Sony SA Series Discussion Sony's next new 13.3 laptop

I'm really not impressed with the Samsung 9 series.

It's more expensive than the air.

It's graphics capabilities are worse.

It's options are worse (and this is compared to Apple, the king of not having any options).

It's design is worse.

It's battery life is slightly worse unless the battery life in the specs is dead accurate which it almost NEVER is.

The only advantage it really has is a better processor that isn't better by much and if you don't want to look like a wannabe trendy person with a fruit on the back of your laptop.

 

ha ha yeah that Samsung 9 sure looks slim and very pretty. but now that i see the specs there's no way i'd buy it. if somebody gives me one i'll put it up on ebay the same day!! 1/2

 

I don't see the Samsung 9 series as a competitor yet, its too small and too few capabilities (especially in regards to graphics and screen).

 

The fact that many people throughout this thread have been talking about other manufacturers new laptops just shows how disappointed they are with the new Vaio SA. Add me to that list too.

 

The next Z will be the Z14 :
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SSD up to 1To on this model and HDD up to 750 Go, that's all

 

SHUT
DOWN
EVERYTHING

 

No gpu refresh? ...

 

No GPU and no CPU refreshn only HDD and SSD :

Dynamic hybrid graphics (switchable graphics two Accelerator)
When the SPEED mode setting: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M GPU
Mode settings: STAMINA: Intel HD graphics (internal to the processor)
Mode settings: AUTO: automatically switch between depending on usage ※ 4

Intel Core i7 M - 640 processor
Intel Core i5 - 560 M processor
Intel Core i5 - 480 M processor

I'm waiting now for the price od such SSD...

 

How can you possibly be disappointed with it? At the moment its a proof of concept shell that Sony hasn't even begun to publicize as a finished product. The specification is still unknown and there is absolutely no indication whether the design of the chasis is subject to change or how far along the design and production process this machine is.

If you are going to knock it, at least wait until Sony adds it to their official promotional material.

 

I think a lot of the resentment towards the SA is due to the fact that it is a 13.3 notebook and weighs a smidgen more than the Z. It however looks like the Z was that the SA will be top of its class also.

I do understand that for some people the Z was the perfect combination of power/portability and they want to see this form factor continue. I've never owned a Z and was not actually keen on the form factor or design.

I find the whole CES thing with Sony really quite odd.

 

Odd is one way to put it:

1) We have a concept design for a notebook that is thought to be SA but not confirmed as such.

2) Literally every report or opinion piece on this concept build at CES 2011 from established technology news sources (like pcmag and engadget) has been entirely redacted. If you go back through the thread and click all the links, they are all broken.

3) We have a tentative indication from someone close to Sony that SA is a stopgap between major Z revisions. For a notebook in this sort of price range, people don't want to hear the word temporary or stopgap and so of course you get the same situation thats happening now. People either buy a current Z series (discounted new or second hand) or they wait for the permanent Z series replacement.

4) There is absolutely no indication that anything about the industrial design, size and weight of this concept build are set in stone. Complaining about same therefore, by looking at a handful of CES photos of some unknown machine purporting to be SA, is kinda...nuts.

Since the CES 2011 photos there hasn't really been anything that you can really call news so unfortunately the discussion has kind of stalled on the same dubious talking points. Kind of like no official Diablo III news makes Diablo II fans bicker endlessly over rainbows and cartoon graphics in a death spiral of speculation gone haywire.

 

True. And strange indeed Maybe we all (or most of us) had high hopes for "refreshed" lineup, but the fact Sony introduced only ONE laptop F 3D (that was shown previously at IFA 2010) is kinda disappointing.

Those SA prototypes eg, "industrial design" whatever that means, shows lack of new and fresh designer ideas. F does look great, judging initial promo images, but I thought Sony would refresh whole line with SB processors. Maybe (again!) huge demand caused CPU supply shortage from Intel???

Have no other explanation.

Cheers,
Miki

 

Looks like Beaups was wrong, then; the Z will not be replaced with a different model (SA). Which is good news.

Of course, the Z still needs a generation 3 (or 4, if you count the Z from ten years ago), with Sandy Bridge or better.

