I was getting tired of having a desktop and a notebook and wanted something powerful and light. Even though many options are available nowadays, none come close to Z2 in performing all jobs well.
At the office I have the dock, USB hub, and 3 monitors (2 connected to the dock and for the 3rd one I need to connect a HDMI cable). All I need to do is to connect 2 cables and I am set.
Pros:
Fast: The machine is fast to boot and to resume (my previous Dell Lattitude was a nightmare), handles all my programs as fast as my quadcore desktop (including video and photoshop). Disclaimer: I do not play games. The noise cancelling headphones are great (light and it works).
Light: My arthrits thank me daily.
Battery: I got the slice battery, but I have not needed yet. I am getting at least 5-6 hours from the main battery.
Backlight: is much less intrusive than Dell.
Display: reflections are very well controlled.
Attention: it calls much less attention than other thin & lights (it does not "look" as thin or light)
Cons:
Noise: I was afraid of the reviews stating that the fan makes the sound of an airplane taking off. It is true, but in my use it never happened with my usual work, including watching/streaming movies. It did happen once while I was making/burning a movie using an USB 3.0 BluRay burner (not the dock). The dock fan/drive is somewhat noticeable.
Speakers: Useless. My Ipad have better speakers. I carry a mini usb soundbar.
Graphics: I have not been able to convince the laptop to recognize my touchscreens as separate units yet (if I touch the 2nd or the 3rd monitor, it thinks I touched the first monitor). I think is fixable, I just haven't had the time (took me while to convince the Dell also)
Price: I am sure Sony is making a hefty profit at my expense. ASUS UX31 is a proof it did not have to be that expensive. I only bought this as it was the most painless 3 monitor option at work.
Overall I am much happier than expected. I hope this helps.
Daniel
Update: A year later...
I stand for almost everything above except for the following problems:
1) Drivers: for some reason, time to time one of the drivers stop working and I have reinstall the driver. Usually the problem is the driver for the SD card reader, touchpad or USB ports.
2) Keyboard Backlight is too weak and too slow to turn on
3) The USB 3.0 port stop working and I can't get it to work again. It still works to connect to the dock and I can still get USB 3.0 from the docking station but when I am on the road I am down to 1 USB 2.0 port and no usb 3.0.
4) When disconnecting the docking station, it is important to OK the message on the center of the screen first then the on the left top otherwise it will crash on next boot and it takes several reboots to start working again.
5) the built-in speakers are horrible. As my portable clip-on speakers use USB, I run out of ports on the road.
6) the volume out to the headphones are also weak depending on your source (like Amazon prime) and headphones. I use a small (chocolate mint size) amplifier but then the noise cancelation is gone.
Would I buy again? Yes, as I like to have 3 monitors to work, Vaio Z2 is still the best solution to use just 1 machine as desktop and laptop. But I am downgrading it to 4 stars.
I hope yours work better than mine .
Daniel
The Sony Vaio Z2 is easily the best laptop I have ever owned and purchased. I have owned various laptops in the past 12 years (Dell, Asus, Alienware, Samsung, Apple, toshiba, NEC, Sony TX), and the Vaio Z2 blows everything away. Having a good grasp of current hardware and an enthusiast in building custom computers (Liquid cooling to subzero cooling included), I was looking for a laptop that would fit what I was looking for. Giving up last year, I ended up buying and trying the asus bamboo which I felt was at best a mediocre machine.
However, when I first saw the Vaio Z2 in ads in Hong Kong, the design immediately caught my attention. I quickly researched the specs when I got back to my hotel room and found it to be the exact laptop I was looking for Light and slim, powerful, adaptable, strong battery (14hours with the sheet battery), tough design, USB3. I quickly purchased one in Singapore and have not looked back since. I simply loved the laptop.
There are however cons as well. The Keyboard keys are very responsive but feels low (this is unavoidable from a design perspective). The trackpad and mouse was at first originally horrible, however with the latest vaio update, it is now responsive and easier to use. The exorbitant price is painful. I believe for the price we should have received the sheet battery, bluray burner, more SSD space, and windows ultimate instead of premium.
The powerdock is a good and bad thing for me. On one hand having to carry another brick is annoying when I travel. On the other hand, if you think of it as an ultra portable laptop with a high end mobile GPU, it sits far better than any other laptop out there. Also the powerdock allows for great future possibilities. Being able to upgrade the powerdock in the future is very viable. However it is unknown yet as to whether sony will use this feature or not.
With all that said. I still believe that the Sony Vaio Z2 has brought the laptop technology up another notch and will be the high end laptop manufacturers will have to contend with in my books. The only reason I took 1 star off this laptop is due to the uncertainty of whether sony will continue to support the powerdock in the future. If they do so by coming up with better powerdock and GPUs for the Z2, I will correct this review and give it a full 5 star.
I hope this review has helped. In conclusion, grabbing a Sony Vaio Z2 is a great choice if you have the cash to spare.
Summary -
Pros+:
Amazing HD screen
RAID0 SSD
Vaio update support is up to date for now
Fast CPU (not under volted like the most laptops)
Design
Powerdock
lightweight
Battery (4hours 14hours w/ sheet battery)
Noise canceling in-ear phones
Portability and adaptability
Cons-:
low level Keyboard
Original trackpad firmware
Fan can be loud on full load
Speakers
powerdock (if not supported in future)
Buy Sony VAIO VPC-Z216GX/L 13.1-Inch Laptop (Blue) Now
I'll keep this short.
