The Official Haswell/Z Speculation Thread

Finally, the real reason for the true Z successor being delayed. Sony, after combing through this forum, realized how much we all LOVED the PMD wants to bring it back but is waiting for Thunderbolt 2 which should solve the bandwidth problem of the original

AnandTech | Intel Announces Thunderbolt 2 at Computex: 20Gbps Bi-Directional Bandwidth per Channel


/yes i'm just kidding

 

Well I'm giving up hope. I'm now thinking of getting an S series 13.3" with that crappy dual core i7 and swapping it out for an i7-3230QM or something along those lines. Thoughts on doing such a thing? The socket sizes seem to match up. What baffles me is that the on-board proc seems to support two socket sizes.

 

Lots of reviews out there for the Pro 11 and 13 starting to show up. Feedback is overwhelmingly good. Looks like besides size, difference is that the 11 is max 4GB/256GB SSD, where the 13 is 8/512.

 

This review continues the rumor that the Z is discontinued. A bunch of Pro articles popped up since a few minutes ago (9:00 PM), so I kinda think Sony lifted an embargo for all these reviews. So these reviewers may have talked to them.

Sony's VAIO Pro Ultrabooks weigh as little as 1.92 pounds, ship June 9th from $1,150

EDIT: Yeah, looks like the guy who wrote the below review talked to Sony's team. He mentions several times that the Z is discontinued and even mentions the Pro is supposed to take over it (and the S too, apparently).

http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/04/sony-vaio-pro-11-review/

EDIT: She, not he.

 

Sad but true. It seems like the Vaio Pro is made in china and is not any sort of "true" Z replacement.

I guess to get the price down to more competitive levels they had to move. I still hold out hope that a true Z replacement made in japan will pop up at some point.

 

I think Sony needs to return to profitability before they'll release a TRUE Z successor.

I'm back in the market for an ultraportable, so the Pro series is really piquing my interest

The Pro 11" is nice, but I'll need at least the Pro 13". Wish there was a PMB though...

 

you can't swap the processor on VAIO S. it's soldered onto the motherboard.

 

LEaving aside the Z,

When will we see Full Voltage CPU Vaio models ????????????? I mean regular laptops and NOT ultrabooks

 

With all the disappointment of discontinued Z I actually like where Pro line is going now.
I love the fact that sony did not go for that high resolution and stick to 1080 on 13" - that is very nice PPI and also saves computing power of graphic card.
It is also reasonably powerful for 99% of users. well may be 95% For the rest we should hope for full voltage laptops coming later.
I may want to jump to Pro 13 as a developer for now. For gaming I'll sue new xbox or standalone option. (really hoped to use my eGPU but no express port here )
Now only wonder how glossy that screen is....

 

For fun here's the quad i7 on the SVZ vs. the i7 on the Pro.

http://ark.intel.com/compare/67356,75460

Yikes.

 

Official Press Release

 

Outside of 4 vs 2 cores, they are more similar than different. And I can tell you in real world usage since the processors throttle to higher speeds, you don't notice. The Duo 11 has no real lag I can notice and is faster than the i7-2620M in the J10 I think. And it's not like Sony put 32GB of RAM in the Z; the put 8. So some of the inherent advantages are neutered by Sony.

 

Some initial thoughts:

1. They include a HDMI->VGA adapter. Not ideal for some I guess but avoids a possible deal breaker.

2. No ethernet, but a eth->WiFi adapter. Ok for single use in a hotel, but wont work if lots of people do it at the same place. And a definite no no for a pro user.

3. (from the CPU comparison) No TSX?? That (along with the dual core) is a deal breaker for me.

2 and 3 makes me think they have a real Z replacement down the pipe. This replaces the T (and revives the TT), or rather, it´s what the T should have been from day 1.

 

Happy to see there is indeed a matte non touch model. According to the PDF its only 940g! (120g lighter than the touch)

It's labeled Ultrabook though, watch out for Intels lawyers Sony

 

This has to be some kind of joke, right!? It replaces the S too!? It doesn't hold a candle in performance to the S13, let alone the S15. So what does this all mean!? Is the S series discontinued also!? Or will they announce some other model latter on, one with a normal CPU and dedicated GPU!? Do these ULV, only surf the web and work on Office models really sell more than the performance models!? The Pro and the Duo can be put in the ultra portable category and can be excused for using ULVs but the Fit is the biggest joke of them all! There's no way I'm buying any of these models!

 

I have to say, the features of the Pro line are tempting. Wifi router + ethernet in the charger block? Genius idea!

But I'm holding on to my 2010 Z for the time being. I'm not paying money for something which has worse GPU performance than the 2010 Z. I can last till early 2014 easy.

