Which Sony Z should I get

Guys,
New to this forum, I am in the market for a new Sony Laptop to replace my Mac Book Air, below is what I am looking for;
13 inch screen
Light in weight
Fast processer for editing pictures and movies
Play DVD's (possibly blue Ray)
Email and internet stuff
Budget 2 to 3K
Thanks in advance

 

Do you tend to store most of your stuff in your laptop or in your desktop (if you have one)?

 

Vaio Z....

 

+1 to that. Good luck.

 

Z it up. If you need huge disk space, get a USB drive....

 

On the MBA I am constantly having to delete stuff to get more space so I would guess I need moor than 100 GB

 

There are too many Z's can you recommend one up to 3 grand

 

How does the 1600x900 screen compare to the screen on the Macbook Pro? Does the Z have a glossy screen or matte screen? Does it have that same 'pop' to the screen?

 

Why do you need that? Either just buy the $3000 one, or if you're CTOing, add features as you feel you need them until you hit $3000.

They all have that.

They all are that.

They all have that (yes, the 520M is plenty powerful).

They all have that, but BD is a $450 option on CTO.

They all do that.

They start somewhat cheaper than that.

So I'm afraid I'm really not sure what you're looking for, as every Z priced $3000 or under meets your criteria. And it's up to you to decide how much memory or storage space you'll need.

The Z is a medium matte. Not glossy, not a "milky matte" as most matte screens. Kind of a nice median between the two.

 

OK Great thanks for the reply, so from what you are saying or from what I understand you are saying all the Z's are basiclly the same (look wize and size) the only thing I need to take care of is how big a hard drive and memory that i need and if I need Blue Ray that is an extra............... is that correct???? Also what is CTO?

 

Size-wise all Z Series models are exactly the same. The looks might differ depending on the color and cover material (silver, black premium carbon, glossy premium carbon, silver mosaic).

Hard drive capacity and configuration, processor, memory, operating system, color, battery and optical drive - these are the things you can customize.

CTO = Configure-To-Order. Google is your friend

 

Thanks to everyone for you comments, I will get off the Oil Rig in Angola in about 3 weeks time I will stop off in Singapore and pick up a new Z hopefully with Blue Ray
Thanks

 

I'm probably an odd man out here, but I would recommend against the Z, for multiple reasons:

- 6-bit display (262,000 colours, as opposed to 16.2 million for 8-bit displays)
- Diagonal stripes on display when shifting viewpoint (moving head)
- Bad vertical viewing angle; it's impossible to find a spot where colours at the top of the screen are identical to colours at the bottom, unless you sit 5' away.
- Absolutely horrible built-in speakers. My phone sounds better.
- No way to upgrade the SSDs, which has a proprietary form factor (so even 1.8" SSDs won't fit as replacements). As Sony never comes out with upgrades after a model is released, you'll be stuck with what you buy.
In fact, I can't think of another company that uses as many proprietary solutions as Sony, preventing 3rd party upgrades/maintenance. Apple is a beacon of standardization compared to Sony.
- No way to get a model with both SSD and HD. Nor both HD and DVD.
- In the US, no TPM module. Yes, it's astonishing.
- Audio out connector is on the front, making it uncomfortable to use on the lap, and impossible to use with full size headphones and extended battery (due to the tilt, the adapter won't fit).
- Lack of driver and software support from vendor. (When Windows 7 came out, Sony didn't even provide a workable set of W7 drivers for models sold as little as 6 months earlier. They obviously want you to toss and re-buy new models.)
- Brain-dead "native" Sony utilities. Half of them can't be used if you change the DPI to the correct DPI for the display, and many of them cripple the machine. (If you use SmartWi, for example, you can't be on two networks at the same time. Nor be on a native IPv6 network, which there are going to be lots more of in the future. And for some models, you can't get the WWAN module to work without SmartWi.)
- The hybrid graphics card solution lacks Linux support. (You can get either card to work in Linux, but not both. And have to reboot twice when switching between Linux/Windows)
- Crippled BIOS:
o The models with SSDs can only run in RAID mode (unless you hack the BIOS, which isn't for the faint hearted), which means no TRIM or even wiping the SSDs to get back full performance if they get saturated.
o No boot from EFI. The InsydeH20 BIOS supports this, but Sony removed it in an earlier BIOS upgrade as an attempt to stop people from re-enabling the advanced menu in the BIOS.
o No boot from GPT partitioned drives.
o No other "advanced" BIOS setup features, unless you hack the BIOS.

