Thinking about buying a SZ440, but ....

I'm thinking about buying a SZ440 for a client who wants long battery life, but I have several significant concerns and a couple of minor concerns.

Major concerns ....
Proprietary aspects of hardware and OS distribution. I'm a big fan of open architectures and Sony has always been a vendor that leans (heavily!) to the proprietary side in hardware. Adding to my hardware concerns is the difficulty I've read about in doing a "clean" install of Vista -- necessary to remove the bloatware that allegedly come preinstalled.

The battery life is one of the touted features on paper, but reading through the forums makes me think that battery life might be hit or miss. THIS IS THE PRIMARY NEED OF MY USER so it's very important to me. I'm planning on configuring the slowest C2D processor and use the integrated GPU to attempt to maximize battery life.

Minor Concerns/questions ...
This unit ships with 533 MHz RAM -- would 667 provide a SIGNIFICANT performance increase?

How is Sony's customer service post sale?

Is it possible to get a copy of the Vista media instead of a recovery CD?

Thanks for any suggestions,

David

 

I know what you mean about Sony's tendancy towards proprietary hardware (and about proprietary hardware in general ---- I remember tearing my hair out when I learned about HP's proprietary desktop cases several years ago). However, apart from the installed Sony memory card reader, I'm not aware of anything in the machine that isn't swapable for other components (that can easily/typically be swapped in a laptop, anyway).

...oh, thinking about this again, Sony does get you with proprietary batteries. They take a lot of steps to make sure you don't use other OEM batteries in the SZ --- there have been several threads in these forums about people running into trouble after buying non-Sony batteries.

There are definitely other laptops out there that have better battery life than the SZ --- no doubt about it. I'm pretty stingy about my battery usage, and am totally happy about the amount of working time I get on the standard battery. The installed VAIO power management features make turning devices on and off pretty easy, which definitely helps me conserve lots of power.

I'm sure other people can speak better towards the actual results you'd see form buying the slowest processor. I definitely always use the integrated GPU, unless there is a specific reason to use the dedicated (which is always a nice option to have!).

I would say no, not an ALL CAPS significant performance increase.

Complaining about Sony's customer service is a favorite past time on these boards, but, personally, I've had lots of really positive experiences with them ---- they've let me return two laptops just b/c I've had nitpicky issues with my purchases, the last return/exchange coming at a monetary loss for Sony.

I would say: definitely not. I'm a big fan of the recovery partition though.

 

I just got an SZ440N. This is my first Vaio after six years with Dells (an Inspirion and a Latitude). I am one obsessive compulsive, picky SOB, and so far, I am really happy with my purchase. Trust me, that is saying a lot.

I get about 3.5 hr from a single charge with the WLAN active, internal graphics, and all accessories turned off except the sound card. I consider this time to be great. Hell, my Latitude had a secondary battery and only managed 5.5 hr. Maybe the LED backlight makes a big difference? Who knows.

To tell you the truth, if I have one nit to pick with the battery so far, it's that it takes a long time to charge — longer than my Dells, it seems.

I don't understand your concern with proprietary hardware. I wouldn't expect a mobile computer to have any internal non-proprietary swappable components other than the hard drive and the RAM.

Also, just my 2 cents, but I wouldn't go for the slower processor for the sole purpose of trying to eek out a few more minutes of battery life. With all this SpeedStep processor throttling and whatnot, the amount of time that the processor is going to be running above, say, 5—10% is negligible. Just a guess, but at those low speeds, the difference in power usage between the slowest and the fastest processor is minimal. On the other hand, for those few times when it is doing something that has it pegged at 100%, you'll be glad you have the faster version. Also, consider that the faster processor gets the job done quicker, so it is running at 100% for less time, which possibly makes up for the fact that it uses more energy at a given percentage.

Yes, the bloatware was annoying. But that's going to be a problem with any manufacturer these days. (If any manufacturers are reading this, take a hint.) Anyway, first I uninstalled it all. But you always have that nagging feeling that there are "remnants". Then, I came here and read about how to make recovery DVDs and do a clean install, which I did. I also reclaimed 5% of my hard drive by deleting the asinine recovery partition. Unfortunately, even with the "clean" install using the recovery DVDs, it still loads Napster which, admittedly, uninstalls cleanly. So, other than Napster, it's as clean as a whistle (save for the Sony drivers, which I don't consider to be bloatware).

I don't think paying for the difference in RAM speeds would be worth it...something about diminishing returns for the price comes to mind. Save the money or use it to get either (a) more RAM, (b) a faster processor, or (c) a hybrid or even solid state hard drive, which, bang-for-the-buck-wise will have more of a positive effect on battery life than any other upgrade. (I'm planning to get one of those, which is why I ordered mine with the smallest hard drive (60 GB).)

