Sony SZ791N gets PC Mag's editor's choice

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2274564,00.asp

So, I've pretty much figured out that I can't afford a TZ right now . So, I've been looking at the SZ's.

Can anyone give comments on what they're saying the review? Do you agree? Why or why not?

How's the battery life with the standard battery? I know you can switch between discrete and integrated graphics. I won't be doing much gaming, so I'll mostly use the integrated graphics setting.

How do you feel about hard drive access times? The main reason I was looking at the TZ was the SSD option. But since that's out with the SZ, what do people have to say about the performance with a HDD?

Thanks in advance,

Potential SZ owner

edit: i can get a price of $2125 (+tax) using my work discount...any better deals?

 

I think the HDD is fine, speedy even, but I have never used anything with a SSD in it, and the SZ replaced a 3+ year old Fujitsu so take my opinion in that context.

I'm not sure if you can get the deal anywhere that sells them, but I bought mine in a SonyStyle store and if you buy 2 accessories and at least a 3 year warranty with ADD you get 300.00 off. Therefore, you get the warranty "free", since I planned to buy that any way it was a good deal for me.

But, yes I think $2125.00 for the unit itself is a good deal.

 

Hmm, it is unusual why Sony doesn't offer an SSD option for the SZ, when they offer it for their other business-class notebooks, G, TZ and UX.

Looks like they should with the next SZ update or new series.

 

Man, if only I had the money for an SZ - I'd buy a premium on the spot. The thing runs Crysis on high at 2fps!!!

 

you would think so. hmmm...maybe i'll just wait and see what the next SZ update offers.

 

You can just buy an SSD separately and pop it in there.
They're expensive though...

 

I am sure someone will say I am all wet on this, and that is O.K. you probably will not even be the first person today.

But:

I just do not see the advantage of the SSD in the SZ class machine. The TZ yes, it allows longer battery life and better heat management in an "ultra-portable" machine. The SZ with its processor and graphics will not ever be a battery miser and is going to have to have serious cooling SSD or not.

I am betting that most SZ buyers will feel like me and be unwilling to pay such a large premium for a much smaller drive in an otherwise "performance" machine. If they were the same capacity and only marginally more costly, it might sell but I still think that is a ways away. What is the biggest SSD that is anywhere close to affordable and available 64GB? I have relatively little music/audio books, about average to less than average pictures and I am already over that... I am sure I could clean it up a bit, but do I really want to pay an extra 400-600.00 for the privilege of having to diligently manage file sizes? Nope...

Now if I spent a tremendous amount of time traveling on airplanes and sitting in airports waiting to travel on planes (vs. the tremendous amount of traveling by vehicle I do) it would probably be worth it and I would have bought a TZ because I would also place a high value on the small size and weight.

 

Well, I wonder why Dell offers an SSD option on their M1330 but not Sony.
Its also too bad the Dell has HDMI output and the SZ only has old VGA. They'd better change that in the next revision or model.

 

Moreover, I wonder why anyone would buy a dell...

Different strokes for different folks I guess...

 

I want SSD for SZ please.

I think Sony should offer similar options like the TZ, maybe dual hard drive raid 0 or 1. Honestly I don't really use the DVD drive.

 

duckryder's blurb about ssd in the tz does make sense. however, why not offer at least a 7200 rpm drive in addition to the 5400 rpm? yes, i know i can just swap it out myself, but why? it'd be nice of sony to do it for me in the first place.

just sayin'.

 

sony does offer the sz with 7200rpm drives customizable.
i do agree that seeing an ssd option would be nice, but personally, i believe that the sz series is not in as dire need of ssd technology when compared with the truly ultraportable machines offered, considering the current price of them.

 

my bad. i just saw that. it seems that i can customize one up to the specs of an sz791, and it comes about $99 cheaper. wonder where that extra $99 went?

edit: nevermind. i think it's the premium carbon on the 791.

 

Carl,

Yes, you can get a 200GB 7200 rpm drive in the CTO SZ Premium, and yes, from what I understand the 791 is the only one with the "premium carbon" lid. You can also get a 160GB hybrid in the CTO if that interest you.

My SZ791 has a Fujitsu MHY2250BH SATA 2.5-Inch, SATA, 5400 RPM drive in it and scores itself a 5.1 on the hard drive access time.

My LS37E has a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 Hard Drive - ST3320820AS and scores itself a 5.7.

Neither machine seems limited by the drive speed, and the SZ791 actually boots faster at least subjectively. In addition, they have similar programs.

I was initially disappointed that that the SZ791 did not have a 7200RPM drive (when shopping) but I am not seeing any problem with it. I do however think that a 7200 rpm drive would make the machine more competitive in the spec war. It seems the largest available 2.5-inch 7200 rpm drive is 200GB, which should be plenty. To me though a 7200 rpm drive would be more attractive than a SSD.

I may buy a 7200 drive and install 64bit vista on it to play around with.

I did see an overall improvement in speed with Windows Vista SP1 though...

 

robert thats more or less what i did, took the 791 and put in a 7200rpm drive.
but i am not running vista, xp is pretty quick with it

 

thanks for the input robert. i think i'll pass on the hybrid drive though. i read another thread on here yesterday that didn't look to highly on them.

niqui, how hard is it to swap out the drive? i've done lots of stuff to desktops, but i've never opened up a laptop before.

i also plan on downgrading to XP. anyone know if the downgrade disk comes with the system? there's some other thread that says the new TZ's come with downgrade disc in the box.

now i just have to wait patiently until that huge tax return comes in!