I've owned a Z since December 2008, and while there certainly are things I like about it, like a decent DPI, decent battery life and fast CPU in a small form factor, there are so many things I dislike that I would not buy it again, nor recommend it.

 

wow.. make me wanna cancel my order now... so much flaws in this Z series. SSD is the concern for me, no point having a fast SSD and slow down in the future

Cant HDDerase tune the performace of SSD back?

 

I would be looking for a " last gen " Z like a Z890, Z899, or Z820. What arth1 says pretty much nails it and is how I feel. I seriously wanted one with the 1920 x 1080 screen via Sony Style but not the Glossy Carbon Signature Series. Then I evaluated the new Z and as a whole just was not as excited about it. While Sony did make some notable improvements in certain areas, a " last gen " Z is still a fantastic choice, and with user friendly options for upgrading makes it at least to me the one to buy.

 

I wouldn't think SSD is a concern. Read times will remain virtually unchanged after multiple read/write cycles. What would slow down in the future is the write speed, but even with the slowdown, the speed would still be faster than a typical 7200rpm hard drive because of RAID 0 configuration. So, in my opinion, this issue is moot. If you want to preserve the speed of the SSD as much as possible, I may recommend adding a memory stick (the fastest speed like the Sandisk Extreme III) in the slot that you will probably never use (unless you have a Sony camera or camcorder) and use it to store temporary internet files, temp files, and a few others that would otherwise thrash the SSD while using the laptop.

 

Basically, just insert a fast memory card to store my files?

I dont get what you mean like temporary internet files? isnt it that goes into my SSD?

Please clarify me. thank you

 

I am not the exprert, so someone can point my ignorance, but anyways here it goes: It does by default, browsers like Internet Explorer and Firefox use the drive to store temporary internet files and cookies; these files are used like cache to speed up internet browsing (i.e. returning to websites you have recently visited). Often, these files will get deleted by themselves (sometimes) and the whole cycle starts again. As for temp files, they appear and disappear when you install programs (just about any programs--even Windows Update (I think)), and temp files automatically disappear after installation is complete.

You can change the settings so that temporary internet files and temp files would be stored in the Memory Stick. I successfully did that on my laptop.

 

How basically did you set it to memoery stick? could you guide me please.

Another question about SSD, if i store every temp file, do i need also to store any microsoft files into the memory rather than SSD to prevent degrading? because when you deleted it gonna store same to your SSD.

So basically mean dont store anything on your SSD putting it into memory card to porlong your SSD right ?!

 

I disagree with those statements.

The screen that is having issues is the Full HD screen. I am yet to hear a complaint against the 1600x### res screen.

Iphone speaker is absolutely horrible. I don't even know how you think that point is valid.

Who cares about proprietary SSD's? What do you know about them? Will they be readily available in the future? Will Sony allow a HDD SSD option at next refresh? These aren't flaws. It would be like saying Why doesn't the dell studio have a better graphics card? It could have, so why doesn't it?

TPM is a massive F#@kup it seems, but a small minority of people actually use it. Still not excusable.

Do you own a Z? Have you plugged headphones in and tried to use it on your lap? I find it nice to have them in the front, because it is easy to find them ports in the dark. I have had 9-10 laptops that had them in the front and it never bothered me.

Has anyone actually put the large battery in adn plugged audio in? I have read every page and lots of people said it was possible it would be an issue, but I haven't seen a picture or anyone actually say it is a problem?

Have you been to the toshiba webpage lately. A poo-p load of laptops don't get driver updates. Just because sony has done it in the past doesn't make it the law. My Vaio NW got a couple of updates to vista from sony a few weeks ago.

Sony utilities are bad, but I have had a lot worse experience with HP's software. Anyone who owns a NC2400 will know what I'm talking about. I don't use smartwi all that much to comment. It connects to wireless network, I surf net, the end.

Linux is an opensource environment. Whether sony supports open source or not is purely up to them. It doesn't offer a linux option, so you can't really call it a flaw.

Now about SSD's and BIOS. There has been a lot of speculation, and I ultimately believe it is a Sony and Intel issue. I have never seen a raid SSD solution any a laptop before, so my guess is Intel is still trying to work out how to make it work. It could be fixed in a week or it may never get fixed. I will get angry at this in around 12-14 months time when my SSD's start to get slow and Sony have no solution. BIOS is for advanced users anyway! Why does it matter if they don't offer EFI out of the box? BIOS's are like small children, they shouldn't been seen or heard (I think that is the saying anyway?)

