back to article Sony goes slim with the Vaio Z laptop

Sony has dressed up its latest supermodel laptop and when it comes to the catwalk of consumer electronics, there are no moral complications in supporting the ultra-skinny. The Sony Vaio Z series follows with this tradition of slimming down, weighing in at less than 1.2kg, with a thickness of 17mm. The 13.1in anti-reflective …

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  1. Blitterbug
    Trollface

    Luvvely but...

    ... I do hope it doesn't suffer from the usual VAIO issues, namely overheating, dodgy WiFi cards going caput after a year, failing SODIMMs etc...

    1. cyberduck
      Angel

      Three reliable Vaio's

      I have had 3 reliable Vaio's and the only faults were batteries and keyboards malfunctioning but this is normal when you use any laptop for more than 3 years. My last one lasted since 2002 and is still working. My accountant uses it now as a second laptop.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Am I missing something..?

    It's almost £1500, and doesn't have a dedicated graphics chip, just some dodgey intel jobby?

  3. Silverburn
    Meh

    Hmmm

    Pretty expensive for what looks like a pretty dull slab of black.

    Only thing that jumps out is the i7, for me.

    1. Giles Jones Gold badge

      PS2top

      It looks very Playstation 2 in its design.

      I like the way they have spun dropping the optical drive and making it seem like a feature. At least with the Macbook Air it's just lacking a drive and is up to you to add one if you really need it.

  4. teapot9999
    WTF?

    How much!!!

    And people claim Apple laptops are expensive!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Huge leap forward from the previous Z

      Which had much the same price for an Atom processor.

      1. AdamWill

        Er, whut?

        Er, no it didn't. You may be confusing it with the X, which was essentially a netbook in a 11.6 inch, ridiculously light chassis. The first Z had some Pentium M processor, last year's model had a previous-gen (before Sandy Bridge) Core i5 (or i7, optionally).

    2. AdamWill

      Well...

      Apple doesn't have a laptop which does 1600x900 at 13", let alone 1920x1080. They also don't have matte screens. And they (Macbook Pro) weigh a lot more than the Z (for the previous generation it was 3lb for the Z, 4.5lb for the MBP; this gen Z is lighter). The Z is simply a better machine than the MBP. Yeah, it costs more, but hey, you're getting something for your money.

    3. Brian 6
      Meh

      Not Expensive by apple standards

      If u wanted a mac book pro with 8 gigs of ram, an i7 and a 256 SSD it would cost u more than 1500 quid.

  5. Greencat

    (untitled)

    Perhaps I bear a grudge for too long but I won't buy Sony due to being seriously burnt on their supposed support for Windows 2000 on a laptop I bought a couple of months before the OS came out. Took a year for the drivers to appear. Some, like firewire support, never did.

    Coupled with a screen that died within six months of purchase (and took a month to get replaced) - Sony are neither well supported, good value or good quality.

  6. Pahhh

    Had the first of the Z1s in the early 2000s

    I had the first generation Z1. (Pictured here http://www.laptopfeed.org/2011/01/sony-vaio-z1-series-review.html the review date is bollox).

    Last year, after almost 10 years of service I retired it. I still think that it was one of the best looking laptops ever made. Looked splendid in its magnesium body. It had good compromise between weight and screen size.

    Its been around the world and probably suffered 50 long haul international flights.

    I think at the time it cost a frigging fortune but really I cant fault the hardware. The downside is all the useless crap that Sony put on it.

    Of course now Apple have joined the market and so the ante been upped.

  7. David Austin

    Title

    I'd pay the extra £400 for Sony not to ruin their brilliantly designed hardware with the usual assortment of VAIO branded Shovelware that makes them run at a snails pace out of the box.

    Last one I set-up for someone had a lovely piece of custom config, where you couldn't set anything but their custom version of Google Chrome as the default browser without some serious registry and under-the-hood tweaking.

  8. Noth
    Megaphone

    Once again, they've upped the bar

    Only Sony does this so well: 13" 1920x1080 (yes it's available as an option, take that Apple 1x), 1.2kg (take that Apple 2x), and it has two megabatteries (take that Apple 3x!). Plus you can connect 4 screens to the dock. These are features that warrant top dollar (and the dollar being so low, as is the pound....), it kicks the opposition to the gutter. But you have to need those features, not everyone does.

    Oh and the graphics are hybrid, so you get a discrete as well as a builtin gfx chip. Make no mistake, this is the Rolls of ultraportables.

  9. Big Bear
    FAIL

    @Mike Richards

    I think you mean the X series of failtops...

    The last generation of Z series were very good.

  10. dave 76
    Thumb Up

    love my TZ

    had my TZ for about 6 years now and is still my everyday home machine. The 11" screen, SSD and lightweight design effectively means that there is no need for a tablet in my household, the TZ is doing the same role.

    Recently purchased an HP laptop for my wife and regret the decision every time I go and use it. The trackpad is one of the worst I have ever used.

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