Choosing a Laptop
Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 11:39 pm, uncategorized
I need a new laptop!
Not that my old one is ‘old’ (Macbook Pro 15″, 2GB, 80GB, 2Ghz, bought two years ago), I just don’t use it as much as I would like to: It is too big, too heavy, too powerful and kills the battery too fast. I don’t need all that stuff in there, it’s more a desktop replacement that a portable laptop.
Thus, I bought the wrong laptop back then. Thats not too bad, Apple products don’t lose value as fast as others do so I can still sell it for a reasonable price. I also started to appreciate the whole Mac environment, it’s not huge but most of the software is top quality. I will certainly buy another OS X powered computer one day.
Anyway, this time I think about the requirements first.
First: The real computer is at home. Lots of RAM, raid, lots of space, fast, two 24″ screens. Hence the laptop doesn’t need any of those, I already have it at home. It will be used as assisting help, not as main performer.
Secondly, I move a lot. Changing the room every second hour in school, being in a train or writing in a caffe demands a special laptop.
Its not the only thing in my bag, there are books, folders, bottles. The case must be resistible and protect the hardware from being damaged when it experiences the heaviness and complexity of the AI book for example.
Furthermore, I’m a geek: some bones and skin, a brain and almost no muscles: The weight of the laptop does matter and it should be as small as possible so it fits in everywhere.
Long battery life is essential. If I need to recharge the half full battery just because there wont be a plug around in the next hour I render the batteries’ capacity useless in no to time.
The laptop will need to display some pdfs from time to time, run a compiler, editor and a browser and connect to wlans (umts? hsdpa?), bluetooth and usb devices. That’s it. No 3D accelerated hardware, no huge space requirements, no multimedia capabilities, no need for a quad core cpu.
- I need to type often: Usable keyboard please! (kills 80% of all umpc devices)
- No need for tablet laptops
- Size: Maximum screen size of 13″ but decent resolution: It want to see source files.
- Battery: At least 4 hours with standard battery
- Weight: As heavy as a small book
- Camera + Mic: Required for conference calls.
- WWAN would be cool: you can get cheap contracts at swisscom and surf mobile over umts and hsdpa everywhere you are.
Devices
These are the laptops I found
- Asus eee pc 7/10″
- Kohjinsha SA1F00A 7″
- Macbook Air 13.3″
- Lenovo Thinkpad X60/X61 12.1″
- Asus U1F 11.1″
- HP Compaq “ultralights” 12.1″
- Sony SZ 13.3″
- Sony TZ 11.1″
- Toshiba R500 12.1″
Round 1
eee PC
It’s a nice device, but 7″ with 800×480 is just not enough for me. The cpu is not strong enough anyway. eee is out. Same for SA1F00A.
Macbook Air
13″ is a a bit big. The laptop isn’t an ultraportable anymore. The SSD option is incredible expensive. Fast CPU though for such a small device, but I bet it gets incredible hot. No optical drive? May be acceptable for some people, however I need it often and don’t wanna carry an external drive with me. No umts.
so no.
Lenovo X61
Ah, it gets better. 12.1″, 1.3kg, protected hd, umts + hsdpa, no glare. The resolution 1024×768 is not great but we let it for the next round.
Asus U1F
Lovely 11.1″, makes a very portable impression. Horny leather parts. But too expensive for not having umts/hsdpa. so no. Anyway, if 3g isn’t a must, I would take that one.
HP Compaq 2510p
Good: 12.1″, 1.3kg, umts + hsdpa. Resolution of 1200×800, very good for such a screen.
Sony SZ Series
Great laptop! protected hd, integrated camera, umts + hsdpa, carbon, not as light as the others but its 2kg are ok. 13.3″ inch, which is a bit much.
Sony TZ Series
Very small screen (11.1″) but high resolution, umts + hsdpa, 1.1kg, carbon, incredible long battery life. Keyboard is small but Macbook like so it’s hard to accidentally press the wrong key.
Toshiba Portégé R500
12,1″, umts + hsdpa, 1.280 x 800, 1.1kg, 64GB SSD. Nice! Macbook Air alternative? In the next round.
Round 2
- X61’s resolution is too low. out.
- HP has no camera. The quality of the screen is bad, this is a real problem with such a small screen and such a high resolution. out.
