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***Sony Vaio Z*** Stone-cold killer! It's going to be Apple Vs Sony for Arrandale imo
- Thread starter Jobsian
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They almost had it
I bought the 4000 dollar version because I7 is what I need. Everything is perfect, until I finally got the docking station in the mail. Guess what? No dual-link dvi support. Even worse, max resolution on the dock/laptop itself is 1920x1080. For those that have the money to spend this much on the laptop generally have friggin 30" monitors on their desk. Another return i guess and will just have to wait for apple's success.
I bought the 4000 dollar version because I7 is what I need. Everything is perfect, until I finally got the docking station in the mail. Guess what? No dual-link dvi support. Even worse, max resolution on the dock/laptop itself is 1920x1080. For those that have the money to spend this much on the laptop generally have friggin 30" monitors on their desk. Another return i guess and will just have to wait for apple's success.
Also capped!
Just tried, also capped. 1920x1080. Tried with single-dvi cable to see if I can trick it somehow.. Still capped. When I installed special drivers for the monitor windows recognizes it correctly, with max resolution 2560x1600 60hz, but max resolution on video adapter says 1920x1080. Sigh, I hate to return this thing because I love it, but it's worthless to me without the monitor support.
Just tried, also capped. 1920x1080. Tried with single-dvi cable to see if I can trick it somehow.. Still capped. When I installed special drivers for the monitor windows recognizes it correctly, with max resolution 2560x1600 60hz, but max resolution on video adapter says 1920x1080. Sigh, I hate to return this thing because I love it, but it's worthless to me without the monitor support.
Got the i5 version of the Z mightily impressed with it so far and a welcome change to see a non-bashing pc thread within a mac site pity it cannot be the same the other way around.
Looks like it is official...the new Sony Vaio Z is trumping the new 13" MBP in performance. Why? Likely Apple is emphasizing price over matter. Instead, this monster now looks pretty comparable to the new 15" which is a lot heavier. This is likely going to disappoint a lot of Apple fanboys.
Let us know when the Z can run OS X apps without being hacked and then we can talk. That said, I am not interested in the 13 inch MBP, either. It weighs 4.5 pounds, has a resolution of only 1280x800, and still uses the obsolescent Core-2-Duo chip. I had really hoped that Apple would refresh the MBA this time around but they didn't touch it. The 15 inch and 17 inch MBP's, though, look pretty exciting. Unfortunately, they aren't what I need.
For all of you guys looking at the Vaio Z
Look at the Acer 3820T. In some ways it has the Z beat in speed. Build quality of course the Z is better though but the the Acer will come out around 1100~
Look at the Acer 3820T. In some ways it has the Z beat in speed. Build quality of course the Z is better though but the the Acer will come out around 1100~
Not only that, the Sony Vaio Z is on par in terms of performance with the 15" and the 17", yet it's at least 1kg lighter. If I were to upgrade my laptop now I would buy the Vaio Z today without hesitating.
Can't find the specs listed anywhere at all. Acer's feel cheap as hell though. Way cheaper than even Dells and HPs.
The Z is definitely superior to the MBP 13" in terms of specs. I just wish it had the MBP trackpad!
I think the reason why the 13" is stuck with a C2D is because of the 25W TDP. The new i5 and i7 are rated 35W in TDP. I am speculating Apple is unable to solve the cooling solution for its laptops. Other than that, adding discrete graphics would have made the 13" pricier, perhaps too much for regular college students.
Is the 17" a bit thicker now?
That's kinda odd because the original C2D Macbooks which used the Merom processors had a 35W TDP too. Any way it's a poor excuse because every other laptop manufacturer is already using Core i3/i5/i7.
Acer 3820T
Acer 3820T
13.3" 1366x768 LED Backlit
i7-620M
4gb Ram
640GB HD
ATI 5650HD 1gb DDR3
Bluetooth 2.1
32.4 cm x 23.5 cm x 2.9 cm
3.9 Pounds
8 Hours Battery Life
3D Mark 06 10046
This laptop is a monster and the build quality looks pretty good too. The only question is what models the US will have and when it will be here.
Here is a link for pictures
http://translate.google.com/transla...er+3820tg&start=10&hl=en&sa=N&tbo=1&tbs=qdr:d
Acer 3820T
13.3" 1366x768 LED Backlit
i7-620M
4gb Ram
640GB HD
ATI 5650HD 1gb DDR3
Bluetooth 2.1
32.4 cm x 23.5 cm x 2.9 cm
3.9 Pounds
8 Hours Battery Life
3D Mark 06 10046
This laptop is a monster and the build quality looks pretty good too. The only question is what models the US will have and when it will be here.
