The Official Haswell/Z Speculation Thread

judging from the logo on the trackpad, appears to support NFC.

 

The new Zenbook is covered by glass, not only on the screen but all around the device. Its like a total nightmare...
I would never buy a computing device which has a glossy screen aside from a smartphone,especially when it is a mobile computing device.
The ultra high DPI Screen is nice... but I much prefer long battery duration at 1600x900 (which altough has a high DPI-Rate) and is comfortable at normal working distance.
People seem to forget that the 2560 x 1440 resolution has to be cut in half (pixel doubling) which means 1280 x 720, of course the user can change the down sampling to get
effective 1600x900 or 1920x1080 but it will cause scaling problems, in the end the work space will not be any more huge than on a 1600x900 Notebook...
I'm not interested in Touchscreens on Notebooks, as Notebooks have a keyboard and mouse and do not need a third peripheral (Touchscreen).

A Touchscreen is only useful on smartphones and tablets as it is their only primary peripheral.

Sadly, the Sony Vaio Pro 13 is the only device on the Computex which really fits my liking (...as I assume that the "no-Touchscreen" option is Matt)... but it lacks computing power and connection ports.
Let's hope that Sony brings up a new Sony Vaio S, I would have bought it last year but I don't want to work with a TN-Screen, that display technology is junk compared to IPS.
I did hope that Sony would bring up a Sony Vaio S with the latest Hardware and an IPS Screen... I'm still waiting.

 

Sony Vaio S has an IPS display.

 

The 15 inch version yes... but its a low quality IPS screen which can't even display red accurately.
...and I would much prefer a 13 inch device.

 

If the name didn't solidify their resolve, it is fairly evident that Sony is going for traveling professionals and Executives with this line, even more than they did with the Z1/2's. The 11"-er is interesting, but it will likely be too small for me and I travel almost constantly. I use a Nexus 10 for the cramped situations, but if the battery life can compete with a tablet and it has built-in LTE connectivity, they may have something there.

This said, my XBR-65X900A came in last week and if it is any indication of the visual quality that Trilum Vaio panels will have, it will shock and amaze. We will have to see if the mobile implementation of this tech has the same impact on color and brightness, but the 4k is insane. +1 to quantum dots

PS: Touchscreens are the future folks, it isn't a fad.

 

Alright, tell me, whats your usage for a touchscreen on a "Notebook"?.
Hybrids are useless as until the manufactures can create them with ~1kg weight.
A Tablet which weights 1,6kg is useless.

...and then there would still be the glossy screen *sigh*.

 

I'll have to disagree with about everything you said here.

I feel you on the matte vs glossy angle, but Apple has done very well with glass screens and you might want to review the resolution comments. It doesn't work the way you think it does in Windows. Some of us (Z2 users) are OK with small text and/or are aware of how to change text DPI settings.

 

I understand I'm in the minority, but I use the touch functionality as another way to manipulate the display. It doesn't replace the keyboard and/or mouse, it enhances them.

End of the day, if you don't like touchscreens, don't use the function but don't think that they add no value.

 

We seem to be there already. Ok, the fans are not 4", but quite large all the same.



If the only thing wrong with the Razer is the display, I wonder if it is possible to replace the display with one meant for a Z. The 13.1" display will certainly fit into the space for a 14" screen. If the interface is compatible, it might just be doable.

 

You do realize the current Duo 11 is already less than 1.6kg, right? It's very handy to be able to mark up PPTs, draw live like a whiteboard, etc. And with the way Windows 8 works, I use the touchscreen to bring up the charms menu. I've used Windows 8 just fine without a touchscreen on my Panasonic, but it does enhance the experience.

I do wish the Pro 11 (and 13) had pen input.

I like the idea of the 11.6" Pro because I do travel a lot, but if the 13.3" is going to only weigh .1kg more ... well, pretty much a no brianer. Since it clearly has a hatch for a sheet battery, I'm not hopeful for built in battery life beyond 5 or 6 hours (which is still pretty good).

This is the only thing I hate about the Duo 11. To make it usable you have to set things at 125%. I hate small text and I have good eyesight. 1920x1080 on an 11.6" screen is just ridiculous.

My bigger concern is if Sony cheaps out on the IPS display like they did on the Duo 11 and you get a lot of ghosting (my other big complaint about the Duo 11), it's useless. I deal with it because I like the machine.

And would it kill them to add a 3rd USB 3 port?

 

Vaio Pro xu

more info that we already knew, but a few more shots of the Pro in red.

 

It's official Sony announces the Haswell-powered VAIO Pro and VAIO Duo Series | PCWorld

The 11 really is like the old G ...

 

Sad but likely true.

