To ALL the New Z Owners...

I have noticed that I tend to hear the fan noise more when the notebook is on a hard surface versus my lap, and it seems like it might be slightly louder on battery power versus AC. Just my unconformed obversations at this point.

 

Can't imagine how expensive that'll be!!

 

Of course they do. I believe there are several things that contribute to "fan noise":

- Noise from the bearings. Ball bearings are initially more silent than brush bearings, but as the balls get worn, they start developing a whine.
- Noise from the fan blades cutting the air. Silent propeller technology exists, but is generally unexportable, covered by military export regulations. So while the fans are designed to be low noise, they're not engineered to be silent.
- Fan RPM. The higher RPM, the higher pitch and the higher the volume. But when reducing a fan in size, you have to spin it faster to move the same amount of air.
- The fan casing and grille. Air hitting the fan grille causes quite a bit of the noise you hear. Unlike the fan blades, little or no effort goes into making fan grilles silent.
- Vibrations and harmonics. The vibrations caused by the fan causes other parts of a laptop to vibrate at a harmonic frequency, which increases the amount of noise heard.

All in all, a laptop can be designed to be fairly quiet, but it will cost more, and may not be maintenance free. So in the spirit of consumerism, the fan assembly is going to be the cheapest possible solution (including support costs) which a large majority of consumers are willing to put up with. Sold at the maximum price the consumers are willing to pay.

That said, for a machine out of warranty, it's not that hard to quiet them substantially. A few drops of silicone in strategic places, some rubber washers, and a Dremel can make a lot of difference. By taking a dremel to the fan grilles of a LianLi case I have here, noise dropped by 6 dB. Adding some noise dampening brought it down further.

For a laptop, even sucking out the dust from the air intakes can improve the noise level immensely, as the fans have to work less hard pushing air when the air flow isn't restricted.

 

As an avid Photoshopper, I've been assuming that I would get the full HD display that--unfortunately--is available only on the super-expensive Signature i7 model. I actually tried to order it a couple of times but couldn't because it was out of stock. Now I'm having second thoughts on the desirability of the full HD display. Are there any other photographers who've used the 1600 x 900 display and can put my mind at ease about it as a less expensive (and currently available) alternative to the full HD?

 

i have a vaio FW model with the 1920x1080 screen. I will admit its beautiful, but if i am further than 3 feet away from it i cant read it, and i have better then 20/20 vision and the screen of the FW is twice as large as the screen on the Z.
If you use win7, u can custom DPI scale it so its not that big an issue.
I have to use XP tho, since i have legacy x86 programs that i need to be able to run for my job, any sony no longer is supporting 32-bit drivers for windows 7, only 64-bit.

That being said....in winXP, i constantly have problems reading text and such at the 1920x1080 resolution on the larger monitior.
My Z11 running 1600x900 (which i also runo XP on) looks great and i have NO need to fool with text size or DPI scaling.

I dont regret getting the higher rez on my FW, since really its acceptable either way and i wanted something to match the external monitors resolution (also 1920x1080). But the 1600x900 would have been fine as well.
I thank the lord i didnt get 1920x1080 on my Z model tho. its just too small unless u sit 6 inches from the screen to be able to read text.

And for all those still debating, the 1600x900 is absolutely the PERFECT resolution, IMHO, because its high enough to view entire documents without scrolling, but not so high as to force you to squint in order to read anything.

 

oh yeah, one other thing NEVER GET ANY LAPTOP WITH THE (1280x800 or 1366x768) display on a (sub-15 inch) laptop. OEM's have somehow managed to convince the public that the LOWEST available resolution on a modern computer is somehow an "HD display". Its the biggest load of sh!t they have made up since they started claiming the intel integrated graphics are just as good as an ATI video card.

