Upgrades

Is it possible to upgrade from the intel i3 processor to the intel i5 or i7 processor and would doing so violate the warranty? Would upgrading the ram violate the warranty?

 

hardware upgrades usually voids waranty unless its done so by a qualified sony technician at the sony centre. Which of course, means buying sony approved parts and paying extra fees for them to perform the upgrade.
Now the fees depends on the parts, for ram, prob not too bad..but still WAY more expensive than doing it yourself, as for CPU upgrade, it will most likely cost 1/2 of the laptop price if not more (if its possible to change at the centre, most likely is that they will take your laptop in and give you a 'new / refurb' one with the better spec cpu.)

So unless your warranty are gone, I would hold back on the upgrades.
As for ram, its easy, usually couple of screws then a matter of buying a matching pair to your desire size, you may need to check if your laptop can take, for eg, 16gb ram in 2 X 8gb config.

As for CPU, it is possible to change, sony dont usually whitelist the CPU via the bios, most of the time its just a matter of find a suitable cpu and having the same TDP, in your case, a same generation i3, i5 or i7. If my memory serves me right, any i-series cpu with a XXXXu, x denotes number, i3-3217U, it is most likely its embedded to the motherboard (soldered on directly to the motherboard->NOT changeable).

Summary, it is possible to change your i3 to i5 or i7, just make sure you find a suitable cpu, and the TDP matches, 35W to 35W

 

how about the Z1? is the cpu soldered? if not can i upgrade it with higher series...

 

isnt the Z1 an intel pentium M series? the first version (z1v i think) came with a intel pentium m 1.6ghz, then i think subsequent z1w came with a 1.7ghz cpu. the 1.7ghz is the fastest available in the pentium M series. No its not soldered on, but you cant upgrade from pentium M series to core iX series.