The Official Haswell/Z Speculation Thread

So nothing other than the Fit series ? No haswell S series update ?

 

Also, the Fit laptops are still essentially cheap versions of ultrabooks (i.e. worse). Same low performance as ultrabooks without the battery life/portability. Only difference is the option to add a graphics card, which based on these new benchmarks is about to be a pretty useless option as well.

I can sort of understand that the TDPs have changed (i.e. 17, 28, 47 instead of 17, 35, 45) but they must realize lots of people out there are not going to be satisfied with the 17s... (By which I mean not specifically for ultraportables but just in a normal sized laptop). All the procs they are offering in their new models (DUO, PRO, FIT) are 17W... I have to believe there is something more like the E/S series coming by the end of the year which is a medium/full sized notebook with real processors, optional graphics cards, 16gb RAM, etc.

 

We need a Sony Vaio S update with haswell cpu, perhaps a gt 750m or a much lower wattage gt 745m then pair it with a much better 900p or 1080p display without the grainy/smudgy look and then get rid of the keyboard ghosting issue and improve the audio system. Keep optical drive and still keep it under 4lbs and lots of people will gladly pay in the range of $1,000-1,500.

 

I would gladly get rid of the ODD and trade it for a second fan or a bigger battery.

 

Or another SSD? Although I suppose you could do that anyways.

 

And yet another one, this time from Gigabyte. The P34G
1.7kg
0.83" thick
14" 1080p TN screen - "Gigabyte also tells us that this model could come with an IPS display, but this hasn’t been confirmed"
i7 haswell - unsure which one
up to 16gb ram
1 TB platter drive + 256gb mSATA ssd
nVidia GTX 760M card
Backlit keyboard
possibly dual external monitor support (VGA+HDMI)
Aluminum lid and top, possibly plastic bottom.

Second video of the laptop here:

 

Nice find.
Specs are here:
GIGABYTE - Notebook & Netbook - Notebook & Netbook - P series - P34G
Excellent selection of ports, incl. 4xUSB, but no WWAN.
No indication on the specs whether it has an IPS screen, and while it could be the lighting, it didn't look like it did from the video. Also, I'm not sure how long a 47Wh battery will last with those specs - I doubt the battery life is great.

Edit:
given they specifically mention IPS for the 2.2kg 15" P35K (which can come with thunderbolt!), that implies the 14" does not have IPS:
http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4626#sp

 

This. They still have the S for sale on their site with IB. Where's the Haswell?

Definitely not an IPS screen as is obvious from the YT video. TN with bad viewing angles.

 

How many notebooks with a normal Haswell CPU and dedicated GPU been announced or released? Apple hasn't announced their new Macbooks, HP has shown nothing, little from Dell etc. I think Intel maybe having some issues providing OEMs with a big enough supply of such CPUs, thus why none of the big names have announced their new machines... We may have to wait a little more for a Vaio S replacement...

 

I honestly have never understood the obsession with IPS screens or high viewing angles on laptops. The Z3 screen was perfect for me as it had extremely high color accuracy and adequate viewing angles for me, but not so much that people near me could easily oversee what I was doing. It's a laptop, not a TV... if you can't see well, adjust it. I personally (especially on a business machine) do not want the person sitting next to me on the plane to be able to perfectly read everything on my screen.

 

Samsung released updated Ativ 9.

tbh looks better than the Pro but still has a 4400 "GPU"

 

Close but not quite. Screen res is high but really, it doesn't matter that much once you get above 1080p on a 13" screen, you'll just be scaling it down anyways. And, "The new display, meanwhile, is coated in Gorilla Glass and has a 72 percent color gamut." Boooo. They say the "Lite" version comes with a quad-core AMD but about the Plus it just says "Haswell processors (Core i5 and i7)" so I'm guessing no quad-core on the high-end (just the dual core 17W procs most likely, not even the 28s).

 

I have seen the Pro 13 and the SVZ side by side in the Manhattan Sony Store and boy, does the Pro 13 IPS display look nice in comparison! Whites are white instead of muddled like on the SVZ. It is closer to the whiteness I saw on my 1600x900 Z1's display, which was wonderful too. Pro 13 blacks are black. The display is glossier than the SVZ's, which does not bother me. The machine is wonderfully thin. They only had up to 256GB in the store. 512GB is forthcoming. I am curious how much it will cost. What is the speed diff between the Pro 13 i7 and the SVZ i7?

 

The SVZ embarrasses the PRO13 when it comes to a "speed difference" with real work, although if your idea of "work" is opening your email and the occasional excel file, you won't notice the difference.... but then again, the SVZ was never really aimed at you if that's the case. Also, blacks are more black and etc because of the glossy screen. Again, if your aim is an entertainment notebook, then sure the PRO13 probably works best for you.

