video editing and gaming on Vaio Z?

I saw a Sony Vaio Z today in a local store, and was incredible impressed with it's weight and size and keyboard.

But if I am going to use it for some video editing(Avid Media Composer) and to play some future games(Dragon Age, COD4 MW2 etc) is it powerful enough?


I've been told that there might be a Sony refresh soon.
The Z costs 3,600 dollars in my country, and you can't get a blu-ray so I've been holding off with buying one.
I was going to get a Macbook but now I am not sure. I am super impressed with it.

The Vaio Z, I heard can get around 2200 in 3DMark 06. How does it relate to general performance?
And if it would get an upgrade refresh, what kind of upgrades would you imagine? Could it be likely that it would get a new graphics card for example?

 

If there were to be a refresh, it would only be for the 1368x768 resolution. Not sure where you're from or what's available to you personally, but in the US only the 1600x900 resolution is available in CTO while the 1368x768 resolution is not. The only difference in a refresh would be changing the 32-bit Vista OS to a 64-bit, everything else is the same. Nothing game breaking at all, no new processor, graphics, etc. So it's hardly worth being called a refresh but meh, whatever floats Sony's marketting team.

The processor is pretty powerful so I wouldn't worry about that. I don't know about any of your games but COD4 seems good. I don't play it though.

 

Sony in general is not known for gaming, but it should satisfy your needs in video editing.

Apple in general, is good with video editing.

The Z series is the spin off from the SZ Business models, general performance is good.

 

I own a Vaio Z690 and can run COD4/5 and pretty much all the modern games I throw at it absolutely fine. Ofcourse, it does aswell depend on your setup specs but with the 9300m gs GPU and its powerful processor, i'm sure it will run games you listed just fine. i bought this computer a few weeks ago and highly recommend it, as I haven't touched my desktop pc, ever since I got this laptop ^^

 

Sounds fantastic guys.

1)How well do you run COD4/COD5? Can you play online on big server maps with lots of people, with a 30+ framerate? (I can't find any videos on Youtube, or reviews where they talk about gaming performance. It concerns me a bit).


2)Here in Denmark, it's impossible to get Blu-Ray in either of the two configurations. Do you guys have any idea which it's not included, when it's so much more expenssive in Europe?
Does Blu-Ray reduce battery life, add weight or anything bad besides, making it more expenssive?
Do you think they will add Blu-Ray for european models in the future?


3)I saw a thread where someone said it was possible to swap the HDD. If I wanted a 2,5 500 GB HDD, how hard would it be? In the Sony Z, swapping Hard Drive, does it involve removing the Keyboard or some kind of other dangerous procedure(I am not that skilled with computers!).


4)Some people have told me that Sony Vaio Z has bad bloatware. Am I allowed to reformat, if I have a copy of Vista 64 Bit for example?
Or does the bloatware come from the specific drivers and programs you need to keep the computer running(hybrid graphics, finger print reader, bluetooth, card reader etc).
And would Sony Vaio Z run good on Windows 7?


5)How is the performance if I link up to a 24'' monitor? Can I still watch Blu-Ray and play games? I have been told that outputting the image to a secondary monitor puts strain on the graphics card!?


6)If I pick the Sony Vaio Z with the 1324x733 screen, can I still output 1600x1200 to a 24'' monitor?


7)Can I get some kind of insurence or warranty from Sony so if anything should happen to the computer, I can get it repaired or fixed for free? (so I won't be so scared of anything breaking all the time due to the high price)?



Thanks for your help!

 

Hey Luffytubby.. I am from Denmark too - I have sent you an private message

 

I play games on my Z all the time and I must say that it has done well. My Z specs can be seen in my sig. I also run a 64bit OS.

 

I find my Z-590 totally unsuitable for games. The graphics card just doesn't have enough power to drive the games in the native resolution of 1600x900, and any other resolutions have extreme blurriness and interpolation artifacts due to scaling. Some people can live with that -- I can't.
Civilization IV plays OK (except for the cutscenes which are slideshows), but that's about the only game I can comfortably play on it. Even 2-3 year old games won't run at anything near a playable frame rate in native resolution (and anything older is likely to bug out because of the lack of "common" 4:3 resolutions like 1024x768).

As for markhedder's comment on what was new in the Z-5xx to Z-6xx refresh, it's not true. Bluetooth was also upgraded to BT 2.1, which among other things give power savings for both the laptop and the BT device you pair it with (if that supports BT 2.1 too, of course), plus "near field" pairing -- move a device very close, and you can have it auto-pair without entering keys at both ends. For US models, the WWAN provider also switched from Sprint to Verizon, and the card changed to a Gobi card which can ostensibly be used with other providers too.

 

I ran PassMark Performance 7.0 on mine 9300m/T6400 (Electric Purple Sony) - scoring at 530 - and can confirm that games can be played decently at medium settings.

 

why is any other resolution blurry?

 

He is strictly talking about gaming resolution, luffytubby.

 

Yes, but I still don't understand why the picture is blurry?

And the scaling?

I had a 1600x1200 on a 15 I had once and everything was so small that I could barely read it without eyestrain, so I guess that Z must use some sort of scaling system on the UI and in games....

But what if I wanted to run the computers resolution in 1200x800 for example?

 

The WWAN switch from Sprint to Verizon wasn't due to the refresh. Older 'refreshed' Z690s had Sprint until the newer Z690s arbitrarily decided to switch to Verizon.

Good point about the BT though. I rarely use BT so I forgot about it.

 

I´m playin World of Warcraft in the Native 1600 x 900 size with medium settings, its very good for me. Also running Fallout 3 on low settings, Half Life 2, Titan Quest and Runes of Magic, all fine ;-)

 

Um, no. Any resolution that isn't the native resolution (or a power of two factor of the native resolution in both X and Y) will, on all LCD displays, be scaled. The result is blurriness and scaling artifacts.

On a CRT (old tube screen), there is no correspondence between "pixels" and dots on the screen, and any resolution works equally well. It's an analogue device.
The same is not the case for LCD screens, where whether a dot is lit or not doesn't depend on an electron beam travelling past it and blinking at the right time, but the X and Y coordinates of that dot. It's a digital device. Everything has to be scaled to the native resolution of the LCD display.

Switch your native 1600x900 display to 1366x768 (or 1024x768 with black borders), and each pixel will have to take up 1.17 times as much space. The LCD display then will have to try to approximate it, because it can't display a pixel that's 1.17 times bigger. It doesn't have bigger pixels, so it will have to draw six image pixels by using seven screen pixels. This doesn't always work well. Or rather, it seldom works well, unless you're watching something with absolutely no sharp edges or fine details.

Try it yourself with graphing paper (or a pixel drawing program). Transpose a 6x6 image into a 7x7 grid, and try to make it look good.

A 1600x900 screen is really only suited for 1600x900 and 800x450 resolutions. If you want to run it in 1024x768, an LCD display with 1024x768 will give you a MUCH better picture.

(There is always the option of running 1024x768 in a small black box in the middle of the screen -- that way, you don't get scaling artifacts and blurriness, but it will likely be too small for practical use)