- Sony Vaio SZ is too big. I have 15″ and it’s already big for me, 13.3″ is not a big difference. out.
- Toshiba Portege: Piece of plastic, no camera, short battery life.
And the winner is…
Sony Vaio TZ-2x/TZ-3x Series. 11.1″ 1366 x 768, 2GB RAM, Core 2 Duo 1.2-1.3Ghz, wonderful screen quality and nice colors. umts + hsdpa, 7 hours batter life with default battery (though there are bigger ones with up to 11 hours), screen led light, normal sized enter key, dvd rw, bluetooth, mic, 2x usb, external vga, SSD. The perfect laptop to carry around.
It’s pricy but I know somebody at sony… :)
[Update]
The Sony VAIO TZ32 is listed in the sonystyle stores of the uk, Spain and France. Some guy at Sony told me that the TZ32 will be available in Switzerland by the end of February but it’s very likely that you can preorder it earlier.
[Update 2]
New laptops have been announced in the meantime. Steve H. wrote a good summary down in the comments.
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:13 am
MacBook: ist es die richtige Wahl?…
seit neustem hat der media-markt in dietlikon einen eigenen apple-posten. hab ein bisschen rumgeschaut und da sah ich ihn: den macbook (nicht der pro), ganz in weiss. das war liebe auf den ersten blick. (hier sei erwähnt, dass ich ein fan der “…
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:24 am
I think you found the right one, especially one that matches your needs (which are a lot :P). I know vaio is not famous for the cheap pricing. so my question is: how much do you have to pay for this little kick-ass notebook (without the sony-connection)? :)
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:05 pm
As you know I’m also looking for something new so thx for the post :)
Seems you aren’t excited about MacbookAir neither… it’s a Grandma laptop imo.
Mrau, vaio tz :)
I searched for some pics.. looks really great. Just as you said it’s a ‘bit’ expensive.
The Asus one is also cool.. I mean, for normal people like me who are strong enough to carry an usb modem with them its a really cool small device.
sigh, I don’t know what giuseppe wants, but macbook.. ah.. too big to be really portable, too small for a real dev machine.
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Hehe… thats the problem when you read engadget. You know too many devices and can’t decide. When we were young we went into M-Electronics and bought the one discman which was around… sigh.. how easy it was then.
Yep, you left a very essential point! As far as I know they don’t give you any discounts. So how much :)
(We all know the normal price is astronomic.. just how astronomic?)
January 22nd, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I asked steve. The answer: heavily astronomic!!!!! :)
@luca
the 1st comment is a trackback ;) it’s only a part of the text! you can read the full post on my page :)
January 24th, 2008 at 6:02 am
hehe steve, genau de hani i bangkok au aglueget, han en den aber verschmisse… zwenig platz, zwenig leischtig, wenn du mit ps und lightroom schaffsch… und dazu eifach ztuer… battery life isch hammer, und liecht au.. naja, ich han mich fuer es noname notebook entschiede, 700 franke, intel duo core 1.8ghz, 120gb hd, 2gig ram.. battery life sucks, dafuer hani e englischi taschtaur :))))
have fun…
January 24th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Hey chrisi
nice :) it’s just the only cool layour around. I found a shop in the uk.. hope they ship to ch.
boah, depends which model. There are the “classic” ones, with up to 250GB IDE harddisks. If you want a speedy SSD you have to limit yourself to 32GB (or 64GB in the new TZ32 Model)
But I don’t produce gigabytes of photos anyway ;) Just need to store a few source files…
enjoy your stay over there
January 24th, 2008 at 10:00 am
steve c’mon. switch back to german.. :) Who speaks english as his only language here anyway?
January 24th, 2008 at 10:41 am
/me for example…
January 24th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Hehe sorry matt, didn’t expect there is such an international audience ( note to self,tobi + reto: stop fooling around, they are watching us!!)
January 25th, 2008 at 5:55 am
bloody it’s.. they are just nerds! ;))
January 25th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Steve, you seriously think you’ll need all those features?
Or is it actually your inner geek who thinks there will be a moment where there is the need to hack together something in the jungle and upload it via GSM?
