Sony SA Series Discussion Sony's next new 13.3 laptop

I've never thought that the VGN Z/VPC Z looked all that good, honestly to me with minor adjustments this could look a lot better.
Is the bezel even really that big?
We don't know if it's really wasted space as we haven't seen a tear down guide of this laptop. It might have to be designed as such because of internal parts and this is probably the case.

 

Im really glad that sony is dropping the barrel design, it was dated, it was terrible, it needs a refresh.

Now for those that are saying that the colors presented in the Vaio showcase are hideous (they are for me as well) there is plenty of people that like it, actually some of my girl friends started considering the Vaios after the upgrade to more unusual colours, specially gold, some with glitter...

Vaio is distancing itself from business for quite some time, they cant and wont provide the necessary support, their laptops are hideous to service, and the list is long and it can go on. Tell me how well the latitude Z600 (das link: Latitude Z600 Laptop Details | Dell) sells? Not much. And that is some fine laptop with one of the best docks available, not the outdated thing that Sony is pushing.

The market for high style enterprise consumers is one that offers little profit. It serves more as to demonstrate how well the company can make something, its so well that you are not going be able to buy, because we are going to price it so high that only some .... would do it.

Now claiming that the z is the epitome of the design is quite ludicrous, the exterior shell is dated, the barrel hinge is one problem, the lack of integration between the bottom and the upper half of the chassis where the keyboard rests is atrocious, internally it can be said about the wonders of it, but apple makes so great logic boards and I seriously dont see anyone complimenting then for anything, and those logic boards are much smaller than the Z.

For it to be called a powerhouse it would have to have power into it, the only diminishing thing about the MPB 13 is that it uses the old penryn arch, much more due to the debacle between intel and Nvidia, thus preventing the deliver of the arrandale plataform, now that the settlement has been reached and a number of designs has been approved even with prizes, we are going to see SB goodness in those. So how are we going to call the Z a powerhouse? The GPU with the clocks can merely be considered a 325m and uses a arch from Nvidia that is nothing to write home about; the processors have tremendous power, but seeing the performance that a Acer timeline X 3820tg, even a cheap OEM can make something that has more power than the Z, with a much lower price.

But oh! the quality construction is much better! There is fit and finish unparalleled! That is really up to debate, with the hinge issues, and all that, the quality can be considered lower, but it cant be argued that the materials used are of impressive quality.

So all in all, and what can be seen here is that people who wanted to buy the Z, bought it because of what it represents, not because it has good looks, or that its a mobile powerhouse, seeing the SA or whatever you want to call it or the useless debacle for it being a prototype or not, its just because that with the lower price the representation is clearly diminished.

spoiled.

 

I'm going to adjust my statement on the SA...it is the Z replacement...for just a little while. A pretty short while.....

 

@Mr MM: i think many people will disagree with what you said

 

you damn tease beaups :|

 

is this code for... the actual z replacement will be introduced 3 months later?

 

Major refreshes and full replacements are pretty close together these days so I'm not surprised. When did the VPC Z first come out? I swear it was Jan 2010 and before the year was out we had 3x minor hardware refreshes and a successor in the works.

The problem with designing a premium notebook that gets updated so regularly is that of the few people who can even afford to drop the cash, most of them will end up saving, dreaming and waiting for the next update instead of actually buying anything. I was about to hop on the Z bandwagon but waited for Z13, then heard about Sandy Bridge, then just bought a desktop and a cheap netbook because screw it right? I got work I need to do and hell, I couldn't really afford the Z anyway.

 

But, then isn't that what the S is, and 13in Y was? A 13in machine more people can afford and then the Z was the premium machine for the people who have the cash?

 

which part? Im guessing all of it

 

GREAT NEWS.

 

I'm sure the higher end SA model will be pretty expensive. If they keep the RAID and FHD i see no reason why it should be any or much cheaper than the VPC-Z. I'm not sure if all models will use carbon fibre. If that doesn't happen it allow some models to be sold a lot cheaper and that's a good thing. Offering HD models will bring the price down also.
I will most likely buy this or a MBP.

Edited to add:
@ Mr M M I understand what you said about the palmrests. I think this model looks better in that regards. It's just one piece now which just looks a lot better to me.

 

Agreed! let's burn him at the stake! Just kidding

Well, that's GREAT news, i was scared Sony was gunna kill off a really great line of laptops

 

I wonder how this going to be priced at the lower end, because that could take sales away from the S with the 310m gpu?

 

I turn on me good old VGN-Z for the first time today and find that the SA threads have increased in page count horrendously...

And the images that depict the monstrosity within...

