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- #Sony vaio update bios with switchable graphics full#
- #Sony vaio update bios with switchable graphics password#
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With Sprint mobile broadband enabled, we saw pretty solid endurance as well. On our LAPTOP Battery Test (Web surfing over Wi-Fi) the Z530N's standard six-cell battery lasted 5 hours in Stamina mode, about an hour longer than in Speed mode. Since we presume that few VAIO Z owners will be playing games on the go, the biggest benefit of having the Speed and Stamina modes is the ability to get more battery life when you need it. The latter mode also offered greater detail. In Stamina mode it took 15 seconds and in Speed mode it took about 11 seconds. To test switchable graphics using another mainstream application, we tried looking up the same street address in both modes using Google Earth. Oddly, however, this ultraportable turned in a slightly higher frame rate in Stamina mode than Speed mode when we played World of Warcraft (44.7 fps vs. on autodetect (800 x 600), the Z530N turned in a respectable 27 frames per second, followed by an unplayable 18 fps in Stamina mode. In Speed mode the system notched a 3DMark06 score of 1,718, versus 842 in Stamina mode. Overall graphics performance was good given the Z530N's small footprint. The screen also went blank for a few seconds during this process. We'd like to be able to turn these warnings off after the first time. Switching between modes took about 12 seconds, but each time you're forced to click through at least one pop-up box the first tells you that you're about to switch the Performance setting (and includes a reminder to close all active programs), and if you do have programs running, you'll see a second box reminding you of this fact and warning that unsaved data might be lost. Sony calls this a hybrid graphics system. One of the highlights of the VAIO Z530N is the ability to switch between Intel's integrated Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD (which shares system memory) and Nvidia's discrete GeForce 9300M GS graphics card (which has up to 860MB of dedicated video memory).
#Sony vaio update bios with switchable graphics full#
The hard drive speed may be partly to blame even though it runs at 5,400 rpm, the Z530N took 6 minutes and 9 seconds to move a 4.97GB folder of mixed media files (13.8 MBps) from one area of the hard drive to the other, nearly a full minute slower Lenovo's X200 (16.5 MBps). Resuming from Hibernate took a few seconds longer, so we often just entered Sleep mode when not using the notebook. We wish the boot time were faster on the Z530N in both modes it took more than a minute before we had full control over the desktop. Then again, the X200 we tested had 3GB of RAM, compared with the Z530N's 2GB. Both are above average for an ultraportable, but the VAIO Z still trails the Lenovo X200's score of 3,601. This VAIO's PCMark Vantage score, which measures Vista application performance, was 3,209 in Stamina mode, and a bit higher at 3,346 in Speed mode. We really saw more of a difference in terms of graphics performance (see below). The Z530N's 2.4-GHz processor provided plenty of pep in both Stamina and Speed mode. A G-Sensor Shock Protection accelerometer helps protect the hard drive and its data in case of a fall.
#Sony vaio update bios with switchable graphics password#
Security features include the fingerprint sensor, TPM chip, and proprietary hard drive password protection software. A 128GB solid state drive is also available, but only in the $3,999 Z590U, which doesn't include Blu-ray in the price. As mentioned, the Blu-ray drive is very expensive at $500. And the maximum hard drive size is 320GB, another $100. Speed demons who want to configure their VAIO Z online from scratch will be tempted by the more powerful 2.53-GHz CPU, but it adds another $250 to the cost. Our $1,999 unit came fully equipped with Intel's latest 2.4-GHz Core 2 Duo P8600 processor, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 250GB hard drive. Distortion set in at maximum volume when we streamed tunes from Pandora, but we were still impressed with the output overall. The sound coming out of the Z530N when we watched Heroes was surprisingly loud given the system's small size. Plus, she noticed little blurring when we waved our arm in front of the camera. The recipient said that we looked clear and she could easily see the color of our eyes.
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For a $500 upsell, we expect much better performance.Ībove the display is a 1.3-megapixel webcam that we used to make Skype video calls. The resolution difference was more pronounced when we output the video signal from both notebooks to a large Gateway HD monitor via HDMI, but the playback on the Blu-ray-equipped VAIO was choppier-we could hear the optical drive spin before the picture skipped. In a side-by-side comparison of the Z530N and a VAIO Z with a Blu-ray drive, it didn't take long to tell the difference in quality between the Blu-ray version of the Heroes disc and the regular DVD of the same episode (we could see more detail in the actors' faces and in the background on the Blu-ray disc).