(I’m completely adamant thats the only reason ;)
yes I would say the same
January 28th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
eh :)
February 9th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Steve
Great post. I’ve been considering what ultraportable with hsdpa for a month now and its only the price of the sony TZ thats been putting me off. However, your summary of the market has led me to conclude that the TZ32 is the right buy to make - so thank you!
The only things that have been annoying me are the lack of a proper online specification for their product and the total lack of information concerning the use of an alternative mobile broadband operator to their preferred UK supplier, T Mobile (who have no reception where I live). Why do people produc great products and then fail to follow up with the details?!
February 9th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Actually Steve, do you any reason not to go for the SSD Hard Disk as opposed to a normal HDD on a day to day basis (excluding cost and size)?!
February 9th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Hello ben, nice to have you here!
Thanks. Yes the combination hsdpa and ultraportable makes it really hard to find a good one.
But
Yes you are right, the WWAN thing is pretty confusing on the sony pages (everywair wtf?). Basically there are the CDMA2000 guys (Verizon’s Sprint, Japan) and the HSDPA guys(T-Mobile wordwide, western europe with a few exceptions). You cannot switch between these types of network easily but within the HDSPA family it should be ok as long as your card has not been vendor-locked (which is not the case with your uk Tz32 model as far as I know)
Thats the reason why I cannot buy one from the US (Verizon configured) and use it with Swisscom(HSDPA) because they are incompatible.
So check which network your provider supports (Or write T-Mobile UK you are a customer of X and want to switch to their network, if you will be able to use your old hsdpa devices [Thats what I did because sony explicitly said they are compatible with T-Mobile Germany])
The SSD stuff depends also on the filesystem you are using. *Random* access is fast as hell, but sequential access is slower than on HDDs. So it depends what you are doing and what/when your OS caches. Depending on the driver you get more or less out of the SSD HD.
Lets look at the MBA, OSX is a real champ at optimizing those FS things and they get most out of HDD disk thus there aren’t major speed improvements with SSD.
I booted an old TZ (HDD) in my local Sony store and it was really ok. But after seeing this TZ video, I decided I need a SSD ;)
Generally, for ultraportables where you shouldn’t do too I/O heavy things anyway go for SSD if you can afford it.
Anyway, as you may already have read, the TZ comes with tons of bloatware which slows down everything. You need to clean up an hour before it gets ok (google a bit which “features” can be uninstalled).
I will install ubuntu if I can get the HSDPA card working in linux (which shouldn’t be a problem if there is a driver, just setting up PPP)
and give me an interrupt when your blog is online :)
February 9th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Hi Steve
Thanks for all that.
I’m both vain and tight fisted, but sometimes my vanity wins, like now! I spent an hour in a sony centre playing with a TZ21 a couple of weeks ago and it was just great to type with, which was my main fear. A friend of mine has had an older version for a couple of years and said he just used it everywhere he went because it was so small and light - thats my kind of laptop.
I had a telephone chat with one of the sony centre guys and they said it worked with any mobile operator. Deciding I needed that in written form before spending an obsene amount of money, and wanting to clarify that it didn’t lose any funtionality with another operator, I emailed them to confirm the fact - three times - no response. Hence my concern.
Thanks also for the boot video. That was really interesting. Unlike you, I am a technical illiterate, so its great hearing from those people who know what questions to ask! In respect of the SSD - I’m sticking with Vista which it comes with as I would mess it up if I tried to switch. Actually as an illiterate, I have no problem with the beast of Redmond… (going straight to hell). Would Vista use a random access file system, which was the system you said really benefited from the SSD?
I’m starting a web app rather than a blog, so I’ll need to adminster that from whereever I am, so portability is very high on my list, as is the hsdpa. I’ll let you know when I go live in May! It will be interesting to know what you think of it.
February 9th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Hey ben
No problem.
According to the wikipedia article linked above, it’s ok when you are with 3 UK, O2, Orange, T-Mobile or Vodafone. Of course I have no idea whether your area is covered with HSDPA.
Ou ou, I wasn’t too precise about that. You cannot make such a statement.
Fast random access/sequential access are “hardware features”. Depending on how the laptop get used SSD or HDD is will result in better performance.
Anyway, *you* are better off with SSD in an ultraportable. Vista and your programs will start faster and the battery lasts longer.