Pros:
VERY light chassis that almost feels "hollow"
Incredibly powerful enough to drive GTA4 at 1080p and high res
PMD highly useful, and looks great on desk
Screen with beautiful colors and great resolution
Battery life enough to support more than 5 hours of normal usage under a balanced scheme and 7 under power saver mode
Altogether nice-looking
Cons:
Overall build quality is fine but sort of fragile, doesn't seem like it could withstand a fall
Keyboard far too shallow to provide enough travel for intense typing or gaming
Trackpad too small and the response is sort of awkward.
Speaker quality is plain bad.
PMD makes configurations and driver installation far more difficult than it needs to be.
Overall:
Great for business, rips through most any software you'll ever need portable, decodes tak files at an impossibly fast speed, but if you want this for gaming I would advise a separate mouse and keyboard.
Read Best Reviews of Sony VAIO VPC-Z216GX/L 13.1-Inch Laptop (Blue) Here
The laptop is beautiful, it's a Z and it shows, you wouldn't have to be a genius to notice it's quality, it really is a sight. Let me also say the resolution & clarity of the screen at an astounding 1920x1080 on a 13.1 inch screen is amazing all by itself. Some people say they can't read the small print. Well, you can always adjust the zoom. However, if you get the lower resolution you can't adjust up, so if you want the capability of watching a full 1080p video on your blu-ray than this can do it. The peformance of the processor is quite good for a dual core processor, you won't find a competitor that utilizes a quad core in a notebook that weighs only 2.5 pounds and is only a 1/2 thick. It's just to much chip to allow for cooling, so the dual core i7 is mainstream, but if you look close, this one has a much faster i7 than many. That's because this is not an ultra low voltage processor. Somehow they found a way to cool this upgrade even in it's ultra thin chasis. Now, you may have heard that many reviews complain of the fan running loud and sometimes to constant, well, I personally don't see what the big fuss is about a small fan running inside of your laptop, first of all I didn't find it annoying or overly loud. Second, I'd rather have it this way than the alternative, what I don't like is a machine that seems as though the fan isn't working or maybe set on the wrong calibration. The look and feel of this laptop is second to none, it's awesome in every aspect.
Now, the flip side, the portability comes at a price. The speakers are almost non tolerable, easy fix, I recommend a $30 single capsule speaker, Amazon carries the x-mini which works just fine. The next sacrifice you'll make by choosing this machine is the shortage of USB ports, for some this is not a deal breaker. You must utilize the included power media dock to have 3 USB ports, otherwise you'll only have 2. Next, you'll need to plug in the power media dock via one of your USB ports and one other dedicated port to plug in the power media dock. Next you'll have to plug in the power media dock to the wall to power it on. Now you have as many wires as a full blown desktop. The power media dock houses both the blu-ray player and the upgraded Radeon 1 gig graphics card. This means that when the power media dock is not plugged in, your only using the standard Intel 3000 graphics which is onboard your laptop. If you need to load a program off of a dvd/cd, you have to plug in the power media dock. I don't think this is much of an issue since the macbook air is the same way. However the graphics I think may be a little bigger issue. When you open the box the new Z comes in, you'll find an a/c adapter for the laptop, then as you dig more, you'll find even a larger a/c adapter for the power media dock, it's quite large. Now, the biggest issue in my opinion, the keyboard. To say it's a minor adjustment would be an understatement. The keyboard has only a 1mm keystroke as opposed to the Sony Vaio S model which has a 2mm keystroke. The first thing is the backlit keyboard, don't expect the keys to light up as much on the Z as it does on the S model, the reason? Well, the keys are so short of space underneath on the Z that there was simply no room to allow light under the key, the S model on the other hand does. So, this means you'll only be getting light from the letter character itself, not the lower edge of each key. For some, not a big deal, for me, I want the extra light. The oil from your fingers will eventually wear the keys and soil them, before you know it the most commonly used keys are barely visible at night.
In summary, I would like to see a new Z model that is a little thicker, with longer keystrokes, built in high performance switchable graphics and blu ray slot loading as well. Keep the material and workmanship the same, same 1920x1080 display, drastically improve the speakers and provide full backlit keyboard including the bottom edge just like the S model and throw in 2 year warranty instead of one for the Z model, and last but certainly not least, Sony needs to realize the value of promoting a warranty that is openly & honestly as well as easily transferable to multiple owners for the duration of the warranty. Dell does this and it makes a big difference. If I decide to sell, which I have a habit of doing, I want the easy warranty transfer which protects my investment when I sell. It's a win win for all. Now, back to the good again, this laptop looks great on your desk, it's a conversation piece for sure, you'll be the envy of the office. The laptop is truly a piece of art, nice. It's so thin and well made. Just needs a few tweaks. If Sony improved their customer support and listened to their customers, this may have already been changed, remember, there are often more important things in life besides making your scheduled tee time.
Want Sony VAIO VPC-Z216GX/L 13.1-Inch Laptop (Blue) Discount?
This machine is great. It is everything I want. Great resolution, it is 1920x1080 (VPC-Z216). So the res. is better than Amazon says.
Boots up at 15 seconds. Good keyboard layout. Feels like a premium computer.
The machine is amazingly thin and light weighted. Also you got extreme power from the processor and SSDs. Go for it, I truly recommend it.
Amazon has written wrong specs. Check them out at:
The product itself came defective, BSOD'ing twice in the week that I had it. The computer was slow in alt-tabbing between programs that were in full-screen mode, and even worse was slow in loading games such as Battlefield Bad Company 2. I have an ASUS ROG laptop with worse specs than this computer, and it was able to outperform this computer hands down. The only reason I replaced it was because I screwed up the screen, and wanted an Alienware.
