The Official Haswell/Z Speculation Thread

I went to the Sony Store in Ginza, Tokyo yesterday (it's their official showroom). Every single sales person I spoke to said that the Z is finished. A few said the Pro is meant to be its replacement too.

 

That's a shame. Still hoping the S hasn't suffered the same fate. Hope you're having a good time in Tokyo anyway!

 

I see other manufacterers comming up with new haswell models for this fall (dell/hp etc), I don't mean U cpu's, maybe Sony will produce a new haswell quad core notebook in near future...

 

I truly think it's time to stop seeking or morning the Z and realize it was just a branding thing - though a really good one, silly for Sony to kill it when they had a good thing going - but it's a done deal and from here on let's just look for someone else to seize the space and build a good, powerful, std volt quad core cpu,d-gpu paper-thin laptop. Part of the Z's allure was the 1080p wide gamut screen, but they are now pretty much standard on all $1,000+ laptops. There are already a couple of Haswells that fit the old Z bill (Razer, Asus Infinity) and whether Sony does or doesn't decide to play in that space again later is becoming increasingly uninteresting, IMO. They've blown the positioning and relinquished the space to whomever chooses to fill it. Won't feel as special as a Z, but to me the Z2 was never as special as the Z1 was in its day (crappy keyboard, even crappier audio, lack of ports, dumb PMD, blew the lead in screen technology) and the SVZ was a lame attempt to squeeze another year out of the "Z mystique" with a cpu transplant and a step further backwards in dropping the gpu entirely. What did they do for an encore? Pro 13. Pathetic.

 

I don't think that Sony has made an official announcement that there will be no Z replacement. We have to wait till fall.
Meanwhile there are some last SVZs very well configured, in stock here in France and I am thinking to pull the trigger. I have for less than a year my Z21 and it feels a bit superfluous to change but I hate Win 8 and would like to be able to stay with it as long as possible

 

From ingeniously engineered P, UX, X, TT, Z catering the enthusiast / professional to "ProFit" mainstream made in China.

Soul sold.

 

Guys, have a patience.
As I said, much depends on Intel's schedule, engineering is the second thing now, though it is still important. We will get a plenty of powerful and quite light Haswell machines. The nearest milestone is IFA. Remember that NDA does not mean that nothing interesting is on the way... Just harness your wild conventional dreams... to let some of them come true by Xmas.

 

Hey guys... the party's moved on. If you're willing to put up with an extra pount of weight, there's now a perfect replacement (for those who like the old-school all-in-one Z)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...ingnuts-sager-np7330-clevo-w230st-review.html

 

A pound? that's two pounds heavier than the SVZ. Nearly double the weight! :\ Nice specs though, but I don't like fat girls

 

The SVZ was not an all-in-one.

The VPCZ, which was an all-in-one with GPU, was 3.5 pounds. I and many others have been waiting for a VPCZ-style laptop for a while now, with nothing on the market---we passed on the SVZ due to lack of GPU.

 

I don't understand what you mean by wide-gamut screens being standard on all $1,000+ laptops... the SVZ covered 96% of Adobe RGB... most laptops today don't even fill 100% of sRGB. And let's be honest, any resolution higher than 1080p is useless on a 13" as it will be scaled down anyways. I already scale down the 1080p on my SVZ slightly (125%). Most of what attracted me to the SVZ was that it had all the power of the S but was thinner and lighter than an MBA. I really don't want or need a graphics card. Mostly I need a full-voltage quad-core or better proc in a light body with a good screen, which the Z delivered on.

I'm hopeful that the Zenbook Infinity will be good, but more than likely it will be killed by some weird restriction like 6gb max RAM or something. None of the Zenbooks have had good specs even ignoring the ULV processors, and no customization really sucks sometimes. The Blade is already way too heavy and the screen is supposed to be pretty bad... It seems as though the best computer available today is still the 3632 SVZ13 which is pretty sad considering it came out over a year ago. Just feels wrong that a year later the options are worse, not better.

Sure, but they will never make an announcement like that. And honestly, if they are working on something no one will know except the people building it, so asking salespeople (even in their Japanese stores) won't help.

 

You nailed it. Except for the display, the Razer Blade 14" has my vote. Maybe the next refresh of the Razer will have a better display, or some enterprising person will figure out a way to do it as an aftermarket upgrade. I'm not too pained by the Razer's lack of ports, etc. - you have USB expansion for everything, from card readers to high speed hubs to you name it.

 

Exactly, I'm not looking for a gaming machine, anyone who looked for one in the Z was probably a bit confused. While a decent to midrange GPU will always be a nice perk, having a top tier CPU (at this point, has to be a quad core) in a thin and light package with a quality screen is what I'm always looking for.

Blade? Great specs, horrible screen and a bit heavy.

