What the Vaio Z says about Sony's little design problem

Wow, what an ignorant article. I own the previous version of this (Sony <i>does</i> iterate...this is the 4th iteration of the Z series), and I absolutely love it. I can't speak about the new version, but the version I have has a fantastic keyboard with much more key travel than an Air. I wouldn't be shocked if Sony messed up the keyboard and trackpad though. They have a certain talent for screwing up ergonomics in the name of looks.<p>But really, my main issue is that this article appears to be written by someone with an agenda and little actual knowledge. The laptop's name, for example is the Z14, not that long string which is the model number. Practically all laptops, even the Air, have those model numbers associated with the specific configuration. The box for my Air has it listed on the back, in fact.

When getting my new laptop, I spent some time looking at various "ultraportable" including the MacBook Air, some Toshiba (I forget what it was called) and the Z. I ultimately chose the Sony because it was, by a nice margin, the nicest computer of the lot.<p>The screen is really awesome, it's incredibly fast and I actually really like the touchpad. The keyboard is not great, but none of the options I physically touched--I never saw a physical Lenovo X1; that could be good--had particularly good keyboards. The Air's keyboard was not bad, but it had an annoying layout with small arrow keys and an odd ordering of meta keys along the bottom.<p>Overall, I am extremely pleased with this computer and would probably buy it again, although I would also consider looking at the X1. However, an X1 configured to similar specs as the Z costs about the same and I've heard both the screen--which is <i>really</i> awesome on the Z--and the batter life are worse on the Lenovo.

&#62; It's loaded with junkware, because paying two grand for a laptop doesn't get you a system that hasn't been sold to someone else.<p>On this topic, does anyone know of any major manufacturers who dont do this with their consumer machines? I have had really bad experiences of late with Dell, Toshiba and HP, to the point where they come with what is essentially malware built in. As one example, our latest dell purchase redirects search queries, puts a link to ebay on the desktop which comes back once deleted, and prevents you from adding an alternative search provider to IE.

I am an owner of this new Vaio Z. The laptop itself is amazing: the battery life is excellent, good performance, high quality screen (1080p), extremely fast (raid 0 SSDs will do that).<p>The specs are amazing for this 2.5 lb laptop, but it still doesn't do justice to how disappointed I am with the keyboard. The travel distance is so minuscule, its uncomfortable to type on. You find yourself slapping keys but feeling like you didn't really press the key. The space bar sucks, you have to hit it pretty hard to make it register.<p>The trackpad is pretty small and awful, 2-finger gestures only works 50% of the time. I had to disable the fingerprint reader because it would activate everytime using the touchpad (you would always hit it by mistake).<p>Those are literally the only 2 things I dislike about this laptop, the keyboard and touchpad. I use a portable bluetooth mouse a lot (Razer Orochi) which does alleviate a lot of the touch pad issues, but the keyboard is god awful.<p>That said, the power media dock is a novel feature, external graphics, blu ray and all...I haven't used it once haha. I think that's because I have a nice custom built desktop, no reason to use the PMD.<p>EDIT: The keyboard is worse in my opinion in comparison to a macbook air which I owned for a year before I sold it.<p>I just wanted to add on top that, I tested out a Lenovo T420 edge...quite possibly one of the nicest keyboards I've ever typed on.

<p><pre><code> &#62; but companies like Sony make good designs then abandon &#62; them intentionally because they're blind to their own &#62; good design choices. </code></pre> I see this pattern a lot. Situations where people trade away their strengths by trying to mimic what's glamourous.<p>Here's one - look at the way that OS desktops compromise strengths in order to be more like OSX. Microsoft was so focussed on making Windows feel more like aqua that they compromised things where they were strong - like the way you could get around with hotkeys, or set up items in the old start menu to be launched by two keypresses. The gnome team had what was to me the best desktop environment out there and have traded it away in their quest to be the poor-man's Aqua. (Give me window switching - I hate application swiching. In what situation would I want all of my terminals to come to the foreground in front of the web browser I'm copying commands from??)

Power supplies. I've got a copier paper box full of Sony power supplies. Every product they make has to have a different battery, plug, voltage, wattage, whatever so you MUST buy a new one if break/lose it, at a princely sum comparable to the price of the device.<p>Sony has 90% great, like awesome, design - then screws up the remaining 10% with either "meh, screw the user" or "hey, dig into his wallet" wrecking the rest. I've had two of their ultraportables, and try as I might to love them there's just one neurotic breakdown after another; my next is a MacBook Air.

