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SR Macbook Pro vs. Sony Vaio FZ

T

tinydragon123

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 25, 2005
71
0
San Diego
I am debating right now between a 2.2 GHz SR Macbook Pro that has 120 GB, 2 GB RAM, 128 VRAM for $2000 or a 2.0 Ghz Sony Vaio FZ series with blu ray support, 200 GB, 2 GB RAM, and 1 GB VRam for $2000 as well.

I'm leaning towards the Macbook Pro because I love Mac OS X, but I just want to know what do you guys think?

The specs for the Vaio are here:
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665091949

Thank you.
 
What about the Sony appeals to you? What about it is better than the mbp? If you can answer this, then I think you'll know what to get. I vote for the mbp:D
 
thats an incredibly slick setup...which i dont think the SR MBP is anywhere near as far as capability goes. Blue ray, HDMI out, 1gig of video ram and a screaming GPU...hard to beat.

ive used the 17 sony blue ray Full 1080p laptop...and its quite nice.

if i wasnt on mac...i would be on the sony.
 
Hmmmm tough choice!

Let's not be bias here,

The Sony Viao has a nice Blue Ray player and a bigger hard drive. It's more of multimedia laptop.

MBP: Faster CPU, Better GPU and the most important it runs OSX.

I'd go for the MBP, if the MBP was more expensive i'd consider than Sony but since they are the same price, it's a no brainer :)

Goodluck!
 
Mac.Jnr said:
Hmmmm tough choice!

Let's not be bias here,

The Sony Viao has a nice Blue Ray player and a bigger hard drive. It's more of multimedia laptop.

MBP: Faster CPU, Better GPU and the most important it runs OSX.

I'd go for the MBP, if the MBP was more expensive i'd consider than Sony but since they are the same price, it's a no brainer :)

Goodluck!
Click to expand...

I agree with your post. But, could someone please tell me what the big deal about Blue Ray is? Seems to me it's another Sony mistake in trying to push a format that no one else is using.
 
i guess you have to ask yourself if the blueray is worth it? the HD is only a 4200rpm 200gb hd and I figure you could upgrade to an external blueray burner in a few years.
 
My previous notebook was a Sony Vaio PCG-GRX316G. Nice and stylish machine but after 2 years the optical DVD drive gave up. After 3 years the solderings of the memory banks got loose (embarrassing series error of all GRX) and 1,5 years later it was the backlight of the display that said goodbye to me. Almost no transports - just careful treatment at my home desk. Lousy and expensive service and support here in Europe.

I'll never buy a Sony again.
 
Habakuk said:
My previous notebook was a Sony Vaio PCG-GRX316G. Nice and stylish machine but after 2 years the optical DVD drive gave up. After 3 years the solderings of the memory banks got loose (embarrassing series error of all GRX) and 1,5 years later it was the backlight of the display that said goodbye to me. Almost no transports - just careful treatment at my home desk. Lousy and expensive service and support here in Europe.

I'll never buy a Sony again.
Click to expand...

Hmmm...not good to hear. Usually one expects good products from a company that's supposed to be as good as Sony. Hopefully you were in the minority and not the majority.
 
I have spent the last morning trying to fix one of these SONY beasts for a colleague. It has twin 120GB drives set up as a RAID 0, and one of the hard drives is failing, so all of the data is at risk. One thing that has not changed, is the appalling SONY customer service. After 3 days of promising to pick this machine up for repair, we are still waiting. Needless to say, their helpdesk could not suggest anything useful to secure the data. They suggested we get Norton Ghost to copy the data of the hard drive, since my colleague is balking at manually reinstalling and configuring all of his software, and SONY will not offer a cloning service, even for a fee. Unfortunately, Norton's website decided to throw a wobbly and would not accept any sales orders. And so it goes...
 
weckart said:
I have spent the last morning trying to fix one of these SONY beasts for a colleague. It has twin 120GB drives set up as a RAID 0, and one of the hard drives is failing, so all of the data is at risk. One thing that has not changed, is the appalling SONY customer service. After 3 days of promising to pick this machine up for repair, we are still waiting. Needless to say, their helpdesk could not suggest anything useful to secure the data. They suggested we get Norton Ghost to copy the data of the hard drive, since my colleague is balking at manually reinstalling and configuring all of his software, and SONY will not offer a cloning service, even for a fee. Unfortunately, Norton's website decided to throw a wobbly and would not accept any sales orders. And so it goes...
Click to expand...

