Sony SA Series Discussion Sony's next new 13.3 laptop

I hope they will offer these 7200rpm hard drives in every model, because eventhough every other brand (xept apple) offers 7200rpm hard drives since the end of 2009/beginning of 2010 sony still offers 'old' 5400rpm drives >.> (we don't have the option to configure the laptops ourselves here in Belgium).

 

Quite positive review for the VAIO SB:

Sony Sony VAIO SB Series (VPCSB16FG) - reviews - Notebooks - All Purpose - Good Gear Guide

 

Order placed! Glad I waited for the configurator, that silver pre-built one is a rip-off in comparison.

 

wii,
thanks for the link! Frankly, I don't believe it works 6 hours while playing video.

 

150£ for the BR Writer... To compare with the +600€ (euros) for the same option on the Z...

 

£1,438.98 for beefed up spec with SSD. It makes the MacBook Air look cheap in comparison...

 

So with i7, 8g ram, 256 ssd with fingerprint reader is £1800 or $2800 but what is the difference with the SA then?

 

I skipped the SSD for a more reasonable total of £1058.99; SSD prices will continue falling so I can look at doing the upgrade myself in a year or so.

At least they're only charging £80 for an extra £40 worth of RAM, rather than the £200 they wanted on the S13!!

 

I am really curious if the mini pci-e for WWAN is half or full height... I suppose you can guess why

I don't find the configurations very expensive but I am very disappointed by the lack of a better (hi-res) screen

 

That would be fantastic.

S

 

SA has 1600x900 screen and carbon fibre casing.

 

I think it is a audacious that you have to pay £50 extra for Windows 7 Professional to be installed on a notebook which is marketed as a business notebook.

 

Wish the SA was up as well, though we know from beaups it's been subject to delay. Nevertheless, if this SB configuration were available with the 1600x900 screen, I'd bite.

 

It's not marketed solely as a business notebook. I believe on the older S13 if you went to the 'check out our business S series' link on the top right of the page, it was then only available with Pro/Ultimate, rather than Home Premium. Although of course it then just built the extra £50 into the price.

£50 is about the going rate for the upgrade - I believe Dell are charging £60.

Also, even for a lot of business users Pro isn't necessary, Home Premium does everything they'll need. I paid for the upgrade to Pro as there are some features that I wanted.

 

Does anyone know what type of ssd cards sony use as the 256g option is a £690 upgrade.

 

Does anybody know if the Vaio SA/SB will use a 2.5 inch hdd or will it be a custom job like in the current Z?
If it fits a standard 2.5 inch I may just go and purchase a OCZ Vertex 3 and save some cash and probably get some extra performance.

 

I'm sure Sony offer a 2 year warranty with Windows 7 Pro machines as opposed to a 1 year with Home. That £50 becomes a non issue if that is still the case...

 

They told me this was the case in Dec 2010.

 

That would certainly be an extra bonus (although I was happy paying the £50 anyway) - anyone got a link confirming this on the Sony website?

Edit: never mind; found it

The Sale of Goods Act makes one-year-only warranties pretty unenforceable in most cases, but it is usually a real hassle with most manufacturers to get things repaired after the first twelve months are up.

 

Wow this looks seriously sweet for the money. Get a 1600 x 900 premium display option in there and I'm biting, no doubt.

Pleasantly surprised that the standard 4gb RAM is 1x 4gb stick and the memory upgrade prices are not insane. The SSD upgrade options are roughly the equivalent cost of buying 1.8" SSDs in similar capacities so it doesn't look like a ripoff there either.

I don't get the criticism about the +£50 Win7 professional upgrade. If you need to join a domain, just pay the £50. With the exception of the display and the carbon fibre reinforced chasis, this is Z series class specs but almost half the price when fully upgraded.

Even a modest i5 2520M, 4gb RAM, Radeon 6630M, DVD drive and 128gb SSD @ £1218.99 is nearly £700 cheaper than the closest Z series.

Edit: Oh welp. No ilink and no expresscard. I need a firewire port or I can't use my soundcard.

 

Sadly I think the high res display is being saved for the SA, which will be the higher-end one in general. It's the one part of the spec I'm unhappy with, but considering I only had a budget of a grand (spent £1066 incl. shipping: i5 2520, 8GB, 500GB/7200rpm) I'm very pleased with what I'm getting overall - with any manufacturer you either have to sacrifice form factor/portability or pay an extra several hundred quid for a higher res screen, even where it is available. And yeah, agreed on the memory thing, I decided to pay Sony for it to avoid any hassle, which I certainly wouldn't have done based on the old S13 RAM upgrade prices!

Fortunately I gave up on Firewire a couple of years ago; it isn't a problem for me since my portable interface is only 2x4 so I use USB. I expect audio interface-related worries to disappear once more USB3 interfaces come out anyway.

 

Unfortunately my soundcard is firewire (TC Konnekt 48) and it cost alot. Much more than the base price of the SB. The alternatives are all firewire too and whilst I agree it is increasingly becoming a legacy standard, most professional soundcards are firewire and theres no sign of that changing any time soon.

 

It's not necessarily that most professional interfaces are Firewire, it's to do with the available bandwidth. USB2 can only do 2x2 @ 24/96 iirc, which is the limiting factor (personally I only use my portable interface to monitor on cans and very infrequently record a channel or two, most of the big I/O happens on my workstation). As more manufacturers drop Firewire from their laptops, the interface manufacturers will bring out USB3 interfaces, or interfaces with both (MOTU are doing a USB2/FW hybrid at the moment).

But yeah, musings on the future of the audio interface industry aside, agreed it is a bummer with the situation you're in at the moment!