 

Mine did have an XP downgrade disc in the box, I have not tried it (and probably won't) but it is nice to have the option.

 

SZ791N box contents can be found in this link.

 

carl669 .. you can get the clean install xp/vista disk from p1 .. www . portableone . com ... it cost you only $29 and no bloatware installed .. only OS and Driver .. If you buy it (the notebook) from them, they can help you with the downgrade.
Mine bought from P1 and there is XP downgrade disc provided in the box but i wont use it as i know there will be lots of bloatware installed with that disc.

 

i would like to order from P1, but their price is $275 higher than the price i can get through work. at least i now know i can order their downgrade disc.

for you 791 owners that kept vista (or have tried both vista and xp), what do you think of the performance? also, what kind of battery life have you been seeing under normal usage (internet, email, office, watching movie, etc)? i'd like to know if switching to integrated graphics provides a significant boost in battery life.

what do you think of the portability? i've played with it in the store, but it's hard to make a judgement without actually carrying the thing around for a couple days.

 

P1 is good people; Ivan helped me out on the old Fujitsu. I may buy their recovery disc as well.

My experience with Sony recovery media is that it will usually allow you to restore "operating system only" and then you can recover any drivers or utilities that you want individually. Not sure if that is the way the XP downgrade disc works though.

I am a big fan of Vista; I have been running it since beta on the Fujitsu. Many of the things you read on the internet were true, but no longer are. SP1 takes care of the couple of little things I had problems with... I do turn the UAC off that is one seriously irritating piece of programming.

Program compatibility is quite good now unless you have a specialized or perhaps quite old program. Driver support is good as well, again unless you have some sort of specialized hardware.

I have not attempted any battery test but the one time I ran on it with the screen at half brightness and all power saving except processor throttling disabled I got ~2.5 hours and still had not received any low battery warnings.

Oh, on portability, I have not carried it yet, but carried a Z505SX for many years, which is a similar size (a bit thiner), and weight (particularly considering I carried an external drive with it) and it was fine.

 

Ahhhh ... i have not tried myself to use the factory XP downgrade DVD ... So i am assuming that Sony will bundle the bloatware on that disk.
but anyway .. i better use the clean install DVD from P1 if i need to rollback to XP.

I try to stick with VISTA, so slowww using the bloatware version of Vista .. will try to install Clean Vista and see ... if it is the same .. then i better use XP.

I heard that the Sony still has drivers problem on SP1 VISTA ?
Care to share what drivers issue it might be ?

Thanks ..

 

It is a lot of work to do a semi clean install with the recovery media, you usually have to go to "advanced" and then it will give you the option to only do the operating system. Then the battle is figuring out which of the extra drivers and programs you want, they usually do not name them very clearly. I also have not tried it on the SZ or the LS so it may no longer be true at all, but my Z505, RS660 and RS210 all gave me those options.

Certainly if I can buy the disc and P1 has already done the work, it is well worth 29.00.

My SZ seems to have no objection to SP1 not sure what the supposed problems are though. There are some incompatibilities with some programs which are being fixed. If windows update determines you do not have any of the problem hardware or software it should push SP1 out in the next week or two.

 

Hmm, I cannot find the list of problem hardware and software for SP1 right now, I determined I did not have any of them and went ahead.

I recall Trend Micro PC Chillin was on the list, and there were some graphics card drivers on the list as well I think.

I understand the issue with some drivers was that they had to be reinstalled because they were not applied in a certain way to begin with.

They discovered the problem with the latest Release Candidate Refresh (which it appears is the same build as the final) and that is when they decided to go with the staged rollout plan they are on now.

We are probably getting a little far off the original subject though

 

Now .. perhaps my silly question .. if i downgrade to XP, can i upgrade to Vista Business that come with the lappy initially ?

I have backup up the original Vista Business ... and if VISTA SP1 or future SP can improve the performance, i might want to jump back to VISTA as well ...

Or do i need to purchase another license for upgrading from Downgraded XP SZ to Vista Business ..

 

The only thing I can add to that discussion is that if you actually mean upgrade the installation (meaning keep your documents, files and programs) then probably not since Sony's image is undoubtedly built on OEM media and OEM media will not do an upgrade. (Since it is for system builders on new systems)

 

hi,
i bought mine with the 7k200 preinstalled, so i cant help on the physical installation.
i also took it with the xp downgrade performed by p1, i believe that you can buy the disk they use straight from them, as i got the clean p1 vista biz dvd from them.
also, i can switch to vista business at any time as it is already paid for.

 

thanks for the help everyone. i'm heading to the sony store next week. although, i just found out my work discount got bumped up to 20% off for the TZ (15% off for SZ).

decisions, decisions.

 

I will prefer to get SZ .. bigger screen, more juice CPU power, bigger memory support, cheaper, dedicated video card and still can be carried around without hassle.
TZ is really small, but personally i can't really work with TZ's small screen .. perhaps the strong point is battery for TZ ...
well its personal choice .. good luck ...

 

To answer about battery use, I use my 791 while commuting every day. With WWAN, Max Battery profile and 50% screen brightness, I get about 2 1/2 hours of use and still have better than 50% of my battery left. I do lots of email and some web surfing. Often code edits and rebuilding which really hits the hard drive.

The real acid test comes next month- transatlantic flights with DVD movies.