This is the year that flash memory, in its various guises, will invade notebook storage. First Intel's Turbo Memory - using Vista's ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive features - followed by hybrid hard drives (HHDs) with small flash caches and, when prices drop, solid state drives (SSDs).
These storage saviours are meant to rescue mobile users from pure opto-mechanical drives that pump out heat, guzzle battery life and doggedly stifle performance. Sony, though, has flatly ignored flash memory with all of its new Vaio laptops, including this VGN-TZ11XN/B, more succinctly known as the TZ11.
In fact, Sony has sidelined a number of recent developments, including Santa Rosa (or Centrino 4, but officially Centrino Pro and Duo - Pro has security features). Instead, it's opted for a 'refreshed' Centrino 3 - or Napa - platform and the Mobile Intel 945GMS Express Chipset.
On face value, you may be wondering what's so great about paying £1,800 for last year's technology. The crux of the matter is that, currently, Intel's Santa Rosa platform isn't the best fit for an ultraportable.
Robbed of Robson
One reason for adopting the new Santa Rosa platform is to increase battery life and generate faster startup times through Intel's optional Turbo Memory. This uses flash modules of 512MB or 1GB housed in a mini-PCI slot to cache often accessed files that would normally be retrieved by a battery-sapping hard drive. The trouble is, Sony is adamant that both Turbo Memory and HHDs don't work with the first release of Vista.
Sony says that Vista's ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive features need to learn what to load into Turbo Memory or onto a HHD to increase performance and says the OS won't acquire that knowledge until SP1 arrives. It's also in no hurry to redesign its mainboard to fit in a mini-PCI module.
Our previous tests suggest that Turbo Memory offers a huge improvement as more data is cached, but Sony has snubbed flash memory and looked elsewhere to improve mobile efficiency.
The TZ11 may have lost out on Turbo Memory's claimed 20-minute boost to battery life, but 'refreshed' Napa support for the Intel Core 2 Duo means Sony has been able to plumb straight for the ultra low voltage chips (in this case running at 1.06GHz), which have a TDP (Thermal Design Power) rating of only 10W.
