Sony VAIO Z VPCZ1 - Unboxing Photos and Movie

If you don't like the HDD setup in the Z11, here's a tip: Don't buy one

There are plenty of other options out there.

The Z series is a technology showcase for Sony, if not the flagship product. It's never been inexpensive, or as some people like to say, practical.

Say what you want, but there aren't any laptops that come close the the performance the Quad-SSD's provide.

I'm happy to pay a premium for this speed. I'm also OK with the potential of having problems down the road. This is what Ghost and extended warranties are for.

As an example, I own a 2008 BMW M3. It's not practical and I've had problems with it. This is OK because it has one of the best engines on the planet and the double-clutch transmission is glorious.



The Z is the perfect laptop for people like me. Save the lack of USB 3.0, its perfect.

 

When it comes to the Z, money can't be an excuse. If you made the decision to purchase the Z in the US, you can get the base model for $1699, which from what I can tell from others is about as cheap as they are paying for the HDD version in other countries.

I understand if you need more space, but seriously? What are yuo installing that you need more than 128 GB?!? If it is for music and phontes get an external drive to store stuff like that on it. But then again, you are talking to the girl that between two PCs is only using 50 GB and that is with all of my music stored on my work PC. I guess I just don't store a lot of files. I have pictures on this PC too. But I normally eventually burn them to a couple CDs and then delete the pictures.

Your last reason I can totally understand. If you feel you want a different SSD, but people have switched out the optical bay for an SSD, so you could still do that. I can't wait for RAID 0, as I love the speed it brings. Wish the 256 was quad in the US, because I would upgrade to that. Speed good

 

Obviously you have control of your Itunes and Zune media.

I've got about 28k songs and over 350GB in TV/Movies in iTunes alone. All said, both take up about 1TB.

 

Wow!!! Of course I don't download movies or TV shows. I use my Tivo for all of TV and Movie stuff that I would watch, so that is probably the difference. But if I did store a lot of stuff like that, I probably would do an external so I can use the movies, TV, and music on multiple PCs. Especially since between my husband and I we have 4 working PCs that we use on a regular basis and one other that kind of works, but doesn't get used very often.

 

As digital storage has declined in price, bloat has hugely increased. Programs that -should- take up, say, 200MB end up taking up 300 or 400 to include either inefficient code, free offers, extras or whatever.

I travel, sometimes for weeks at a time with little to no internet connection. I do take an external drive but really wish I didn't have to.

My current laptop:
120GB: Steam/Games, which are tricky to run on an external drive
40GB: Base OS and "need-to-have" apps such as Office, etc, page & sleep/hib file.
10GB: A part of my iTunes collection
I then carry an external drive, which is a pain, to house a chunk of content from...

Home server:
4500GB: HTPC/Movies. I do not pirate movies but I do store most of my library there. I don't (yet) store HD vids this way. If home theater wasn't a big hobby I wouldn't spend so much effort on presentation and probably would be OK with grabbing DVDs when I wanted to watch something.
500GB: Audio book collection
500GB: Photography, home movies, etc

I run disk de-dupes about once per year and occasionally archive content, but it really seems easy to end up with a massive amount of disk in use. I couldn't squish it under a TB or two without losing content that I could not replace.

 

When I was going through the videos that Sony put out on engineering the new Z, they made specific reference, if memory serves correctly, that Samsung specifically made these SSD specifically for Sony. The designer stated that each proprietary form factor board was 2 drives (at least on the 4 way).

Looking at this image it looks like a single ribbon for the pair. However what catches my eye is the connector on the far right. I wish I could see a shot of that side.

http://www.blogcdn.com/chinese.engadget.com/media/2010/03/img_1507_vaioz.jpg

A closeup on this board shows a single mSATA per board so I would bet it is a bridge on silicon.

http://www.blogcdn.com/chinese.engadget.com/media/2010/03/img_1483_vaioz.jpg

Zoinks, when you cracked open the Z did you see another SATA connector on the mainboard at all? If not then I think it is safe to say it is a single ribbon. I would doubt Sony would manufacture 2 different types of boards for these.

Something to ponder: Even though the SSD implementation is proprietary, and lets assume SSD form factor is not an issue, I wonder if you just got the ribbon cable (or made your own) you could daisy chain SSDs to effectively get RAID 0, again assuming Sony didn't lock this out in the BIOS.