Ok! Drop a comment when its ready :)
February 10th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Thanks Steve
It looks like on vodafone half my house has HSDPA and the other half doesn’t. Interesting. But I should still be able to get my email regardless, which is critical.
Like you, I’m opting for a two computer solution to the problem, which when you’ve got the flashest ultraportable (at least for a couple of weeks) on the planet, isn’t really a problem at all!
Re the SSD, I told you I was an illiterate. Thanks for tidying that up. Its not just your students you are helping through the technological maze…
February 10th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Glad I could help you
Well I don’t know much about the capabilities of our TZ-Modem (specification on the sony site don’t help here)
Anyway, *if* our TZ internal modem supports GSM/GPRS, the modem would switch to another network. This means in one part of the house you have fast internet with HSDPA, in the other using e.g. GPRS slow internet.
If our modem doesn’t support other networks and you go to areas where there is no HSDPA but want to stay online anyway, I recommend you to buy those GSM,GPRS usb/pci modems (fits in your TZ and are cheap)
With this GSM,GPRS stuff (internal or with an external card) you stay online wherever your mobile works, also if there is no HSDPA. This may be the case when you are in the mountains (well, you don’t have any as far as I know but you know what I mean ;)
If you know you have HSDPA anyway, don’t worry about GSM,GPRS.
Have a nice Sunday.
February 10th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Hmm. Its never straightforward is it?!
I must admit that I thought the hsdpa would switch from 3g to the standard service, if the 3g service wasn’t available. The standard service says it supports mobile email, so again I assumed that that service would be available. Vodaphone say to look at their coverage map and 3g to see what areas hsdpa covers:-
http://maps.vodafone.co.uk/coverageviewer/web/default.aspx
You have raised doubt in my mind! I’ll ask Vodafone if what I assumed actually happens.
Have a great Sunday too. Its nice to get some time off, although there aren’t enough mountains to ski in oxfordshire…
February 10th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Hahaha. Neither here in zurich.. there are just hills
Yes you are right. Sorry, I was misinformed. It will connect to the fastest network available automatically so you stay online anyway. Our modem supports HSDPA, UMTS, EDGE, GPRS and GSM.
You see, often it’s a maze for me as well.
February 10th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Wow!
Now that is a valuable and useful discussion! I’m searching for an ultraportable and seems I found my one: the TZ32.
I have a 15″ dell but it’s just too big for business travels.
Thanks ben + steve
February 10th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
At least you are only a short (reliable) train ride away from the white stuff. Feel the envy.
I like the way you refer to it as our modem! How do you know what the modem supports? - there seems to be absolutely nothing on the sony site about that, unless I’m being really blind, which wouldn’t be unusual of course.
February 10th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Hey ben,
Im coming from google search. It seems you are using vodafone, you need special software. Make sure you read this post http://3g.co.uk/3GForum/showthread.php?p=365217
Cheers
Simon
February 10th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Is the net amazing?
Thanks Simon.
February 11th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Hello Simon, thanks for the input
About hsdpa, I was sure I read it somewhere but couldn’t find it anymore on the internet. Anyway, I found this http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/Aug2007/5083.htm so it seems yes.
However, when they will ship the laptop I will call sony to make sure it’s really a edge/umts/hsdpa one. If i were you, I would call them as well.
heh, it’s “our modem” as in “our baby”
February 11th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
I’m impressed by your ability to find useful bits of information! I’ll just email them now with that additional question.
I’m also just waiting for Sony to confirm by email that the TZ will take the Vodafone card before placing the order…
I know it will, because I’ve seen people saying it will work in forums now, but it will be nice to actually hear it from Sony themselves. It sounds like you have already ordered yours. Good luck!
Thanks again for all the help, Steve. Invaluable.
February 13th, 2008 at 1:38 am
Well no, I didn’t order it yet. And I won’t as long as they say “ships in mid-february” But hey, thats in a few days so when they ship I order one.
Btw, we got quite famous in the meantime. Currently there are about 200 visitors a day reading our conversation. I assume they are all potential TZ buyers, so leave a comment if you have new information about Vodafone and the modem.
No problem, it was a pleasure to help you.
