Customer Reviews

Sony VAIO PCG-Z1VA Laptop (1.60-GHz Pentium-M (Centrino), 512 MB RAM, 60 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you're looking for a sleek, performer that you can carry anywhere, don't look any further.

First things first. This is not a desktop replacement. Its a Pentium-M processor at 1.60GHz, which is close to a Pentium 4 at 2.3GHz. If you're looking for a blazing processor, buy one with a quick Pentium 4. If you're looking for something that'll sip on battery juice, this notebook with the Pentium-M is exactly what you're looking for. If you're using the computer away from a wall socket, the battery life will be extremely important. Especially if you're trying to finish your paper and you hear the battery chime ringing at 10% 'til dry.

This notebook is extremely portable. I tend to carry the Sony around everywhere because I just don't mind the weight. I never realized that subconsciously, weight would determine my willingness to take my notebook with me. Whether its around campus, or out to lunch from work. My 14.1" iBook feels like carrying marble slabs in my bag.

Not for gamers. The Sony comes equipped with a ATI Mobility Radeon 16MB graphics chip. Graphic intense games get so choppy, you'll get motion sickness. Then again, this notebook is not advertised as a gaming unit. I still play games like Age of Empires 2 and things with ease though.

Wireless networking built in. Sometimes, when we go to Starbucks or a book store and we need to jump on the net, the built-in 802.11b works like magic. I'm planning on setting up a wireless, backwords compatible, 802.11g router soon. If you get a 802.11g card, it'll be like 10 times faster than the 802.11b. Also, I've ordered the wireless modem from T-Mobile with unlimited internet access for like 30 bucks a month.

The built-in CD-RW/DVD combo drive is smooth and quiet. Although running things in the drive of any notebook will drain the battery at a higher rate, at least this drive is quiet while you're watching your movies.

I've heard some people complaining about the high resolution and how the font is tiny and hard to read. Well, heres my answer, go to the display settings menu and check the large font option. If all you do is lower the resolution, the fonts will look fuzzy. But if you just enlarge the font, everything will be "normal". BTW, I work with Photoshop and Illustrator on a daily basis and I'm truly amazed with the monitor. It displays images and color vibrantly.

If you think this is one gorgeous laptop, you're right. It wasn't by mistake, how the design came to be. There's a whole thing on the design and creation process at the Sony website. Check it out.

If you need to be away from your desk to explore the creativity in you, take the Sony Vaio PCG-Z1VA along. Its perfect.

I thought I would never buy a vaio because they were too expensive but here I am writing a review for my PCG-Z1VA. This vaio has everything I wanted - centrino technology, a good battery life(about 3.5 - 4 hours usually), under five pounds, a 14.1 inch screen (which is difficult to find in lighter laptops), and a wireless networking card. Some features that I wasn't even looking for was the 60 GB hard drive, sony compatibilty (e.g. memory stick slot), and integrated Bluetooth. One more thing that sold me was that my cousin has had a vaio notebook for four years now and praised it highly.

The only complaint I have is that you don't get alot of software considering the price. But don't let the price scare you away, this truly is a good value in the long run.

I've had my Z1VA for about a month and am VERY pleased. I use it at least 6-7 hours a day, and have already taken it on an extended international trip. In many respects it is a dream machine. It has a few drawbacks, but overall it is fantastic.
Here are the plusses++++
Weight - with the regular battery it's under 5 pounds.
Screen - the clearest, brightest screen I've had on a laptop.
Battery Life - I sprang for the double cell battery. I think it's overpriced, but it really increases the functionality of the machine. (If you buy it when you register you get a 20% discount.) With the double cell battery, I can work solidly for 8 hours with no need to find a plug. I usually plug in at night, then go all day. It is the first laptop I've had that fulfilled the promise of a laptop... true portability!
Style - It's a beautiful machine, solidly built, and generally well designed.
Wireless - with both WIFI and bluetooth, it makes connecting a breeze. I had a plug-in WIFI card on my old laptop, but the Z1VA has at least twice the range. I'm impressed.

Here are the negatives---
1. No backup disks come included. You can buy a set from Sony, or make your own... it takes nine CDs, so it takes a while to do this. When you pay $2000 for a computer I don't think it's too much to ask for a free set of backup disks to be included!
2. No dedicated "page down" key. This is my biggest gripe. It's a hastle when reading documents, web pages, etc. To page down you hold down function AND the down arrow key. That means you need to keep two fingers on the computer while reading.
3. The USB port plug-ins are poorly placed, There is a ledge right beneath them that prevented one device from being inserted. I had to buy a USB extension cable to plug in that device. The headphone jack has the same problem... my headphone jack just barely fits.
4. The right shift key is TINY. Very hard to find. I'm finally getting used to it, but the machine is wide enough to have included a full size right shift key.
Those are the only drawbacks I've found with my Z1VA, and I consider them minor frustrations compared to the overall quality of the machine.
If you are looking for a powereful laptop with true portability, I would highly recommend the Sony PCG-Z1VA.