.dj

 

Mine finally arrived at the office today, but as I'm not there my wife will swing by and pick it up for me I'll finally be able to post some photo's of the Metal Shield paintwork in a few hours (I have yet to see somebody else here who has that one).

 

I was just quoting the other person about the HDD . He was making fun of it because he rather has a SSD.
I do like the HDD version and I have the HDD version.
They were rhetorical questions

 

Digital_Jedi_Rx, no unless you count the mini-SATA for the DVD drive.

Don't recall which thread, but somebody posted a pic of a Quad drive setup.

Looks like there are 2-lane and 4-lane ribbon cables which plug into the same ZIF connector.

 

My new Vaio Z performing cold boot.

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Unboxing pictures (actually, this is more like a re-enactment)
WARNING: Large images


















and here's my Vaio Z from last week

 

Interesting, my box was very different. The laptop also had the battery installed, right out of the white cloth bag.

Thanks for posting

 

My CTO box looks just like the one photographed, and the battery was uninstalled.

 

Guess the pre-configs have different packaging.

Z

 

Mine didn't come with a cloth bag either. There was a thin white foam/plastic bag (kind of thing TVs and what not are usually wrapped in), plus another piece of thicker foam for between the screen/keyboard.

Also that reminds me: no protective "keyboard smooshing cloth" like I hear the older Z's started to come with?

 

For the U.S. market, Sony uses different packaging boxes for the pre-config models & the CTO (including pre-config CTO) models.

This has been the case with Sony USA for quite a while.

 

Hi Zoinks,

I had another thread (buried now) where I show the whole package for the Z11FHX/XQ and it is the same as the CTO box. I have a full movie of the unboxing in there and it is the exact same box.

In fact, if you look at your box (pre-config), it said Printed in Japan. The Signature collection one is 'Printed in USA' and assembled there too (in that facility close to San Diego).

Cheers

 

In the Z11FHX/XQ, there's some kind of cleaning cloth included (as part of all the paper work in the little box, you see it fall down in my unboxing movie). It is some kind of small microfiber cloth folded in three. There's also a document explaining to put the cleaning cloth on the keyboard to protect the screen when closing the laptop.

Here are a couple of pics:




Cheers

 

Interesting - my CTO with Canadian paperwork did not come with that.

 

Maybe it is only included with the 1920x1080 screen???

 

The cloth only comes with the signature collection models

 

Is the material of the cloth the same as those used to wipe a pair of glasses?

 

So are they saying that only Signature owners are worthy of receiving the $0.25 cloth to protect their laptops? Or are they saying that the Full HD screen is easily scratched?

 

Yes, pretty much. Looks like microfiber, pretty thin

 

The cleaning cloth made it ALL worth it of course

$.25??? Come on! It says VAIO in the middle, it's obviously highly engineered to Sony exacting specs.

 

Be sure you read the care instructions for the cloth. It'll fade in the wash

I should have photo shoot with the Z1 tonight.

 

Got the new machine yesterday. Here are some pics of the guts.







Notable differences between the Z112 and Z1

• Dual ZIF connectors for the quad SSD
• The Gobi WWAN adapter is under the DVD/BluRay tray. This is bad news for people looking to retrofit this after purchase. You need the card, metal pan and PCI connector to make it work.
• It looks like you can still swap the DVD/BluRay for a HDD as I posted here.

It looks like the CPU/GPU cooling solution is the same between the i5 and i7.

 

Nice. I just received my first sony z. coming from mbp, think pad 200, Dell xps I still have all the 3 but won't be using them much

 

I also got a cloth like yours with my Z117GG.

It's the same cloth as the one I got with my Z51XG.

 

But if you configuration already have WWAN and SIM card slot and you just want to replace it with unlocked Gobi it should be striate forward job.

My CTO config from Japan has WWAN locked to NNT DoCoMo but unlike US model it also has SIM card slot. I just need to replace locked card with unlocked version.

 

Why does anyone except the "i5" and "i7" to be different? They are the same architecture clocked at different speeds, and the 620M has the full cache enabled. The rated TDP is the same. The 620M is binned higher and can run at a faster frequency on the same voltage, so it's not like that increases power draw. Granted, there might be a small difference in empirical power usage from the additional power to keep the extra 1MB of SRAM on, but it's not like you are slapping a Clarksdale in there. The difference is almost purely Intel branding.