Here is a link for pictures
http://translate.google.com/transla...er+3820tg&start=10&hl=en&sa=N&tbo=1&tbs=qdr:d
I don't think the 3820T has an optical drive. It's part of the "Timeline" series of Acers which usually don't have optical drives in the 11.6-13" models. I have a larger Acer 15.6" with the same ATI HD 5650 1GB graphics card as this 3820T is supposed to get and its a small beast of a card. I can play Battlefield Bad Company 2 at 1920x1200 with medium/high settings.
Very excited about the 3820T. Disappointed that Apple didn't put a new iX CPU in the new 13"inchers. The common excuse may be due to thermal restrictions but heck, if Acer can squeeze a Core i5/i7 into an 11.6" Laptop! (1820T) why can't Apple do the same with their supposedly superior engineering?
Very excited about the 3820T. Disappointed that Apple didn't put a new iX CPU in the new 13"inchers. The common excuse may be due to thermal restrictions but heck, if Acer can squeeze a Core i5/i7 into an 11.6" Laptop! (1820T) why can't Apple do the same with their supposedly superior engineering?
Apart from the 13" MBP's exceptional battery, trackpad and OS, the Sony's Vaio Z rips the 13" MBP limb from limb.
To say I'm disappointed is understating it. I'm not going to go for Vaio Z just yet, I'm holding off for a hopefully updated 13" Air/MBP hybrid at WWDC.
The 15" and 17" MBP updates were good, but I'm only interested in getting a 13" notebook next.
To say I'm disappointed is understating it. I'm not going to go for Vaio Z just yet, I'm holding off for a hopefully updated 13" Air/MBP hybrid at WWDC.
The 15" and 17" MBP updates were good, but I'm only interested in getting a 13" notebook next.
Not surprising to see the Z thread pop up again after today's news ...
I gave in, my Z is on the way ... I'll give it a good test drive if nothing else.
I gave in, my Z is on the way ... I'll give it a good test drive if nothing else.
I can see a lot of people considering the Z now because it works out cheaper (UK at least) than the mid end 15" (if you add the extortionate £120 for 1680x1050) plus you get a much lighter laptop with all the benefits of a 13" Macbook Pro with the combined spec of the 15 MacBook Pro.
Also I really don't see apple keeping the MBA around after the next revision comes along.
Shame I love OSX but alas the Z fits all my needs and more.
By the way not a troll a long term slightly disappointed ex-mac user.
Also I really don't see apple keeping the MBA around after the next revision comes along.
Shame I love OSX but alas the Z fits all my needs and more.
By the way not a troll a long term slightly disappointed ex-mac user.
I didn't get a Vaio Z, I got the $700 old Vaio FW laptop with a blu ray burner and the 4650 graphics card. And damn am I impressed with the build quality and design. If the Vaio Z is anywhere near as good, consider that my next purchase.
I picked up this up for just $744 (after 12.3% bing cashback off of the original $850 (Google it if you don't know what bing cashback is)) but tigerdirect has been altering the price a bit so it might be a little more for you.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5619517&CatId=4938
My Mini Review
It's gorgeous, pictures don't do it justice. It looks more metallic in person than it does in pictures. I honestly think it's better looking than the MBP.
It's been whisper quiet, it doesn't feel heavy at all and the only time i noticed it getting even a little warm is when I was a burning a blu ray backup of my whole computer using norton ghost 15.
The paint and finish on the laptop is incredible. (Don't buy the newer F series laptops, they look like crap compared to the FW models). But I do hear the paint tends to peel off or scratch over time so I am going to apply this shield http://www.zagg.com/invisibleshield/sony-vaio-vgn-fw140e-cases-covers-skins-shields.php on the laptop to keep it looking like new (it gives me a chance to use the 40-50% off zagg coupon deal posted on slickdeals).
It's insanely fast. Don't let the C2D in there fool you. It uses one of the newest C2D's built on 32nm's same as the i5s, and its incredibly fast thanks to the awesome GPU taking over for tasks like video streaming.
How fast? Well burning a blu ray backup of my whole computer only took me 24 minutes, and later I had my usb HD TV tuner w/ antenna plugged into it, watching and recording Jimmy Fallon in HD off the air on my laptop, and just to test it out, I simultanously started Microsoft Office 2010 installation and started copying over all of my photos from my external hdd.
All three tasks executed simultanously in the background while I proceeded to browse Macrumors on Firefox with no noticable slow down.
The screen is fantastic (though I would have preferred the 1920x1080 RGB Screen Option, but it makes the text look too small and costs too much more than this model). Blu Ray movies look incredible on it.
