Vaio Z production has ceased with no successor.

I have a feeling with the introduction with the 13" Retina MacBook Pro the Z is either going to need to introduce a kickass feature along with a Retina display or it won't come back as an ultra-high end device.

Kinda sad but true. I like the Z more than the Pro lineup although I own a Pro, the 2011 Z had a few problems I wasn't comfortable with depending on, if I was a freshman in 2012 I would have gone for the quad-core Z.

 

What about the z3 having a bigger cooling vent worries you?

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There is a scroll bar at the top; just under Compare VAIO Series and above DUO. Scroll over and the Z appears!

 

Which vents on the Z3 are bigger? Bottom?
Probably bigger vents due to the quad core processor.

 

If you have use for a quad-core CPU, Z3 is definitely a noticeable upgrade compared to Z2.

Also, GPU in the Ivy Bridge is a good upgrade compared to Sandy Bridge GPU - it is actually making the underpowered AMD GPU in the PMD pretty much pointless.

As for the Z series discontinuation - it is quite sad to see it go, I for myself had all generations of Z. But, it is not unexpected at all, Sony is in a bad shape financially and Z cannot be profitable the way they do it - furthermore, all the technological advancements such as PMD, Sony keeps proprietary essentially killing them in the process (same mistake they keep on repeating).

 

the z2 worries me since the z3 has a much larger cooling vent and that indicated a problem to me with the z2

this is why i dont think i would want too purchase a z2 for $895 along with the fact that the ssd is proprietary and if anything fails im screwed.

also the retina display does not have as good color as the vaio Z hd panel.

 

To be fair the Z2 didn't come with a quad-core CPU, so heat was less of an issue there. The old i7 in it is roughly equivalent to the new i5 3320M. Fan noise was more of a problem than heat.

 

Wife has a Z2, I have a SVZ, I haven't noticed any reason to worry about the vent size on the Z2 Her's has the i7-2620M.

 

So now that the rMBP13 is out, $1699 for i5-3210M, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD with 2560x1600 at 3.6 lb, compared to $1599 SVZ1311 for i5-3210M, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD with 1920x1080 at 2.5 lb, what's everyone's take on rMBP13 vs. SVZ1311?

 

For me, no GPU = deal killed. At least Sony still has the Vaio S13 to lean on, today. But with the recent (and dissapointing, to me) Apple announcements, I guess the days of mobile powerhouses are comming to an end, all for marginal variations in, "mobility."


EDIT: Dissapointing, since the rMBP13 is nothing more than a MBA 13 with retina. It likely also dropped the SPDIF optical line out the rMBP15 dropped, too. No GPU, even with the removeal of the ODD? The iPad mini is a shrunken iPad 2... just as the iPad 4 is launched. The Mac mini is now neutered, again with no GPU. At least the iMac now has *some* justification over buying a Mac Mini + Thunderbolt display.

 

When I look at the pictures in this SVZ13 review:
Review Sony Vaio SV-Z1311Z9EX Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews
and compare them with my i7 Z2 I see no size difference in size of the vent holes and/or fan inlet.

 

you know i think you are right.. i swear i remember looking at the two and seeing the new one having a much bigger vent...

hmm, so its really not that bad.

the SSD still concerns me though, ugh, i feel if it didnt have that proprietary SSD i would 100% get one.. arg.

 

The customizable Z is still available on the Canadian Sony site - with Windows 7, but it has the new 3632QM CPU. Odd...

 

The main thing I was sad about my z3 missing was VT-d (virtualization for devices) - it looks like one version of this newer processor has it. If this z3 has that processor, I wonder if it has VT-d.

- Tim

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I guess it would, then. My i5 3320M has it.

 

Strange that the higher-end model I got with the i7 doesn't have it (they chose an i7 without it for some reason).

And yet stranger, as you mention, that the Canada site has a model with the 3632QM, which does have it.

I wonder how stock that contained the newer chip got created, but is only available in some countries, if they're discontinuing the model. Almost makes me want to get another one and sell my current one... it would almost be worth it for when I need virtualization.

Sony is so weird. :-/

- Tim

 

I think that is because the only 35W quad Intel made at the time, didn't support it.

 

there's VT-x, but not VT-d. I haven't seen really anything on the consumer side that can make use of VT-d?

 

Well, I had heard that VT-d is very useful in doing screen updates in virtual machines, but especially if not in full-screen mode. I'm not sure how that effects it, but supposedly when a virtual machine is running in a less-than-full-screen window, VT-d helps because it can do mass memory operations natively (and perhaps talk directly to the graphics hardware).

- Tim

 

VT-d allows the VM to access the host's I/O directly rather than going through the hypervisor. Basically it increases the VM's performance by making its use of the host's hardware more efficient.

 

this is correct. but nothing supports it - it's not as simple as the way it's described. afaik vmware/xen do not support vt-d for consumer sw (which is what you're using).

 

Doing a little research, it looks like Xen supports it; not sure which version of Xen (if there is a free vs non-free version, and one supports it and one doesn't, for example). Also, of course, the chipset has to support it, and video devices are supposed to have to support FLR (Function Level Reset), and not all video devices do... don't know how that works when you're using onboard video.

- Tim

 

Virtualbox will support it "soon" on Linux.

 

I'm hoping that they are just coming out with a new model e.g. ZX or some such thing. I recommend the Z to all the execs I support and everyone balks about the price and then falls in love with the thing.