For my money, the best "ultraportable" around is a ThinkPad X: <a href="http://shop.lenovo.com/us/notebooks/thinkpad/x-series" rel="nofollow">http://shop.lenovo.com/us/notebooks/thinkpad/x-series</a>

&#62; But Sony rarely iterates, even when it's onto something good.<p>This is very interesting, considering that one of the core philosophies of Japanese business is <i>kaizen</i>, or continuous improvement.

As a owner of a Z21 I can tell much of what is said in the article is just, simply wrong and misinformed. The author most likely didn't even touch a Z21.<p><i>DISCLAIMER: I am using Linux full time on this laptop. Some people have issues with the fingerprint or trackpad on Windows - theses are software issues which aren't present on Linux.</i><p>Fan: they're not loud. It's quieter than my MacBook. In fact, I can't hear it in a quiet room. It's only loud when running full speed; which is rare enough. And that's not louder than the Mac.<p>Trackpad: it's in.. the regular spot.<p>Software: it's loaded with Sony stuff mostly. You can remove or reinstall if you dislike it.<p>Key travel: yes, it's shorter. No I don't see the issue with it, after having used it for quite a long while now. I switch to longer key travel keyboards and back to the Z21 without noticing.<p>The rest is just "look, my iMac design didn't change in 4 years it's awesome, changing design sucks!".<p>Now... let's see what the Z21 has and the others.. just plain don't.<p>SSD: Hello raid0 SATA3 SSDs. Have you ever reached more than 500mbyte/s read/write? Heck, sometimes its going near the 1000mbyte/s sequential. Copying stuff, reading has never been faster. Non-raid0 desktop computer with the fastest SSDs are just way slower. Won't even mention Macs with their subpar SSDs.<p>Screen: Hello 1920x1080 anti-glare screen. How the hell are others not all anti-glare by default ?<p>CPU: Hello regular voltage i7 2620M. The air CPU suddenly look.. you know.. just not in the same range.<p>Heat: what heat? It's extremely well extracted on the side and the rest of the system is at room temperature. Even under extreme load. A problem Apple didn't really solve by the way.<p>Connectivity: USB? check. USB3? check. VGA out for those conferences? Check. HDMI out /w audio? Check. Audio jack, ethernet, sdcard, lightpeak? check check check check. Tell me when the mac book air doesn't need a bunch of adapters to do more than USB. higher power USB for charging? Heck, check again.<p>Weight? Lighter than the Macbook air says enough.<p>Battery life? Extensible well above 10H via a laptop-wide sheet. Smart. Paris-New York, no need to charge. Of course, the standard battery isn't a let down either at ~5H real time use. (they're both rated 7h and 14h max as far as I can remember, but don't quote me on that)<p>Now with all that, what more could there be? Oh wait.. I mentioned a lightpeak port didn't I.. so yeah, a 600gr+ device can be added to the desk while you're not on the move.. bundling a very decent ATI graphic card, a bluray drive, and more ports. You can drive 4 screens at the same time, although its convenient only up to 3. (oh noes.)<p>Oh and, does it run linux properly? yep.<p>So it's an expensive device, but considered all the above, it's pretty decent I guess.<p>Finally, the actual bad, and yes, there is some bad:<p>- speaker: they work, but god they're bad. they're terrible. Not a big deal, but still, at this price... the jack is very good tho.<p>- lightpeak will probably not take off, that said, its mostly used for the side device only and serves as USB port, so who cares.<p>- way the laptop sits on the desk you may sometimes find positions where its not sitting properly, if your "desk" is not flat

Has the grammar/writing at boingboing deteriorated or am I comparing everyone to Cory?<p><pre><code> "The trackpad's in an odd spot." "This hardly trenchant criticism, especially if you're used to island-style keys." "so successful that you can walk a store and not see a machine that doesn't have one." </code></pre> Is this really the level of writing that comes out of bb now?

The author lost me when I saw the image of the color mac. That device sucked. They should have chosen a new design for improved (and quieter) ventilation instead of sticking to the old design. That they reused the old design may have been right from a marketing perspective but it was a PITA from a user's perspective.

The only real problem i had with Z-series is that the keyboard is scratching the screen, if you carry the notebook in the backpack long enough. I just can't understand why Sony couldn't solve this simple problem.

The Vaio Z is a sweet series. If I didn't use a Mac I would almost certainly buy the Vaio Z. Last I scoped out notebooks that was the case anyway.