Getting the Most Out of It
The one thing you should do, is do a clean install of Windows 7 to get rid of all the crap and bloatware software it comes with by default. Download a clean unmodified copy of Home Premium from torrents or something, and install it, type in the cd key in the bottom of the laptop to activate.
Then google and install Microsoft Security Essentials (it's a completely free antivirus and firewall program from Microsoft that is lightyears ahead of Norton and even Avast and AVG in terms of performance, you don't even realize that it's running).
Prevent programs from starting up with windows. The ONLY program that should startup with windows or run in the background is Microsoft Security Essentials. Use ccleaner (it's a free program) to disable EVERYTHING else. Do that, and the laptop will run as good as new always. Get PowerDVD for all your blu ray playback needs, and PowerISO for your burning needs, because none of the sony software it comes bundled with is very good.
If you ever experience any type of slow down at all using Windows 7. Just download "ccleaner", and run that (it's free). Use ccleaner to disable all startup programs other than antivirus (ccleaner also lets you clean out your registry and delete junk to free up space). And defrag your computer once. It should run as good as new.
Hackintoshing
I hackintoshed it without too much difficulty to dual boot both Windows 7 and OSX (neither the blu ray burner nor the wifi work in OSX, but everything else works perfectly and it can burn dvds fine in OSX. If you really need to hackintosh, I would buy the Dell wifi card for $13 on ebay and swap it out, the Dell wifi works perfectly in OSX according to other hackintoshers). Check InsanelyMac if you run into trobule with anything.
Overall
I'm SO happy with the purchase and the design of the laptop. This is only the second laptop I've seen that looks everybit as attractive as the Unibody Macbook Pros. (On the same note, I hate the newer F series laptops that have the number pad and off center mouse pad. Those two things completely screwed up the design that the older FW got right on so many levels).
The graphics card it packs blows the 9600 and most other laptop GPUs out of the water. According to notebookcheck.net's benchmarks, it compares well to or significantly outperforms every GPU released in 2009 or before and only loses the fight to ATI's brand new 5830 and 5850 series.
I ran Need for Speed Shift with all of the graphics options cranked up to max and it ran rock solid.
And best of all, it has a Blu Ray Burner (hoping Apple starts including those soon too)!! and all sorts of other goodies (7200rpm hdd, HDMI, Firewire, Bluetooth, WiFi A/B/G/N etc)
Yes I know that it has DDR2 800 ram but I researched extensively on the ram and it turns out that DDR2 800 actually slightly outperforms DDR3 1033 and is identical in performance to DDR3 1333 (which no laptop even uses) because DDR2 currently has a much lower latency.
Don't take my word for it, look through these links...
http://www.breakitdownblog.com/ddr2-800-vs-ddr3-1333-does-speed-matter/ - A worthwhile read if you're considering this laptop.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/245145-30-ddr2-ddr3 - It's a forum discussing this topic that has links to benchmarks comparing ddr2 and ddr3 from anandtech, xbitlabs and extremetech.
So the only thing missing is that it doesn't have Arrandale (which is asking for a lot in a $750 laptop that already has both a kickass GPU and a Blu Ray burner).
If you do end up getting the same laptop, be sure to use the Bing Cashback to knock another $105 off the current $850 listed price tag (update: TD raised the price to $880still a great deal though).
This is hilarious, but sad too because he already had the extended warranty and Sony's still trying to get him to pay more money.
No surprise to me at all, that's just Sony and their misstep into the computer business. Hardware, support it's all the same ... all sizzle no steak ... people that "know" do not buy Sony computers.
No surprise to me at all, that's just Sony and their misstep into the computer business. Hardware, support it's all the same ... all sizzle no steak ... people that "know" do not buy Sony computers.
Lol dropping the Sony Vaio Z11?? I've seen horror stories of Vaio's carbon fibers shattering after being dropped (in the heat outside).
I rather have the macbook pro's dent instead of having the casing shatter anyday.
I rather have the macbook pro's dent instead of having the casing shatter anyday.
These last few posts have given me a warm and fuzzy feeling about my MBP and its Applecare coverage, which still has several months to run. Nobody at Apple has ever tried to charge me by the minute for customer support and when the MBP's logic board failed in February, Apple replaced it free of charge, no questions asked. Now that the new has worn off of the Sony Vaio Z, I wonder if anybody is still saying that it's a "Stone-cold killer!" -- for anybody but the folks who own them, that is? (That's a joke, by the way. I don't want to offend any Vaio Z owners.)
(That's a joke, by the way. I don't want to offend any Vaio Z owners.)I just don't understand the attitude of the support guy...I mean..is he really dumb or what? And credit goes to the customer...he was handling it really well IMO... I would have flew off the handle...
I would have flew off the handle...