 

Since the Z has now been updated to z14 with no sandybridge, my guess is in March we will see a redesigned z21 with sandy and usb 3.

But i'm just a guy living in Japan with no clue.

 

to be honest, I really don't see any point of "yet another refresh" prior to redesigned Z, especially when this refresh doesn't bring nothing new to the table....

 

I think he implied that whatever Sony decides to do with the Z series in future, its going to be a ways off and SA is going to be their focus in the ultraportable class in the short term.

I think that prototype looks very classy in gun metal. It would be a shame if that look ended up in a stopgap product line and even though it shows some unrealised potential in terms of ports and port access, I think it also shows alot of promise.

 

Damn, that's too bad for a laptop released in 2010. Thanks for info.

 

I would like it to be a little lighter - but without giving up the optical drive.

4 USB's would be sweet - particularly if one was USB 3.0.

A little slimmer would be welcome as well - again without giving up the optical drive.

Improved battery life is always welcome.

The new instant boot bios would be sweet!

How about a 1TB SSD solution.

And most importantly - 2 simultaneously active video outs for people who want 2 external monitors without any additional hardware.

 

Haha, i forgot who posted it and where they posted it, but if you go to SonyStyle Japan, they've got the VPCZ14 released... and it's got a 1tb SSD (4x256GB) in RAID0... for an upgrade price of 200,000 yen... welcome to the future!

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO no 1TB SSD RAID0 option!

Well... If Sony hasn't even officially announced the SA yet, and let's say they do by March, maybe start shipping by April/May, then "a while" might be the summer... which means a Q3 launch/announcement of the true Z successor?

 

ah man, I´m not waiting to april/may for it, feb/march is my dead end, where is beaups to confirm us a 1st quarter release?

 

With 1 TB, RAID 01 would be a far better option.
Same fast read speed as RAID 0, you can continue to work even if one drive crashes, and have one drive pair replaced without losing any data, at the expense of half the drive space. With 1 TB that's very feasible.

 

What about Europe?

 

and at the expense of slower read/write speed?

 

The rumored price of $1800 with ssd for SA had to come from somewhere. If that is the starting price, doesn't that mean I should be expecting same high quality as Z? I'm hoping the SA or whatever released in end of Feb is not just a stop gap product.

I want the next Z, but keeping looking at the SA photos, it looks okay too. Maybe because I use a thinkpad x61t which is design wise plain, I'm okay with SA not being fancy.

 

For large writes, RAID 0 is faster than RAID 10 -- a 4 drive RAID 10 is the same speed as a 2-drive RAID 0.
For small writes (smaller than the stripe size), the speed is the same.
Read speeds are the same for a four-drive RAID 0 as for a four-drive RAID 10 -- you stripe the reads across all four drives in both cases.

For large writes, however, drive speed is seldom a bottleneck, except in drive->drive copy of data. Else, the bottleneck for large writes is likely to be the app generating the data, or network speed.

The only main downside to RAID 01/10 is losing half the storage capacity. But when that's not a problem, it's the #1 choice, and frequently found in businesses where both speed and reliability is important. (When speed is less of an issue, RAID 5 gives more bytes for the buck.)

 

Unless you're into multimedia or video editing, I dont see the need for faster reads/writes for most business users. RAID 10 makes more sense to me in a 1TB.

 

are we still in the land of complaint and guess or we have entered the land of information?

 

Where still in Guessistan...

 

Will there be a VAIO S replacement with sandy bridge along with VAIO Z replacement?

Or is the SA the replacement for both?

At any rate Im looking for the top of the line Sony 13.3" model and Im hoping they come with i7 25 watt processors 2nd gen.

But allegedly there was a redesign and I liked the original S model, just wanted it updated with Sandy Bridge.

I think I'll prolly get a Sony. Style is sleeker, good displays usually, well built.

 

The current S series doesn't have a particularly great display though. A black mark on an otherwise attractive looking package imho.

 

Maybe Sony will change the panel for the new ones.

