Sony SA Series Discussion Sony's next new 13.3 laptop

1. "i was told you are running a 5% off promo"
2. yes, that was the response to the 5% off promo inquiry: "we can also give you a free carrying case of a keyboard skin"
3. agreed, however this was a female rep who really knew the tech aspect - that you dont come across very often. reps usually tend to say that they have no additional knowledge (as most of them told me) or try to be nice but have no idea what i'm asking them. so in this case i have more faith in this rep

 

There's no way the screen is the same as the Z. Z is 13.1" SA is 13.3".

 

agreed, - let me try to call back see if she's got something to say to that - j/k as most people said we will just have to wait and see.

 

Also all the screens on the z were "preimium" the only difference was the resolution. Can but hope and not that I assume any business sense from Sony but if they were wacking in such as screen they might have mentioned it in the press releases. At the end if the day no one else is supplying anything better so doubt they care.
Still prob get one if they ever release it the uk, what is the great secret re computers, it's not like you walk past the cinema and just happen to see the new batman film has been released.

 

what is the number to call? do they give you a discount code and you use that in the website or must be a telephone order?

 

the phone is on sony's website, i'm assuming the sale must be done by phone, reps gotta make their commissions ...

 

Depends on how she said it. Maybe she meant same as in "similar quality"? "It's basically the same screen"...

Can't wait for some real tests and reviews.

 

so do you guys think the new Z will cost similar to SA?

 

hey guys, can confirm one thing? I tried google but it's really sketchy...

Does the AMD 6630M support DXVA hardware acceleration of H264, L5.0 (or higher), reference framerate higher than 4, video files using KMplayer? I really hope this SA can play my videos...

Thanks in advance!

 

i think not, Z is supposed to be the flagship model (of sort), with all the premium treatment & components & design etc. while SA ... i think it's a mid/high end business model?

 

yeah but at 1400 USD SA is no where near CHEAP

 

here is fscussel to post what seems the first review: Sony Vaio SA (Core i7 2620M processor 2.7GHz, 4GB RAM) First Take - Notebooks - CNET Asia

 

Sure, $1,400 for a VAIO SA notebook is definitely not cheap but it has been mentioned in another post/thread that the upcoming VAIO Z series will start off at around $2,000. I guess if you compare the base price of the VAIO SA series to the base price of the VAIO Z series, $1,400 is a lot more affordable.

 

It would have been nice if the reviewer had commented on the single burning question on everyone's mind - how is the display quality? The reviewer probably hasn't seen a unit yet.

Bronsky

 

I had the same doubt, if it was a unit review or just info based review...

 

well quoting the article "we're still awaiting word as to when this Vaio will hit Asian shores. "

yeah...the reviewer is also waiting...he doesn't have the SA himself...

I'm really hoping for a solid review by next weekend..or any new info on display quality.

 

" AMD Hybrid graphics technology allows the laptop to use both integrated and discrete video cards at the same time, reducing overall power consumption while increasing multimedia performance."

Is it already the case on SB ? Or is that reviewer mistaking with AMD APUs ?

 

How can usage of both cards at the same time reduce overall power consumption? Are they both drastically underclocked until they're needed?

I hope this doesn't mean there will be issues with turning one of the cards off completely under Linux.

 

yes it is, however its a mechanical switch on the top

the reviewer highlighted the wrong part, when you are using switchable gpus, both are going to be on, however when you are using only the igp, only that will be on. Now the switch method is what makes the difference, AMD uses muxes and nvidia uses software.

another thing to remember is that output of the image is going through inevitably via the intel gpu

 

Totally being a newbie, i have some config questions. i currently am using about 100gb on current old hp...want the sa to last for at least 4+ years.

A) which I5?
1- Intel® Core™ i5-2410M processor (2.30GHz) with Turbo Boost up to 2.90GHz [subtract $50.00]

2- Intel® Core™ i5 2520M processor (2.50GHz) with Turbo Boost up to 3.20GHz

B- HDD or SSD?

1- 500GB (7200rpm) hard drive [about $300 less than 128GB]

2- 128GB solid state drive [$300.00 less than 256GB]

3- 256GB (128GBx2) solid state drive with RAID 0

so for about $600 extra get 256gb with 1/2 the space..is the speed worth it?

can u add (at a later time) 128/256gb ssd to the basic hdd? or just bite the bullet and do it with sony?

all other parts of configuration the same.