 

There is a need of many premiere scientists and number crunchers to be able to have lightweight power on the go.

There is a split here---those like you who no longer need the mobile power that a Haswell Z might have offered, and others like me whose work relies on that kind of mobile power.

I feel like a new thread is needed, highlighting the viable Z alternatives for the latter crowd. Maybe I'll start it.

 

Here you go: ARK | Compare Intel® Products

35W quad-core running at 2.2ghz vs a 15W dual core running at 1.8ghz. The base running frequency for the graphics chip is also lower, 200 MHz on the Pro vs 650 MHz on the Z3. There is a very substantial speed difference, but obviously it will also get longer battery life. To be honest they aren't really machines that should be compared, they aren't very similar and they don't target the same people/market (if you used a Z, the Pro won't work for you; if you like the Pro, you likely did not have/need a Z). Very light weight, very thin, great Ultrabook, but performance-wise does not compare to a Z. Different machines for different use-cases.

 

After seeing the pro and although it does have a place in some peoples lives, just not mine, well not the 13" version. I went out and bough a SVZ13 with full specs and glossy top and my gosh is this thing fast and beautiful and light, words cant explain how amazing this machine is. No 13" POO can replace it, I can boot into windows in less than 10seconds, amazing, what a machine.

Sony dropped the ball, they should of made a updated Z, I cant figure why dropping the model. All the research was done and only needed an update. Instead their whole line is now almost ultra mobile which is stupid. They have almost gone ultra mobile and ultra heavy, they are missing a in between model hence the Z.

I will be purchasing a 11Pro to replace my sony vaio X which is a good replacement and to be honest the sony vaio X should of been what a pro is.

 

I would probably go with 256GB anyway. the upgrade to 512 costs too much. insane price per 1GB. But as they now use new standard for PCIE SSD there are drives coming from samsung and ADATA up to 1TB later this year. so manual upgrade should be much cheaper than sony's premium price.

 

If the Zenbook Infinity and the new SS9 turn out bad I am hopeful that whatever the new version of the X230 is will be good... Yes, low res screen, but at this point if I can't get anything that's even marginally color-accurate that I may as well write off the screen altogether; I've been using even my Z more and more with monitors now. And, it's smaller (although slightly thicker) and has WWAN options and lots of power (16gb RAM, full-power cpu, etc.) It doesn't look anywhere near as good as the Z, and weighs a bit more (just under 3 pounds) but Thinkpads are known for their keyboards and the keyboard is my biggest issue with the Z, so there's that. Hopefully it gets updated to Haswell and keeps all its good features, and maybe they'll add a new screen... if they offered it with 900p/1080p it would be a great machine.

 

there will never be another z until 5/6th generation intel processor. theres no confirming source though, but thats how it happens every time when they revamp z. who knows what future brings, just enjoy with what you have/buy now.
this year for mobile z and tablet z. not laptop z

 

Since we are in a Z speculation thread, I believe it's time to do again some speculations. If we go to Sony webpage we see 4 product lines as laptop. FIT (no matter people says it is an ultra-book since the processor is U series). DUO (another ultra-book). PRO (yet another ultra-book). And finally S on the 4th. column. Obviously S series has not been updated yet. Some of them can say that there will no update also on S and it will be just 3 product lines in future. But I don't believe that. There is no notebook manufacturer in the world who doesn't manufacture notebook (included apple). So definitely there will a new laptop with 3 characters name in 4th column and which uses a non-U series processor. The question is: Will it be an S replacement or a Z replacement? Assuming that it will be a Z replacement below are my speculations:
1. ZED (The 26th letter of the Roman alphabet, basically it is Z again)
2. ZAG (having still the letter Z, a notebook with diagonal bold line on cover mentioning the zag)
3. WIZ (having still the letter Z, meaning "Someone who is dazzlingly skilled in any field", which means for us a notebook which is dazzlingly skilled in any field)

 

Haha! I've been thinking about that too, but haven't come up with a good one. WIZ is probably too nerdy to pass marketing dept though, but I like it.

 

I also agree previous comments mentioning PRO is a competitor of MacBook Air. It has even less specs and less expensive than DUO. $150 extra is worth to have a faster cpu i7-4650U vs i7-4500U and Intel 5000 GPU vs 4400 GPU. Also DUO can be used both in tablet and laptop mode. Unless you are in love with the design of PRO, I don't see any reason to choose PRO over DUO if the specs remain same.