Ive found the decent notebook pcs are pretty much the same ODM who manufacturers them. The things that vary are processor options, included storage and memory and video options and styling/layout, input devices and slightly different feature sets.

Im sorta looking for the best of breed 13.3" notebook with the best display possible and best specs but without paying an obsessive amount for the laptop.

Sony's have really attractive sleek styling and its design team puts a lot of thought into it since the ODM they use will use Sony designs.

 

thanks will try to get in here next month, Im not in kindergarten anymore, nor Im at a retirement home

 

This is a LV processor, much like the ones that are used in the macbook Air or the alienware m11x.

I wouldnt want it in a full blown 13'', nor I would expect to see it in Vaio, unless they redesign the ultraportables. and in that case you wouldnt get the gpu power.

 

Intel® Core? i5-580M Processor (3M Cache, 2.66 GHz)with SPEC Code(s)SLC28, SLC29

The Vaio S has the 35 watt tdp's apparently with i5. The Z has the i7's and may have the 25 watt tdp models.

The 17 watt tdp versions are just too underpowered and aren't worth it. Either 35 watt tdp or 25 watt tdp and the question is how much battery life would be improved in the models.

The current VAIO S is very attractively priced at bestbuy but isn't sandy bridge. The same notebook with Sandy bridge and a quality SSD drive would be very attractive assuming battery life is decent.

 

I wonder if this laptop will take a 2.5" HD? It looks like it will but I'm just wondering what i could do with the SSD in my SZ. Sell it together or keep it and use my drive in this SA.

 

The Z uses the full blown dual core i7 processors (35W TDP), and dont have any other LV or ULV processor available

Agreed that the ULV arent worth it, but usually with arrandale when you get the LV versions of the processors you get a soldered to the mobo processor, and if Im not mistaken they use a different socket.

 

I would keep it and use in the SA

 

It's kinda scary, beaups' comments are always written with such resolve. Kinda cool though

 

^I try to only post facts. Sometimes things change, though. I say Z14 won't come to US because that is the fact as it stands today...but of course that could change and I'll look like a liar

 

I want to like the SA but for some reason I get the feeling Sony could have put a 14in screen on it with the way it looks.

Does anyone think that the new Z maybe be a bit more compact and come with a 12.5in screen like the Lenovo U260 and the upcoming X220 series(both have matte screens)? Moving to 12.5in could be good reason to delay the Z update to and make sure there is a wider gap between the Z, S, and SA, no?

Did Sony ever upgrade the Vaio G to the i Core cpu, or was that discontinued out of curiosity?

 

So it's in between July and August as I expected before .

 

i take it then that the new z will be significantly thinner than the current one. beaups, any news of a dedicated gpu?

 

Now I'm interested again......assume moving to Sandy Bridge?

S

 

old VGN-Z had 25W TDP (P9500), but new VPC-Z as said is 35W...
So I guess we won't see SBN quads in redesigned Z, as they all are 45 TDP?

Cheers,
Miki

 

only in thickness

 

Well I think the i core models the TDP is listed with the intel IGP.

 

I used Core 2 duo U2500, and L7500 low voltage CPUs in the past 5 years in my laptops. Compared to the regular voltage cpus, I don't really see the benefit of it. I used my laptop unplugged very often. When the system is idle, they use about the same amount of power. You can also under-volt the regular voltage ones. In the end, the battery lasts about the same time unless you require performance. But in those times, the regular voltage cpus benefit from much better performance.

If I could choose, I would go with the regular voltage ones. I don't know if you can use RMclock in Core i series, but that will also help on lowering power consumption. The low voltage ones have no room for under-volting, and the performance is too weak.

If you looked into Sandy bridge core i7-2820QM quad core benchmarks, you'll notice the super low power consumption when idle. So even though it has a max TDP 45 watt, it will be power sipping. It is totally different from the first gen quad core i7s. I would prefer i7 quad in new Z.

 

Oooooh! getting excited again.

 

beaups, are you Sir Howard Stringer "in disguise?"

Back on topic.... with the way things are looking right now, I think the "true" VAIO Z replacement may only actually happen when Intel moves to "Ivy Bridge"....