Cenkaetaya Reviews: Vaio Vgn-Z series Z530n/b review

[FlyerFier]

As someone who has had this damn laptop for 18 months, DON'T BUY IT!

It's overpriced and has given me nothing but trouble from day 1. If you need a driver for it, good luck. Sony seem to treat their drivers like their first born child; reluctant to give it away. The battery life is still ok though. I only use mine for internet, watching movies and some MS Office tasks. It's not like it's been overused or anything.

When this piece of rubbish goes in the bin, I'm off to Apple.

[Kolyan24k]

another ps. with 9-cell you get about 9-10 hours on X200 in powersave mode. dont know about this vaio

[Kolyan24k]

Thanks for review man.....Laptop is great but I would only be interested in HDMI out.......dont really care about gaming and not that much for DVD drive on the go and therefore I think X200 is far better choice due to very good driver support and the fact that X200 is built MUCH MUCH better then Sony. ps. 4500MHD has full support for Win 7, HD, and Bluray, so external GPU is only good for games and 3DMAX stuff.

[cenkaetaya1]

i agree with you on all the x200 points but.

after having this vaio, the screen size for 1, is just much better for long hour usage.

Also the best thing ever is having a second HDD in the dvd drive, which i have. It is just soooo nice to have 2x 320gig hdds in my tiny laptop. It only steals like 35-40 mins of battery and i can power it off.

These two features and hdmi really win me over. I think There is a cheaper vaio .. maybe the Y which is basically a Z with 4500gma, but then the x200 win

[jjuulliiaa91]

hi :) thanks for the review!

i'm needing a laptop for uni, to use word/websurfing - i'll need around 5 hours battery life for that

but i use photoshop, so i need performance!

do you think this laptop is suitable?

thanks for your help!

[cenkaetaya1]

yes, this computer is quite good for that. I would wait till sony releases the new vaio z very soon, thus dropping the price on the older one even further. On ebay.. or maybe if there is a sony outlet, you should be able to pick it up for 1100-1300. I just recommend getting the older one cuz if you dont play games, there is no reason to pay so much more and not really need it. Its a very fast computer either way. Personally i would recommend the Thinkpad X200, or Thinkpad T400/410/500s

[jjuulliiaa91]

thank you so much for your help! & such a quick response!

will research the thinkpads as well!

thanks :)

[willabt321]

@jjuulliiaa91 If you want good battery life and all you need to do is surf the internet and use photoshop, don't get this.

My 3 year old core2duo macbook runs PS great. You really don't need that much power for photoshop, definitely not of vaio z magnetite. Also, a powerful laptop like the vaio z won't have good battery life.

I'd follow cenkaetaya's advice and get a thinkpad. The X and T series are incredible machines, that will last forever.

[catCRAAAZY]

the new z series laptop is defo not cheap

[ajyerage]

What is this song playing in the backgound. Adds a sort of "Swordfish" quality to this post. Who is the artist?

[cenkaetaya1]

@ajyerage hey, its Asian Dub Foundation - Box

never really thought of of my video that way... but i like it. :)

[ajyerage]

Thanks for the reply! That is awesome.

[cinemascene]

thanks for your raw and HONEST review!

[MichaelDola]

Battery question!

I just spent some time playing with a Z series at Sony Style, and I would change the settings from stamina to strength, or the brightness of the screen, and the battery life did not seem to be affected. With your updated Win7 drivers, what kind of real world performance are you getting out of your 6 cell battery? (the model at the store was reading 3 hours on average, on any setting or brigthness)

[cenkaetaya1]

basically... if you install no sony drivers except for the video and mouse, in stamina you will get 4-5 hrs of use (wifi on, music, surfing, all the time) Its quite good. I just hate how you cannot get HDD protect working without installing all that other sony driver crap. With screen off, just playing music you could probably get up to 6-7 hrs. Its quite impressive,. 4500gma is a great card.. I also have a 2nd HDD stuffed into the Dvd drive and if its on, it cuts me back by about 30mins.

[MichaelDola]

Hate to ask a secondary question, but...

I am pretty knowledgeable with computers, but I really haven't done a lot of tweaking with drivers. What do you mean when you say "install Sony drivers?" Are you saying that you deleted things from the cpu after the initial purchase, or do you mean extraneous upgrades?

In any case, 4 hours is the magic number for what you described (wifi, music, surfing, and word processing).

Thanks again.

[cenkaetaya1]

well.. if you buy a new one it comes with w7, so everything is there. Youd have to remove the drivers to make it better. But personally i prefer to reinstall an OS fresh. Than i installed the video driver, control of hotkeys driver. This way all else is installed by windows update. I find the computer runs considerably faster when you do this, and achieves better battery life. Its quite annoying, because with lenovo, the HDD protect driver worked fine. If you dont game, i recommend x200

[lkmnb432]

lol Sony don't make cheap laptop. It bend but it won't break on you.

Youtube video "Sony Vaio Crash Test"

[axnlogix]

I'm thinking about buying a vaio as well. Specifically the Z710-dd. I'm not use to the sony model numbers yet, but im assuming its a higher model than yours.

My question, have you played Crysis on your laptop yet? That's pretty much the decision breaker right there. If its able to handle crysis on low/medium settings and is a LITTLE bit fine on high settings, I would purchase this jewel.... I'm looking for a hybrid laptop. Gaming, school, and work.

[cenkaetaya1]

basically, you are looking for exactly what i was when buying a laptop. This is it in the particular size/weight category. It may play Crysis on lowest...cod4 runs on low quite well. EQ2 was good, new mmorpg trial Fallen Earth just barely worked, but worked. Company of heroes is a game you should really check out for mp, it runs great on gma4500, Just expect to play all new graphic intensive 3d shooter style games on lowest, or not at all. Build yourself a gaming desktop for 500 bux for those.

[axnlogix]

I have a pretty powerful desktop. But i'll be travelling around Japan for the year and I would like something as ultra compact as this that can at least run games decently... I guess i'll make a purchase for this during black friday or boxing day.

[Irisal]

I rekon it bend easily coz it's carbon fiber n It won't snap, how could u get scratch that easily? the only place it could be scratch is where the battery is

[cenkaetaya1]

ya you are right, it is mainly on battery, and also on the "tube like hinge" just below the "sony" logo below the screen.

that whole area is kinda not clean, scratched looking. I really dont even know why since its not somewhere that i ever touch.. and is covered by the screen.

there is also quite a bit of flex in the corners closest to the touch pad

[JehxOne]

Sony used that keyboard before Apple picked up the idea

[cenkaetaya1]

i would say when running on max gaming capacity such as playing EQ2 it gets hot, but not as hot as most laptops do under the same stress. In fact id does quite well. It has only 1 small hole for air exhaust but it really pushes the stuff out quite well.

I hear some of the faster 2.8gz or so versions get much more hot.

[piNoYYoNiq]

does it get hot when you play games?