While I welcome designs like sliders and 360° flip-overs I don't think the standard clam shell notebook design allows an ergonomic use of touch. Let alone the drawbacks of weight, thickness, cleaning challenges of mostly glossy screens.

Long live clam shell matte screen notebooks!

 

"The VAIO Pro 13 will offer a high-speed PCIe SSD drive, which Sony claims is the first of its kind"

"Connect the optional sheet battery to double the battery life of either, endowing the VAIO Pro 11 with 14 usable hours and the VAIO Pro with"

interesting

 

That's essentially the Panasonic Toughbook model in Japan with the SX/NX series. Sony's done it for awhile, too, but it looks like we may enter SX/NX battery life territory with Sony. I could work almost an entire flight from the US to Australia

 

Nice, but I was thinking more of it being a more of a higher-achieving sibling of the TT.

Those who have read my other posts know I don't embellish much, but if the Triluminous display and x-reality stuff perform half as well as the 4k screens do, this will be the killer feature for these machines

 

I see it more like the G because it was meant for business and it weighed less than the T Had 9h battery life with 1.13kg. Truly a great machine I loved.

It'll be curious to see the final specs and if the only difference really is screen size between the 11 and 13.

I do hope the 13 has a 16GB option, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

In fact, there is NO official announcemnt yet in Sony press centre. It is just a materialized rumor. June 9? Oh, really?

About VGA and Ethernet: there must be at least one of the adapters included in the box.

 

If they're posting, Sony gave them the ability to. Probably a press embargo until today.

Yeah, I can get an adapter (we know the Duo 13 has a dongle). My U70P had dongles. But it's more crap to schlep and with only two USB 3.0 ports, not having ethernet built in is a bit bad.

 

all fair points

Chances for 16GB are as good as any. Guess we'll see how far they will go to make it truly Pro

 

What also annoys me a bit is that Sony didn't put 11ac in for WiFi.

 

Based on the Duo 11, I'm not hopeful. Sony has a nasty habit of soldering memory onto the motherboard and outside of, say, the recent S series, nothing in the 13"ish size had more than 8.

 

ha ya, checked the US and European press sites, nothing lol. I feel the info PC world posted either came from a press release sent out earlier with embargo or they are basing their info on various retailer sites.

I hope the June 9th date is true, will allow me plenty of time to order one once I am back home

 

So should I buy an SVZ now?

 

I was hoping for more engineering magic but the Pro still looks pretty nice.

Honestly, I don't really need much power on the road and now that almost everything I have is in the cloud I can just buy a full powered desktop for my home and office.

 

Only if you can live with a TN-Panel (13inch version) which only has about 200:1 contrast and bad colors
If you can find a 13inch with 1920x1080 Premium Display... that would be the way to go, as it has 700:1 contrast and good colors, its as good as TN can get.
The 15inch has IPS with moderate contrast (500:1) and bad color reproduction.

The Full-HD Premium Displays for the 13inch version are sold out at Sony's Online Store and that was the only source to get them.
All the third party retailers only have Full-HD Vaio-Plus Displays.

Edit: Sry... my mistake.

 

He said SVZ (Z3), not S13

 

Yeah, SVZ = Z3.

At what point should I just accept that we're not getting a Z this summer? Are we almost 100% on it now?

 

I am wondering, wilth the new Duo 13 arriving soon, will Sony update the current Duo 11 to the new Haswell cpus? or will they wait until the fall for that one?

 

The 11 just got a slight rev in May in Japan, but I think the 13 will most likely replace - not sit side by side with - the 11. I'd prefer a Haswell Duo personally but I don't think it's going to happen.

 

Well I don't believe that all that Sony has this year is ULV models. That would mean they'd also be discontinuing the S series and E. Why would they do that?

 

We already know that the E series will be discontinued. I've read in the other thread that Sony's event is tomorrow so we'll see.

 

I don't expect it earlier than June 21-24th. Sony will present both Duo and Pro tomorrow. Will hear all the details.

 

So would their event tomorrow only just announce those two models, or do they ever hint at the future of their other lines?

Someone tell me whether or not I should pull the trigger on a quad i7 SVZ.

 

I will say this: sans sheet battery, the Pro 11 would shave off about 1.5lbs from my load. Here's to hoping for a 16gb variant

 

Seriously - you're still asking? Do it or don't at this point. I think there's enough info presented to make your case that if you want a Z-like machine with a QM, etc., none is showing up tomorrow.

None of us work for Sony. We're speculating, but all signs point to those two products being announced tomorrow. Nothing more, nothing less. If there's more, I'd be surprised.

 

Golly SurferJon, weren't you on the fence this time last year too?

