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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. DISCL
by zobzu 15y ago
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.
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.
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.
Trackpad: it's in.. the regular spot.
Software: it's loaded with Sony stuff mostly. You can remove or reinstall if you dislike it.
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.
The rest is just "look, my iMac design didn't change in 4 years it's awesome, changing design sucks!".
Now... let's see what the Z21 has and the others.. just plain don't.
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.
Screen: Hello 1920x1080 anti-glare screen. How the hell are others not all anti-glare by default ?
CPU: Hello regular voltage i7 2620M. The air CPU suddenly look.. you know.. just not in the same range.
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.
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.
Weight? Lighter than the Macbook air says enough.
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)
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.)
Oh and, does it run linux properly? yep.
So it's an expensive device, but considered all the above, it's pretty decent I guess.
Finally, the actual bad, and yes, there is some bad:
- 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.
- lightpeak will probably not take off, that said, its mostly used for the side device only and serves as USB port, so who cares.
- way the laptop sits on the desk you may sometimes find positions where its not sitting properly, if your "desk" is not flat
- mikeryan 15y agoThis article isn't a review of the Z21 - its a statement on the nature of design problems at Sony. If you want to argue with the review its over here http://www.wired.com/reviews/2011/11/sony-vaio-z/ http://www.wired.com/reviews/2011/11/sony-vaio-z/ The whole point of the review was as a lead into the part about the keyboard changes. All the posts arguing about how the Z21 is awesome are missing the point of the article.
- zobzu 15y agoThe article mention every single bad point of the review of the Z21 as a basement of how Apple is awesome for not changing design over the years. Besides not being true; the basement; is totally flawed. (regardless of being more technical than pure design) Thus everyone criticizes that base. Makes sense to me. No base, no article.
- notatoad 15y agoIts not about apple not changing, it's about apple knowing when not to change. Sony can make a good product, but when they do it doesn't influence future products. New products don't learn from either the failures or the successes of past designs. Whether whatever laptop you like is good or not is irrelevant to the authors point, just as it is irrelevant to the products that follow it.
- zobzu 15y agoI gotta also mention that I have an AZERTY keyboard. The AZERTY keyboard is a standard mapping. The QWERTY Keyboard has a slightly odd mapping for the shift key indeed. Likewise, US laptops might have slightly more crapware /w Windows that I had (?)
- tikhonj 15y agoI've found pretty much all of this to be accurate, also running on Linux full time, although I have a cheaper setup. The really fast hard drive access time is particularly nice, especially since I regularly need to run tests involving IO-intensive database calls. EDIT: Also, can you tell me which distro you're running?