[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]One of the reasons Sony stopped putting in the built-in microphone is that they’re now championing the use of a Bluetooth wireless headset with your TX with Skype…at least they’re heavily promoting this in Japan. The newer Bluetooth is allegedly 2.0 and supports the headset profile out of the box.

http://www.jp.sonystyle.com/Style-a/Special/Skype/index.html ( for japanese challenged )

So, it’s kind of a cool or useless feature depending on the kind of user you are.

I like the one comment that someone posted who said if you shouldn’t be worried about the price of a BT Headset if you’re the kind of person who would buy a Sony notebook in the first place…how true!  :wink:

Hey do you by any chance have the BT module part number for the TX. I will upgrade my T to support 2.0

[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]One of the reasons Sony stopped putting in the built-in microphone is that they’re now championing the use of a Bluetooth wireless headset with your TX with Skype…at least they’re heavily promoting this in Japan. The newer Bluetooth is allegedly 2.0 and supports the headset profile out of the box.

http://www.jp.sonystyle.com/Style-a/Special/Skype/index.html ( for japanese challenged )

So, it’s kind of a cool or useless feature depending on the kind of user you are.

I like the one comment that someone posted who said if you shouldn’t be worried about the price of a BT Headset if you’re the kind of person who would buy a Sony notebook in the first place…how true!  :wink:

She’s cute! I bet she loses that smile when she tries to configure BT to get her phone call to work. So I guess this easy-to-configure corded mic with earbuds is like owning a Rambler or a Desoto. Go figure…
jigs

[quote author=“Anonymous”]
and to the hands-on TXer’s, the unrealistic nitpickers, i could nitpick *any* PC and make it sound bad. until i see multiple impressions, by many people/websites (so that i know u didnt get a bad unit, or arent some kind of Sony flamer) i take anything you all say with a grain of salt.

Wow!  Some people become pretty brave when they are anonymous.  Just as an FYI, I’ve been here for a year or so and I’ve owned several notebooks.  A few of which have been Sonys.  I am not partial to any manufacturer.  To be honest I’m not partial because they all make crap though at times they produce something good.  I’ve owned a few dozen notebooks over the past five years.  Ranging from really cheap used machines from ebay (one of my favorites was purchased from ebay) to machines costing nearly $4000.  I nit pick as you say because I can.  Once you’ve seen what is possible or experience a great idea on one machine but not on another you start to wonder “why?”. 

I have a few pet peeves when it comes to notebook design.  The first no-no is noise and in particular fan noise.  The actual sound of air rushing is not a big issue with me.  I lived with a IBM T41 for nearly a year.  It basically ran the fan all the time.  But the only noise one could hear is the faint sound of air moving.  What I can’t stand is the buzzing/whinning of the motor.  Even that is tolerable if it’s something that is consistent.  Because over time we’ll just tune it out. 

What does annoy me is STUPID engineering or more so STUPID engineers.  Case in point.  The brand new Sony TX.  The BIOS is programmed to turn the fan on at 60 degrees C.  The fan is programmed to turn off the fan at 59 degrees C.  That is just really stupid.  That translates into the fan running for about 5 seconds then turning off.  Two seconds later the fan turns back on.  Repeat for all eternity.  For something like that to even leave the factory is not acceptable.  What 99% of the world does when programming fan cycling is this.  Fan turns on at X temp (say 60C).  The fan will run until reaching Y (say 55C).  Now the fan stays off for a while until it hits 60C again.  The thermal cooling design (physical) of the TX is pitiful.  I’ve had a chance to take a look at the cooling scheme.  The unit hovers at 60C with normal use.  That’s really hot considering the Dell X1 I’m using right now is running at 47C and it doesn’t have a fan.  After looking at the TX’s cooling unit I can see several problems with it.  First the cooling unit (fan, heatpipe, etc) doesn’t have a finned heatsink! Nope no finned heatsink.  When the fan turns on and blows out air it’s only cooling off the fan shroud which is metal on top (the rest is carbon fiber).  That leads to the second problem which is that there is very little metal in heat sink.  Literally, there is very little metal in the whole assembly so heat is NOT SINKED (hey that’s why they call it a heatsink) away.  It just sits on the CPU and causes the fan to churn.  This can not be fixed with a software update.  The sad thing is that this is the same style heat extractor that the Fujitsu P7K uses.  If you ever go the P series board you’ll see alot of the same “fan runs all the time” posts.  Hmmmm….You think designing a heat sink that doesn’t sink heat is a bad idea?  Obviously not for the Japanese.

I find this stuff so annoying from an engineering standpoint because as a schooled electrical engineer I deal with stupid engineering on a daily basis.  Sony could have designed the TX to perform better and save money if they had used two brain cells.  How?  Perfect example is my X1 (which is a Samsung Q30), Panasonic Toughbooks, and even Sony’s X505.  They passively cool their CPUs by using heat spreaders.  The Panys and the Sony are quite fancy because they use a vitrified graphite plate which contacts the CPU.  The graphite has very good thermal characteristics.  The graphite absorbs the heat from the CPU and literally spreads the heat out over a large area.  The heat is then radiated of the chassis.  The Dell X1 is even simpler.  The heat spreader is made out of metal.  The metal plate is screwed down onto the motherboard and contacts the CPU and northbridge.  Directly above the spreader is the keyboard.  Heat travels from the CPU to the spreader to the keyboard then out.  The TX has room for a heat spreader.  Actually it could work just like the Dell.  All it would require is a piece of stamped metal.  I believe the metal would weigh less and certainly cost less than what the TX is currently using.  But like I said it would require two brain cells.

