Sony FZ - First Santa Rosa Notebook Available at Retail This Sunday?

My laptop keyboard is flat. Nothing wrong with it. BTW, thanks for your response on battery rattle.

 

Incidentally, it appears the "A/V Instant Mode" supports standard audio cd's, dvd-video, dvd-vr, jpg, gif (not animated), bmp, tiff, and png.

 

POST PICS PLEASE!!!!!

lol, i cant wait to get this, its coming on the 11th

did you get the black keyboard or the white keyboard?

 

hmm... bump, where did everyone go?

anyway im getting mine on the 11th, will post pics and impressions asap!

 

hey guys,

I'm new to the board. Been doing a lot of research before the purchase of my first notebook and decided on the Sony FZ. It should be delivered on Monday. I will post some pics+review. It really does look thin and slim in person but with the added benefit of the larger 15.4 screen. It felt just as light and thick as many of the 14.1 inch notebooks they had on display and maybe a 1/2 inch to an inch or so wider and longer. Throw that in with the price+performance and it was a no brainer for me.

One question i have for you guys, it may sound stupid: the FZ has a s -video input. This means i can connect it to the tv right? And if so, will the audio also come through from the tv? Is there any way to transfer audio along with video? Ive been reading up on S-video cables and i'm not sure but some say they have really good audio conducting but the salesman at circuit city said that s-video only transfers video. Anyone shed some light?

 

Nice choice!

can't wait for your pics and review.

about the s-vid connection, this laptop has an s-video output and you can connect it to your tv.

it will only transfer video, not audio.

but whenever I want audio I just connect some computer speakers to my old lappy for sound.

you can also get an audio cable to connect to your audio port, then it splits into two audio inputs so tat you can connect it to yor tv inputs, ill see if i can get you a pic!

 

Found it, i think this will work!



Bestbuy link

 

sit tight....ill post pics of my FZ140 in the morning ....

 

Can someone with an FZ comment on the viewability of the screen outdoors in sunlight? Glossy screens are typically poor outdoors, but there are so few non-glossy options, finding the least bad option may have to suffice.

 

hey i just registered on these forums and this will be my first laptop i will purchase! can anyone post pictures comparing the black and white keyboards? im not sure what one to choose but im leaning towards the black. thank you!

 

SONY VAIO VGN-FZ140E pics:
======================

 

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

wow, that looks amazing!

how do you like it?

 

how's the vertical viewing angles?

 

so...
does it have a latch to close the lid? or does it just stay down or something?

 

i dont think it has a latch. anyways i bought one the first day it came out and i guess i wont get it until the end of june. i dont know how the other guy said his is coming the 11th. anyways i ordered:
T7700
2gb ram
80gb hdd
nvidia 8400m gt
hicolor
black keyboard
does anyone know if it will be possible to upgrade to a 100gb 7200rpm hdd and what drivers i would need to install and where i can find all of those?

 

do you think that this would be compatible?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822146230

 

Does the Sony FZ have a eSATA Port ?

 

Can someone explain to me the "installation options" on the sony site?

Also how much is shipping? Does anyone know haha

 

how do u change out your hdd ive never dun it b4?

 

Its pretty easy to change the hard drive. Just remove the panel and the bottom of the notebook, unplug the sata/power connectors, plug in new hard drive, and place panel back on. Then reinstall the O/S.

 

o cool thats it what about the drivers? do i need to buy a certain hdd to be compatible with my laptop. oh and do they only use the 2.5" hdd's for laptops and the 3.5" hdd's for desktops?

 

No drivers needed as it should be automatically detected. Any 2.5" hdd would be fine.

 

So has anyone bought one from sonystyle? Anyone know what they mean by installation options? (as in what they're charging 150 for)

 

no hybridzzz ive never seen that! and i ordered one from the website and i dint get charged that. what you should do is call the phone number they have posted and talk to them about it. they may be able to remove it.

 

why is/are these models so cheap. i mean the price tag. isnt it suppose to be that Santa Rosas are more expensive.

 

no actually they were intented to be more cost effective energy efficient and perform astoundingly and all of the above it fullfills

 

soo can i use any hard drive to replace on any laptop or does it like need to be made for it?

 

hey guys, i'm new to this forum!
i just customized the FZ notebook on sonystyle website, and the thing goes like this:

Model Number: R1NBSU07-LBOM

VGN-FZ190 CTO

Customization Details

* Microsoft Works
* 802.11a\b\g\n with BT
* Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
* NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GT
* 15.4" WXGA (HC) W/CMR
* SuperMulti (DVD+-R Double layer / DVD+-RW Drive)
* 200 GB Hard Disk Drive
* 2 GB DDR-SDRAM (DDR2-533, 1 GBx2)
* Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7700 / 2.4 GHz.
* None Movie Pack
* No Engraving
* Keyboard Black
* Large Capacity Lithium-ion Battery (BPL8)
* Norton Internet Security 2007 (Trial)
* QB Basic
* Video Standard
* Photo Plus
* Music Plus



is the whole customizing thing trustworthy? i mean like they're going to put parts together and so on...
spent 2.2k on this baby and i don't want to be disappointed!

 

It should be fine. Sony also customize their other notebook models as well. They will build according to your specs. I recently order a simialr FZ190 CTO as well. Just a question, are you happy with the 4200rpm 200gb hard drive? I opted not to upgrade the hard drive through Sony and will buy a 7200 rpm 160gb Seagate.

 

sorry ermm i'm just a freshman in high school...
and what's a rpm? is it important? what does it do??
T_T i need help!