(Edit: Konnekt 48 is a bloody nice bit of kit btw, I like the onboard DSP. I have a fair bit of tc hardware for live use [d2, m2000, Fireworx] and it's some of my favourite FX gear ever, even considering the relatively cheap price of it)

 

How much does the SB cost in American dollars, and how much is the SA going to cost in American dollars?

 

Just noticed they included HD6630 in the options (+60GBP, not too bad).
Please just include a hires screen also !!!

 

Hi res screen not on this model; will be in the SA but that's been delayed until June, I think.

Personally I couldn't bring myself to spend an extra 60 quid on a graphics card, but there you go!

 

I don't see a reason for the SA delay since they use the same chipset as SB!!! what's going on??

 

According to someone who posts on here and appears to either work for Sony or be pretty closely connected to their supply chain, it's to do with availability of a chassis material/part.

I have read elsewhere that the SA, although it will be the same size and very similar in general, will be at least partially carbon fibre, so this makes sense.

 

The DSP is...problematic. Nice idea in concept but the Fabrik plugins are very sketchy, just like they are on Powercore. The drivers still cause me problems in Windows 7 64-bit but hopefully they will get fixed in future.

The main reason I need a soundcard in this class is that I currently use 8x analogue TRS inputs (4x synthesizers) and up to 4 analogue instrument inputs (up to 3x mics + pickup) + MIDI. The MIDI chain is pretty big and spills over into a separate MIDI interface (which mercifully is USB 2.0). I wouldn't have a problem jumping ship to a USB 2.0 RME Fireface UC but if I lose 2x preamps I can't stereo mic my guitar + pickup.

The Fireface UFX does have 4x preamps but its really expensive.

 

So no chance to see SA tomorrow at CeBit in Hannover?? Cuz I love this SB with i5 or i7, HD 6630M and additional flat battery but the fact that they put on a display plus which is really poor than premium... I don't like it.

 

I couldn't find any when I was searching just now, but maybe a USB3.0 to firewire adapter would work? It seems likely that such an adapter will be made when USB3 is more popular.

 

I knew battery life would be pretty good compared to old S but not by this much Amazing!

"In terms of battery life, when you switch to Stamina mode, the power profile changes to 'balanced' and the integrated Intel HD graphics are used. In our battery rundown test, in which we loop an Xvid-encoded video, Stamina mode gave the laptop a life of 6hr 5min away from an outlet, which is a brilliant result."

from the review at goodgearguide.com

 

Wow... I think that in wi-fi navigation it gets even better results!

 

what I know is that it weights way low than SB, which is essencial to me.

 

I believe that the link to this detailed review (with a working unit) was not posted before:
Sony VAIO S Series Hands-On - TrustedReviews - TrustedReviews

Enjoy!

 

hmm I will have to see if the 1600x900 screen is worth it, otherwise I may just pick the SB up later on in the year.

 

That screen would be the premium display, so it would be the serie Z display... which is better then macbook pro 13" and macbook air 13" ..

 

I know, so I am not sure what to do, because no doubt if any SA model appears in poland it will be hella expensive or there might not even be a SA model in poland at all.

 

Nah its VAIO Display Plus, Not VAIO Display Premium. I mean the Euro F Series 1080p display and the Z series 900p and 1080p display are billed as VAIO Display Premium so we know they can be completely different panels but the Plus displays won't be in that class. Unless they offer a premium display upgrade. Wink wink.

 

Hang on, so the SA's 1600x900 display isn't considered a VAIO Display Premium? Because the brightness/color fidelity/contrast ratio is much of what I am looking for in the upgrade.

 

Hi everyone, as it seems to me, Europeans may be happy with WWAN option, and I would like to ask: where is SIM reader in this model? Battery has no latch...it is integrated. No slots on the bootom side either.
Does it mean all SB will have integrated sim on board locked to a certain 3G operator initially?

 

When is the SB coming to the USA?

 

Meh, so far the SB hasn`t resurfaced yet on the sony.pl It was first and now it is last. I wonder what they are waiting for... Too many S series in stock?

 

The customizer is available now also on the German site:
S Serie : VAIO & weitere Computerprodukte : Sony

The options seem cheaper. Some are even lower in euros than they were in GBP... for example the TPM + fingerprint:
UK: +30GBP
DE: +20EUR

WWAN:
UK: +100GBP
DE: +30EUR

You Brits have too much money

 

Or maybe just a treat for the poor German students like me who are desperatly waiting for a new notebook - even though I have to wait for the SA or new Z

 

I configured the same SB on both the Dutch and German sonystyle website and the German one is much cheaper. Both are in euro and with an english keyboard/windows Ultimate combo.

Dutch website : 1468,98 euro

German website : 1388,99 euro

Difference Dutch German

mem 6 GB +40 +60
mem 8GB +80 +100
WWAN +100 +30
Fingerprint +30 +20

 

In Belgium we don't have a customizer. So I can't configure which drive I want, which GPU, CPU, screen etc. :-(

But I can't wait for Vaio SB & SA

 

First of all Sony hates Europe as you will see when the US prices come out and then it seems it hates the UK most of all, but there is probably some kind of currency issues to take into account.
Really want to see comparison of the SA and toshiba R830. I guess the SA if the price can come in under £1500 with good spec and then add a third party ssd as it sounds impressive from the first reviews. Did not hear much about the speakers which were not great on the Z.

 

This seems like a good place to introduce myself. I've been following this thread from start (which may indicate I have too much time on my hands).

Does anyone know if either the SA or the Z will offer a quad core option?

I don't care that much about battery life (within reason) or graphics but would like a 3-3.5 lb machine with a quad core SB.

 

I've just played the Configurator from Vaio Netherlands website. They do have an option with i7-cpu, which I think it's a quadcore. All the i5's of Vaio S are dualcore, if I'm correct