Z Redesign Next Year?

The following is the cryptic conclusion of another article lamenting (!) all that's wrong with Sony design.

What the Vaio Z says about Sony's little design problem - Boing Boing

 

while I do agree on design flaws and unnecessary sacrifices made to make it thinner (but also wider comparing to VGN-Z??, that kinda beats my logic of getting smaller), I definitely don't accept bull$hit about crapware installed. You can always do clean install - problem solved.

Maybe it's just me, but I never liked OEM OS. First thing I do with all my laptops is clean install. If you're too lazy doing it, than you have also option with "fresh start" minimizing crapware.


Cheers,
Miki

 

I really liked the X series design it would be cool to do something familiar as design for a next generation of Z's

 

It's funny because, I really like the keyboard of the Z2 while many people hate it.

 

You are not alone. I love Z2's keyboard, too.

 

I also like the Z2 keyboard after I got used to it.

 

I even feel that I can type faster than I used to do with my Z1, though Z1 keyboard is great too.

 

I'm still trying to figure out what, if anything, is going to happen to the Z next year. My guess was that the Z design would stay stable through Ivy Bridge. Unless I hear from a more reliable source, I'm not changing my view.

 

^Too bad we don't have any good sources for information on this site

 

is there any chance Sony would adopt PMD solution to some new 11" model? That would be great.

 

Quote:
And that's the difference between the Vaio ultraportables and the Air: Apple stuck with Sony's solution and refined it, whereas Sony threw it the trashcan in 2005, 2008, 2010, and (spoiler!) 2012.

Haha. Spill, Beaups! (And send me the cable you promised me, months ago!!)

Leaving keyboard aside, I think it's Sony's business whether they want to have continuity in their laptop line over the years or not. Other than Apple and Lenovo, I know of no other brand that has such continuity, and wonder if the market actually prefers it - between those two companies, they have, like, 19% of the market and most of Lenovo's is corporate, who definitely require as little design change as possible - and I would never consider a Thinkpad due to terminally ugly design and awful screens. As for Apple, read my sig. As long as any brand keeps making better computers and learns from their mistakes, I actually prefer style changes year to year. I don't prefer to be a company's "beta tester" on new functional designs, however - eg, HP "testing" new trackpad designs for 3 years, finally abandoning them without ever getting them right!

Biggest problem with Sony: they often treat their customers like orphans they have disowned.

 

That "spoiler!" remark is clearly just sarcasm. From reading the article it is pretty clear that the author doesn't have any inside knowledge about the Sony product cycle.

 

The idea of PMD for Z2 might have just hurt the image that Z1 has carried all along, ultraportable with all the good stuff packed together. For me, PMD is a hassle, because if you need your optical drive or the dedicated graphics then you have to hook up your PMD to your laptop. While with Z1, it's already attached, so you don't need to hook anything up. Just my opinion. That's why I don't think I want to buy Z2. Hope sony will fix that in Z3 or something.

 

With Ivy Bridge, the integrated gpu will be all you will need for any graphics app except very high end games, and I don't think they would be much fun on the gimped discrete gpu they would have to put inside a computer that thin. As for the optical drive, you and me are the only ones who apparently still want one - go figure! Actually, the thing I like best about the DVD drive in my Z1 - which I do still use about once a week - is that when my Sony proprietary RAID 0 SSDs crap out, I can get a caddy and put a "real" 2.5" SSD in the optical drive bay.

 

I really hate articles like this where the core premise is 'It's not something Apple does so I'm going to hate it'. Utter bullcrap.

 

I guess you are right. Half of the article ends with reference to Apple, rather than discussing more on the vaio.

 

from the article on Wired.com:

There is also some confusion over the Z’s hard drive, which has been wrongly reported elsewhere as consisting of dual 128GB SSDs. The Z actually includes a single 128GB SSD with two controllers. This does seem to offer some performance improvement, but it’s not in the same class as having real dual hard drives.

Is this right?

 

No. Absurd ignorance masquerading as...well, I'm not sure it's masquerading as anything other than ignorance. Two SSDs on the same board is still two SSDs. And the performance remark made no sense at all.

The more I think about the Z2's design, the less I see the need for significant changes. Sure there are some refinements I would like to see such as a scratch-resistant finish, larger trackpad and slightly more key travel but those are personal preferences rather than design flaws. There are also some significant changes I wouldn't mind but that I'm not likely to see, such as a higher resolution screen with more verticle space. But major redesign changes, no. The Z is what it should be. And no iWhatever comes close.

 

I'm with you here, ALTHOUGH one should always have a reference point!! I'm against it being Apple for everything criticized, as MacBooks have their own problems too.

But generally, sadly or not - I do agree that Sony have quality problems in the recent years, but so do most of the brands, because of financial problems I guess.

And to comment on the topic - I do hope for better design of all Vaio 2011 models!!! Won't get tired to repeat that, even if there are people who think the opposite - Vaio lost its individualism this year. The 2011 design-line is nothing but mediocre. Add the technical problems to that and its just a suicide!