Shopped extensively--trips to stores, to sites, to reviews, to newsgroups--and believed this was the right machine, with the best feature set, a great (very low) weight, good battery life, and an attractive, functional design. After having it for a few weeks, have become even more convinced that this is the right machine for my needs: Very lightweight, amazing battery life (aided by well-designed power management software), and eye-catching--and functional--design. Unlike some other posts, haven't experienced any problems with the screen resolution (though it results in text that is small relative to what you may be used to), screen colors, or touchpad. (Important note: Had problems earlier that were diagnosed as a motherboard failure. This wasn't the case; there were no hardware or Sony software problems, and Sony customer service and Sony Vaio management went out of their way to help diagnose and resolve the problem, which was with an access point, not the PC at all. Haven't ever had any company do as much as Sony did to bring this to a speedy resolution. Kudos.)

Once again Sony is the leader in price/performance. For the same price as an IBM T40 (actually the Sony is $100 less comparing Amazon.com prices), you get TWO TIMES MORE MEMORY (512 mb ram vs. 256 on the IBM), a FASTER CPU (1.6ghz. vs 1.5 on the IBM T40), a BIGGER HARD DISK (60gb vs. 40gb on the IBM). Plus as a bonus you get a FIREWIRE port onboard, along with two USB 2.0. (the IBM does not include firewire).

Top top all this, the Sony VAIO weights LESS than the IBM and is visually more attractive. The software selection is better, too!. What more can you ask?.

I just purchased the Sony PCG-Z1WA (the 1.70 GHz model). I replaces a three year old Dell that is a brick in comparison. The screen on the Sony is truly impressive although you have to adjust the resolution down unless you can read in micro print or have 20/15 eagle eyed vision. The key board works well (not to small for a mid-weight laptop). It would be nice if the page up and page down buttons were primary keys and not accessed through the function button.

The WA model has upgraded wireless 802.11b and g, it works great, if you've never gone wireless before you simply don't know what you are missing.

The battery life is awesome, I went from east to west coast, watched a DVD and still had plenty of juice to get some work done. All batteries should be this good.

My only issue with the laptop relates to the touch pad, sometimes it seems to lock up for a second and you have to take your finger off the touch pad and set it back down to get it to work. Everything else I've been able to adapt in Windows XP, the touch pad I haven't.

One last comment, this is simply the best looking laptop going. I can't beleive how many people have commented on it. Style, performance, battery life and relatively few quirks - Almost the perfect laptop. I highly recommend it.

If you have the money to buy it, it is a great computer. Durable and hasn't had any problems for two months now. Works better than any Dell, Gateway, or Compaq out there. I usually do so much on a computer it freezes them, but this one hasn't. Overall, couldn't buy a better computer, the only downside is the high price, but it is worth it I think.

I purchased this laptop. After receiving the laptop I didnt like the frame of the laptop. The bottom of the laptop is not plain with the battery. And frame looks very loose like if you drop, it will broke. I purchased this with XP home edition. I need IIS server for studying ASP.net, so tried to upgrade the OS to XP Proffessions but it wont work. I lost all the data and format it to the original config. I called the support and they said this for only XP home edition and they dont support any OS upgrades. This is a biggest draw-back. The key board is very bad. You have to press Fn key and press Home key and End key to get the begining and end of the line in a word processor. There is a lot of waste space on the key baord, they should have put the keys normally. While borwsing some times it will automatically go back to the previous page when you are moving the mouse with the touch pad and some times the touch pad doesnt respond which irritates me. And even though it came with centrino sometimes its very slow. With all these problems I dont think its worth the price.

I won this laptop on CBS's The Price is Right, so I won't comment on price. As for everything else, though, I've been very pleased.

Pros:
The Pentium M processor is FAST. I am very happy with this CPU and I feel that buying a laptop with anything else is a mistake. It must run really cool, as the fan is quiet and spends more time off than on.

The ATI graphics are acceptable for general use but not suitable for games. The LCD screen is very nice --- bright, very high resolution. Mine did come with a broken pixel (blue always on) but this is hardly ever noticeable.

The case is lightweight but well-built and sturdy. It looks great. The keyboard is very nice --- I have big hands and I have no difficulty typing quickly on it. The touchpad has some nice features, and though it did seem to stick at first as someone else suggested, that problem seems to have gone away with age.

Best of all: Linux support is great. Whoever implied otherwise just does not know what he is talking about. I use this machine all day every day, and the only operating system I've installed is Linux. There is even support for the function keys and the advanced features of the touchpad.

Cons:

I upgraded the memory to 1GB, and the ATI graphics chip decided to claim 128MB for itself (instead of 16MB). This is not adjustable in the BIOS, and is a total waste because, let's face it, this graphics chip isn't capable of doing anything that requires that much memory.

Summary:

Before winning this I was going to buy an IBM Thinkpad. I can not imagine being happier with the IBM, though. The Sony is a great all-around computer.

I paid about 2 grands for my Z1VA. I admit, its stylish design and light weight played a major part of decision making. However, after I got my laptop and played for 30 minutes, I started to regret I paid too much for it.

First of all, you CANNOT upgrade your OS, you have to stick with XP Home edition which comes with the "recovery disks" you made yourself (9 CDs!!!). If you try to do a fresh install of XP Pro, sorry, the recovery disks won't let you install drivers and utilities to control your laptop. Therefore, you probably can't use your bluetooth, wireless, function keys, and power control tools. This is a really really big problem.

However I do managed to get my laptop dual boot into its default XP Home and Gentoo Linux (with most of devices working), therefore the claim that previous reviewer made about this laptop not working with OS other than XP was not accurate.

In conclusion, this laptop is good enough for common users for daily tasks but probably not suitable for "players" or techies... The bottom line is, this laptop do look really good.