1200x800/1366x768 is NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT a HIGH DEFINITION DISPLAY, its the LOWEST resolution available (not including the netbooxs and other sub-13 inch devices, obviously) and we all need to start contacting these OEM's and setting them straight, letting them know that they are not fooling anyone, and only creating an active opposition consisting of people who would rather be their customers

 

i own a fw290 with the 1920x1080 display, and a Z witht he 1600x900, and i prefer the Z . its juwt easier to read. Their are other considerations tho, such as matte/glossy options, full gamut color spaces, n the like, so makew sure u do a lot of reasearch

 

I use Photoshop Lightroom quite a bit, and must say that the 1600x900 display is far from ideal. Not because of the resolution, but because it's a 6-bit display that's also more vivid than colour correct. Retouching becomes difficult, especially for dark shades, and it's also hard to say how anything will look printed. The viewing angle of TN displays doesn't help either -- a colour may (and usually will) look different on the top of the screen from the bottom.
I believe the new 1920x1080 screen is similar in that regard.

Few laptops are ideal for Photoshop work, and the Z is, I'm afraid, not one of them. It's great for DTP, though -- higher DPI means better WYSIWYG.

If you at all can, buy a standalone 8-bit monitor to use with Photoshop, plus a hardware calibration device (like an EyeOne).

 

I have an EyeOne Display 2 calibrator, so I hope that will help with color accuracy. I was concerned about uneven brightness. From what I've read, the full HD screen is less bright than the 1600x900, but I suspect the unevenness isn't much, if any, different.

 

1280x720 is one of standard HD modes (called 720p60) and fits into 1366x768 just fine. Laptops with 1920x1080 are Full HD (or 1080p60). Blame video industry for coming up with such a wide range of resolutions that can be called HD. Don't blame laptop manufacturers.

 

I guess you will be willing to shell out 4000$ only for something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H0K1k54t6A

This is not even laptop any more. Rolltop design is based on flexible OLED screen and maybe even wireless electricity transfer . If only they allowed Tesla to finish his Wardenclyffe Tower

 

I'm not sure I understand your point. For example I have a Vaio TX with a 1366x768 display on an 11.1" screen. The pixel size is about the same as my Z11 with its 1600x900 display.
But you are saying that I should be DEMANDING something else (although it is not clear to me, from your post, what exactly it is that I should be demanding, more resolution? less resolution?).

Also. The original HD resolutions were 1920x1080 as well as 1280x720 so, if for some reason it is important for someone to be able to say that their laptop is HD then anyone with such a laptop would in fact be able to say that (although I don't really often hear people running around proclaiming that kind of thing).

But, those ARE both HD by definition.

I seem to recall the original HD parameters were based on something like: Given that a reasonably good eyeball can resolve about 1 minute of arc and given the viewing distance at which a display fully occupies our field of vision, what pixel resolution would give us this effective resolution. Then assumptions were made about viewing angle being like 30 or 45 degrees or some such amount. The result was two compromise values that were defined for TV broadcasts, that met the criteria: 1920x1080i and 1280x720p
So, in other words, an attempt was made to define a resolution where, at a comfortable viewing distance, we would not see the pixels themselves (a far cry from NTSC by comparison) . That's all HD really is then in the end, a resolution ggod enough that you don't really see the pixels.

 

http://www.zshare.net/download/74721767f35560e9/
Fan noise recorded with my iPhone - it's in some sort of quicktime format, so if you don't have quicktime/itunes installed it won't play properly (or play at all).

Anyone else with the same noise?

For non-owners, note that this is only audible in a completely quiet room. Somewhere else you won't hear anything coming out of the laptop. Even the slightest of environmental noise would mask the Z.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/04/samsung-expecting-oled-laptops-in-q3-2010/
if this is true, OLED laptops are coming very soon.

 

Anything greater than 700 horizontal lines of resolutions IS IT IS IT IS IS (to mock ilikepancakes) high definition.

Just because you don't "like" that resolution or you don't feel it's high enough doesn't mean it's not HD. It is HD.

 

But, seriously now. I have read the first part of your post like five times. I am still not sure if you are saying that we should be DEMANDING more resolution or less resolution from the dastardly OEM people (I can read it both ways). You seem so emphatic on the point that I feel I should be clear when I am ready to make the OEM hear my demands (or in case he asks)

 

No offense to anyone but I'm amazed that the debates on fan noise can get so "big." I personally think that if you think the fan noise is too much for you, get the fan or notebook replaced. If it still bothers you after the replacement, then unfortunately, you will probably have to look for an alternative notebook, which I really doubt is going to be better in most cases.