There are reports that this is indeed a prototype with no dedicated name.
Ok, that's fine.
The issue I'm worried about (yes, I'm worried) is that you can just make out the graphics switch at the top of the keyboard there. There is a SPEED on the right, and although I can't make out clearly what's on the left, one can guess it's STAMINA.

That said, I'm rather disappointed in saying that this may indeed be here to replace the Z. As said previously, the sucession might be something like the X series succeeding over the TT, hence the blantant differences in design.

I will have to say that I was a fan of the barrel design. Yeah, it's been used by Sony for a few decent years, but that's what set Sony's (high end) machines apart. The Z is also classed as a (easily) portable power house. That thing depicted in the images, that don't look too portable like the current Z whichever way you put it. Heck, I wouldn't mind slightly weaker specs than the ones announced at the moment, provided the size remains on par with the current Z; lappies ain't supposed to be powerful machines in the first place.

And again, as said before prototypes shown at CES are usually near the completion phase. I haven't really (recently) seen companies show something at shows at the magnitude of CES and suddenly pull them. So yeah... Not looking too good for the Z at the moment.

And it seems I was right all along; this is more to SUCCEED the S and SR, and simply just REPLACE the Z.

...and I might add that this doesn't look too 'Japanese'. There was that announcement that Sony was spliting it's lower-end VAIO manufacturing to third part companies. Maybe the SA could somehow be a part of that? And that should == the SA being a lower-end machine..?

 

What kind of gpu update is in the sa machine? I´ve readed over several threads but found nothing...or i´m to stupid to find it

My 2 years old Z is waiting for refresh

 

Actually if you look at the the performance of the i7 2820qm in anandtech you can clearly see that its more powerful than a i7 920 desktop chip. Even on encoding, decoding, and all that nasty stuff that is supposed to bring the laptops to its knees.

The idea behind SB is that laptops are now the mainstay pc for most people (myself included) and there is little performance loss to use only those (you have to take into account that the SB for desktops has been released also with a performance increase ranging from 10-50%)

Now with the upcoming updates in the GPU department, mostly AMD (since Nvidia is rebranding all again) we are going to have a great performance with much improved battery life. that is the idea, mobile computing is what we are pushing, and is what is being delivered.

BTW here is the link for the anandtech article: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4084/intels-sandy-bridge-upheaval-in-the-mobile-landscape

its a 6630, its a new GPU from AMD. The platform is Vancouver and is probably based on the 6700 series for desktops (or so we hope, since that the 5600/5700 was based on the desktop 5500 series)

 

Do you think it's worth waiting for instead of the current Z (if you have seen it)? Any design hint please?

I remember you once said the new replacement (SA) won't stop you buying a current Z, and also mentioned you like the current Z's design better. If I'm comparing with the new SA vs current Z, I think SA's design sucks. But after reading your adjustment on your statement, I'm wondering if I should wait a bit longer.

 

Thank you! So it´s a Sandy Bridge Laptop with Intel GPU and switchable AMD GPU, right?

 

One question: is the thing in the photo we've seen the same as the laptop that you tested?

i.e.

 

so my analysis and equations in the other post tend to be right which no body liked at first . Plus using AMD instead of nVIDA sounds more mainstream because for some business professionals CUDA is an important feature.

But wait, I just want to ask why would Sony produce two 13" premium laptops? Will they kill the SA (don't think though) or going to shrink the Z to 12.1 or something so adding another highly portable premium small lappy to the line?

BTW in both cases for me there won't be a true Z successor nowadays.

 

i'm going to predict that we'll eventually hear about the Z's actual replacement, 13.1, smaller/lighter, SB quad processor, and nvidia's new 550m gpu, whether sony is withholding the news at CES or is planning on releasing it in the months ahead

 

what would this 6630 compare to? 330GT?

 

Question: Is there any way to get this notebook for an excellent price? I like this one a lot but the price point seems to be high and the lower end 13.3" Sony models arent ranked as good as their Z or SA counterparts.

Looking for a super deal on an SA if possible. Sony seems to get high marks all around.

 

ATI 6630 is slighly faster than ATI 5650 which is a little faster than GT330M
So we are looking at possibly 20% more graphics muscle

 

its much more than this.

The gt 330m that sony uses, is downclocked to the levels of the gt 325m, which has the same performance as the gt 320m, the difference being that the latter is integrated and only available in macs.

The GT 335m was slower than the 5650, even the gt 425m still loses to that.

Performance wise thats the real deal that we can get, now onto the expectations territory we can expect a healthy 15-25% performance increase from the 5650 to the 6630, due to the 20% increase in the shadder count, the up in the clocks, and the barts arch (derived from the desktop 6850).