Come on, Sony---give us a classic 13" notebook with dedicated GPU and triluminous display. I'm willing to settle for 37W TDP and up to 3.5 lbs and 1" inch thick. But the display has to be as good as the Z and it better have RAID 0 SSD.

I'm holding on to my old Z as long as I can until such a beast comes along made by Sony or by another company---and until then, everyone's Ultrabook offerings can kiss my behind.

 

I have to say this Pro 13 wasn't worthy as a Z replacement although it isn't bad.

Things I would have preferred included:

A pop out RJ45 jack - like the old PCMCIA modem and network cards had - that way it adds no thickness.

2 HDMI jacks - that way you could have 2 monitors and truly use this as a PC replacement

14" screen - cut down the bezel and increase the screen without changing the dimensions.

802.11ac


I wouldn't mind a tablet flip like the Lenovo yoga but I can live without that feature the ones above are very very important though and I'm disappointed they didn't have these features.

Hopefully a Sony Vaio Z FLAGSHIP will be released with the specs this one is a tad short of the mark. I'd be happy to replace my current Z if it could have the features to make a truly elite notebook.

 

How many people spent a lot of their time at places without a power socket anyway!? To have models from 2010 that can outperform models of 2013 in nearly everything but battery life is ridiculous!

 

Disappointed by the lack of WWAN. Not even in the power supply

 

What would be neutered by only have 8 GB of RAM?

 

There are miniDP to dual HDMI adapters out there. Maybe that would have been better.

Don't think that will happen. It seems all Win8 tablets need the bezel to handle both the digitizers as well as handle the swipe-in gestures.

Yeah - this would be good.

I don't use my Z2 for gaming. Well, other than D3 - and I can run D3 on my Lenovo Helix, so for something like D3 I guess it'll work on these new Pro machines. In terms of things like running VMs, I reckon this will be fine. Video-encoding etc - dunno how well that will work.

But it will be light!

 

To be fair, the Pro is about 30% faster than the 2010 Z in PCMark 7. There's that inevitable cross-architecture speed gain. But the 3D benchmarks, which *include* the contribution of the CPU, are dead even with 2010.... which is a bit hard to take.

My only worry is that once they get around to putting in dedicated GPU and higher voltages, they'll skip over the 13" form factor like everyone else and go straight to 15"+. That would really be a shame as I do not feel like lugging around such things any more.

 

Really? The Pro is faster than my Z1? Does that include for outputting videos in, say, Avid/Premiere/After Effects or doing batch Photoshop actions? Is the Pro superior in every way to the Z1? I thought the Pro has a lower clocking processor than the i7 Z1.

If it is maybe I'll just get the Pro instead of an SVZ... hm...

EDIT: Z1 vs. SVZ vs. Pro i7's
http://ark.intel.com/compare/43560,67356,75460

 

Well, my numbers are for the i5 2010 VPCZ11. Your model is faster, but I would bet the Pro is still faster than an i7 2010 Z1 when it comes to CPU intensive stuff.

Lower clocking doesn't necessarily mean lower speed if the architecture is different. The best way to find out speed at the tasks you mention is to download PCMark 7 and run it on your particular system. The Pro 11 measures a score of 4600 according to Engadget; my i5 Z1 measures about 3300; and my guess is a 2010 i7 Z1 will measure about 4000. The Pro 13 will likely be faster than the Pro 11 depending on how you configure it.

As you probably know the tasks you mention aren't that GPU intensive... CPU contributes more on most setups. So the fact that the Pro's GPU is lacking or comparable relative to the Z1 won't really affect those tasks too much.

However, do NOT expect the Pro to run the games that are coming up in 2014 very well.

 

Hm, this review says the i7 in the 13 inch has the HD 5000 graphics, which means it's not the same i7 as the 11 inch or the reviewer got it wrong:

Sony Vaio Pro 13 - Laptops - CNET Reviews

 

BTW, found a problem with Haswell that's a blocker for me Z or no Z. My Problem With Intel’s Haswell Processors | SQLHA: We're Ready When You Are

 

Well, the HD5000 is better. My guess is that the Pro 13 still won't be able to run the 2014 AAA games very well, but I'm willing to withhold judgment until I see the 3dMark11 numbers.

However, the price quoted by CNET in that article is a little bit hard to swallow. $2200 for something without dedicated graphics? Come on.

 

It's probably the i7-4650 which does have the 5000.

 

If that's the case...

ARK | Compare Intel® Products
Z1 vs. SVZ vs. 13 inch Pro vs. 11 inch pro

EDIT: So if that i7 /is/ the one in the 13inch one, it looks like its speeds are the same as the Z1 i7 (both go up to 3.3 GHz), which means it'll definitely be faster than the Z1 since it's Haswell. Plus way better graphics than the Z1.