 

Nobody expected it, just making an observation since I've had both types and took the time to photograph it.

 

I think this is all still based on that early (and I believe completely faulty) review of multiple i5 and i7 chips in a whitebox notebook that showed the i7 having like 40% higher power consumption.

 

My impression is that people have noticed about a 5-8% speed difference and perhaps 10% or so more battery consumption.

 

is there a significant performance jump between the low-end core i5(520m) to the top end core i7(620m) Zs?

 

Any pics of the 2 4gb RAM modules Zoinks? Thanks

 

No. More like an incremental difference. They are the same chip with a slightly faster clock, and a bit more cache. The cache difference, to my mind, is probably the more important one.

Everyone probably has a different idea of what a significant performance jump means but to me anything less than 2x-3x would not be a significant speed improvement. This is more like a 10% difference.

 

Hey so I just got my VPCZ1 and honestly I bought it because of the screen... it's just excellent!

Everyone probably did M$'s updates yesterday and now for some reason the fan just won't shut up. Even on "STAMINA" mode. Anyone else witness this?

 

gammaknife, I've already replaced them with a Muskin kit I purchased previously. I sold the Sony-issued sticks.

diwei, nope.

 

It's not that it's really loud, I downloaded the Sony Vaio Control Center and set it to "Quiet" mode but I can still hear the fan whirring.

I guess I usually don't hear it in the office since there's so much background noise; but in a quiet place even on "Quiet" mode you can hear the fan whirring in the background.

 

In my testing I don't really think that "silent" mode is any different than "balanced" at the bottom end of the spectrum (when idling or light tasks). What it seems to do is prevent the fan from getting as loud at the top end, meaning the CPU/GPU will throttle or downclock to stay cool...

 

So is your Vaio Z's fan constantly whirring then? Mine is...

 

Nice machine. I took a look at it. Just can't get passed that it's grossly overpriced and a 1920X1080 resolution is way to high for a 13" screen but I guess the Sony zealots won't care about that.

 

Thanks for sharing

 

So I guess for the non Signature Series customers.....Sony is basically saying use a sheet of paper towel to put between the keyboard and screen because spending over 3K doesn't justify you owning the .25 cent microfiber with the Sony Vaio emblem.

Don't you just love the way Sony treats their customers.......

 

They have a starting model for 1699 which comes with a much more reasonable resolution... but what would i know, I am just a Sony Zealot (what Zealot are you? Asus, Lenovo, HP or the worst type... Apple!)

 

Somehow, I find your comments highly ironic: could you be a DPI zealot?

 

He originally had "lemmings" where it now says "zealot."

This is the kind of valuable feedback that makes these forums so useful.

 

I picked up mine today in UK and I am so happy with it. I have the 1080p screen and I have to say the Sony screen is so bright and sharp I get no eye strain at all. I use to own a Alienware M15x with 1080p screen and it's no where near as good.

 

hi,
i'm interested in buying this laptop (specifically the model sold here: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...ffiliateID=lw9MynSeamY-3rFwhJcZyy46QIgZwmWmxg) but i have a few questions. (and yes, i did read all 35 pages).

First off, i need a mini-pcie slot for a sprint wwan card, do all of these models have it (i didn't understand when stating "Notable differences between the Z112 and Z1

• The Gobi WWAN adapter is under the DVD/BluRay tray. This is bad news for people looking to retrofit this after purchase. You need the card, metal pan and PCI connector to make it work."
  
  does this mean that not all models have this slot? (which ones do?)
  
  2nd, what is the overall consensus on TRIM support? (does it do it automatically? is it needed?, is there a wiper.exe-like program that doesn't need to completely back up and erase the ssd to work?)
  
  3rd, does this run on nvidia optimus drivers or only sony's special ones?
  
  lastly, is this the only 13" laptop that runs a graphics card as good as this?
  thanks!!

 

I have read the entire thread and I could not find the consensus on this particular Sony Vaio model: VAIO Z VPCZ1

Best Buy has this for $1700 and I am considering buying one from their website. Are there any deal-breaker issues and what is wrong with the SSD's? Are they Gen 2 or Gen 1?

Or, should I stay away from this model and order a Z directly from Sony?

Thanks