So the difference is going to be very noticeable. A link explaining a little bit about the refresh AMD and GlobalFoundries, CES 2011 - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

 

Why ? Beaups is coming here with all secrecy about a new Z which is not the SA now Again why all the secrecy ... Maybe they want to liquidate current inventory of the ''old'' Z ... but that can be to their disadvantage because there is a quite a buzz on the Samsung Series 9 laptop right now and the new Macbook pro is around the corner

 

No malicious secrecy, just unavoidable. Beaups obviously has a sweet job that makes him privy to some insider info, but we all know about NDA's. If he outright spills the beans and it gets somehow traced back to him, he'll probably get his hand slapped. Just be happy he drops a nugget every now and then

 

Dude, you can't get this notebook at ANY price at the moment, it's not even released yet Once it comes out, you can be sure it'll be MSRP for at least the first few months

 

Couldn't have said it better myself!

 

man, i wish i were at CES, does anyone know how much the tickets are?.. probably sky high

 

OMG, what is this??

 

The current VPC-Z with a fallen-out privacy screen or screen protector?

 

Keep in mind that ATI 6630 will also be under clocked by SONY. So we are talking about a 20% increase roughly from uc gt330m to uc ati6630.

 

Would it become S replacement when that pretty short while ends? I don't mind it replaces S series, actually.

 

Looks "exactly" like the current VAIO Z

 

we dont know that yet. The barts (desktop 6800) arch is much more power saving than the old madison LE (desktop 5500), incredible as it is.

 

Beaups already stated that it's going to be underclocked.

 

It is the current Vaio Z. On the exterior at least.

 

What was revealed at CES? Nothing? Why is PCMAG the only one with info about this thing?

 

"What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas..."

 

Its actually strange, its not a underclock per se:

And the state clocks for the entire 6600/6700 line is:

Core Clock(MHZ): 500-725
Ram Clock(MHZ): 800-900

The 15 MHZ difference in core clock is negligible. Previous underclock were much more aggressive.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4109/amd-and-globalfoundries-ces-2011/4

 

since there´s only the PCMAG article, where did ppl get information like 6630 VGA? and the pictures?

 

but it's missing like 5 stickers (less horsepower huh?). j/k

 

Now that is very interesting.

If this VAIO SA is only going to be a very short term replacement for the VAIO Z series, what does it mean? Does it mean that Sony is going to be releasing it as some sort of "market tester" to gauge how the market responds to in before making their next move in how to move on with this premium series? Something like.... If the VAIO SA sells badly (or do not gain much popularity with consumers), Sony will go back to the drawing board to design a sexier premium notebook? And if the VAIO SA sells like hotcakes & in the process "eat away" some of the 13" MBP sales, Sony will decide that this is the way to go in the future as far as the successors of the VAIO Z series are concerned?

Maybe it's all about Apple these days (seeing what they come up with first)? Like I mentioned earlier, Sony could have felt very threaten by the increase in Apple's market share on the sales of notebooks these days that this time, they're gonna wait for Apple to release their new SB MBPs first before releasing something that totally own those "inside & out"?

 

I don´t believe it´s going to be a Z replacement, I believe it´s going to walk side by side with Z, just another option. Probably with lower cost, slightly bigger dimensions but brand new hardware, which will take a while to come to vaio Z.

 

Speed, I think the following facts should point to a very different possibility for you...

1. 13.3" VPC-S did not get SB update, nor did 14" VPC-EA.

2. Two unamed SB VAIO in CES, the 13.3" is called SA, and the 14" one is just as neon-ish as VPC-EA.

3. Sony has three Coe i 13" right now, with S, Y & Z, but right now the only thing carrying the torch to sandy bridge is this SA.

4. Even if you count the potential difference of SSD and HDD SA models, that's still only two 13.3" models, not three. But one has to remember that VPC-S, despite not available here in US, can be CTO to 512GB SSD (not RAID, just one big 2.5" SSD) in Japan. So the option to choose HDD for budget or SSD for performance has always been there for VPC-S (and actually SR, as well, when it was complementing VGN-Z).

5. Apple, if you worry about Sony copying Apple, also has three C2D 13" right now, MBA, MBP and MB.

I think if you couple these facts with Beaup's words, what do you see?

 

Sky at least in the US the 13in Y has been discontinued.

 

It's my lovely Z playing with her friends

 

oh yah.... next to that pix and further to the right we see that Bud Light Lime green keyboard-thing and a Sony Alpha orange keyboard thing. Does that mean we can swap our keyboard for a different color?? That'll turn a Z business machine in a toy thing but hey why not anyways ha ha.

 

I think they are keyboard protectors