 

The Pro 13 here in Europe is the least expensive, even than the 11" which I find weird. 1040 euros gives you an i5, 8GB RAM, 128SSD, non-touch 1080p display. Any reason that the 13" version should be less expensive than the 11" ?

 

Source:
http://www.itmedia.co.jp/pcuser/articles/1306/25/news029.html

better than vaio z? whats he trying to say on that pic.

 

Don't know why it would cost less, unless they are already discounting to try and drive sales.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say but that link is dead (not to mention, ugly) and I can't read what the site is trying to tell me about it. Probably "The link you clicked is dead".

 

added the picture and source. sorry, didnt notice that. it was a review from a Japanese blog. please use google translate to understand them.

 

Hmm. What I really don't understand is what it means by "cTDP 25W" because the 4650U is a 15W proc and AFAIK there are no recent 25W procs (i.e. nothing in Haswell or IB is 25W). Maybe he is talking about overclocking or something? But that would be pretty ridiculously impossible. Not really sure where those numbers are from...

 

i dont get that either. probably someone will help us.

 

Last year the first bits of info about Haswell hinted at a 25W TDP but that was shown to be false as more info was available. Maybe that Japanese blogger got his/her wires crossed?

 

cTDP is the available range above and below the rated TDP. We all know power usage will go below TDP at reduced clock rates, but Intel has allowed OEM's to enable this boost in TDP if they so choose. Say Sony ends up deciding to put in a cooling setup in a notebook that rated above what's necessary, they can allow a certain % of increase of TDP when the cpu/gpu is being pushed. Sometimes this boost is only available when connected to an AC adapter or when thermals are good.

It would seem Sony as allowed up to 30% above the rated TDP?

 

Found a better explanation on Anandtech, it's for Ivy Bridge but applies for Haswell too obviously

AnandTech | Ivy Bridge Configurable TDP Detailed

 

hmm, if vaio duo 13 connected with AC adapter, it would be as powerful as SVZ?

 

Well, in 3dMark score, which is a balance of CPU and GPU performance, it would appear so in this graphic. SVZ may kill the DUO in CPU performance (not sure how much 3dMark stresses extra cores), but it would seem the HD5000 performs better in 3Dmark than the SVZ w/PMD, so the GPU score would help prop up the CPU score in the final score. 3dMark is just one benchmark though. With another or an app that uses purely CPU grunt, no way the SVZ doesn't kill the DUO. On the other hand, if you're playing a game that doesn't stress the CPU much, being more GPU bound, I'm sure the DUO13 will win thanks to the more modern HD5000. Also, 3dmark seems to favor GPU performance over CPU.

What bugs me is that they don't give actual figures in the graphic which makes it difficult to compare.

If someone that has a PRO/DUO could run 3dMark, we could start doing some comparisons.

Here's my SVZ score running off the HD4000
SCORE
P721 with Intel HD Graphics 4000 Mobile(1x) and Intel Core i7-3612QM Processor
Graphics Score 624
Physics Score 2992
Combined Score 744

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6688478



Found the base PRO13 gets P600 vs P721 of the SVZ
http://www.ultrabookreview.com/2946-sony-vaio-pro-13-review/

but they don't have the breakdown of the graphics/physics.

 

You mean 66%? 25W is 66% greater than 15W. It seems like a ridiculous amount of increase but I suppose it's possible...

 

Qwaarjet: We have the graphics and physics scores in our review of the Core i5 Pro 13: Sony Vaio Pro 13 Review - Ultrabook Reviews by MobileTechReview

 

So it's almost July and no update from Sony regarding a Haswell based Vaio S-series. Hmmm....it seems that Sony has removed S-series from their Japan and European websites....that seems like an ominous sign...in the mean time. Apple, Lenovo, Dell, HP and others have announced their Haswell Laptops. Perhaps Sony has killed the S-series? If they have killed it with no plans to replace it with a similar Haswell based system then they are simply clueless.

 

What are you talking about!? Apple, HP etc haven't announced non-ULV Haswell laptops yet. The only non-ULV Haswell laptops that have been announced are some gaming laptops from Razer, Gigabyte, Alienware (Dell) etc. No mainstream performance laptop with a non-ULV Haswell CPU from any of the big companies has been announced yet! They've only announced ultrabooks! Get your facts straight!

 

Technically, that's true (that only "U" series laptops have been announced). However, Asus has announced laptops using the 28W "U" procs which are not that far off from the 35W that the S series uses. I would guess that some of the laptops which previously used 35W "M" procs may move to 28W "U" procs this cycle, especially those which had an emphasis on portability (yes, that's the S; it's no Z/Ultrabook but they always talked about how it weighed less than other similar laptops). So, it would not be strange for Sony to announce a laptop based on the 28W i5/i7 "U" line. Yes, we all know there are still procs to be announced but it seems a bit strange that they have announced three lines of computers and they are exclusively using the 17W procs, when nothing at all has been announced with the 28W dual core procs or the 37W/47W quad core procs that have already been released. I guess they must be waiting for Windows 8.1?