Hey I wanted to keep the TX.  I even used it again last night for a couple of hours.  The fan cycling away annoyed me more due to knowing why it cycled instead of the noise.  Anyways, the TX is going to be boxed up and I’m going to loose money selling it because Sony created a beautiful machine which just happens to annoy the crap out of me.  But YMMV, there are a lot of people out there that will love the machine and Sony will sell a ton.  I’ll continue to dream out my X505 which I should have kept. :(

I am not partial to any manufacturer.  To be honest I’m not partial because they all make crap though at times they produce something good.

I totally agree with ya. Sony could have just stopped with the TR3, as it’s the only notebook that I have ever owned that’s halfway+ dependable, albiet slow.  But my fav of all time was this one (that’s me telling the story in another life):
 
jigs

I have a S170 that makes a good amount of fan noise, as long as the TX isn’t beyond that level one will be replacing my TR2A very soon. I’m still amazed at how quiet the TR runs, even under a full processor load. In reading the TR developer stories, they really put a lot of thought into keeping it cool and quiet, even experimenting with different materials. Maybe the job cuts have taken some of the talent with them! 

The TR was/still is a very good machine.  Nice and quiet but a little pudgy.  The T series are great machines.  I had one for a while and they are really good machines.  As you can see from the benchmarks I ran on the TX the performance difference is nill.  The 3D performance is a bit better I would have to assume but I don’t play games on these things so that is a moot point.

The TX is quieter than the S series.  If you get the newest model of the S the fan is relatively quiet though it does run constantly.  The thing I hated was that the case runs very hot especially the area above the hard drive (right palm rest).  The older S models had noisier fans and the warm palmrest.

It’s sorta crazy how hot the new TX’s get. My S’s CPU temperature averages around 40C. Of course, 40C is where the fan kicks in. However, the fan on mine isn’t as bad as it used to be. The use of RMClock helps a lot in keeping temps low while not sacrificing any performance.

I think Intel’s Centrino platform isn’t really getting any better. Sure there’s a lot more cool stuff that added in terms of functionality but it seems to be at the expense of the some of the better points as being cool and quiet. I think that’s why I’m still attached to my TR. It’s poky at 900MHz but it gets the job down and it’s near silent…although the hard disk is starting to show its age.

I do think Sony has dropped the ball a little bit in their quest to make the lightest full featured notebook. I’d rather the weight go from 2.8 lbs back to 3 lbs if they could either make the system fanless or put in a cooler and quieter cooling solution.

so how about the heat and fan on the T series…do they run fairly quiet and cool or are they pretty much just as bad as the TX is described above ?

Chris

The T series is great. Quiet, cool, small, and now dropping in price due to the introduction of the TX.  The only minus is the screen size is a tad small and to really nit pick the trackpad is an Alps which sucks in comparison to a Synaptics, but all Sony’s use Alps so you can’t get away from them.  All-in-all the T is a really good machine.

Mainly I use the Microsoft BT mouse; works great with the T250, but just now the battery died… :(

If the TX fan is not that loud (as the P7010) then I would see little problem with buying one - if I was a new user, but I already have the T.

duffy,

thanks for the info on the fan/temp of the T, maybe I’ll reconsider one…I want a larger screen, but the current S model doesn’t excite me w/ regard to battery life, and the other vaio models are just too big…

i’ve lived w/ the ALPS for my 505 models, so I can cope w/ that…

will have to drop by BB and play w/ their T350 and see what I think…

Chris

[quote author=“Anonymous”] that’s what makes me right, that’s what makes me logical. and at the sametime that’s what makes you look insecure about your own purchase & feel the need to lash out at the superior product.

um, where exactly are you at in life sir? fact is, Sony has some of the finest engineer’s on the planet. i will take my impressions from them and the multiple positive PROFESSIONAL reviews i have read about the TX versus a lone ranger on this forum.

argumentum ad hominem

[quote author=“Anonymous”]

where exactly are you at in life sir? fact is, Sony has some of the finest engineer’s on the planet. i will take my impressions from them and the multiple positive PROFESSIONAL reviews i have read about the TX versus a lone ranger on this forum.

LOL!  Someones panties are in a wad.

We’ll at the moment I provide technical support in the Ion Implant equipment engineering department of a multi-billion dollar corporation.  I work on multi-million dollar pieces of equipment not $2000 dollar notebooks.  Take a look at the link below for an idea of what it is I deal with.

Can you point me to the multitude of professional reviews?  I have only seen one review and that was at cNet and I don’t exactly hold their opinion in high regard.

[quote author=“Anonymous”]wow, bet you’ve been waiting awhile to use that 1 lol. unforunately for you, throwing around a geeky phrase hoping the other person wont understand it (or to impress other geeks) has failed here.

go away.

[quote author=“Anonymous”]
i will dig up the reviews, i have read 4 so far, they are out there. i’m not a big Cnet fan either, but they have solid info for the average consumer.

http://www.siliconpopculture.com/sonytr/viewtopic.php?p=24511#24511