Sony Vaio SZ vs Z Series

I was thinking of getting a TZ/TX as a travel laptop as i wanted better battery life and also i find them cute as well.
In some of my graduate classes i also have no space to put a pad of A4 paper down and my laptop so it is either a case of one or the other.
I tried a 10.6" and that worked really well.
I probably could manage with my SZ btw some people think i am crackers trying to get 2 laptops lol it is not like i am on executive salary yet or something. Also the SZ keyboard is a bit to loud for classes and i have to use a keyboard silencer on my laptop and i don't like typing with it on my keyboard that much.

I am not interested in those netbooks plus i need the vga port to do presentations with my laptop anyway. It is also vital that i have at least an express card slot or a PC slot.

Now i got my SZ71WN/C for a very good price at the time and i bought extended 3 year warranty for it after. If i can manage to buy a second hand TZ/TX or this is taking me to Z prices if i add everything together.

I was not so keen on the Z before but i have grown to be a bit keener on it.

If i wanted one my best bet would be to get the Premium carbon one from T5 but then again i would not want it with the Blu ray drive so i don't know if that is possible. I probably could buy this laptop on a business account to try and save some money.

I have seen some pictures of the TZ/Z together and the Z looked quite a bit bigger. I have however seen some pictures of the Z/Macbook together and the Z looked quite small in comparison. I think that it possible that i might just be able to get away with it.

Now i am not sure if i should maybe think about getting a Z if i want a smaller laptop. The lower weight of the Z makes it again even more portable than the SZ.

I am at the thinking stage right now.

It seems to me though that the Z battery life is worse than the SZ battery life in power saver mode etc.

With the SZ i can get 6 hours battery life with wifi on in Vista with 30% brightness, aero of, surfing nearly all the time in FF with flashblock enabled and no script doing and doing a bit of office work. This is with a 100% battery charge and without me undervolting or turning anything else of or altering any other settings. With wifi of course the battery life is even better.
You can see in this review that the SZ has got very good battery life.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Sony-Vaio-VGN-SZ71WN-C-Subnotebook.9606.0.html

The battery life is the concern that i have with the Z. It seems good but not as good.

Is the battery life of the Z really as good as the SZ? I know with 30% CPU intensity that the Z's battery life is better. But in power saver mode it does not make much difference and the SZ has got a bigger capacity battery and a less intensive graphics card.

I wouldn't like to get the Z down the line and find out that i am getting less battery life. Can someone confirm for me that in the settings i gave above i can get the battery life that i am getting with my SZ in Vista? I am not interested if i am going to lose battery life. I know that i stated that i wanted more battery life at the beginning but i am prepared to settle for at least the same battery life if i got the Z.

 

Re: rachuk

Hi there, you can be assured that the battery life on the Z is better than SZ.. i can attest to it being a previous SZ owner.

Here are some points to note, the Z is using a PXXXX processor which is claimed to have lower TDP of 25W, Real life effects are that the fan almost never turns on. It runs much cooler than my SZ which was always >40C.

I'm using Z with P8600,2GB ram, 250G, 1600x900 screen.

My power consumption went as low as 5.300W, giving about 10hrs of battery life on the Z.. That's with Wifi on, light surfing, Some Pdf files open and MS word. As i was doing alot of reading, So Actual use is probably only 30% though. I was at MCdonalds surfing last night it dropped less than 20% in 2 hours.

Also, clock for clock i'm sure the PXXXX processors achieves better performance thus maybe 30% load is like 20% on the Z or better. Just for a rough idea.
Even though the lowest voltage is locked at 0.925V, u can still undervolt the higher FIDS(speed step multipliers) such that u can have run at 2100GHz with like 0.925 Volts(but it will be using slightly more power,but gets the job done quicker resulting in lower AVERAGE power use, Higher clocks speeds with lower load are more efficient. Thus running a lower clock at high loads will take longer thus use more power on AVERAGE.) to achieve a more efficient system.

Vista no freshstart but uninstalled some bloatware, around 60+ processes. Useless hardware disabled, Brightness 3, 16bit colour and 40hz refresh. sound card and mic disabled.

I hope my review helped.

 

Thanks guozzi1 thanks that helped. I was wondering as well what SZ model you had?

 

haha ok. i had the first model SZ18/gp asian model. That probably explains the great differences i've felt. premium 1.86G Coreduo. and i had the extended batt. Average power drain was around 8.5W and i was using a heavily tweaked XP. I took it apart and removed the CDrom even. I believe a significant source of drain was the FAN. I disconnected the cable and drain went down to around 7W.

As for the Z, u need to set maximum power savings to the wireless as it can significantly affect power drain.. up a surprisingly 3Watts.

And to add on, i think Z has a bigger battery capacity.. my SZ was 5200mah 11.1V
Z is 5400mah 10.8V

 

rachuk, I personally would think that you'll be fine by choosing the Z over the TZ. I doubt there will be too much differences in terms of the amount of time you can get running both your SZ & the Z on batteries.

 

Thanks this model appeals to me it has the carbon fibre lid VGN-Z21VN/X.
It certainly is not cheap.
http://vaio.sony.co.uk/view/ShowPro...VN/X&site=voe_en_GB_prof&category=VN+Z+Series
I need my computer right now to write some essays but in a couple of weeks i probably will think about putting it up for sale.

 

Yeah, that looks like a great choice to replace your SZ. Good luck & keep us posted.

 

I didn't like it either... but after putting the keyboard protection, it is feel different now... nicer and less error... now I like it better

 

I had an opportunity visiting Sony Outlet in Pacific near Seattle so I bought SZ680 1GB 120GB hardisk with premium carbon for US$683 + about 8%tax.

Not really need it, since it is factory new and the price is soo good, I just have to have one.

So I can compare them, I can tell you that I like the Z size but I also like the build quality in SZ.

I can comfortably work in SZ since it has large screen, but Z does feel lighter and smaller (battery last longer too in Z).

Z has better screen color than SZ, while SZ still have good brightness and has less color (SZ LED LCD is still better than other notebook around like IBM, HP etc..)

After having Z and SZ, you will hate other notebook screen.

What worries me it Nvidia is recalling 8400 and 8600 chipset a while ago.
I'm pretty sure all Sony is affected... (well since I "think" I got a good deal... so I had nothing to lose)

If you have the money... get the Z (there are some some good deals in other )