 

As someone who just used his recovery partition to restore his laptop (between OS installs --- saved my bacon!!), I always advise not to delete the hidden partition unless you absolutely need that 5%. I'm all for having a slimmed-down laptop, but if you're not going to be immeidatley using the space saved by the partition, it's definitely nice to have multiple restoration option (those being the hidden partition and the recovery disks you can make).

My two bits! I'm pro-partition!

 

I also just bought a viao sz440. I have been using dell bricks for years.
Proprietary concerns:
I dont know about hardware ( i changed the 60gb with a 160gb (great deal on newegg) just yesterday. Other than that, i don't really foresee doing any major upgraded as the processor and memory are pretty much maxed out.
Speed diff:
677Mhz to 533Mhz will NOT be a major difference. I got to admit, i expected a machine with 2Ghz and 2Gb memory to run vista like butter, but the problem is not with the hardware, but with the software, Software is not well written to utilize dual cores yet. Hopefully in the near future we will see an significant improvement.
Battery:
Its not what marketing says, i get about 3.5hrs with WLAN and stamina mode. I have a ready power source at places i use the laptop the most so this is not a concern for me. I am planning on getting the larger capacity battery later this year. This of course is WAY better than <1 hr i used to get on my dell inspiron.
Software:
This is where it SUCKS! The bloatware is pretty crappy. And if you accidentally remove some of the magangment software, stuff stops working. Also with the dual video card, you have to make sure whatever works for one does not accidentally affect the other. My advise, whenever you get rid of stuff, make sure all the other things work and do a system restore. System restore every time you find its all working. Also, when i installed my new drive, i tried to do a fresh install and a LOT of stuff did not work even after installing all the drivers from sony website. Knowing this might happen i had made an image of my old drive using BootIT NG and happliy restored it. Moral: Do system restore checkpoint often as necessary.
Customer service:
Not too good, i only contacted them online via web chat, and the person at the other end did not know what he was saying. But i managed through this forum to solve my problem.
Overall:
The size and build of this laptop is like no other! although i am ashamed to say it, this is truly the mac of the pc world

 

Customer Service - If it's a business customer, Sony has a dedicated B2B customer support line which is terrific and will take care of you and your customer. They take care of me and my customers.

 

This is also a reason to keep the recovery partition! You can easily find and reinstall any preinstall applications through the VAIO recovery application (at least you could through XP --- haven't tried anything other than a complete recovery with Vista).

 

It's almost worthless, actually. With the higher clockspeed comes greater latency. Look around for some benchmarks. They failed to impress me and if I remember correctly, it actually slowed down some apps which depend on memory latency.

 

overall i am happy with all about the computer sz4vwn and impressive looks and it is light.

if you get memory stick pro duo (extreme III 4gb from sandisk) then it should really hop using readyboost

video memory ddr is lowered to 64MB (from 128MB in other series sz1 to sz3)in the video card although you get more available memory that is taken from sys mem
hopefully that helps

 

I recommend reading this post before purchasing a Sony SZ laptop.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=118268

 

No. The Nvidia 7400 has always been 64MB dedicated since SZ1 series. I've used both SZ370 & SZ381. Both of them shows as 64MB dedicated & the rest pulled from system RAM (using Windows XP).

 

Why does Sony install such low amounts of Vram? I thought a NVIDIA 7400 video card runs best with at least 128 MB of dedicated Vram and many other laptops manufacturers install 256 MB of Vram with video cards of 7400 and higher.

 

1. The memory runs at 533MHz even if you get 667MHz. So you literally won't get any benefit from buying 667MHz RAM.
2. Vista is fine on my SZ90 with a Core Duo (not C2D) 2.16 and 3GB of RAM.
3. I only have the extended battery and get anywhere from 6 - 9 hours depending on usage. Best battery life I've ever had from a notebook.
4. Sony Japan (mine is a Japanese model) has great support (got it through an importer who deals with them). If you look at this forum people's experiences with Sony in other areas (USA, EU) vary widely from horrid to terrific.

Just my .02. The SZ has been my best laptop to date.

 

How did you pull off 3GB of ram? Or is it a typo?

 

1+2=3

Homer Jay Thompson

 

Yes, I figured that. My question was the SZ actually use 3GB of RAM? I thought it was limited to 2GB.

 

The VAIO SZ has 2 slots for ram. He probably bought it installed with a 1 GB chip and later installed a 2 GB chip.

Edit: Oh, now I get your question. I think current laptops can use closer to 3 GB of ram. I know most laptops cannot use 4 GB of ram yet.