Clevo? Great specs, better screen than the blade but it's a brick in size and weight.

Asus Infinity? Nice size and weight, nice screen, but dual core max and not to mention, vaporware at this point.

Not saying the computer is ruined due to any of those negatives, they are my negatives and probably not yours, the main reason not every can agree with what the ideal laptop specs are is because we all use them differently. Sure if the notebook was going to be sitting on a desk 5 days a week, never out and about with it the Clevo and other fatties would look appealing, but then what's the point of having a 13" notebook? I game on my very high end desktop with my U3014 LCD's so I really don't care that my 2.5lb notebook doesn't have a GTX level GPU. Sure, GPUs are also useful for gpu accelerated programs, but Intel's IGP works good enough for me in that respect.

What I don't get is why people keep coming to this thread that's

(1) in a Sony forum
and
(2) in a thread about the Z

and keep ranting to us about "moving on". Do you believe you know something we don't? That you know how to use computers in a way that we haven't figured out? Have you guys figured out how to get a low voltage dual core processor to perform like a full voltage quad core? Do you believe that because whatever "work" you guys do that apparently is easily handled by ULV chips that we can do the same and that we're just misguided in our views that we need a quad core? Not everyone's definition of work is opening up microsoft office or shifting through some emails.

We don't go into the Razer forum posting in the blade owner thread and laugh at them for spending 2k on such a crappy screen, or the Clevo forum and make fat jokes, into the Asus Zenbook threads and post competing benchmarks to show how the SVZ crushes it and try to convince them that they're misguided in choice of notebook. This is our thread, stop trying to crap in our thread :thumbsup:

In the mean time, despite being a year old, I still haven't found a notebook that makes me want to "move on" from my SVZ. Again, maybe you have but for my requirements of quad core full voltage cpu, thin/light, and GOOD screen, there doesn't seem to be an alternative.

 

Dude, chill. There are two kinds of Former Z owners: those who wanted GPU and those who didn't. This thread is for both owners, no? Or are you saying that VPCZ owners are some kind of second class citizens just because they wanted to game on their 13"? Back in 2010, the 330m could handle most of the 2010 games I wanted to play with max settings (Dragon Age, Mass Effect). So it was nothing to sneeze at.

The Clevo has a GOOD screen. The only downside is the weight---and some of us aren't as obsessed with thin as you are. If that's the ONLY sacrifice, then it's a good replacement, because it ticks all the other boxes.

 

For the sake of accuracy, a laptop using chipset video HAS a GPU. Just not a discrete, separate GPU.

Pet peeve of mine, but if there were NO GPU at all you'd have no video at all.

- Tim


____________________
Sent via TapaTalk

 

Z is Z. As I said in one other thread, in the near future I might put mine on eBay auction (read the specs in the signature). They are mega, no, ultra rare now. They are unique. A crazy (and rich) head will pay even 10,000 USD to get a top-spec'd Z3. It's a collectors item, next year will be a collector's dream.

 

Well, good luck finding that collector

 

I will pick up a 11-inch Vaio Pro as a replacement for my beloved Vaio X-series. Does anyone here know in which country I can get the non-touchscreen version with matte display? I will be in Hong Kong, Europe and the U.S. within the next two weeks and can hunt for the best offer. My SVZ1311C5E will not be sent into retirement yet, because the Pro has less computing power and only a very small advantage when it comes to weight and thickness.

 

currently:
13" Pro Japan/ Europe
11" Pro Japan only

Conics.net ships CTOs worldwide though

 

Anyone know where to get the svz in England?

 

I can order the Pro 11 from Sony online in the Netherlands (Europe)

 

non touch?

 

Touch. Only the Pro 13 is available in a non touch config on the dutch sony site.

 

There‘s a high-spec SVZ1311 on ebay right now ( item190873916479 ). It ends in 5 hours.

 

That's a good one, just missing another 256 GB, a PMD, an external sheet battery, W8 and perhaps an LTE? Didn't see that one in specs. But it's a very good one. I guess bidding will end at around 1,500-2,000 EUR.

Oh, just saw, it has an external battery and a PMD, Hmm, nice!

 

not sure where to post this but it looks like Sony US Store is starting to phase out the VAIO S with very little options to choose now--no more customizable 13" and their premium options have been removed as well...

now i'm really stuck since this was gonna be my option if nothing comes out in the fall... the pro and the duo are nice but they just don't appeal to me for many reasons....

 

The bidding has just finished, like 30 secs before the end I was so deadly wrong about the final bid, but it moved to 1500+ EUR

Sony VAIO SVZ Z1311S9EX 13,1 Zoll, 24 Mon. Garantie - SCHNELLSTES NOTEBOOK z.ZT. 4013675005405 | eBay

 

This one had LTE as well.

Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

Anyone have any idea when the next big event for Vaio releases is?

 

Soon, I hope

 

Unless Sony Japan is planning something, I would expect new vaio releases at CES in January.

Or perhaps something at IFA? maybe a concept laptop?

 

How about an update to the 15" S? With the 4702MQ i7, pci-ssd+sata+4k dock+slot bluray?

 

So this appeared

Sony teases VAIO laptop-tablet combo, set to unveil at IFA 2013 - Pocket-lint

Looks like a laptop similar to the lenovo yoga, hmm I hope I don't regret my vaio pro purchase when this comes out.

 

I'm fine with a yoga style sony but PLEASE Sony, PLEASE have an integrated RJ45 nic.

 

If it will be as thin as the yoga, then forget about RJ45.

 

or 16GB Ram, or a full voltage CPU, or an optical drive...

I just want a new TT or Z...

 

This gives me some hope.

 

RJ45, yes; optical drive, yes. These won't fit in ultrathin models. The rest should not be impossible. After all, if Razer can do it with their Razer Blade 14".... (not the RAM, although that too is doable, but the full voltage CPU and a decent GPU).

 

Why do you want a PMD (that's what I assume you mean by a 4k dock) for a 15" laptop when a dGPU + iGPU would be perfect?

I'm tired of throttled "U" series ultrabook CPUs. I need full powered.

 

You forget the Duo 11 had the ethernet port with the flipdown. That was a pretty elegant design and I'm a bit sad they didn't bring it to the Pro. It could have worked at its thickest point. When I was in a Sony Store talking to one of the workers there, he hinted at some new machines coming which I won't talk about only because I'm waiting to see if what he said is true. The indication I got is that there would be new form factors and possibly new sizes.

 

Wouldn't that cannibalize the Vaio Duo though?

 

Not any more than the Yoga cannibalizing on the Helix. Different audiences and machines.

 

I want a dock that has support for a 4k monitor (ideally via thunderbolt 2.0 > displayport). The dock need not have its own gpu (just usb3, gigabit, hd audio?). I'd be fine with some decent amd/nvidia on board.
I think the current S is about the right form factor, I like having slot load blu ray, but stick a pci-e ssd module in there as well as the sata hdd. And the 4702MQ should provide all the performance needed, if they can get the cooling right. Sigh, I'm afraid they will discontinue the S and offer some pro 15 that won't be worth my while. The fit is too much of a brick.

PassMark - Intel Core i7-4702MQ @ 2.20GHz - Price performance comparison

 

They could easily have the pop out RJ45 like the old PCMCIA cards - dump the unused sony proprietary memory card slot that no one uses. Or they could have a drop down RJ45 like they had on their atom powered laptops - adding no bulk to an ultrathin design.

New style pop out


Old School pop out - integrate the nic and no need for the pcmcia card just the pop out


Drop down style - Vaio X

 

So Panasonic Japan announced the LX3/SX3/NX3 laptops today. Outside of touchscreen (which none have), they tick off most of my boxes of what I would have wanted. I skipped the SX2/NX2 because they were not Haswell yet. They're not full Haswell processors (boo), but the LX3 (new to the line) is a 14" 1600x900 with up to 16GB of memory and just *slightly* bigger than the Pro 13. Color me intrigued. Weight wise, depending on options, most are 3lbs or under. Yes, the Vaio Pro looks better than the Let's Note series - no question. But built in VGA? Check. Ethernet? Check. HDMI? Check. 16GB of memory? Check. Wireless ac? Check. Better out of box battery life? Check (not that the Pro 13 is a slouch, and based on my past experiences with Panasonic, I believe their numbers are pretty damn good).

Here's the comparison:
http://ec-club.panasonic.jp/mall/mylets/open/hikaku/pre.html

 

1080p or better, not check?

 

Huh? That doesn't make sense to me.

 

Well here is the teaser back up on the web

Upcoming VAIO - Teaser video - YouTube

 

Hopefully that indicates they will also show something with Haswell in the S or Z class at IFA. I need (well, want) discrete graphics in a 13 - 14" package.

 

Is there really no other Laptop on the market with
- 3G
- Fingerprint
- ODD
- LAN
- VGA
- Docking Port

No larger than 13.3" and with at least 140 ppi?

I can only think of the Vaio Z and the Vaio TT (S just misses the 140ppi)

I really wonder what happened to Sony's engineering. Did they lose vital Staff? The TT; the Z, the P - those computers were milestones and true to their old Slogan "like.no.other". Nowadays it's just the same carp as everywhere

The Pro and Duo are beautiful, but without Dock, 3G and Fingerprint, and with all those adapters required, they're of no use to me. I don't want the slimmest laptop in the world, I don't want a touchscreen, I want a new TT or Z - Something portable yet powerful that does it all!