SZ650NC for $1916 delivered

I stopped by Fry's tonight and I saw the sz650. Unfortunately, it was password locked and none of the employees knew the password.

Some observations:

1. It's all black, including the keyboard. Looks nice and professional. Although I did notice that the shiny new palm rest had already picked up quite a few fingerprints.

2. The power brick is much smaller than the previous generation. It even has a nice vaio logo on it (which appeared to be chrome or something similar).

3. The keyboard felt almost exactly as the previous generation, no change there.

 

Looking forward to some more photo's and reviews!

I can't understand how you are going to get XP to run reliably on any SZ6 laptops. It's bad enough trying to run Vista on an unsupported laptop, but going backwards to run XP on an unsupported Santa Rosa chipset and a bunch of new peripheral chipsets is going to be almost impossible. I second the VMware suggestion if you must absolutely buy a Vista laptop for XP apps.

I stopped by a Sony Style store today and they denied all knowledge of the SZ6.

 

3dMark05 got a 2733 on the SZ650

Pretty well got it's butt whooped by my 4 yr old 3ghz dual xeon w/ a 7800GS which pulled a 5301

 

trickzee, do you intend to try a semi-clean Vista install?

 

Really, it only got 2021 when I ran it.

However, Counter Strike Source runs great on max settings, even better then my desktop.

 

Wow those scores look really low. Have you kept the default vista installation btw?

 

He's still running pre installed Vista, I'm running XP. Like I said before, Vista is a pig and XP is faster. Any questions?

 

Yea, I just ordered Home Premium, it will be here in a few days.

 

3DMark06 was just as bad with a score of 1022.

 

Some pics:

 

Great pics trickzee, thanks for taking the time to post them.

Did you do a clean install (where did you find the drivers?)? Could you check the battery indicator and see how much it goes down after X minutes of normal usage and then estimate the battery life for us? Also, I noticed you turned Aero off; is this so you could extend the battery life/performance?

What are your overall impressions?

Thanks.

 

Looks nice. Anybody know why the SZ680 doesn't have the DLNA logo on its spec sheet?

 

No, I haven't done a clean install yet. I just went through and individually removed the bloatware.

On the high performance setting, it gets about 2 hours and 45 minutes.

And I'm not a big fan of Aero which is why I turned it off.

 

Battery life doesn't sound superb, but I'm sure it'll be around 4hrs with stamina..

Right now I'm deciding between this and the MBP for college... why'd you choose the SZ650 and what will you be using it for?

Also, do you plan on posting a review for NBR?

 

Thanks for the pic's... does the SZ650 have some kind of Direct Media controls or is it only the two programable keys?

 

3dMark05 on the intel video chipset (x3100) got a 778 compared to the 2733 that the nvidia chip got.

 

trickzee> any light leakage at the top or bottom of your screen ?

 

The NVIDIA score still bothers me. As soon as I get mine today I will probably be using laptopvideo2go.com's drivers or something. Perhaps a little experimental OCing will also be in order.

What did the sony used to score with the geforce go 7400?

 

Hi I just got an sz650 and I have found a considerable amount of light leakage on the bottom of the LCD. Moreover, I also have uneven lighting. Has any owners of the sz650 noticed this (light leakage and/or uneven lighting)? I'm trying to determine if I was just unlucky with my model or if this is a general property of the sz650.

Thanks

 

Yes, the light leakage is very obvious on mine too. Still waiting for a response from Sony on this.

I can't seem to get into any type of overclocking. I have tried changing the coolbits key in the registry too. No dice.

 

Monster, I called Sony and they are offering to repair it for free. But I'm tempted to exchange it for a new one at the store I purchased it from. Note that mine suffers from light leakage and uneven lighting. Maybe this is why they are offering to repair it.

 

I need to call them. Hoping that if I call during normal business hours on Monday I won't get idiots in India. I've also got the extremely long charge times as another problem (6 hours to charge.)

And having dealt with Sony's 'mail in' service before, I have no intention of waiting 2 months for it to come back either. If that's what they'll force me to do I'll return mine as well.