Vaio Z in USA with 500 GB traditional HDD inbuilt?

Hey all,

So I was at Best Buy the other day pawing some laptops, and I noticed a Vaio Z without an optical drive, but with a HDD installed instead. I know some of the overseas configurations include this option, but I wasn't aware it was possible to acquire in the US. I would very much love this option without having to perform the mod myself as it would allow me to very easily install my own SSD with TRIM support so I have one less thing to worry about with my Sony machine (and thus one step further from their rock-bottom warranty "support") should I at some point still decide to purchase one.

Thanks for any help!

 

Just out of curiosity, how long do you plan on keeping the Z? As far as I know aren't SSD degradation and TRIM really only concerns after a long long time?

I have read about poor warranty support, but I feel that may be specific to those outside the US. My experiences with **US** Sony warranty have been really positive. Much better than any other company's support.

In my experience
* More often than not, Sony sends a tech to your house for in-home repairs and no downtime
* If Sony can't fix your issue, they buy back or replace your machine... that's how I upgraded from my last gen Z to my current Z for free.

 

Are you sure it's the VPC-Z and not the VGN-Z? The VGN-Z's are still very much around, i never actually played with a VPC-Z until i got mines, instead i played with a VGN-Z and told myself it'd be slightly thinner, lighter and much more powerful. AFAIK, there is no way to get a HDD VPC-Z other than importing it.

 

you sure it was a Z? the S series doesnt have a tray button on the side and comes with a 500gb drive

there is no Z series sold at best buy with no optical drive.

pics or it didnt happen

 

It's still there, so I may ride by and give it a look if I have time this week, as well as take some snapshots. It was most certainly a Z, and a Z13 to boot if the associated tag and spec sheet were to be believed. The model completely matched everything about the new Zs that I am familiar with, and the Device Manager listed the parts as such. I handled a Z13 at CES this year just a couple of weeks ago, and this was the same thing, minus the optical drive and SSD.

It most certainly was not an S also; they're much thicker, and one was actually being displayed adjacent to this.

It was puzzling, because upon looking up the model number on the Best Buy website, the price matched, but the specs showed the usual SSD array and optical drive, which is what I do not want. To answer sonus, I'm planning on keeping it at least for three years, and using it heavily for video and audio editing... so I need reliability and quick storage that will not degrade. The SSD performance topic here on notebookreview does not provide encouraging results in the last few pages to indicate long-term reliability.

I hope there's a way I can work this out...

 

I just wanted to follow up and say that (unsurprisingly) you guys were 100% correct. The model I saw was indeed fitted with an optical drive; I just was unaware of the fact that it didn't have a physical eject button on it (I'd never noticed that before). The sign at Best Buy (also unsurprisingly) was mislabeled to read "120 GB HDD" instead of "128 GB SSD". Shock of shocks.

Sure wish there was an easy way to get an HDD version here in the states...

 

Maybe try an importer?

 

Only thing is:

1) If I get a supplemental warranty through SquareTrade, is it still good if I buy internationally?

and...

2) Who does this? Heh!

 

SHOP Conics : Sony Vaio Type Z up to 2.8GHz Core i7, quad SSD option VPCZ14AHJ VPCZ14AGJ VPCZ14AFJ

There is quite an upmark.

 

Besides Conics, you can try User's Side: Japanese game,figure,PC,electric appliances and mouse pad - USER'S SIDE USA or Portable One.

I speced a 1TB SSD version and it came out to be ~$6700.