First impressions of the Sony Vaio TZ

Since unboxing my Sony Vaio TZ170N a few days ago, I've spent more than 25 hours with the ultralight Vista Business machine on my lap, usually incredibly pleased at the subnotebook's performance and usability, but sometimes confused and pretty miserable.

The misery isn't due to the upper left corner of the TZ's bottom heating up to uncomfortable temperatures on my leg, either, as the rest of the unit remains completely cool after hours of continued use. No, the horror immediately following the unboxing was due solely to the initial boot time and subsequent setup that made for a very negative first impression. I know now that all the pain was worth it in the end, but at the time, I reread Sony Style's 30-day return policy and made sure to keep all the original packing materials.

Starting Vista for the first time

Although my TZ170N has twice the RAM as the TZ150N, LAPTOP Magazine's assessment that the latter "behaved as if it were broken before [they] deleted some programs and prevented others . . . from launching upon startup" still applies.

Here's a rundown of what happened as soon as I hit the power button.

First, I followed Vista's instructions and waited while Windows prepared to start for the first time. According to my stopwatch, which was my trusty companion throughout the process, this took 4 minutes and 30 seconds.

Then, my eyes were treated to a vibrant splash of blue and a request to continue waiting. After 4 minutes and 45 seconds, the colorful screen (which by then had already lost its appeal) was replaced by a blank black screen.

About 3 minutes later, I was able to setup Windows. The process was straightforward and took a minute or so to get through.

I was asked to select my wallpaper during setup, which I thought was odd at first but later understood why it was done: visual variation. I stared at my choice for the next 45 seconds.

After a flash of black, 20 seconds of waiting while Windows checked the computer's performance, and a quick welcome screen, the system began to prepare my desktop.

Even though all I really did was select a wallpaper, it still took 1 minute and 48 seconds for my desktop to be prepared.

Or so I thought.

The desktop according to Sony

An advertisement for Norton Internet Security appeared. It could be dismissed with a single click of the "Exit" button, but then it took another 3 whole minutes for everything on the desktop to load.

My god! Look at all that. (Hey, I think I see my wallpaper under there.)

If you've lost track of all the minutes and seconds, it took about 17 minutes to get to this point.

Out of all of the ridiculous pieces of trialware, bloatware, and Vaio-specific programs that Sony preinstalled, the absolute worst were the Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 movies, which took up nearly 3GB of hard drive space.

Oh, and speaking of the hard drive, guess how much of the TZ's stated 100GB (about 97GB in 1024MB = 1GB terms) is available out of the box.

That's right. Only 62.3GB free of 84.8GB available.

Why!?

Well, Sony keeps an additional 8.3GB in a hidden partition for recovery purposes, which brings the actual capacity up to 93.1GB. Windows keeps a few gigs for itself, too, so even though it's initially alarming to see so much space "missing" space, everything is pretty much as it should be. Everything, that is, except for all the freeware slash trialware slash bloatware slash crapware.

Before shoveling through it, the first thing I did was create the recovery discs. It's straightforward through the preloaded VAIO Recovery Center, but it took considerably longer than I expected. With 16x Ridata DVD-Rs and the TZ's built-in ODD, it took 56 minutes to create two single-layer DVDs. The content could also be written onto a single dual-layer DVD, but I didn't have one on hand.

I briefly considered wiping the entire drive, doing a clean install of Vista, and wiping out the recovery partition, but I don't really need the extra space. My UX180P, for example, has only 30GB; I've had it for over a year already and I still have about 14GB free.

Uninstalling bloatware

You can see from the desktop photo above just how much extraneous software is loaded onto a factory-fresh Sony TZ, but there's actually a lot more than that. Here's a list of the stuff I uninstalled immediately:

• Norton Internet Security
• LocationFree Player
• Napster
• SonicStage (and related apps)
• AOL Helper and Toolbar
• Microsoft Ofice Small Business 2007 (and related apps)
• QuickBooks
• Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional (this alone was 1.15GB!)
• Microsoft Streets & Trips 2006
• Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI and Snapfire
• Microsoft Works
• DSD Direct
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (partial)
• VAIO Entertainment Center
• VAIO Productivity Center
• VAIO Center Access Bar
• VAIO Media 6.0 (and related apps)
• VAIO Photo 2007
• VAIO Video & Photo Suite

Uninstalling all of that (and the aforementioned Spider-Man flicks) freed up more than 8GB!

I might get rid of more eventually, but 70GB of free space is more than enough for me right now. One thing I've noticed, though, is that I tend to lose gigs quickly because of Vista's preoccupation with backups. Before I disabled it, the hibernation file was 2GB; and before I deleted it, the system restore and shadow copies ate up nearly 3GB.

The payoff

I mentioned at the beginning of this rant that it's definitely worthwhile to push through the pain of getting the TZ to a not-so-factory state. And it is.