 

i see you have a Z so i know it might hurt a bit to see it be temporarily replaced by a cheaper model. however similarly equipped Z and SA do go for about the same price. (look at the 1TB SSD config with blu ray burner thats fully loaded). the point that sales rep made was that "due to the fact that Z will be temporarily unavailable SA will serve as a replacement" now just to elaborate on the screen again: Z did come with 2 types of screens both hi res, my understanding is that SA will come with the lower one, which is still a great screen!

 

Excuse my stupidity, but does this mean that you won't have to reopen all GUI applications in Windows when you make a switch between cards? I have no experience with "dual" graphics cards...

@austinro30:
I myself would select 7200rpm 500GB HDD and then buy Intel's SSD and external casing for the HDD to put into. So, I would end up paying lower or same price for probably more reliable SSD while getting external 500GB HDD for free!

But I'm also wondering about CPUs. I'd like my next laptop to last 5+ years. 2620m ($250 extra) seems like a logical choice, but won't the difference between 2410m and 2620m become too small to notice when Sandy Bridge CPUs become obsolete anyway?
EDIT: I should mention that I'm going to use at least one virtual machine (using VirtualBox), I'm going to compile code and do some image editing. I'm also going to be running a lot of processes/applications at the same time. So if 2520m or 2620m has any special technology (I've heard something about VMs before), then CPU upgrade might be a good choice for me.

 

1) no you wont need to close the any applications when switching

2) I would also vouch for get the HDD, and then buy a SSD, intel is a good choice, the best imo

3) what are your uses on the pc? usually to upgrade the cpu is the less cost effective measure to improve the life of a computer, specially when within the same line up

 

Sorry, I've realized only later that I should describe my usage...

 

Hey guys, I'm probably going to buy this Laptop (either the SA or SB) next week when I visit New York City. Anybody knows what models do they usually have in stock in the Sony Style store?

 

no you are not going to benefit from the vt-d, its basically a heavy i/o instruction. however you need the chipset for it, the QM or the PM, and since you are only offered the HM, no. An example is that the ubuntu 11.4 unity is not going to work on a VM due to the lack of instructions, however the 11.4 sans unity is.

Although you are going to benefit from the higher cpu and higher memory. is virtual box any good? I have only used vmware workstation

 

Personally I couldn't say about VBox, so far I've only used it for testing some Linux distros on my desktop. I haven't had any issues with it though.
But I've read some one-versus-other type of articles and comments, and opinions seem pretty mixed up. I have a feeling that for the simple stuff VBox is better (graphics support, might be a bit faster) but VMware has more features and I think you can tune VMs better with it (if that makes any sense).

I'm planning to fill the remaining RAM slot with 4GB stick, so I'm covered memory-wise. Would you say that CPU cache size matters with the stuff I'm going to do? I mean, 2520m is an upgrade in clockspeed while 2620m is also an upgrade in L3 cache.

 

If you have a game / video open, it either won't work or crash the game/player, right ?

 

- removed my own post -

 

it depends on how number crunch heavy or instructions heavy you are going to deal with, I for one dont need, since I usually do single threaded programs

and yes with vmware you can put dedicated cores for your vms, its quite good

now you are just asking too much, a game would load the preference file for the card that is running, and as such it would crash the game, a video however Im not so sure, since this is decoded via the cpu most of the time, specially flash

 

If you're not a student and you want to get the student discount please can you not discuss it on these boards. You don't need to explictly state what you'll do or your status. That's something which this board won't permit discussion of.

 

Any SB CPU will do. The biggest factor for VM's is RAM!

 

Okay, so I'm probably going to select 2520m since it's only $50 extra (not much compared to whole laptop price) just to have a peace of mind.

My current laptop (4 years old) has Intel Core 2 T7600 (2.33GHz, 4MB L2 cache), 2GB of RAM and 5400rpm HDD. It still performs pretty well, but the biggest bottlenecks are memory and HDD.

PC Mark 05 test (from notebookcheck.net):
T7600: 4890 points
2410m: 7950 points
2520m: 8380 points
2620m: 8970 points

Based solely on points above 2410m to 2520m is 5.1% upgrade, 2410m to 2620m is 11.4% upgrade and 2520m to 2620m is 6.6% upgrade.

 

2520m will be more than adequate. Just ensure you have at least 6GB of RAM. You can then allocate at least 2GB to your VM and have it running flawlessly...