 

You run Hyper-V inside VMware Workstation? I know it's possible - I've just never seen anyone do it

Given that Windows 8 has native Hyper-V support, couldn't you just run Hyper-V or VMware Workstation VMs directly? Or are you demo-ing clustered Hyper-V hosts or something?

 

Aye, though HOW much better is the key question. Those benchmark numbers shouldn't take too long to come out... give it another day or two I'd say.

 

Man, so if the 13 inch model does use the faster i7 one (this isn't confirmed yet), then it seems the Pro really will be a spiritual successor to the Z. It'll most likely be faster than the Z1, though of course it's dual core vs. the quad on the SVZ.

Also, can we use a stylus with the touch screen? Will you be able to draw on it?

 

Nope. Only way to show hypervisor in a hypervisor is to use VMware Workstation (i.e. H-V running under it) so I can show things like Live Migration. I use H-V for most other things on a machine that has Windows Server 2012 on it. I use both virtualization platforms. If I never showed that stuff it wouldn't matter. But it does for me - and that requires SLAT.

 

I am diasppointed by the new VAIO Pro 13:

+IPS panel
+4th Gen CPUs
+Better Keyboard

-No RAID SSD
-No WWAN
-No standard voltage CPU (don't need a quad)
-No PMD or Docking Station

Especially the lack of a PMD/Dock is a deal breaker. I am going to keep my SVZ although I'd like to get a IPS panel.

 

@SurferJon The only type of stylus you could use I guess are the kind made for capacitive screens, which aren't very good...

 

If you need a stylus or WWAN, get the Duo 13.

 

I wouldn't want to do anything fancy, I'd just want to draw basic sketches for things like storyboards. Is that possible with this kind of thing?

 

Then you need a real pen and something like the Duo 13.

 

Don't think the 13 has HD5000, the euro press release states, so unless the US has a higher end cpu, the most powerful HD is the 4400.

Up to Intel® Core™ i7-4500U with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology

here is a review from the verge regarding the pros
Sony VAIO Pro review: 'we're going to war with the MacBook Air' | The Verge

not positive, too much flex in the screens, horrible keyboard on the 11, trackpad is meh, if it's anything like on my S, then it will not be amazing. windows and sony bloatware. And Wifi has problems with connecting in both it seems. The speakers on both seem to also be so so.

I'm sure these are good laptops but I don't want too much flex, somehow apple is apple to make a sturdy laptop while sony opts for light and well flimsy. btw until windows 8.1 comes out with better scaling, the 11 inch with the full HD is probably overkill. It seems they do better than the air in battery life but once the new haswell CPUs hit the macs, this won't matter anymore.

Will check these out in Canada once they are out. Duo looks like a more solid build but is more expensive.

 

Most of the reviews (Engadget, CNet, etc.) are positive. The Verge is really the only one knocking the series. The Duo 13 is also getting decent reviews, and better than the Duo 11.

 

Well Sony has introduced their ultrabook lineup, now what is missing is their notebook lineup, and I don't mean the Fit, which sony says is a notebook, yet all of them comes with last years ultrabook CPUs. There is still hope for a normal voltage cpu laptop from sony.

 

The Verge are Apple fanboys imo. They used to run Engadget and back then it was the same thing, they rarely had anything good to say about anything not made by Apple and made Apples products seem perfect. How can you run a tech site when you are a fanboy!? Sure the Pro has its flaws but everything does.

 

Fanboys is an understatement, they also like to diss on Sony sometimes. I'm personally leaning towards the Duo 13, but it all depends on the final price, hopefully a 256gb option won't be too pricey or the i7 upgrade.

 

I think they announced the price at $1399 for the base configuration and also available June 9th.

 

Base I believe comes with the i5 and 128gb of space.

 

How as a portable powerhouse we can consider Gigabyte 14" laptops: Gigabyte reveals prices, availability for NVIDIA-equipped U-Series Haswell notebooks
U24F: 2 disks, dGPU 750M, 16GB Ram. All looks good. No mini display port and unsure if HDMI 1.4 though.
Also screen is downgrade from sony. I wonder if there is way to swap the panel to high-end IPS?!

 

Sony VAIO Pro 13
This guy is madly in love with it!

 

So that's it? Only these two models and we're not sure whether the S will be discontinued or not?

 

Sony VAIO Pro 13 (SVP1321BPXB) Review | Ultrabook Reviews

the only informative take aways from the review are: The SSD in the Pro13 is apparently very fast and the screen should be noticeably brighter than the SVZ. Also, no mention of HD5000 graphics, it does look like HD4200 is the only option.

 

Agreed. This is a joke.

Their new naming conventions are also a joke.