To ALL the New Z Owners...

Also show one that doesn't get as hot as it. Also show me one that offers 128GB + SSD for the price..... Lots of things that make the Z unique.

 

I'll let you know when the 3820T comes out from Acer.

 

no optical drive and it doesn't exist yet. let's see what it's like when it does.

BTW it doesn't match the weight (not even close)...so keep trying.

 

I think if we tell him he absolutely is not allowed to get one, he will run out and buy one tomorrow.

Otoh if we tell him it's a great laptop and he should not miss the opportunity to buy one at any cost, he will make it a point to list the myriad reasons why he would never even consider it, not in a million years

Personally, I favor that we keep telling him how awesome our Z's are so that way he can't have one.

 

Actually it does exist, just not to the US market. Optical drive at least for me is kinda useless. You're paying a premium for the Z and would be silly not to have better design aspects such as screen quality and lighter weight.

 

Just looking for my money's worth.

 

You know those public washrooms where you can blow-dry your hands? I wonder if our Vaio Z can actually do that...

 

Not sure if that would make your a masochist or bipolar? Or worst: are you a thirteen year old girl? Like, omg, whatever?

 

IDK my BFF Vaio?

 

Yep, you're right: reverse psychology works well on teenagers ! (and my cat... sometimes... )

 

Multiple times a week.

 

My wife borrows it to dry her hair: some 1080p windowed Adobe Flash straight out of the shower then some ligher Modern Warfare 2 for the finishing touches

This beauty has more functions than a Swiss army knife! Victorinox, eat your heart out !

 

Are you sick of your Tea/Coffee going cold while you work away? Sony has a solution for you!

Does it blow enough hot air that it can levitate? Maybe like a harrier jump jet or something?

 

If I read its specs correctly its SSD component appears to be quite small (80GB).

 

It works on my dog and husband sometimes too

BTW, I timed the boot up this morning to finger print reader it is was around 18 seconds. Once I did the fingerprint reader is was only a couple seconds before I could use it. So it is less than 30 seconds once you do a clean install and get rid of windows crapware too.

Me too. Moving files from Work PC to this PC, installing stuff, playing games that require a CD at playtime, etc. I couldn't live without an optical drive, it would just be a pain in the butt and I am not willing to pay money for a PC and then have to lug around external drives. Not worth it. The whole point of this PC for me that it was light and portable, adding on extra external thing no longer makes it as portable.

 

Me three, I'm in planes a lot and constantly watch DVDs (now BluRay in HD glory on the screen with great noise cancellation! Nirvana !). And before somebody says I could just copy them locally or carry them on USB keys, I buy a lot of them randomly, as I travel, in the airport.

'nuff said.

 

It would have been interesting to see what could the Z could have looked like without the optical drive.

 

About the same, but with a HDD option.

In all seriousness... probably a tad thinner and lighter, and maybe with headphone jacks on the side, but I doubt the footprint would change much.

 

Is the fan the only thing that prevented the new Vaio Z from slimming her already muscular waistline any further? It looks like the fan itself is pretty cutting-edge in terms of heat dissipation...

 

I'm very dissapointed with one thing in the new Z: The FullHD screen.

Besides the problem with diagonal lines (not shown below), which is another long story, look at this backlight uniformity shots:





Whites are TERRIBLE. You can see 20-40% difference from the middle of the screen to the bottom half when you look at it straight forward. Move your white cursor over the pic to the center of the screen, you can see that the color is very similar. Now move it around to the edges. There is a LOT of difference.

 

Endeavour1934 thanks for sharing with us the pics. I can't see the diag lines in the first pic. Maybe its due to the crap quality of my 19" Dell lcd monitor.

Can anyone post a picture of their regular Z screen for comparison?

 

Diagonal lines are visible here.



Quoting another user:

On the Full HD Screen they're more visible at 40Hz (battery saving mode), even on still images. At 59 or 60Hz you can see them only on moving images.

But I'm far more worried about the uneven backlight.

 

I've played with a friend of mine's Z and will probably be purchasing one.

Laptops have diminishing returns. Is a $2000 laptop twice as good as a $1000 one? Of course not. You can't expect perfection even at 3k-4k... just less drawbacks.

Why am I going to pay that much? I'm lucky to have the money and I use my laptop 10hrs a day for both work and play.

It makes no sense for me to pay LESS for an inferior product when I use that product so much.

 

I'm disappointed that it has the same line issues like the last gen Z.

Having to put forth more than 4 grand for a laptop, you'd expect Sony to fix the screen issues from the previous Z line. I'm not that concerned about the backlight issue. Minimum leakage. My XPS m1330 had some major leakages.

 

Well, I think I can live with the lines, they don't bother me as much as I expected as they are a bit less visible compared to previous Z. But the big problem with this screen is uniformity. Not light leakage-- that's not big deal either.