I guess Sony's customer service leaves a lot to be desired:( Too bad, sounds like you're having some major problems.
 
The other thing you should keep in mind is that the 1 gig of VRAM is in Vista...and vista eats up normal ram and dedicates it to the graphics like a shared chip. I remember reading somewhere that the GeForce 8600 in the MBP shows up in Vista as having 800 MB of VRAM. I personally am saving up for the MBP, the sony machines aren't made well at all. I saw a guy at the airport who dropped his VAIO onto a security scanner, from a height of about 6 in, and his ENTIRE screen fell off...:p
 
Father Jack said:
Even with a Blu-Ray player and a larger hard drive .... why on earth would you even consider choosing Windows instead of Mac OS? .... :eek:
Click to expand...

Why not? Everyone hates on Windows because they "think" always gets viruses and and are unreliable but it's not really true. Yes Mac OSX is superior to Windows but using Windows is not the end of the world. I'm not a Windows fanboy or a Apple fanboy, I just choose whatever suits me the best. So if the OP wants to buy the Sony, let it be. Although the MBP is clearly the obvious choice here.

CalBoy Blu-ray drives are worth alot of $$$. If you would want to know more about Blu-ray, I'd suggest reading this Blu-Ray
 
Habakuk said:
My previous notebook was a Sony Vaio PCG-GRX316G. Nice and stylish machine but after 2 years the optical DVD drive gave up. After 3 years the solderings of the memory banks got loose (embarrassing series error of all GRX) and 1,5 years later it was the backlight of the display that said goodbye to me. Almost no transports - just careful treatment at my home desk. Lousy and expensive service and support here in Europe.

I'll never buy a Sony again.
Click to expand...

I'll second that experience. My Sony laptop died on me three times before I finally gave in and bought a Macbook. And each time it was exactly the same problem. Support with Sony is crap. Never, ever again.
 
Sony has a lower resolution screen (1280 x 800 vs 1440 x 900 ), no LED (bad for the environment, less battery life, uneven/dimming over time etc). Also it has a shorter battery life (2-4 hrs vs 6 hrs), is a bit heavier and from the pictures, thicker. I may be biased, but i think the mbp looks much prettier :D.
The only advantage Sony has is the blu-ray drive (which in my opinion, is still a bit useless at this point as the HD format war isn't over and the format still isn't widely adopted), bigger (albeit slower) hard drive, more vram although an inferior graphic card. The mbp has a better screen, longer battery life, better design, lighter, faster CPU, superior GPU and OSX. The money you save on anti-virus and alike software would probably let you to upgrade the mbp to a 7200rpm 200gb hd.
Oh, my suggestion is to get a mbp if it wasn't obvious :p
 
Mac.Jnr said:
Why not? Everyone hates on Windows because they "think" always gets viruses
Click to expand...

Not "always" but you'll get them even if you never open an email attachment or install malicious software. Rely on that. And it's really a task to get rid of them. All the $$$ security software for Windows around slows down the machine and is not as good as advertised. By far not.

I wouldn't say that Mac OSX (I know it for just a month now) is automatically safer than Windows but obviously there are too much people out there who really hate Microsoft (and the users).

and and are unreliable but it's not really true.
Click to expand...

You're right. XP is the most reliable Windows so far. Stable enough.

Yes Mac OSX is superior to Windows ... Although the MBP is clearly the obvious choice here.
Click to expand...