Nice evening
February 19th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Hi Steve
Back again. 200 a day. See what you’ve started! I’ll have to get you to blog on my site when it launches:-)
I’ve been struggling with Sony. The two simple questions I have emailed them - will it work with vodafone and how? - seems to have completely defeated them for a whole week now. The one verbal answer I got when I chased up on the telephone was unreassuring - “the person who deals with that area has left the company last week”. What! One of the largest companies in the world has entrusted all its techical knowledge in the area of mobile broadband to one customer services representative who has now left the company. Ok, Ok. Its a bit unfair to pick on one unguarded comment by another very nice rep, however, after a whole week of waiting for a response to two simple questions, I am getting a little frustrated. This is for a $4000 dollar product for gods sake! And thats before you add in the additional warranties, insurance, software, docking station, monitor, remote keyboard and mouse…
I understand from Sonystyle, Sony’s uk online retailer that the TZ32 will be in their stock by around the 25th Feb. With 200 people a day clocking this blog, I think I might be shooting myself in the foot by giving that date if they all sell out before I hear back from Sony about their everywair functionality, but hey, you’ve got to be honest about these things!
If anyone from Sony is reading this - come on guys, please, its only two simple questions that almost every one of of your customers wants answering. Shouldn’t it have been information you gave on your website from the start?
All the best.
February 20th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Steve,
I’m sorry. I just caved in. The pressure was just too great. I admit that I’m weak:-(
It should arrive early next week. I got one of the last two of their next Friday shipment (of 18). It sounds like they get a weekly shipment, but the backordering seems to mean that they are not actually accruing any stock at the moment.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:38 am
Hey ben :)
The 200 a day were during peak time. It dropped down again ;)
Lovely… customer service! Well, you have to keep in mind that T-Mobile has contracts with sony UK that make them some kind of “official provider”. Thats why you wont get a written (official) acknowledgement that your laptop will work also with Vodafone as it would very likely break some exclusiveness arrangement.
However, I fully agree with your complaint about the lack of information on those sony sites. The vaios *are* expensive so they should provide proper specifications.
Anyway, congratulation to your new shiny laptop :)
Hehe, don’t worry. I completely understand you as I go to the Swiss sonystyle shop twice a day. The TZ32 is still not available here. We can just order the TZ31 models until now. So I keep waiting. If there is still nothing by the end of this month I import it from an UK store (hope I find one)
So happy waiting :)
February 21st, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I think you may be absolutely right about the exclusivity arrangements, but I’m surprised that Sony have allowed themselves to be boxed in like that - after all, it must be quite a coup for T-mobile to be shipped on the products as the default option, which most people won’t be bothered to change - unless like me you don’t get t-mobile where you live…
I’ll keep you in touch with how long it takes to hear from Sony. I really dislike poor customer service (it feels like arrogance), and when you are paying large amounts of money, its fairly inexcusable. Any answer at all will now suffice! I first emailed them on the 11th February and have so far chased 3 times to no avail.
February 21st, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Steve, just so you know, you are now ranked No 1 on Google for a search under Vodafone and TZ32. Its a big day;-)
March 4th, 2008 at 2:10 am
Hi Steve,
My name is Steve also! and I’m looking for an ultra portable laptop for myself as well. I’m an independent IT consultant and a full time IT administrator for a medium non-IT related Canadian Company.
I think you’ve made a great choice by selecting Sony Vaio TZ series. It is definitely an Eye Candy and most of luxury options for portable. I think someone did mention about OS differences, which it only comes with Vista Business and Have heard people who downgraded to XP were not able to fresh install xp on TZ competely due to the lack of driver support even if you get it working with xp.
Vista is not bad as Windows ME (if you have used it before). However I couldn’t recommend it on ultra portable laptop. I’ve used Vista Ultimate for myself and It’s quite not bad. However it runs your HDD like a dog, which means your hdd will heat up more and faster than XP Pro. I have noticed that the problem with Vista is following: (my own experience and some are from others on different forums)
1) it always does something in the background (mostly indexing your use of the laptop for faster enhancement in the future)
2) hibernate / standby mode are mostly painful due to blue screen of death or force reboot to lose your data that’s been not saved.
3) Defragging will take hours and won’t let you know how long it takes or how much it’s done. I’ve used 6 different brands of Vista (with Ultimate/Home premium/Busines) and they all took longer than 2-3 hours (my vista laptop took 5-6 hours to defrag).
