Which TZ to buy??

I've been on a VGN-T270P for a couple years now and want to replace it with a TZ series. I love the idea of SSD but am accustomed to having the DVD on board and know that that the 50GB drive on my current T is sometimes not enough storage. I'd be interested in hearing some advice from TZ users who may have faced the same dilemma and recommendations on which model to go with. I was all set on the TZ170 but hearing you guys talk about SSD in all these threads has me changing my mind....

Thanks in advance!

 

the tz with ssdrive is much faster thab the 4200rpm drive. u can always buy a portable drive and use that as yor storage.

 

There are at least a few people that don't mind the hard drive performance. It seems as though everybody with a SSD TZ complains that the hard drive is too slow, but ultraportables have used 4200rpm hard drives for years.

Tz 150 Owners, R U a happy camper?

 

I would have to agree with Ken. There is no doubt SSD is faster than a 4200rpm, but whether the benefit of performance is worth the extra cost and loss of capacity is based on personal preference.

To give you a general idea. SSD will shorten the OS boot time by 25% and increase battery running duration by 15%. In application performance varies from program to program since some softwares are not optimized for SSD.

In my opinion, SSD will greatly boost TZ performance. You probably observe the most gain from upgrading 1GB of RAM to 2GB and 4200rpm to SSD while there is virtually no difference going from 1.06Ghz to 1.20Ghz.

If you are one of those user that frequently power on and off each day, I would say get SSD. Since the 25% boot time reduction will benefit you by a great deal.

However, SSD price is expect to drop by a huge margin in first half of 2008. So greater depreciation is expected on notebooks with SSD. If you don't need SSD right now, there is no need to pay a premium for them as you can get them much cheaper in couple months.

Personally, I think Sony VAIO TZ150 (street price around $1700) + $60 for an extra 1GB RAM reflect the best value for a TZ.

 

lol the way technology goes, by the time SSDrive drop in price like u say in 2008, they probably gona introduce the transdrive which goes hyperfast or something. just invest in a valuable laptop that will get you thru for 1 or 2 years then get rid of it for something newer and better. don't buy something ur not gona be happy about and just get rid of it a couple months later.

 

Good point but the TZs have lots of bloatware installed (especially North American models) and have a resource hungry OS (Vista) and the lower end models with 4200rpm HDDs and 1gb of ram will absolutely choke. My last ultraportable, a Fujitsu Lifebook P5020D with 1ghz Pentium M and 512 megs of ram zoomed right through Windows XP

Those previous ultraportables had a leaner OS and much less bloatware for one thing.

ilguy, whats your budget and where are you located? As you may know, the Japanese TZs are built to order unlike all other TZs. Would you mind importing from there?

 

That's very true. Anybody planning to purchase a TZ should remove the bloatware or do a clean install, and Install a 2 GB RAM DIMM (if it only comes with 1 GB). Switching to Windows XP will also improve performance.

 

I am not referencing this drop to the normal deprecation among the computer components. The cost of nand flash chip, which accounts for more than half of the production cost of a SSD are decreasing at a rather fast pace. The 32GB SanDisk UATA 5000 SSD in TZ190 is expected to be around $250 in Q2 of 2008 according to SanDisk announcement. That is a 60% drop in price.

In addition, more manufacture such as Ridata are also decided to jump into the SSD market due to increase in demand. This well further decrease the price of SSD since Ridata holds some of the best deals on memories.

So, you could either spend $900 more for a SSD now or wait 4 months from today and get the same SSD for only $250. Not to mention you get to keep the resale value of the existing 100GB Toshiba 4200rpm.

 

Or perhaps one could buy a low-end TZ now and swap out the 4200rpm drive for an SSD in a few months? Is that plausible?

 

It is absolutely plausible. That is what they are suggesting.

 

Yeah, but the danger of swapping for people who aren't familiar with opening up sub-notebooks is the possibility of damaging your expensive and beautiful machine.

If you really want SSD, buy it with the machine. If you want a HDD, stick with one.

For anyone to buy a HDD with the thought of swapping it for an SSD later, I'd suggest just buying the system with SSD and get a Seagate/Hitachi external drive which also comes with 5 years warranty. You'd really make your dollar worthwhile this way.

 

Im not a computer tecnician or anything, but I'd like to give you my two cents.

I own a HDD TZ and I haven't used a SSD version except at the store for a few minutes.

My take on it is this: hardcore 'enthusiasts' are all about the SSD right now, because it performs better.

Now that is true, but lets be realistic. If your opening MS word, or browsing your C: drive, we are talking about a difference of 2 or 3 seconds in the time an application takes open, or whatever function it is your doing.

Don't get me wrong, SSD's are fast and they are the way of the future.

But, considering the TZ is an ultraportable, and considering the applications that you can legitimatly run on it, and considering the CPU speed, why pay premium prices to save 2 seconds that it takes you to scratch your arse or sip your coffee anyway?

The fact is if you need to execute programs that really require the performance boost of an SSD then the TZ is the wrong machine for you to begin with IMHO.

It sounds like space is a bigger issue for you.

Of course you could get the SSD with a HDD aswell and use an external burner.

Thats my take on it anyway, I hope it helps.

P.S I run vista from the HDD and, using the maintenance tips on this forum, the speed my machine is totally acceptable [for me].

 

You got a very good point there. By the way, does tz heat up during normal use at the bottom? I heard that it's quite hot there

 

I actually do find mine is quite warm on the left hand side, particularly if the vents get blocked up by sitting amongst my clothing on my lap.

I try to sit the TZ on a hard surface when its not on my lap so that it can get airflow underneath the unit.

 

Will it be uncomfortable on your lap ? Without pants

 

Yes it does get warm, but not as hot as Dell D430 or Asus portables. The heat is limited to the left under side of the laptop. you will not feel it on the top wrist rest.

 

When you say without pants, do you mean in your underwear?

It's a difficult question to answer without actually seeing your underwear, so I'm going to need you to describe it, in detail.

If your not sure which underwear you will be wearing, just go ahead and describe your favourite pair, or better yet post some pics of it.

Hi Res under natural light please.

 

I mean without the layer of your pants. You have quite a good imagination my friend.

 

I must say... running vista with SSD allows me to run it with "best visual enahncements" like aero etc without any lag. My friend running a 1.06 with 2gb ram and regular hdd had to scale his back alot to compensate for the hard drive crunching.

Boot up times are much faster with the SSD as well. You do pay a premium for them... but the prices are falling dramatically these days.

 

I've had my TZ91 for awhile. I got it from Conics.net

I have the 1.2 Ghz, 48 SSD + 160 GB HDD. I don't think the DVD drive is necessary because the only time I use it was installing Office and other weird application.

Upgrading from T150, I can feel some similarity. The laptop actually runs a big cooler than my SZ360. The keyboard is beautiful, the colour is very accurate and the speed is amazing.

Some of the Sony application is something I don't have on my SZ.

If you do get the new TZ, please get the SSD. I can't imagine myself using a normal 4200 rpm HDD.

 

... unless you want to watch DVDs lol...

 

Either download movies, or rip the DVD ISOs to your HDD, and take several movies right with you all the time and save battery life as well. I'd take the HDD option.

 

SSD doesn't contribute to the Vista's aero visualization. If there is anything that makes aero run better, its the increasing CPU clock (1.20Ghz over 1.06Ghz).

 

The only think that is annoying about the HDD option is that users complain that it gets more warm than the SSD combo.
But I think this is the trade-off.

 

If I'm not mistaken, if you have the SDD-HDD combo, you can disable the HDD when its not needed, just like the DVD drive is off when not in use.