Screen backlight uniformity, divided in 9 zones

The problem is the photo of the white screen in the previous post: the difference in brightness wasn't caused by camera flash, the screen just looks like that. And it's terrible, because straight on you can see the bottom half very dark, and if you open the screen a bit more to see the botton half more illuminated, then the upper half becomes dark.
This shouldn't be a problem if you use your laptop 25in+ away from the screen, but as you come closer, the angle between your eyes and the different zones of the screen changes and the lower side of the screen becomes dark.
And if you have a 1920x1080 13.1in screen you're probably going to watch it from less thn 25in away, to be able to appreciate all the detail.

Engineers at Sony should have seen this coming and used a 8bit IPS panel. But they chose to use a 6bit TN panel with laughable viewing angles. There isn't any sweet spot to watch this screen from, there's always a noticeable gradient in brightness.
What's the point in advertising 95% Adobe RGB covering if the screen backlight uniformity is so bad you can't use it for photo manipulation?

Also the black levels are bad. Probably around 0.7-1 cd/m2 in full brightness. Which is a shame. Until now Sony VAIOs were known amongst other things for they superb screen quality. Not anymore. Almost all of their models now have mediocre blacks and contrast levels.
New Z is worse than the latest old Zs (as some of this forum users said). The new S is worse than the old SR. It's ironic that the only good quality display is the one on VAIO F because it's still CCFL, I believe.

New S
Black level: 0.96 cd/m2
Contrast: 203:1
Old Z
Black level: 0.71 cd/m2
Contrast: 400:1
Old SR
Black level: 0.54 cd/m2
Contrast: 457:1
White Macbook
Black level: 0.43 cd/m2
Contrast: 756:1

Way to go, Sony

 

You're still keeping the Z right?

 

I don't understand why spending $4000 entitles you to have technology that doesn't exist yet.

 

Yes, but planning to sell it as soon as any other brand releases a 1600x900 13inch laptop (here in Spain HP didn't sell the hi-res version of the Envy 13, so I'm out of luck)
Also I was thinking to change it for the old SR, but they don't sell that model anymore.

Yes, I know the other Z advantages (weight, resolution, battery life, etc), but this screen (lack of) uniformity is killing me.

The problem is it really does exist. There are much nicer screens in other laptops (envy 13, macbook pro) without any of the problems the Z has.

Also I find laughable that in order to not see those defects you have to watch the screen far away. It's like buying a laptop full of scratchs and Sony saying: hey, if you look at it 30ft away it looks perfect!

 

The screen doesnt bother me...although I thought my low res screen in previous Z was better.

I can tell you it's better than "nearly" every other panel out there. I'm sure the color uniformity is impacted by how darn thin they made it.

I didn't know apple offered 1080P screen? And I thought (not confirmed) ENVY 13 used the same panel?

 

Yes, for most people this won't be a problem. If you're a gamer, a businessman, a person who just watches movies and browses the web... it won't bother you. But if you're a graphic designer or a photographer, this laptop is not for you.

VAIO screens used to be among the best, but with price cuts also came lower quality components. My old SZ screen had better uniformity, although it wasn't as bright. SR screen was better than the new S, and I'm pretty sure the old Z was also better than the new one.

Apple doesn't offer anything higher than 1280 in their 13" laptops, but in all the other important technical specs they are just better. It's a fact. Sony had the SR just a few months ago which also was very good. Now they don't have anything that can match the display quality of Apple's lower end laptop.

 

Coming from a MacBook Pro 13", I'm stunned to see that so many of you feel that the former offers a higher-quality display than the new Vaio Z. Personally, I'm in love with what it's capable of, with my single complaint being the limited vertical viewing angle. But it's little more than a tip of the display back further and for me the problem is solved. Now of course, I'm no graphic artist so I'm probably not qualified to be the judge on the display's true merits, but holding them side-by-side, the Z won.

Other than that, I certainly do appreciate the wild performance, even though the amount of heat generated is more than I'm used to (although this is coming from someone who had previously only used notebooks with integrated graphics systems.) Although considering that my Latitude D430 with its lowly 1.33GHz Core 2 Duo could break 90C on the die, the Z's components hovering around 80C under load is reassuring that the cooling system is definitely doing its job.

Was it worth the price? Definitely not. In fact, I'd sell it in a heartbeat if I could find a trust-worthy buyer (VPCZ118GX/S, if you're out there.) But then I would be left without a laptop that fulfills everything I want since there is really nothing comparable to the new Z now that current-gen mid-range graphics are standard.

 

There is also the problem with the fan noise. It's not loud at all (on light use), but the tone is very irritating.
Change this and the screen and the laptop is perfect.