 

So anyone here actually have a Pro 13/11? Is there a thread? Want to know how good heat dissipation and fan noise is (as this is often a sony pitfall).

 

you're right Lisa, I reread your review after I posted but hadn't had a chance to update my post. The physics score difference between the quad core in the SVZ and dual core in the Pro is smaller than I would have imagined. Maybe 3dmark11 doesn't put much weight into threading after all.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...l-vaio-pro-13-owners-lounge-svp13-2013-a.html

 

According to this slide on Japanese article, Vaio Duo 13 has "cTDP" function which pushes up TDP of CPU up to 25W when it is in laptop mode (works in the same way as how new AMD tablets are supposed to work). They claim it actually make the model with HD5000 faster than old Z in 3DMark Vantage.

uVAIO Duo 13v“O’ꌟØi‘O•Òj\\Ultrabookg¢ŠEÅ’·hƒXƒ^ƒ~ƒiAHaswellg¢ŠE‰‘ΉžhConnected Standby‚ÅPC‚ÌŒÀŠE“Ë”j‚Ö - ITmedia PC USER

 

Today I went to a local electronics shop and saw the Pro 13 for the first time. I have a VPC-Z21, so I was interested to see how they compare.
My first impression was that the Pro 13 does not look as refined as the VPC-Z or the SVZ. The palm rest is shinier than the keyboard area, the screen and the bezel are glossy, and the keyboard looks somehow "cheaper". I tried typing and the keys, which are quite large by the way, indeed felt more plasticky than those of the Z or even the Duo 11 (it was right next to the Pro 13 in the shop). I picked it up, closed it, looked at it from different angles, but it failed to convince me. The hinge seemed more wobbly, the plastic legs on the back of the hinge are smaller and I think have less grip (though it may be due to the table in the shop), and it felt less solid than the Z.
The positive things: it is very thin and light (but compared to the Z, it does not feel much lighter), the bezel is smaller, the "twisted" design on the sides looks cool, and the touchpad is large and seemed to work well.
Overall, it is a nice laptop, but as many others have pointed out, it does not feel as a Z successor, not just because of performance. I would not call it a premium or "Pro" Vaio.

 

Sony Vaio SVZ i7-3612QM vs DUO 13 i7-4650U 3DMark and PCMark 7 benchmark.

3DMark Score:
Sony vaio svz z vs duo 13 3dMark benchmark - YouTube
SVZ i7-3612QM: 620
DUO 13 i7-4650U : 826


PCMark 7 Score:
Sony vaio svz z vs duo 13 pcmark 7 benchmark - YouTube
SVZ i7-3612QM: 5397
DUO 13 i7-4650U : 5082

please do pm me or let me know if you want any other comparison between vaio svz z and duo 13.

 

cinebench?

MAXON | 3D FOR THE REAL WORLD: Overview

 

Vaio svz z i7-3612qm vs duo 13 i7-4650u Cinebench 11.5
Sony vaio svz z vs duo 13 CINEBENCH 11.5 benchmark - YouTube

SVZ : 5.65
DUO 13: 3.13pts

 

Funny, because I went on the exact same day to a local Sony Store and had the exact same thoughts. I think the new designs look good, but aren't as well built as the VPCZ series. I was a bit disappointed with the side edges of the laptop, where there's a gap between the keyboard housing and the plastic trim that isn't quite consistent.

The flex isn't a problem for me, but like you mentioned, the keyboard does look cheaper. It's got more of a textured plastic feel rather than the rubberized feel that the Z series had (when it was new at least...mine's all worn out now).

I will wait, because I don't think the Pro 13 is much of an upgrade over my Z series. I almost feel like I should just buy new parts for my Z to make it look as good as new again.

 

I didn't like this thread falling to the second page so I'll just start with this...

Enough with the pro "vaio z wannabe", bring on the new Z!!

OR, add an rj45 to the pro, add another usb port, add dual HDMI for two simultaneous external processors and an 802.11ac card - do that and I'd buy them even though I have two z's currently. Those changes should barely impact the weight or size. The RJ45 could be a drop down port like the old atom x sony's had or a pop-out RJ45 like the old PMCIA cards had. Gigabit is barely fast enough for me, 802.11n is painfully slow and not available at every office I visit.

 

thats where it hurts