I did in fact purchase another Vaio this year, but the Y, which still has the 2010 design. Wouldn't buy any of the rest, maybe apart from the Z, BUT ONLY if it was on a corresponding level of quality, which it is clearly not.

 

I wholeheartedly agree with you ^ and I used to be amazed that Sony has retained the market share it has given its indifference to quality and near-hostility to customer support. But I've come to learn it's the designs that keep people coming back and, though 2011 has not brought anything to get excited about design-wise (except the Tablet S, by far and away the most innovative product in a sea of me-too slabs), but I do chalk that up to finances. Regrettably, Sony Corp is in a world of financial hurt, losing market share and money in nearly all their product lines and there is no great news for them on the horizon, but if they manage not to totally trash the brand with quality and customer service problems, their day will come again.

Personally, I'm still loving my Z11 too much to replace it with anything made by Sony or anyone else. I don't think a better laptop has ever been conceived or produced than the Z1 series, and that's pure Sony DNA so while I'm curious to see what Apple is going to do next, I'm excited to see what Sony, Samsung, even HP are going to come out with.

 

Yeah - the original Wired review is a total joke. Looking at the author's other reviews it's clear he's an amateur with little time to crank these things out - he's probably paid peanuts so it's hard to be annoyed at him per se but he probably thinks he's a tech god.

It reflects suitably on the supposedly experienced Beshizza guy that he takes this as a totem pole of what's wrong with Sony.

There's lots wrong with Sony. And there's lots wrong with the Z and Sony laptops in general. But it's just that for these guys, what's wrong is that they're not like Apple. Not everyone is a living-on-the-breadline blogger who worships at the altar of Cupertino, sitting in some bizarre 'I'm surfing the tech edge' field of smugness in a Starbucks while conducting what they laughably call journalism or 'op-eds'. I see w***er hipsters like this all the time near where one of my startups is based.

I think that Sony has to work on the user perception experience, in terms of removing the most obvious barriers to the perception that their stuff isn't robust. This is where Apple excels, and Sony can definitely take a couple of leaves out from. And I do think it can be done while Sony still brings us the bleeding edge of what's possible in a laptop, unlike Apple and their "innovations".

 

I think Sony vaio z is far more superior to any apple laptop in the same category. The only thing apple MBA or MBP wins over vaio z is the multiple track pad. If the vaio z has the same or similar multiple trackpad like what apple has, it would be perfect.

 

I stopped coveting the MBA trackpad once I turned on the Momentum/Glide feature of the Synaptics driver. It changed how I use a touch pad.

 

with the latest driver from synaptics you can do the same things if you know how to work around with the settings and yes if you look a little bit at the latest configurations from Sony VAIO VPC-Z series vs. Apple MBP or Air its a lot more superior,you pay a lot the branding for bought but the quality of Sony is better If next year by hazard Sony would redesign the Z series I would probably change my VPC-Z

 

It is the same trackpad. Both are just Synaptics, they both support multitouch. With proper Synaptics drivers and something like TwoFingerScroll (free app) you basically get the same thing. I can flick left and right with three fingers, use two-finger taps for rightclick, onefingerhold+tap for middle-click, scrolling in rounds (like on iPods with a clickwheel), momentum, ... I love the trackpads on most Sony's (aka the ones not using an ALPS thing).

 

Then in that case, MBP or MBA is no match to vaio z. Btw, how do I download the synaptic driver?

 

^It's not the same trackpad. Not even close. For one, the MBA trackpad is about 4 times as large as the Z's. Beyond that, while you can enable similiar features on the Z's pad, it's not the same. Not even close. Not remotely close. You'd have to spend some time using one to understand.

 

Dunno. I don't apparently have the coordination (and IT requirements) of a 2-year-old like most Apple proponents, so I think the small 'highly gearable' trackpad n the Z is superior. The one thing is the location - I realise the battery cells dictated the trackpad location, but still. Don't like the position.

 

^I'm not sure where your "2 year old" comment is pointed. Also not sure how you can hate a company or users of a company's products so much. Did Apple cause you some sort of personal harm? In my opinion, getting on a bandwagon of hating something isn't any better that your bandwagon of loving something (as you say, "hipsters"?). I guess what I'm saying is that your passion against apple is just as ridiculous as those who have passion for Apple.

 

While reading a Z review that commented on the trackpad position, my reaction was "huh?" I've never given any thought to where any of my trackpads were located.

Where should a trackpad be positioned to be ideal?

 

While Sony's recent Synaptics touchpad is a huge improvement over the Alps thing, and probably the best PC laptop touchpad, it's still a second place behind Apple's huge touchpad. Other than the size difference, the surface, the whole-pad-as-button and most importantly the reliability and smoothness of gesture recognition (not to mention it works best out of box, whereas Sony's touchpad requires much expertise in tweaking) cannot be touched.

If you're claiming they are *equivalent*, you are clearly not being objective.

Edit: I have to admit that for a power user, Sony's touchpad has the advantage of being more customizable/tweakable (especially with TwoFingerScroll, etc.) over Apple's. However, Apple's touchpad has a much larger advantage of offering a great out of box experience for the majority of non-tech-savvy users (the majority of the population) like your mom or dad.