Lastly, I'll humbly share what I think of fan noise:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=6086640&postcount=2678

 

I know there a few reviews out there, but when do you suspect more reviews
/analysis will surface?

Do you think it has to do people just finally getting their hands on the hardware now and also just how popular the Z is (equaling harder to get)?

 

Manufacturers calling 1280x720 screens "HD" or "HD+" like it's something special - when before they were just a "basic screen", is in my opinion misleading. Sure it's technically accurate - that's why they aren't being sued over it. But it's designed to be misleading, to make someone think they're getting something special when they're not. I was running 1024x768 on a 14" CRT back in the early 90's - 1280x720 nearly 20 years later doesn't seem like that much of a technical improvement!

It's as bad as people that sell "HDTV/digital-ready" antennas. Yeah, guess what, you can take a UHF antenna from the 1950's and it'll pick up HDTV just as well!

 

It's not just resolution, aspect ratio also makes these screens HD. For many people it's important to know that can watch HD movies on laptop screen. That's it. Geeks like us that care about actual resolution can just look it up in the laptop specs and decide whether it is "HD enough" for our purposes. Don't see any problem there. It's not like vendors are hiding actual screen resolution.

 

Well, it's true that computer monitors have always had better resolution than tv screens. Now that TV's are just basically using computer monitors, we are starting to see some of the marketing terms from video coming into computers. I am not bothered by this. Technically they are not lying. As you point out computer screens have been that good for decades.

What I AM bothered by is this: Now that all all those TV's are being produced to the 1080p standard. Guess what pixel resolution is the one being manufactured in Ginormous quantities? That's right 1920x1080.

This means that 1920x1200 computer monitors are becoming scarce and expensive. It is irritating to have to buy a 24" 1920x1080 monitor for a computer when 1680x1050 gives you basically the same number of lines.

 

This was really my point. Sure 720p TECHNICALLY is a standard HD resolution, but thats it. I can count on one hand the available 13 inch laptops with a higher resolution. From what i understand, nearly all lcd panels are made by 1 or 2 sources (please correct me if i'm wrong), and a few years back there was a shortage of higher resolution lcd's because of this. When the general public kept buying laptops anyway, OEM's realized that they could get away with selling the cheapest LCD's, calling them "HD", and people would blindly go along with the deception.

Just to clarify something as well, ANYONE who would take the time to even read these posts, let alone post their own thread, is not someoneone i would lump into the "general public" category. I would consider EVERYONE here at least some level of enthusiast.

Also, BEAUPS...I know, I know, thats my point, yeah, technically it is HD, but technically a dial-up modem gets you the same access to the internet as a cable modem....which one would YOU choose.

 

The accurate marketing phrase for this sort of aspect ratio would be "widescreen", which is even what they used up until someone realized they could start calling them HD and latch onto the HDTV craze.

I do think it's a disservice to switch computers to using 16x9. I'm going to miss 16:10 after it's dead and buried (which seems like a couple years at most - glad I bought two high-end NEC 24" IPS monitors last fall).

You know what someone needs to do? Bring out a 1600x1200 21" 4:3 monitor (again). Why? Because they could call it IMAX!

 

There are many considerations to high res panels besides cost. First things first. There are closer to 8 panel manufacturers.

That said, 1600x900 on my Z is great, but a little too high for my taste. I know I can increase font size but not everything scales. I preferred my 1366x768 resolution on my last Z.

Secondly, I'm fairly certain that more pixels = more gpu horsepower required (or lower framerates) = more power comsumption.

 

To be accurate, the report from the Sony Z owners' thread is that the fan in it is on all the time. When the CPU is driven hard, the fan speed goes up, but the fan is atually on all the time.

Probably not so much caused by the CPU, but the additional discrete GPU that they have in there.