But Vista is very fancy! I was able to compromise to use for certain extense, but I was forced to downgrade to XP Pro because of practical of use. My pherpherial works fully on XP plus XP generates less heat (less spin on hdd and ram, unlike vista).
As much as I want TZ for myself, I still have Lenovo X61 Tablet in option as #1.5, not #2, which comes with XP Pro Tablet Edition. I have managed to test out X61 Tablet with Windows XP Pro Tablet edition for a couple days at work and I was having a great time with it. It does not come with WXGA screen, but the Tablet function made up for it.
TZ comes with new ULV intel chip, which reduce on heat and power volt, and option of SSD HDD which is fast reading time, but slower write time (if I remember it correctly). and very pricey one that comes with Vista Business only. The new TZ will come with SSD hdd and optional hdd (instead of the optical drive).
X61 Tablet, durable, good 200-500 cheaper than TZ, depends on which configuration you would want with. But it comes with dual core 2 L7500 CPU, but more powerful. And optical drive is optional purchase and only able to attach to the ultra bay that you have option to purchase. (still cheaper than TZ). I think it was about same price as base model of 1.2ghz non ssd hdd when I added 3 year service plan + 3 year protection plan. I think the most diappointing part of X61 is mono speaker that you can actually see thru the speaker underneath (protected),
Another option would be Dell Latitude D430, which is closer to Sony TZ series, with Windows XP Pro option.
I’m currently using Acer Travelmate 3002WTCi (12.1″ screen, centrino 1.7ghz) with Windows XP, and been using it for the past 3 years, but the fan noise and heat is the major issue that wanting me to look for less heat generated lower fan noise laptop.
It’s quite a hard choice at the end , but Vista Business OS, price compare to other brands (and pricey options), bad tech support and lack of CTO models, are the issues that stops me from getting a TZ.
I think X61 tablet is more practical choice of buying for me and you should definitely take a look at it again even it’s not WXGA screen, no built in optical drive and non built in webcam.
And Lenovo has X300 out this month. Another one to take a look at.
Good luck and hope you find the right fit for you.
Steve
March 4th, 2008 at 3:11 am
I would also suggest read up on below link as TZ users were discussing downgrade to Windows XP Pro.
http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=786744&page=2
March 5th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Wow, now thats a comment!
Awesome! I could even use it as a blog post ;)
So thanks for the overview.
But don’t forget about the HPs. They have some pretty neat ultraportables. Just because they haven’t had good laptops in the past their models should not be ignored.
When I wrote the post it wasn’t clear which models are going to be available but as you pointed out some changes have been taken place in the meantime. Asus announced a new ultraportable as well (Asus U2E 11”) which also seems to be a good option.
Yes, the X61 is definitely a great model, I totally understand your arguments. About the price, I just took (yes, I ordered the TZ in the meantime) because I know somebody at Sony who gets big discounts. It’s still an overpriced laptop but not so much anymore ;)
I’m sure you will make a good decision, you know all the models anyway.
About the OS:
I don’t plan to use Vista (not even with SP1 as it seems to make things even worse) As you wrote, the file indexing is just annoying (and the way in which searches are performed in the start menu is just plain stupid) There are so many other silly things like the new network stack implementation which seems to slow down general I/O tasks etc etc. Nah, Vista is nothing for me.
As a developer who hates everything too fancy I will install a small linux distribution, configure it for a day and then happily live with my few seconds boot time :) I checked the driver situation and it seems to be possible to get all the hardware running. Especially the hibernate/sleep things are usually way better implemented in the drivers so there won’t be a silly driver hosing my laptop on every second wake-up.
Anyway, thanks for the pointers to TZ+XP.
It depends. Random access is fast as hell, but if you need to read/write large chunks of data, the current SSD harddisks are way slower. That’s because the traditional harddisks requires a lot of time until the read head gets positioned. After that the head just needs to be put down to the disk and the throughput you get is amazing. The SSD disk has to request each fragment on its own and cannot not boost the data once it gets “ready”.
Thus the traditional HDDs blow the SSDs away once the read head has been positioned and you read big chunks (Ignoring any fragmentation problems)
Definitely! And I’m happy I finally ordered one. They are all very similar in the end so you have to define a few requirements (e.g. tablet pc, big hd, long battery, UMTS, SSD, whatever) and then stick to it. Otherwise you keep finding new models and never buy one ;)
So thanks Steve (great name btw). Hope you find your laptop!
