Sony TZ198 review, pictures, tips

noname, looks like we are on the same boat. I got this from Chris.

Hi there. It's the US postal service who carries it in the US. US customs asked my supplier for an FCC form Friday past for the radio transmitters in the laptop. Just a formality. They expect it to be released by late tomorrow and then resume on it's way to you. They expect as such delivery will be Monday next week at this point. That will be 3 business days over the mark, due to the customs delay. Thanks, -Chris

Just hoping it won't get delayed again.

 

Well I had ordered the TZ191 because it was top of the line at the time. It took so long for him to get it sent out with so many "stuff ups" so he ended up sending the TZ195 instead. He didnt even have the 191 in the mail after 2.5 months so thats why he could upgrade it for me "out of good will". But it did take me over 3 months to get the thing. The misleading this in his auctions is that he states item location is Canada when it comes from the US.

 

Why hasn't somebody given this guy negative feedback yet? It sounds like he deserves it. What would you do if a company took three months to ship you a product that was ordered from their website? I would be irate.

It looks like 4 people have given him negative feedback.

 

Ubercool, I am sorry about your laptop troubles. I am typing on my tz195 that I received from Chris almost two weeks ago. As with Ubercool, my laptop was factory sealed. I dont notice any issues with it yet. The white seems white on the screen and I am so impressed with this little laptop. It is so fast! Right now I have about several windows open. The battery life is awesome. I also was worried about delivery with Chris, but paid an extra $100 to receive it within a week or so. I was very nervous as I was leaving on a trip and needed the computer before noon that day. Chris said it would arrive around 930 AM. It came at 945 AM! So, I just want to reassure you guys, that at least this deal went fine. I am still waiting for the warranty though, which I paid extra for, but I am out of the country right now, so it may have come while I have been gone.

 

Well the thing is he is really nice about it all. He always gets back to you, and in the end I guess people are just happy when they get it. Most people give +ve feedback with a negative comment about the shipping. Doesn't really help. Believe me... with all the F@$#$ ups with my one I was so tempted to create a website purely to discredit him. I was so frustrated and annoyed because he just kept coming back with one "mishap" after another. In the end I just let it slide and posted on these forums about my experience and it shows up enough on google.

I guess if you leave -ve feedback he would do the same. He actually didnt give me to option to leave feedback on ebay. All his auctions are "private", so I guess the people with bad experiences get left off his list

 

New TZ owner here ...

regarding the PSU, it is not due to SSD or HDD (SSD consumes less power than HDD), but which region you purchase from.

Those from Japan have the neat, small PSU VGP-AC16V11 - 36 x 25.5 x 83.2 mm, 170g. No ground, only 2 pin plug into the wall outlet.

Mine from Asia Pacific comes with a bigger one VGP-AC16V14 - 46 x 28 x 105 mm, 230 g. 3 pin plug. Seems like this is shipping to UK, US, NZ, Asia, etc.

 

Its against eBay's rule to ship the item from a region different than advertised and not disclose the availability status in the listing. I don't think it is even allowed to sell something which you don't have on hand. He could get his account suspended or listing remove if someone report him.

I wonder how many would buy from him if he put a bold "I don't have these laptop but I will try my best to get them to you once your money is in my account. However, I can't guarantee the ETA but it shouldn't be longer than 3 months" LOL

 

But his warehouse does have them on hand and he does make good on his orders, even if they do take a long time to arrive...

 

Yeah, that's the one shipping to the US, except with only two pins.

 

Correct, only two pins, but glad someone measured the two power supplies, that's great information to have.

BTW, Chris suggested I contact Sony directly to try to have the TZ198 repaired/replaced. I'm sure that's not going to be easy as I only have a packing receipt as proof I received it from them, but I will give it a try.

Will let you know how it goes.

 

Good luck getting this fixed through Sony and, yes, do keep us posted!

 

Well, I've decided that this process would be too big a timesuck for me. So, I'm going to just live with this bad screen, and flip the TZ198 as soon as the next generation is out.

I've already wasted so much time on my primary lappy, since this is the fifth laptop I have set up so far this year, counting my MacBook and ASUS VX2, that I can't afford to waste any more time. Besides, the old TZ90 needs to go to Japan to have its VGA output repaired.

 

I'll be envious when the flip takes place.

 

Hehe, OK!

BTW, I wanted to let everyone here know what an amazing difference Win XP makes on battery consumption. On my ride to Singapore, I was able to squeeze nearly seven hours (7) out of my *standard* battery, compared to barely five (5) out of that same battery running Vista.

That's a huge difference, and tells you that XP will remain the OS to beat for years to come because, as we already know, SP1 will offer little improvement in performance, as the media have already widely reported!

 

Very interesting! I get the same performance with Vista but only thanks to some serious tweaking. SP1 is supposed to improve battery life for "certain laptops" but it is very unclear which ones and I'm not holding my breath.

I am happy with tweaked Vista but XP is also a good way to go.

 

What kind of tweaking?

 

Now that I have XP working perfectly on the laptop I love it. It runs much faster. My batt life is about 10 hours with the largest battery with some power tweaking.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=166532

this is a good start... you can also disable few other services such as igfxtray.exe, APS pointing device, SmartWi, bluetooth stack etc.