet.

 

Monster, or anyone else with an sz650, does your harddrive sometimes make a clicking noise when accessing the drive. It is not a normal harddrive itermittent sound, but rather a discrete sound that occurs less than once per 10 secs... It sounds like the noise when clicking a link on the internet. I found the noise comes sometimes when changing some appearances in windows (like changing background). I just want to know if its a normal sound or not.

 

NO.

Only thing I noticed is VISTA has been pegging out the CPU for no apparent reason. Not showing up in task manager, but the fans are running full tilt and it's pumping a lot of heat. Not sure why.

After the disaster my Lenovo experience is turning out to be I really think that the Vaio is becoming the front runner. Given a few months to stamp the bugs out and I think it'll be the best in class.

 

Every single SZ that I've ever seen (and I consciously check for it) has had this amount of light leakage. I agree it shouldn't happen, but it is a common occurence and I'm not sure that replacing it would be very likely to fix the issue. You may have to look to a different model.

 

same webcam. 640x480 and it's not very good quality.

 

Just bought mine. clean installed Vista Ultimate on it. All drivers from sony's website now work wonderfully.
I dont have unknown-devices at all.

the fn buttons (and s1, s2) didn't work at first. They seems not to work until I restart the computer with both intel and nvidia chipsets (stamina/speed).

After a couple restarts back and forth...the brightness started showing up...but not doing anything. Another restart, and they work perfectly....with both stamina/speed setting.

it doens't recognize the x3100 graphics card, though. I went to the intel site and installed the latest 965 chipset drivers and then my graphics card was recognized.

The only issue I have left now is that Sleep doesn't work if using the intel graphics card. It hangs with a black screen.

Sleep() works great with nvidia chipset though. There are a lot of problems with sleep in vista and I'm not sure if it has to do with that. updated drivers might help.


other than that...vista runs great, and fast. I get 3+ hours on it with nvidia drivers.

charging takes forever.