The Z is a special machine designed for the rich or the enthusiast. I am the enthusiast who knows that if Sony don't do it the community will. The hardware is awesome, I have no doubt about that, it is just the software that needs to catch up.

You have valid points about certain things, but you really need to feel one in real life to understand how magical the device is.

 

I'll get back to you tonight on the steps to set it to memory stick. I don't mean anything--just temporary files. Of course, most programs are relatively permanent, so to me, installing them into SSD is a no-brainer. Say if I want to do photoshopping, my rule-of-thumb is store only finished photos in SSD.

As much as possible, I would simply avoid saving files that will often change or will soon change; that is if the settings allow me to.

 

ok thank you very much for your infro hope to learn from you. I plan to keep everything into my memory stick as much as I can to prevent and drop performance of SSD. till the fix is out

Cheers. A rep for you.

 

I assume you know what Memory Stick I am referring to--if you are thinking about those thumb drives, I don't ever refer to it as memory stick to avoid the confusion. It is Sony's version of an SD card. If you don't have a Sony digital camera or camcorder, the Memory Stick slot is more or less useless, so you might as well use the slot for storing temporary files. I use a Memory Stick because it is pretty much obscured in the laptop once the card is in the slot.

 

yea.. i know it right now im finding a good quality memory card. but sony quite expensive.

Can I store my stuff in External Hd? If i delete from my external HD will it store in my SSD?

 

Store your stuff? Why not? As long as you realize an external hard drive means you have extra item to carry. My solution is in the future, I am hooking a hard drive of at least 2TB to a wireless router via ethernet cable.

I hope someone can answer the second question, because I am wondering about that too.

 

ok thanks, Stumnacht if SSD is degrading is it possible to reformat the whole laptop will it gain performance back?

 

^ I will leave that to the experts and enthusiasts that are still undergoing SSD tests on their Zs:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=469272&page=18

 

This is true. SSDs are fabulous for read speed, and sustained writes.

This, however, is unfortunately not true. When fully saturated, all writes take the time of a minimum of two write operations (small, almost negligible) plus one erase operation (this is the kicker -- an erase operation works on a whole sector at a time, which 512 kB if this Samsung drive is like similar Samsung drives) -- which gives you a write latency of almost 1 second(!). Even the most badly fragmented HDD will never get write latencies that bad.

But if you avoid operations with a large number of non-cacheable writes, and don't do work where occasional high latencies (think small freezes) isn't a problem, it shouldn't be much of a problem. On average, it will still be far faster than a HDD. It's just the occasions where it isn't that really bites.

 

arth1, so is it possible back up all my work file on external hard disk work. prevent deleting on my ssd? also prevent it degradation on SSD?

I wanna prolong my SSD life, are there any way before Intel solve the SSD issue?

 

Best bet: Hack the BIOS, so you can switch between RAID mode and AHCI. If you switch to AHCI, you can backup, secure erase the drives, and then restore the backup, which will bring the drives back to "as new" speed.
Alternatively, run without RAID mode and use TRIM, but then you're limited to each partition not being larger than the drive size. With NTFS junctions and mount points, that can be less of a problem than it was in earlier versions of Windows, but it takes some research to set up how to do this. You can, for example, set one drive to be C:\ and the second drive to be C:\Users\ -- while a sensible set-up, it's a tad difficult to set up, though.

If this wasn't a Z with proprietary drive connectors, I'd recommend buying an external eSATA docking station an an extra drive, and swap the drives out periodically and zonk the drive you swapped out. (I'm doing the equivalent of this on a different machine).

All in all, though, I have to admit that my honest advice is to forgo the Z and pick something else. An ASUS, for example -- granted, the build quality is lower, but you can buy two of them for the price of a Sony, and you can buy standard component upgrades and replacements. And honestly, they're not too shabby. Some of them even have better screens than the Sonys.

 

Do you mean a docking station that has an eSATA interface or an actual external drive connected via eSATA? From what I know, the new Z Series doesn't have an eSATA port.

 

I hope my method works too--by relocating 'My Documents', temporary internet files, and a few temporary files to an external drive like my Memory Stick (I got the one with 30 MB/s read/write). I've used my Z for about 3 weeks, and my drive is around 1/5 full for almost the entire time, because I haven't saved any personal files in my SSD yet.