 

^Even then (I use 2FScroll too), it picks up your scroll request only about 60% of the time, the touchpad is tiny, and scrolling just isn't as smooth or predictable as it is with MBA and OSX.

IMO if the Apple pad is a 10/10, stock sony is 3/10 and with tweaks you can get it up to maybe 6/10.

 

Can anyone point me to the right direction as to how to tweak the vaio z touch pad? Thanks.

 

I think it's different depending on how you use the touchpad and keyboard. For example, some complain about the touchpad picking up accidental thumb taps while typing. My thumbs are never near the touchpad so it's not an issue.

What I've done is turned off any feature I don't need so that the driver has the minimum possible options to choose from when I use the touchpad. My settings:

Scroll zone (one finger scrolling): off
Two finger scrolling:

vertical: on
horizontal: off
Edge motion: on
Enable Coasting: on (useful to two finger swipe to the top or bottom of a page)
​

Pinch zoom: off
Rotating: off
Touch Sensitivity: light
Momentum/Glide: on and Long (this setting takes getting used to but is my favorite feature)
Tap zones on for top left and top right
Three finger flick: off (I use the backspace key for Back in browser)
Smart Sense: off (again, I never accidentally high the touchpad)

I found that light sensitivity and smart sense being turned off resolved most issues I had with clicks not being picked up.

 

Personally, I just use the right FN key with arrow keys for browsing. I think that's so much more useful than all the added functionality in the touch pad.

 

Thank you very much .

 

Also a very useful key -- this is the first time I've seen a function key in that location and I definitely use it all the time as well.

 

In Fire Fox, Shift-backspace moves the browser forward.

I know how you feel. I just recently learned that the space bar scrolls one page down in both IE and FF.

 

Actually, I've also just noticed it's the Alt key + arrow, not the Fn key + arrow that also does back/forward pages in FF and Chrome. The Fn+arrows do what the keys are labeled to do: home/end/page up/page down.

 

To hell, just now i noticed the right Fn key Thank you very much rrm998

 

A little more towards the centre of the qwerty area of the keyboard. The reason being palm contact. Your right hand in this case is a lot more likely to activate the trackpad. The Synaptics drivers does have tweakable spurious touch rejection, but it is a bit of a pain.

 

The problem with this post is, I've own/ed more Apple gear than most Applezombies could drool over in their lifetime.

Truly informed familiarity with their gear does breed contempt - though it has to be said, more for their sycophants and apologists than the gear.

And in this specific case, I'm just not about dragging my entire hand over a kid's finger-painting pad sized HID. What I think Apple does, and has always done, *really* well in their trackpads is the palm rejection - be it the location or the default touchpad sensitivity. The tracking sucks, and that is, believe it or not, the reason to be of a touchpad - you aren't making gang signs on top of it most of the time.

 

Actually, it's kind of a trade mark of old VAIO in the late 1990 and early 2000. I'm just glad it finally came back.

 

Sorry, using Chrome so I have no idea what you are talking about. Right FN key enables you to use two fingers of your right hand to use the 4 arrow keys and PgDn/PgUp/Home/End. It's not just useful in browsing, but in Excel and programming as well.

And with the super lightness of Z2 and some practice, you can operate Z2 with one hand like a giant e-reader.

 

TBH I'd rather just have those Fn'd keys back...

 

I like this layout better because I'm lazy to lift my fingers. I wouldn't mind to get the dedicated column back, though, especially for a 13" like Z.

I think if we go back down to 11" or less, this layout is a better fit for the overall width. I absolutely hate the 7-row design like X220 where those keys are on top right.

 

We're talking about different functions of the arrow keys. Quite a few posts ago rm998 pointed out that you can disable three finger flicks in the touchpad and just use backspace to go back one browser page (and later added, shift/backspace to go forward). When you segued the subject to navigating within the same page (what the FN+arrow keys are labeled to do) rather than between pages you totally changed the subject, since those functions don't substitute for things the touchpad does. You can't do Home or End swiping the touchpad, can you?

Anyway, it doesn't matter. It is cool to learn new functions that keys can do. I much prefer using them to using a mouse or touchpad. Even the vaunted Apple mousepad in OSX is far too cumbersome - if perfectly responsive and accurate - for my taste and efficiency. Sometimes you need a mouse/touchpad for pointing and I guess the Mac pad does that one function better, but I don't need to point to a precise location that often and the wonky windows touchpads do the job reasonably well.

 

Edit your confusing post then say I segued the subject. Very sneaky.

But it's all good, I'm always for new keystrokes too, I just had no idea how you jump from FN+Arrow (where all Z have Home/End/PgDn/PgUp mapped the same way) to ALT+Arrow.

Now, Z2's touchpad driver do allow you to map one of the corners to any keystroke combo as tap button, so you sure can map HOME/END to them. Obviously, it's not swipe motion, and it's quite useless when you already have HOME/END easily accessible with FN+Arrow.

 

I did this for a while with HOME and END but found that either a two finger swipe or Right FN+arrow worked as well.

I already use the top tap zones for cntl+F4 and Alt+f4 and I find that the bottom tap zones are hard to find being that they are just above the buttons.