 

No need to apologize, kid. rpm = revolutions per minute. It's the speed the hard disk spins at. Faster rpm drives tend to perform better.

 

$2.2k holy crap! You can customize a nice one for like $1500. Down-spec the processor a notch or two. Won't make much difference in performance but will give you a much better price. Also, buy the RAM at newegg.com instead... it's about $35 per gigabyte there. You may want to select the 1 gb, 1 dimm option from sony and then you can just add the second stick from newegg.
As for the drive, I'd get at least a 5400 rpm drive if I were you. I think their 160 gb drive is 5400 rpm, isn't it? You can always get an external drive later if you need more storage space (which you only will if you put lots of movies on it).

 

160gb is 5400 rpm????
and 200gb one has only 4200rpm??????!
that doesn't seem to make sense at all lol.
does rpm affect the speed of playing games or watching movies?

 

zuna, it does make sense about the lower rpm speeds, the 200 gb only indicate more capacity as opposed to the 160 gb, rpms aid in time it takes to access data in a harddrive. ( different data sections are stored in different areas of the harddrive), the the faster the disk spins, the faster the data can be read and accessed. So why is 200 gb less rpms?, because there's more capacity and disks to read within the harddrive, hence it spins slower, of course, if u wanted, u could always go to newegg and get a faster 200gb. Will it effect games and movies? movies, probably not at all, games maybe, depends on how intense, but nothing incredibly significant, if ur a power user, ull tell the difference, freshman highschooler who doesn't know what rpms are, probably not

 

awwww should've got the 160gb one.
oh well THANKS GUYS!!!

 

I've searched in the forum about this issue but can not find the good answer.

1st, i am new in this forum and have heard sometimes in the Sony FZ Threads about replacing the new hard drive in the laptop. So, could ya tell me is it possible to replace the new hard drive into Sony laptop ? If possible, how can we do it ? Plz explain for me

2nd, could ya show me where could i find a good deal of laptop hard drive ? I found some in Newegg but they dont have large capacity.

Thank ya in advance

 

dont you lose your 1 year warranty if you change the hard drive for a 7200rpm or add a 1gb extra slot??

 

Depends on the company, but changing the hard-drive does void the warranty for some venders, better to call Sony and make sure.

Search for notebook hard-drives (2.5").
What capacities you are searching for ? the 200GB for laptops has been only recently released.

 

I am afraid replacing the harddrive will void the warranty. At least that's what they told me on the phone. However replacing RAM has no effect on their policy. It seems still a little confusing, which model at which time is available with what speed of RAM.

 

It is possible and very easy to change the hard drive in the FZ. Just open the panel at the bottom of the notebook. Remove the old hard drive connectors (sata and power). Put in the new hard drive and reconnect lines. Place the cover back on. You can use any 2.5 inch sata hard drive. I decided to get a 160 gb 7200rpm Seagate Momentus 7200.2 notebook drive because it has 5 year warranty and has excellent performance. Just google which ever hard drive you are interested in buying and I'm sure you'll find it easily. I'm from Canada and I just used shopbot.ca but I think amazon.com will be okay as well.

Good luck.

 

When I called sony, they told me that I could replace the ram and hard drive without affecting the warranty. If something ever does happen and if you are worried, just put back in the original parts .

In regards to the ram speed, all FZ models comes with pc5300 (667 mhz) ram. However, the motherboard supports 800mhz ram. I haven't seen any of these available yet though...

 

You're awfully double wrong here: the FZ comes with 533 MHz memory (at least for now) and no Santa Rosa motherboard has support for more than 667 MHz (it's in Intel's specs about the SR platform!

 

Here is the sony website link that shows the pc5300 (667 mhz) ram that comes with the FZ models : http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665091949

Isn't the front side bus on the santa rosa platform 800mhz?

 

Well, that page is outdated because they changed the memory speed on the customization page. Initially, they offered 667 MHz memory, indeed, but I don't know why, conterminously with the launch of their new website design (few days ago) they changed the memory to 553 MHz !

as for the Intel SR, the FSB is 800 which in Intel's explanation means that only the processor communicate with itself at this speed but the communication between the north and south bridges are still at 667 MHz !

http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/GM965/gm965_diagram.htm

and then here you can read again about this: "Support for dual channel DDR2-667 MHz memory technology" ... that's why nobody is eager to sell 800MHz memory so far (only Zepto)

 

when the hell did they change it to 553mhz?!
i'm getting mad!
lol

 

Please Read the following Post http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=127937&page=3

 

what's the difference between apple mac pro's NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
and sony's 8400m gt?

faster when playing high-end games???

 

Pretty much, yes. The 8600M GT in the MBP and Asus G1 and other laptops is a considerably more powerful card, and can play games at higher resolutions and with better quality settings.

 

what about mhz?
what does that help/do?

 

Hi, thanks for the advice. I still have some confusions:

1st, when we replace the new hard drive, how could we set up the original win vista since Sony dont have the Recovery DVD but they get it into a hidden partition in their hard-drive ? So, i guess we have to copy the recovery part out to DVDs and then load it on the new hard drive ??

2nd, 7200 rpm use more power than the 5400 rpm original hard drive ?? So that the battery time would be reduced ??

3rd, i saw in the old version of Sonystyle about customizing the FZ that the hard drive is an ATA one. But you said that it is a SATA one ?

Like the others have called and asked Sony, replacing the hard-drive dont do anything with the warranty. Hope it is true.

Here's the intruction of how to replace the laptop hard drive i found somewhere, hope it would be useful with the other amateurs like me:

http://www.fonerbooks.com/laptop_1.htm