ACK

Last week I've given back my Parallels/XP license bundle that I've bought together with my MacBook because I don't need it. I can do all things without it - music production, video editing, advanced internet tasks, office and simulation games when I have time. The only software that doesn't exist for mac is my model railroad controller but it seems that I'll have no time for that hobby the next months or years.
 
Get the MBP

tinydragon123 said:
I am debating right now between a 2.2 GHz SR Macbook Pro that has 120 GB, 2 GB RAM, 128 VRAM for $2000 or a 2.0 Ghz Sony Vaio FZ series with blu ray support, 200 GB, 2 GB RAM, and 1 GB VRam for $2000 as well.

I'm leaning towards the Macbook Pro because I love Mac OS X, but I just want to know what do you guys think?

The specs for the Vaio are here:
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665091949

Thank you.
Click to expand...

Why on god's earth would you put BR drive into a 1200X800 screen? That's just retarded. The graphics card has 128 or 256MB...probably 128...cheap CPU...2ghz is over a year old already. 4200 RPM hard disk...wow, if you plan on filling it more than 40-50% this is gonna be one slow sucker. It only allows for vista and not windows XP, so get ready to only run the os as all the other apps won't run. That sony is an overpriced piece of garbage.

Other bad points of the sony:
- no gigabit ethernet...
- 2-3 hours battery life...vs 6
- HDMI but no DVI connection...wtf, if you plan on plugging it into a TV its ok
- NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GT GPU vs 8600 in MBP
-Thicker and heavier
-LOUD FANS
- Slot loading drive?
- not as sexy
- preloaded software

VS MPB

2.4ghz, 256MB vram 8600M, 2 gigs of ram, 160gb 7200 rpm HD, 6 hour battery life, 1440X900 resolution. Light and portable.

Bad things about the MBP
- gets a little hot
- 2-500$ more
- LED 1st gen problems (see yellow stains)
- no BD drive, but then again, just buy an external hard disk 100$ for 500gb on amazon
- (i had to think about this one) You'll end up having to spend an extra 600$ for an iphone to keep your MBP company at night...just cuz they look so sexy
 
gdesalvo@umail. said:
The graphics card has 128 or 256MB...probably 128...cheap CPU...2ghz is over a year old already.
Click to expand...

Actually, the graphics card has 1023 mb and the 2ghz is the same age as the one used in the mbp, its just slower. You can tell its SR because of the 800mhz front side bus speed.
 
CalBoy said:
Hopefully you were in the minority and not the majority.
Click to expand...

The RAM banks loosing contact with the motherboard was a well known and widespread failure ("Serienfehler" in German - epidemic failure liability) of the Vaio GRX series. When it occurred past warranty what it mostly did Sony charged approx. 550 U.S.-$ for a new motherboard and repair and you would have to send it to France for 12 weeks or so. When it occurs these days they will not repair it at all because there are no more replacement parts (I've heared that).

What I forgot to mention was the extreme short battery life (expensive replacement) and the really huge power supply device. The notebook did cost Euro 2700 in 2002.

A friend of mine has really troubles these days to get a RAM upgrade for his three years old Vaio.
 
teflon 1Gb dedicated grahpics? Thats shared with system. There is no 1GB GPU out for high end gamers yet....

Habakuk I agree with you. Although there are alots of Windows virsuses out there, if you have the right protection it's reasonable. Mac OSX is alot safer than Windows.
 
I'm not sure how important this is but the screen resolution is 1280*800 so wouldn't that affect the look of Blu-Ray movies? I thought you would need a 1920*1200 to be able to play Hi-Def movies?

Also in the fine print it says " As with other optical media devices, circumstances may limit compatibility or prevent Blu-ray Disc™ playback. VAIO® computers may not support movie playback on packaged media recorded in AVC or VC1 formats at high bit rates". Problem is, those are 2 out of the 3 Blu-Ray formats. Originally the movies were all MPEG-2 but now they can be either MPEG-2, AVC or VC1 and i'm not sure if it tells you this on the cover (since i never bought one). The latter two are become more popular since they are more "advanced" codes.This is important and i'd check this out because it might ruin the strongest selling point.
 
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