It's obviously still much too soon for me to write up a full review, but now that I'm nearing the 60-hour mark of TZ170N ownership, I think I can share the unorganized list of thoughts and impressions I jotted down in the notebook I kept beside me as I got to know the TZ.

Sleep/Resume is almost instant. Vista's default "off" state is called Sleep. It's essentially a combination of the Standby and Hibernate modes found in XP, and it's fast! Even with as many as 83 processes (according to the Task Manager) running in Vista Business, it takes about 5 seconds each for the system to sleep and resume. Five seconds!

Outstanding battery life. I haven't run any drain tests or done anything incredibly taxing to the system yet, but I'm easily getting about 6 hours of Firefox time via wi-fi. The battery isn't taking a big hit from Sleep mode either; it loses only about 2.5% of its charge per hour.

Power button placement. One of my early concerns was that the TZ could be easily turned on accidentally because of the odd placement of the power button. Fortunately, not only does the button require a very deliberate press, but it can also be reconfigured to do nothing. Opening and closing the TZ's ultra-thin lid can be used to turn the system on/off instead.

Zippy performance. Vista Business on 2GB of RAM and the U7500 Core 2 Duo processor runs exceptionally well. And I haven't even optimized anything! I'm taking full advantage of (and loving) the Aero interface and Windows Sidebar.

Excellent keyboard. I had read that the keyboard takes some getting used to, but that wasn't true for me. The keys are nicely sized and spaced out, typing is comfortable and quiet, and tactile feedback is great. It's 90% the size of a standard keyboard, which makes very little difference to my hands and fingers. According to the typing test I take when reviewing UMPCs and handtops, I'm typing at 91% of my normal speed.

No compatibility issues with old software. Maybe this is a given now, but I remember reading some horror stories about compatibility with older software when Vista was first released. Since this is my first Vista machine, all of my favorite software is old. I didn't install much (only about 10 titles), but nothing is better than when things just work.

Viewing angles. The LED-backlit 11.1-inch LCD (1366 x 768) is impossibly thin and extremely crisp, bright, and beautiful, but what actually struck me most were the viewing angles. They're fantastic from the side and bottom: none of that negative image nonsense.

Transfer rates. The TZ is equipped with a dual-layer ODD, a memory stick slot, and an SD card slot. I didn't test the SD slot yet, but I got 5.47MB/s and 2.86MB/s transfers from the ODD and MS slots, respectively.

Ultraportable and lightweight. I'm amazed by how small and light the TZ is. I can easily hold it by a corner in just one hand, something I commonly associate with UMPCs but never with notebooks.

Ventilation. The cylindrical battery has a small mound (with two feet) that sits beneath the TZ, keeping it from laying completely flat to allow air to flow freely between the bottom of the unit and whatever flat surface it's resting on. When the bottom is not propped up correctly (e.g., when it's on a lap), it heats up quickly. This seems to activate the fan on the left side, which runs so quietly that I usually need to press my ear up to the vent to hear if it's even on.

Lots more to come in the following weeks and months.

Comments

[Sam]

Why did you delete the hiberfile? You won't be able to hiberbate the laptop? Seems a step to far to me - especialy given vistas long boot times (although all the other steps are steps in the right direction IMHO!)

[Kevin C. Tofel]

With the Sleep function so stable and fast in Vista, I'm with Jenn: no need for Hibernation.

[Don]

I knew you would love the TZ--and once you optimize it, it will be super!

[richyhu]

I live in Europe and I recently acquired the TZ too. Like you I was initially a little disapointed with the loading times and I think a lot of this was due to bloatware too.

Seems like the actual titles vary between markets, but the quantity is the same.

I got a whole bunch of stuff from Google and the usual suspects from Symantec and Adobe. I removed quite a few (but not as many as you - I left most of the Vaio Stuff on there) and the speed did improve.

It also picked up a bit after Vista had defragmented itself after a couple of days automatically.

I am now pretty happy with the performance of this beautiful machine.

[Scott_H]

"...wiping the entire drive, doing a clean install of Vista, and wiping out the recovery partition..."

That's exactly what I did with my new Vista laptop. In one fell swoop I regained 10 GB of hard drive space, got rid of *all* of the crapware, and got to configure Vista myself (not how the OEM and advertisers thought it should be).

This ended up taking less time than I had wasted up to that point trying to root out all of the crapware.

[Benz145]

Wow I'm very surprised at how clearly you can see the pictures of the screen. I'm sure that lighting conditions have some role to play, but it looks like the screen is extremely vibrant. Glad to hear everything is working out for you, especially Vista. I'm also amazed at how quick sleep is. I can't even begin to imagine it on an SSD equipped TZ. Looking forward to more info on this notebook : )

[Bruno]

Jenn, congratulation on your new toy! :-) Great review as always, I am now thinking of upgrading from my TX to the TZ and it's all your fault!
I have been wondering if we could noth run the same benchmark, you on the TZ, I on the TX? I am keen to know what the real differences between the TX and TZ are. Or for starters could you let us know what the Performance Score is? You will find it in COntrol Panel, under Performance Information and Tools.