For some still wondering, 'My Documents' is where scenerios of most PC video games are saved.

 

I'm actually interested in doing the same thing. Can you tell me how to change the default location for 'My Documents' and temporary internet files? I looked around various dialogs in Windows and in Chrome and I couldn't find these settings.

EDIT: I think I found an answer to the second problem (cache location in Google Chrome). It's not as convenient as with IE7 (where you can just specify that in Temporary Internet Files settings), but apparently still works (haven't tried that yet, want to get a Memory Stick first). In case anyone is interested, this link describes how to set a custom location for Chrome's browsing data:
http://www.walkernews.net/2008/12/26/how-to-relocate-or-change-google-chrome-cache-folder-location/

 

I haven't used Google Chrome before; I always use Firefox.


Note: Before going through the steps, it is best to prepare the folders in the destination drive first. Also, restart the computer after making changes.


For those using Firefox, here are steps on how to relocate the temporary internet file folder:

* In Firefox, type the command about:config in the address box and press the Enter key.
* Click the right mouse button in the list of options and choose the New, String.
* In the Name option, enter browser.cache.disk.parent_directory. Click OK.
* Now enter the path to the store where the browser cache, ie to the virtual disk, Z: \ for example.
* Finally, click OK. Restart Firefox to apply the change.

Here is the link to the steps on how to relocate 'My Documents':

http://windows7themes.net/how-to-move-my-documents-in-windows-7.html

Here is the link to the steps on how to relocate temporary file folders:

http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_change_the_location_of_windows_temporary_files.html

I believe these changes can prolong the life of the SSD but at the expense of slower program install times.

 

We seriously need more people with this hardware to get more impressions and opinions...

 

Did you miss "If this wasn't a Z with proprietary drive connectors"? You can't make an external coldplug-ready copy as long as the drives won't fit an external HDD dock or other standard hook-ups; which was my point.

 

Touché. Yes, for some strange reason I missed that part of your post, I guess my eyes are really going bad You were 100% correct the first time.

 

Sorry it looks like I just created a monster

 

So what would you buy instead of the Sony Z?

 

I just come off the phone with my 3 contacts in Singapore and all of them are now saying they have NO stock of the Z-117. I sure hope that changes before I arrive there on Wednesday............. I am traveling through Dubai Airport , maybe they will have one there????

 

OK I got the Z116 as there is no stock left for the 117, anyway I have some questions for windows as I have alwys used a Mac.
1/. when I set up my Me.com email in outlook it shows as a seperate inbox, I would like it to show up in the defult inbox (how do I do that)
2/. When i hit the delete icon on a mail message it does not send it to the deleted items box but puts a line through it (how do I fix that)
Thanks

 

I don't have MobileMe, but it sounds like you are connected to their e-mail servers via iMAP. If you want the mail to goto the default inbox, you need either an Exchange connection or a POP3 connection. Exchange is the best as it keeps all of your info in sync across all devices. So find out if MobileMe offers an exchange connection, and if not, you could look into finding a hosted Exchange solution for email instead.

 

Back again
Last year I asked for help from this forum on what laptop I should buy and after many replies it was the general consensus that I should go for a New Sony Z which I did, the only problem that I have had since getting this is that at that time in Asia (where I live) the biggest hard drive was 128 GB so that is what I ended up with and since buying the Sony I have had to buy a 500 GB external hard drive which is OK but not really what I want, so I am back in the market for an upgrade.
Before buying the Sony I had a MacBook Air and loved it but due to the lack of memory and the need to run windows programs I switched to the Sony. So my question is what should I try next?? I looked at the new MacBook Air but they only have 128 GB so can’t go that route, and looked at the MacBook Pro thinking that I can boot camp it so that I have the best of both worlds but they are heavy and I really don’t want to drag a heavy computer back and forward to work every two months (I work on an Oil Rig in Africa).
So please can someone offer me some new ideas, especially small and light and plenty of memory
Thanks

 

Have you thought about replacing your DVD/ BD drive with an internal 2.5" SSD or HDD?

 

Sorry but I would have no idea how to do that, plus I like the DVD drive..................Thanks for the reply

 

here's how to replace the drive:

Sony Vaio Z installation guide 18

you need to buy the newmodeus caddy though. and once you replace it, you can use something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/External-CD-R...2LTG/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1301256721&sr=8-5