The palmrest is perfectly fine. In fact I'm pretty sure that my watch is going to ruin the aluminum edge sooner than the plastic palmrest.

 

Oh no I was referring just to the diagonal lines problem, which seems like a limitation of LED backlighting technology. I agree the unevening lighting should be much improved.

 

I hear a lot about fan noise. I have ZERO fan noise in mine during normal use. If I put my ear right up against the exhaust all I hear is air hitting my ear.

Now if I push it hard/game then I can hear it...but no annoying noise, just the normal fan sound like other machines make.

I have the core i5. I wonder if it's a core i7 thing? or maybe a defect that only affects some?

 

People have different levels of hearing. Most people with bad hearing don't even know they have it, and think that they hear just fine, when they can't even hear the whine from an incandescent lightbulb or the buzz of a mosquito. What I'm trying to say is that unless you have been tested recently, not only for range but for volume, it may be that you don't hear the fan because you don't hear those particular frequencies at those particular volume levels.

 

AFAIK the diagonal lines only appear on LED displays which use PWM to adjust backlight intensity. Not every LED screen uses that method, but is preferred in order to make the screen lid thinner.

Mine is an i5 also. Anyone else can confirm that some Z don't have that annoying noise?
Looks like I got the worst unit

 

Hmm...what I meant was that I thought using PWM is a necessity for dimming due to limitations of LED backlighting technology. I thought it wasn't possible to dim LED backlights any other way. Do you know of LED backlit screens that don't use PWM for dimming?

 

I don't know the tech specs, but LED Macbooks don't have diagonal lines. So it's possible to make a LED screen without such effect.

 

I believe the MacBooks also use PWM with their LED screens, and a quick search revealed there are people complaining about patterns and flickering with those screens too.

 

I agree that people have different levels of hearing, however I use mine in a business settings, in an acoustically sealed conference room and at times the room is pin-drop quiet. I can tell you that I go long stretches without the fan creating any noise and it's sitting in front of me. I've -never- had it create problematic levels of noise, where as my XPS 1210, Thinkpads T43, T60, X200 all were clearly audible.

I don't know if it's a setting or a component problem, but mine simply doesn't create noise under Word/Outlook/Firefox/Wifi type usage. Gaming it certainly does and it's higher pitched than the XPS 1210, which is more annoying even if it's probably a lower decibel level.

 

How did you find complaints for Apple products? Does Apple have those people kicked before news gets out?

 

But they also say that Apple replaces "defective" Samsung screens with AUO screens that don't show the lines. Sony doesn't.

Also, I find curious that the lines run in opposite direction (/) from the Sony screens (\). That may be the cause why I'm not seeing then on MBs (and other people not seeing them on VAIOs). Because not everyone is sensible to the same frequencies. In fact I can see the lines on the new Z more clearly with my left eye

 

Fair enough but incidentally I have had my hearing checked recently and am also a bit of an audio nut. I can hear a tube tv from the next room even if it's muted (the high pitched noise they make).

My Z is silent/near silent. I suspect there is a configuration option causing the noise with others and/or some defective part or design change.

 

Well, I'm not the owner of one, but we got a couple of them in for our CFO, and I have to say, I'm impressed. The machine is light, fast, and perfect in almost every way. I am not a fan of the keyboard, but other than that, its one of the most impressive machines I have toyed around with. The only downside to it is that we had to load XP on it, since we arent moving to W7 in our environment yet. I'm still playing around with it some, but so far, I like.

 

Is it so hard for people to possible come to the conclusion that some fans make more noise then others...

 

Apparently yes it is! ;-)

 

Another two photos showing the problem with brightness.

13in away from the screen:



Very bad readability on the lower half of the screen. Huge differences in brightness.

As you go away from the screen it becomes more uniform, up to...

25in away from the screen:



Aceptable, TN+CCFL-like, but at that distance unreadable at 100% font size. At 125% you have to force your eyes a bit to read.

 

I have a warning to people. If you buy a new technology expect it to have issues. Does any other computer/device have a fullHD 13" screen? I would say that this is the first device ever to have that sort of screen, and to do that Sony would have had to make certain trade off's. That is why I am not getting the FullHD, because I don't care for new tech as much as I care about good tech . I hope that the next generation of Vaio will increase the screen quality enough to stop the complaining.

 

But if you're paying around $4,000, you'd expect Sony to have spent more time in R&D and testing the FullHD 6bit (doh!) panels. They should have at least got the 8bit panel for the FullHD but even then, that might not even solve the uneven backlighting and gradient line issues. The screens on the old Z were the same way.

 

And 95% AdobeRGB, don't forget that.
Maybe it's also a feature targeted at businessmen: "Now your pie charts will have 3x flashier colors!"

Anyway, we need OLED displays for the next Z!