[edit]
I referenced your comment in the blog post. Hope you don’t mind.
March 18th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Hi Steve
Its not looking good, so far. All I can say is that Sony have got themselves (and me) in a terrible mess. They say that you can use whatever operator you want with your Sony Vaio but, actually, they don’t provide any support for it.
It would appear that the T-mobile software that connects with the hardware in your Vaio TZ (ie the Option module) contains all the Option software, so when you uninstall the T-mobile software, all the Option software goes with it :-(
Unfortunately for me, rather than follow peoples posts linked to above immediately, i thought I would try Sony first. It looked promising - I got instructions how to get another operator to work. Unfortunately, they didn’t work. Sony then resorted to saying that they didn’t offer any support for other operators. They did however help me to restore my computer back to where I started (almost).
Another half a day wasted and no further forward. I think my next point of call might be Option to ask then what Option softare should be running on their module before I load the Vodafone software onto it. Vodafone make it quite clear in their ReadMe for their Mobile Connect software that you need the module driver installed before their software.
WHY ME?
March 18th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
Sorry, just to clarify the matter, it strike me that Sony are providing the hardware without any software - its a bit like getting a laptop which Sony say has a great DVD player with it, but they don’t provide the drivers for it to work….
March 18th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
[…] It arrived! […]
March 19th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Hey ben!
First, make sure you burn those backup DVD’s. When you mess up something you can restore the laptop to factory defaults.
It won’t help you and neither cheer you up but here it’s running perfectly.
I have the UK model as well so it also came with T-Mobile preconfigured. I just installed the wwan-software of my provider (swisscom) and everything was running smoothly. Well, I removed Vista later anyway, but hey it’s possible!
Anyway, I read several times that you should install the XP WWAN util. The modem itself is not “locked”, but the client application they delivered is restricted to T-Mobile only. So you just need to change the client application. Here you will find more information http://club.vaio.sony.co.uk/clubvaio/GB/en/forum/viewthread?thread=48380
The ftp link to the driver may be wrong/link to the old drivers. Go to sony, “support”, to the driver page and then try to get the WWAN util.
After that you will need some vodafone infos. Vodafone seems to have
APN: internet
login: web
password: web
and maybe the phone numer (something like “*99***”)
give a try ;)
Have a nice day
March 19th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Hi Steve
Glad to see you were excited about the machine as me! Its just the perfect size and it looks great.
For once I read the instructions and created the recovery disks immediately on the basis of Sod’s Law. Is it me or is it a little cheap not to provide these disks with the machine? I’m sure dell do…
Last night I even managed to get Vodafone working on it. All the applications went crazy and downloaded 50Mb of updates. I was on a high, against the odds I had managed to get it working.
Then Windows asked me to install updates which I duely did and at the end of that, my internet connection disappeared…
I can see another 5 hours disappearing into that small and perfectly formed beauty.
March 22nd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Hello Steve (2x) and Ben,
Interesting to read yr comments about TZ and alternatives.
Almost bought a TZ with SSD in HK in November at the Sony shop. (6 or 9th floor in one of those building close to electronic shopping area.)
Price was much lower, but without worldwide service, without XP and so on. I did not buy.
I’m dealing in raw material, and travel for business. Better to find local shop who can prepare this thing in a way, that I can plug&play.
Thanks to show salepeople seem to “forget” to mention possible difficulties.
Greetings from Holland with a lot of Dutch mountains.
Wouter.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Hi Steve
Another grip I have with the TZ is that the battery runs down fast when you aren’t using it - that is, when its completely turned off. I had it off for a week and its charge had completely disappeared. That cannot be normal, but I have seen one other post referring to the issue.
If you know of anything I can do, please let me know, otherwise I think I am in for another diapointing call with sony.
ATB
April 6th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Sony TZ 32 from England with Vista.
The internl modem responds to Query Modem when the T mobile sim card is in but not with an orange HSDPA sim - I think the modem may be locked in some way to T mobile. As in the above, the repsonses to my requests for help from Sony have been vague. Is this a restrictive practice?
April 8th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
hello everybody!