[Jenn]

@ Bruno: Remember, you can't upgrade one TX and not the other one. :-)

The Windows Experience base score is a measly 2.0 because of the graphics card. The other subscores are as follows:

Processor - 4.3
Memory - 4.1
Gaming graphics - 2.6
Hard disk - 3.9

I ran PCMark05 the other day and will run CrystalMark soon. I'm thinking of a dedicated benchmark post, so I may run it through a few other programs as well.

What kind of scores do you get on the TX?

[Jenn]

@ Sam: As Kevin said, Sleep is so fast that I don't plan on ever hibernating, especially since it's considered the default "off" state by Microsoft. I'll do a complete reboot once in a while and maybe shut down overnight every few months, but other than that, I'm going to stick with Sleep.

@ richyhu: Vista defragments all by itself? I haven't kept up with any of the OS news and am only reading up on things I come across as I play with the TZ.

There's actually still a lot more I could delete, but I stopped where I did because it was getting late and I needed to go to sleep. I haven't had the strength or the interest to go back in and sift through the leftovers.

My next task is to get the running processes down to a more reasonable number. It's at 77 right now, which is better than the 83 I mentioned earlier, but still not very good.

[Bruno]

Hi Jenn,

your numbers sound very good! Mine are:
Processor: 2.7
Memory: 4.2
Graphics: 2.0
Gaming graphics: 2.3
Primary hard disk: 3.7

Your processor is much faster which I could certainly use! I am wondering why my memory gets a (ever so slightly) higher score than yours? My TX has got 1GB of RAM, does your TZ have 1 or 2?
I have been looking at the TZ with SSD drive, but as I have never used a machine with an SSD I wonder how much difference is it going to make. Surprisingly according to Sony specs it makes no difference to the weight.
On the other hand the TZ with SSD costs over 2000 pounds... and you do make a good point that if I upgrade, I may have to upgrade two machines :-)

[richyhu]

My TZ scores were exactly the same as yours Jenn apart from gaming graphics which is 2.7 not 2.6. Not that I intend running any games on the TZ!

My running processes are also at 83.

By default the defrag tool in Vista is set to defrag once a week but it also uses the Prefetcher service to defrag the boot files every 3 days or so but only during idle time. It also uses the prefetcher to cache files it thinks you need the most by monitoring your usage habits.

That's the theory anyway. I did find that it had made a bit of a difference after 4 or 5 days on my TZ.

[Jenn]

@ Bruno: My TZ has 2GB of RAM. Does the amount being used impact the score? According to the Task Manager, I'm using 56% of mine right now, which seems a bit high. What about yours? I think I'm going to install some Uniblue optimization tools to get that percentage down.

Oh, and does your TX have built-in WWAN?

I read about the TZ20 series in Europe just gaining WWAN today and am a little confused. The TX and TZ series have always had Sprint EVDO Rev A here in the States; I thought the same was true for other regions as well. (Maybe not the Sprint part, but at least the 3G connectivity.)

@ richyhu: Does your TZ have WWAN?

The high number of processes doesn't seem to impact performance as far as I can tell right now, but I think the number should be a lot lower. I read in a few forums that people keep it at less than 45. I'm sure there's a lot of erroneous junk running in the background for no reason, but I'm dreading having to google each process to see whether it's okay to end it for good.

Thanks for the defrag info. I'm terrible at defragging on a regular basis, so I'm glad it can be taken care of automatically.

[Bruno]

@ Jenn: My TX has 1Gb of memory, I have never upgraded it - it runs quite fast anyways.
The built-in WWAN connectivity is far from common in Europe, don't know why because our 3G and HSDPA coverage is excellent! It is more common to have a 3G PC card or USB modem (I use the PC Card or just tether the TX to my phone). I really wonder why they do not release more computers with built-in WWAN over here. Even Sony UX here does not have it built-in.
I am wondering if it has something to do with the fact that due to large number of mobile providers who offer 3G connectivity, aqnd due to smaller markets, it would be harder for computer makers to negotiate a deal like Sony did with Sprint?

[steve]

I can't stand the bloatware and vista itself. i stupidly formatted the drive and installed windows XP over it in hopes that i could get somthing more streamlined, but found out there's really no hardware drivers on this machine written for XP. had to do the system restore and start over x(

[Jenn]

Hi Steve. Have you taken a look at this quick guide on installing XP on Sony Vaio TZ posted on the NotebookReview.com forums?

I haven't done a thorough check, but on the surface it looks like most of the drivers you would need are there.

[Drew]

Can you buy this notebook(the VAIO TZ) w/ out ABSOLUTLY ANYTHING loaded on it? I'm a gobuntu(linux) man myself(I'm a programmer) and would rather not bother w/all the booting and wiping nonsense, but would prefer just loading ubuntu on a COMPLETELY blank laptop/hardrive! Thank You!

[celine schmidt]

leche ka!