TZTZ295N/X SSD + DVD or TZ398U/X SSD + HDD ? Which one would you pick?

After a few months of sleepless nights, I have finally given in, and decided to buy the TZ in lieu of a netbook.

I have two offers on hand for the TZs

SONY TZ398U/X $1285.00

Intel Core 2 Duo U7700 1.33GHZ, 2GB RAM, 320 GB 5400rpm Serial ATA + 64GB HDD Solid State drives, Win Vista business, refurbished by SONY, 90 day warranty

SONY TZ295N/X $1175.00

Intel Core 2 Duo U7700 1.33GHZ, 2GB RAM, 64GB HDD Solid State drive, Windows Vista® Business /XP Professional downgrade, refurbished by SONY, 90 day warranty

I'm split between having the option of an XP Downgrade [ read a lot of issues with the downgrade due to the drivers issues with the TZ] [Licenced with a DVD Drive] and the Additional HDD option of the TZ398.

The primary reason, I buying a TZ over a netbook is for me to be able to use Adobe Lightroom and PS CS4 on top of it being used for entertainment when travelling.

1000+ $ is a hell lot of money for me, given my present state , but I have waited over 4 months deciding over the right portable laptop for my uses.

I would like all of your opinions in guiding me through this purchase. Which model would you pick if you were in my shoes? do you suggest that I wait for a month or so and purchase a netbook that will ably support the * x 768 resolution?

 

Bump....

Guys.. I could really use your advice here

 

I am not sure why you need help with this decision... No one knows the answer except you. Do you need hard drive space or not?

 

Thanks Xotica !! You are probably right, but I guess this is what happens when you end up reading stuff for a few months.

I wouldn't need a large hard drive space, but could it be possible that I could replace the 2.5" HDD with a SSD SATA someday ? Can this be done if I had a DVD Drive?

The 1.8" SSD PATA does not have a lot options to upgrade.

 

Yea the only difference between the two is the DVDRW drive vs extra hard drive space. I have a TZ170N for over 1.5 years and i only have a 32GB SSD in it and its fine for me right now. There is a thread about replacing the DVDRW drive with an HDD down the line and you need to be a bit tech savvy and willing to spend about $170 in parts plus cost of HDD ($100 or less depending on which direction you go). Based on your need it seems that the SSD option plus the DVDRW would be fine and if you need additional space dont forget that the sony has slots where you can store removable media. There is an EXPRESSCARD slot that can hold an SSD for pictures and music (i think max ive seen is 32GB) there are also memorystick slots and SD card slot that are independent so you can have a lot of media cards in there simply for storage. Plus you never know when you need the DVDRW drive. For me I have 32GB SSD and I use a 8GB SDHC card in it all the time for music and photos. Good luck.

 

And another thing, downgrading the TZ to XP is very easily done without the disks from sony. In fact I prefer downgrading myself so that I dont get all the sony bloatware.

 

Thanks Bejand for your reply !! Much appreciated

 

I have a SSD + HDD drive TZ290 and I like having the two drives (I replaced the 250GB HDD with a second 64GB SSD, Samsung SATA, so mine is a dual-SSD system... booting from the SATA SSD is lightning fast). I'm one who enjoys installing and experimenting with, different operating systems (Vista, XP Pro, Win7, etc.) and saving off an Acronis system snapshot to the other internal drive and then wiping the OS and installing/restoring different OS is simple with two storage drives in the system.

Also, having a separate drive for OS and data will give you snappier performance.

How much do you really need the optical drive? They are noisy and loud and slow the system down whenever an app/process polls the drives to build a list of locations to search. For the times when you need to install software or burn DVDs would a USB DVDRW suffice? My SSD + HDD TZ came with a Vaio USB DVDRW.

Of course, if you're someone who uses your notebook for DVD viewing, then of course you want the integrated DVD drive. Me? I never use the darned thing...

 

Heavyharmonies, I see your point, one of the most important points in favour of the TZ 398 is the option of being able to replace the 2.5" HDD with a SATA SSD, I can see a huge improvement if done.

But I have made a decision to go with the option for a DVD RW since, I am an event photographer, and to be able to provide a DVD by the time the end of the event is quite an important requirement for me, I'm hoping the 64 GB SSD and XP will help me write them quickly.

Apart from this, when I trek to take photographs, I'm planning to replace the DVD with an additional battery with the added USB, that I would like to plug to an external GPS.

Thanks to bejand and some reading in the TZ thread, I now believe that I can replace the DVD RW with a 2.5" SATA SSD someday.

Thanks again for your insights and your arguments in favour of the respective models.