Sorry for the late replies, I’ve been busy.
@ben
Nope, I cannot confirm that. The capacity gets reduced for about 5% over 4 days here. However, it may indicate you got a broken battery or so.
But.. (blush).. you know that in Vista the icons changed and the “Power Off” button (the icon left to the lock) just puts your computer into sleeping state (which would explain why after a week the battery is down)
@peter
You used the official T-Mobile Tool on Vista? If so, try to install the one from XP (but still running on Vista) and then it should work (I read). The only thing which differs between the providers are the APN strings and of course T-Mobile doesn’t store the settings for Orange ;)
May 7th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Hello all,
This discussion is really helpful. I’ve been umming and ahhing about which new laptop to buy, and finally I made my decision (at least I thought I had). It was between an xp300 and a tz32. I decided on the latter. Now for the down part. I live in the UK and work for the NHS. I want to buy the laptop through work but my IT man kindly says to me
a) Sony business support is not good, in the past he has sent a machine off and had to wait six months for it to be repaired.
b) they don’t support vista. Now I would actually prefer XP pro myself, but don’t know if it is available as an option or indeed compatible with the sony software.
So I have a couple of questions. My IT man’s experience of business support isn’t recent. Has it improved for UK customers, can you get extended warranties and quick response and return?
Secondly, is the TZ32 available with XPpro? If not, would it invalidate any warranty if my IT people install it, and indeed would all of the Sony stuff work with XP?
Hope that’s not too many questions, but advice would be great.
Matthew
May 7th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Hello Matthew!
Well I don’t have any experience with Sony support as everything is still running smoothly here.
However, about your OS question:
- My TZ came with Vista preinstalled.
- I also found a XP CD in my box. However, Sony did not create an XP with all drivers already on the CD (seems to be a normal XP SP2) thus after installing XP, you have to manually install all drivers at your own.
Anyway, this sounds harder as it is: On the support page (after logging in) you will find detailed instructions how to downgrade to XP and all required drivers are available as a download. (info how I did it: http://blog.steve.ch/2008/03/18/vaio-tz/ ). (that makes it somehow sony-official imo)
Your Sony also has a mini-OS (boots in 5 seconds and let you watch pictures, videos, listening to music) If you install XP you have to pay attention on the partition layout to not overwrite that mini OS. Thus if you aren’t *that* computer savy, I would let the IT guy do it for you ;)
In Vista there is also a backup2dvd program. I would run it after you booted the Sony for the first time. If anything goes wrong, you insert the DVD and restore the laptop to factory defaults.
Cheers
June 1st, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Steve,
My tz32 is due to arrive early next week. could I ask about the disc partitions? You speak about a mini-os. How big is that partition? Also, I’ve read about people who describe a backup partition that is about 8gb on some TZs. Is this the same as the mini-os partition, or is it another partition altogether, perhaps not present on the TZ32’s SSD? Any advice would be very welcome. I want to give my IT guys an absolutely clear stear.
Matthew
June 1st, 2008 at 12:13 pm
one other very naive question, when I downgrade to xp will this get rid of all the bloatware?
Thanks Steve
M
June 8th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
well done!
Unfortunately I don’t know much about about the partitioning scheme anymore (I just have XP + Linux.. no need for mini-os).
Anyway, it will be obvious to the IT guy anyway which is what. If there is no small partition then the mini-OS is located in those 8GB.
With those 8GB you can reset the laptop to the factory’s defaults. My TZ did not ship with any other DVD or similar. So, the first thing you should do when you receive the laptop is booting the preinstalled Vista, start that “dump those 8GB on DVDs” program and then you can do whatever you want and know you can go back safely in case you would mess up something. If you don’t burn those DVDs you have no possibility to get back the default state (mini-os, preinstalled Vista) and would need to send the laptop to Sony so they restore it for you.
Yes, no bloatware as they give you a normal and clean XP SP2. But keep in mind they just messed up their Vista setup. If you would install a clean Vista it would run smoothly as well (especially the pre-fetch stuff as we are using SSD) (but it takes a few boots until it configured itself and indexed everything so give it a few days).
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January 4th, 2010 at 1:07 am
Grand GET. From Whom do ya get your Apple news from? :P My hat is off for you, sir!
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Do you have to employ a credit card to put the order?
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