 

No? Though I've always had problems with this unit. I think the graphics card was a lemon from the beginning. I had to constantly open up the laptop to fix things, further breaking things, etc. I think I should be a certified Vaio Z technician at this point since I've broken and had to fix pretty much everything now.

 

A non ULV notebook should exist somewhere in their line, right? It just doesn't make sense to not include one.

 

I'm sure Sony is simplifying their lineup. Makes sense instead of having multiple models that overlap, lines start getting blurred and you confuse consumers as to what model is best for what (not us, we're not normal consumers... or normal at all ) That said, no way way they have a complete ULV lineup. If they have the three letter model trend going, that leaves only the DUO, PRO, and FIT once they eliminate all the single letter models. With the DUO and PRO being max 13" screens, that leaves room for at least one 15.6"+ high end model since the FIT isn't exactly being targeted to the business world/professionals.

So it's complete speculation on my part, but I say we see at least one more model. A ~15.6" higher end model with a full voltage haswell.

 

Maybe the E-Series gets replaced with the Fit-Series and the S-Series will stay in their portfolio as high performance device?
Could be possible that they change the name... as they seem to do it with most of the new devices.

 

Maybe, maybe not. Sony is a declining company right now, sadly, not an expanding one.

 

It would seem that the Razer Blade 14" is the closest thing we can buy to a Haswell Z. Do you disagree? The only downside is that it's a pound heavier and the LCD DPI is 85% lower. Razer Blade: The World's Thinnest Gaming Laptop - Razer United States. Also the screen quality is low (not IPS according to this CNET review).

This brings up a question. The 14" blade has a 37W TDP chip. This makes me totally confused about what's an Ultrabook or not. According to this wikipedia article , the requirement is TDP below 20W. Yet there are also 37W and 47W versions of the chip. So would you consider 37W a "hybrid" between an ULV and full-voltage? Is there even a name for this category?

 

I'm wondering if the Vaio Pro unveiled at Computex today has a full-power CPU onboard instead of a ULV CPU.



Sony announces the Haswell-powered VAIO Pro and VAIO Duo Series | PCWorld

 

Go back a few pages. Confirmed as no on the 11 which is what that is. I posted that PC World link a few pages ago as well

 

The Z is three things, full voltage high end cpu, thin/light, and amazing screen. While the Blade has the muscle, it falls way short on the screen quality according to what information is online while weighing 50% more. Props to Razer for putting this much muscle in such a thin package, but they should have known better than using a low quality panel when right now everyone is finally going crazy with quality screens.

I'd say the aforementioned Asus Zenbook Infinity is currently closer to a Haswell Z than the Blade.

 

Razer made the same mistake everyone makes who assumes that people will prefer lower resolution because it gives higher FPS. Me, I'd rather turn off high detail on shadows than look at pixelated environments. It is easy enough to increase your FPS by turning off various barely noticeable rendering features. However, you cannot "turn off" a low-density pixelated screen.

However, the Zenbook Infinity goes far too much into the other end of the spectrum. An ulta-high resolution screen coupled with integrated graphics means that you will have to downscale to something sane in order to get decent FPS. And unless things have changed a lot, LCDs at anything other than native resolution look blurry.

So, to summarize: Razer Edge sacrificies too much DPI for FPS. Zenbook Infinity sacrifices too much FPS for DPI if it really is coming in at 2560x1440.

The VAIO Z had just the right balance of the two!

 

I completely agree, 1440P is too high with the HD 5100, but they did say it was an option so I'm hoping maybe standard is 1080P?

 

I agree with a lot of the sentiment here. While the pro is impressively light, the latest Z was only 1.18kg with a plethora of ports and a full-voltage CPU.
When I bought the VPC-Z back in 2010, I wanted a light powerful business machine with a hires (1080p) screen - the Z was the only laptop on the market that met those specs - there was no competition. With models like the pro and fit, I wonder how the Vaio is differentiating itself from the competition (with the exception of the triluminous screen, which does sound very interesting). Also, they seem to be moving out of the business arena - typically businesses go for a matte screen, a good selection of ports/connectivity, sturdiness & security (the Vaio Z having all of these). On that last point, I can't believe that manufacturers can't even add a kensington lock to their machines - come on, it's just a hole!

So, being a fan of hires screens, I will be looking at things like the Zenbook infinity or the new hi-res Envy 14" (though I have a feeling there will be many more hi-res notebooks over the coming years)

Replying to an earlier comment, touch doesn't always mean glossy, even on new machines. The new Toshina Z10t has a matte screen, and I find even the matte screen protector on the duo works very well.

 

G and TT are both two spindles. I think the looks and function for the new Pro feels more like X505 and X series, with a hint of PMD-less Z2/SVZ3.