which TZ?

I am looking hard at the TZ as a second laptop to my Dell Lattitude D820 which is a beautiful machine but just too heavy for all the flights I take.

It seems the standard "US" configurations are NOT the way to go, from reading this board. So I should be looking for a Japanese model with an HD in the place of the DVD (which I guess is a 7200RPM HD)?!? The questions are:

1. Should I bother with the current SSD at 32gb (in addition to the 7200RPM HD)?
2. Will there be new TZ's in October worth waiting for?
3. Should I buy the Japanese spec'd models without an SSD (but with the 7200RPM HD) and upgrade to a larger SSD when they become available?

Most importantly, is there a big difference in the U7500 vs. U7600? There's a big premium for the 20% difference in CPU speed. I was playing with the TZ's while in NYC this weekend (and for basic productivity either one seemed fine), but I guess if I want to watch a movie the U7600 might be the only option?

M

 

The additional HDD is not 7200RPM. It is 5400RPM. If you want a 7200RPM drive you will have to exchange it yourself. Not recommended unless you are fairly skilled.

1. There is no HDD/HDD combination. Either it is SSD/DVD, SSD/HDD, HDD/DVD, HDD only. SSD speeds the TZ up significantly due to its superior access times. It is also silent.

2. Don't count on it. There is going to be one with a slightly larger SSD in the near future, but I don't think Sony will release any major changes before next year.

3. There is no 7200RPM drive as I mentioned before.

As for CPU speed it depends on what you do with your system. For office apps, Internet browsing and no performance hungry software I don't think you'll notice a difference.

In general you are asking some questions which very much depend on your own needs and use of the system. There is no optimal solution. A higher RPM drive will affect battery life and heat. Having two drives idling in a system is not good for battery life either. After all we are talking about an ultraportable here. I assume you will be using it as a such?

Last but not least the questions you've asked have been intensively discussed in several threads. I have tried to sum it up very briefly. I still suggest you make a search - that is the least one should do before posting.

 

i think either the ssd/hdd or the ssd/dvd option is the best. because if you're buying a tz you most likely have 1 or 2 other computers. you could always get the ssd version, and then replace it with a larger one when you need to and sell the other one.

 

1. Personally I dont believe the 32gb SSD option is worth the money. The SSD manufacturers are ramping up production at an incredible rate. With mass production comes higher capacity, better performance with new generations, lower prices and improved reliability once the manufacturers have received enough faulty units back with which to make a correct assessment of possible flaws in current generation products. That is only beginning to occur. I would wait for the moment. Also some people appear convinced that the SSD market is like the HDD market in terms of capacity increases (i.e 32-64-128 in a linear progression) but this is not the case. HDD capacity often increases through the use of more platters, 2 platters equal double capacity. These are flash based products so a manufacturer could increase from 64gb to 72gb or 80gb by only adding more/smaller flash chips. This is an attractive proposition to manufacturers. Im going to get a 64gb when they become available to consumers. They are too small at the present time for most users but his may change soon as there is a war brewing between Samsung and Sandisk which should kick off in early '08 and thats great news for everyone. The great thing about the TZ is you can add it later yourself.

Also 7200prm drives are not the best bet for ultraportables. They take more power, run hotter and that means the fans have to turn on to remove that extra heat = less battery life, more noise and more wear on the cooling system. A 250gb will outperform a 160gb at the same speed due to the data being packed closer together and so the needle has to travel a shorter distance to get to what it wants. Also Sata 2 drives require more power than sata 1. The Samsung M5S
250gb 5400rpm uses sata 1 and consumes less power for it without hurting performance. And they are dirt cheap (€130 inc vat /$150 wo/tax). If you feel confident you could replace the 160gb. This would be the way I would go.

2. Any new release will most likely be a small revision only. Not a reason to wait.

3. See answer 1 above so no SSD only HDD is what I would do personally.

The difference between u7500 and u7600 is not that great at the moment. But if you consider that you cannot replace this component like you can the HDD/SSD/Ram then I would go for the u7600 now to help in the future.

 

Or go with SSD if you like very fast performance and dont need more than 20gb of your stuff... or get a memory stick 8gb and an sd16gb for a lot more storage