 

yeah i went with the 2520m also..for me it was worth the $50.

As for ram I went with 4gb...and will buy another 4gb from 3rd party and install it myself...the savings is HUGE. 4gb OEM is like $40...while on the sony website it was a $200 upgrade...Ram isn't that hard to install, if you have at least some knowledge of computers...I would recommend you do it yourself.

FYI - I went with 256GB Raid 0 SSD from Sony....i didn't want to deal with doing that myself...even tho you can save a good amount if you install it yourself.

Now lets hope the reps weren't lying and this Vaio SA display is on par with the old Z Series....or else i'll have to reject shipment. =/

 

I will do the same with memory - I'll buy another 4GB stick myself. And I'll definitely select 7200rpm 500GB (+$20).

The thing is that SSDs are still a bit expensive so I'm not completely sure if I'll buy one yet. I'm still comfortable with HDDs, but that might be because I have absolutely no experience with SSDs when it comes to general usage (not just boot time and app-loading time). So if the laptop will be shockingly responsive despite having a HDD, then I'll just wait another year for prices to drop a little bit more.
But there are other factors too - heat and noise.

If I will buy SSD, then I'll most likely get 160GB Intel 320, which isn't any cheaper here ($/GB ratio-wise) than what I can get from Sony. But Intel SSDs are said to be the most reliable currently and I don't know what Sony puts into their laptops.

The good thing about storage drive and memory versus CPU is that you can always upgrade later.

 

Either you don't have many math skills or you are checking the wrong places for Intel 320 SSD's prices...

try newegg or amazon.. Sony's SSD's are more than overpriced, and with RAID0 you lose TRIM which is just a stupid thing to lose since it's one of the most important about SSD's,if not the most important.

But to each it's own, Sony does "need" the income so i don't bother telling people to stop wasting their money by throwing it Sony-way anymore, i need them to drop price's.

 

Here in Europe prices are much higher than in US. 160GB Intel 320 is 314€ ($452) here. Newegg ships only to Puerto Rico outside of the US. Amazon in US does ship to Europe, so when the time comes I'll look at the shipping prices.

And I'm not saying I would buy Sony's SSD. On the contrary - I would buy it myself from Intel even if the prices are indeed the same!

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Soli...MLJE/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1306938727&sr=8-3

Intel 320 160 - intel 320 160 billig kaufen Preisvergleich intel 320 160


That's just 2 links. i'm sure there are 100 times more.

I live in the Country with the "highest price's" in EU, you are really going to try to lecture me about high price's ? 23% TAX and 10 milion population market can be toped?
Again, you just don't search enough or the right way.

 

I know you guys are very worried about the screen quality, me too... But I really need this question answered, can someone please help?

 

Just a thought...if you buy an OEM SSD and install it yourself...aren't you technically voiding the warranty?? I talked to a rep and he said "yeah," but that they don't really care as much if you add another 4gb ram yourself.

I REALLY wish Sony offered larger SSD drives...im not a fan of losing TRIM or my warranty.

 

actually they dont care

 

A SA deluxe Model (256GB SSD, 8GB RAM, DVD-Burner) started listing in Austria & Germany with best price of 2.447 Euros.

Skinflint Price Comparison EU

Pretty hefty price in my eyes.
About the display, one retailer wrote it is a Sony Vaio Display Plus, so it seems it is the same as the SB but with higher res. I guess we will find out for sure in a few days.

 

if it was anywhere near premium, I'm sure sony would advertise it more, especially on its own website > specs

 

Will somebody get one of these already so we can see how the display quality is?

Bronsky

 

today I´ve placed my order. 7200rpm HD and 2410 (50 USD) cpu upgrade, plus the docking station so I can play games in the confort of my 19 LCD. 1650 USD with taxes. Not cheap. I hope the screen quality is very good.

 

^ agreed. lol...SOMEONE PLZ GET ONE ALREADY!

 

did you get a warranty?

 

no. -------------------------

 

to each his own i guess...personally, if im spending like $2k for a laptop...i would get warranty to have a peace of mind and assurance that if I have any problems in the next 3 years I don't have to worry/pay big bucks to fix it (especially like a cranked or broken screen). but thats just me. in the end, its just luck whether you have laptop issues in the future...if u don't you'll think u wasted the money...if you do...u'll be happy as hell you got it.