Official 2012 Sony S Series Owners Thread

Besides the 1366 by 768 resolution on the S13 vs. the 1600 by 900 on the S13 Premium, has it been confirmed to be a great difference in other qualities of each panel such as the viewing angles, color sauration, etc. or are we looking at two panels which are pretty much the same? My wife thinks the 1600 by 900 on my Z is too small but loves the 1280 by 800 on her SR590. She wants a gold S13 but don't want to buy the non-premium if the screen is poor.

 

It's apparently 0.1-0.15 kg heavier, but the S13 is still 0.2 kg lighter than my current SR, so that'll have to do. That's just by going from the specs of the non configurable models, don't know if adding the GPU to the S13 (which is not in by default) will make it a bit heavier.

But yeah, you listed most changes, don't know if it's plastic for the S13, the page here lists S13A vs S13 -> carbon vs magnesium. Someone else on this forum said the body was the same and it's just the lid that was different material, but don't know if that's true.

S13A also has a couple more customization options, like the 2GB GPU and more SSD options. Plus, different colors.

I must say though, I didn't notice the lack of finger print reader on S13 before you said so, that's a bit of a downer as I'm quite used to it on my Vaio SR, but oh well, not worth the price difference at all!

 

+1 I'm curious about this too

 

My order just got shipped. Coming in from China. Expected to be dropped off on Tuesday morning.

 

You can have 1600x900 on S13 too, and it should be the same panel of the S13A.. right?

 

Super excited, my wife signed for my laptop this morning. An entire day early. I am amazed how quickly it was packed and here from China! I hope to at least run some of the standard tests tonight. Hopig to see another 240-256gb SSD deal pop up.

 

Managed to catch the S15 and S13A side by side at the local Sony Center here in Helsinki. I took a few photos to share with you guys!

The red/orange issue is still there, I just had to see it myself:
http://sdrv.ms/KJzhgp

The S13 had the premium 1600x900 display. I must admit that the viewing angles were as good on both of the devices. The differences were really subtle, but if you want to see your screen at an 180 degree angle, then the S15's IPS fared just slightly better. Another point for the S15's screen was for the razor-like sharpness (virtually no "blur" around the pixels), which was also slightly better than on the S13A.

And finally I checked the Windows Experience indexes on both of the devices:

The S15 had the 3612QM, 8GB RAM, 640M LE 2GB and a HDD.
The S13 had the 3520M, 12GB RAM, 640M LE 1GB and a SSD.
http://sdrv.ms/KEClMC
http://sdrv.ms/L7J98h

The S15's experience index was:
Processor: 7,5
RAM: 7,6
Graphics: 6,8
Gaming graphics: 6,8
File transfer speed: 5,9

while the S13A had the following values:
Processor: 7,1
RAM: 7,5
Graphics: 4,8
(this could be just the HD4000, if the index was calculated on stamina mode? then again the gaming graphics index seemed unreasonably high)
Gaming graphics: 6,7
File transfer speed: 7,9

The black S15 had a nice "grainy" surface on the top, although all the smooth surfaces attracted quite a lot of prints from my greasy fingers. The screen had some flex to it, compareable to that of the previous SE model. The overall build quality was excellent. Also, the trackpad felt a little sticky, but then again it could be just me.

 

Thanks boddha for checking, taking pics and posting. + rep.

Petrov.

 

Same here. got shipping email today and will get it Tuesday.

 

Thanks boddha for the comparison pic of S15/S13A. Seems S13A has a better representation of red? Must be patient and wait for the S15 to be in stores to decide if could really ignore the red/orange issue...

 

For Sony Style U.S.A. the non-premium S13 only has the 1366 by 768 panel and the S13 Premium only lets you have the 1600 by 900. What I was asking earlier and which has not seem to of been confirmed is besides the different screen resolutions, are there any other sacrifices in panel quality between the two such as viewing angles or color saturation, clarity, brightness, etc. People seem to only be comparing the S13's premium panel vs. the S15's IPS panel. Anyone?

 

So that basically confirms that Sony is still using the old screens as in the older SE15...that is a bad thing in my opinion because of the color distortion.

 

Does the S13/S13A have Rapid Wake technology without ordering SSD?

And if I buy one aftermarket and install it, will it be able to resume from sleep in less than 2 seconds without Rapid Wake?

And more, is it possible to enable Rapid Wake with a fresh install of win7/8?

 

In all honesty, rapid wake technology is mostly a marketing scam. Intel cannot guarantee that every single laptop using its "technology" is going to wake in under 2 seconds.

My honest advice - Buy an SSD, do a fresh install of Windows, don't install the Sony bloatware, disable hibernate and page file, and keep the drive generally clean software wise. It'll be very fast.

Also Rapid Wake itself is just software. If you want you can install it yourself when you reinstall windows with your SSD

 

How do we know memory is low voltage 1.35V for S15 or S13 US version? All information about DDR3L is from Asia Sony.

Can we set up the memory voltage in BIOS? What will happen if we mix 1.5v memory with 1.35v?

Thx.

 

how durable is the laptop?
is it worth the money?

 

Can someone please take some pics of the S13's premium display, at different angles, so we can compare it to the SA's? Head on, slightly above/below, high/low, and the same on a side?

 

- Frankly, I am not much of a ClickPad person -- I like my mouse buttons! But the gestures work perfectly [2 finger scrolling, 2 finger right click etc]
- The carbon fibre feel is just amazing! Except it's a fingerprint magnet.. the black looks especially smudged by all the hand oil
- I purchased the premium model only for the 1600x900 screen resolution. I absolutely love the resolution, but frankly, I would've preferred the silver/white colours of the non-premium models
- Durability is not top-notch. There are a few creaks when I open the screen lid. The laptop feels solid, but the screen lid is dangerously thin and creaky.

There's 4gb soldered on board, and only 1 free slot. I put a non-ULV 1.5v RAM in there, and it works just fine.

I think that offer works only when you order from the Education store. You could bypass the trouble by calling a sales rep and have it added.

The difference in weight is 0.11lb, that is ~50gms. Hardly noticeable.
Apart from the things you said, there's the difference in screen resolutions [at least in SonyStyle USA].

Congrats man -- you're going to love the laptop! After you get it, can you please check two things for it:
- Was your bottom battery cover shoddily screwed on?
- Does your screen lid creak a lot when opening/moving?
- Fan noise, heat on the bottom part when you keep the laptop on a carpet/bed?
- How long does Suspend take [as compared to Hibernate]?

I don't have an SSD on my laptop, and Rapid Wake is still enabled in the VAIO Control Centre. Like I have been saying, suspend takes way too long than it should, so I am not sure how much I like this "feature".

Why would you disable the paging and hibernation file?
Also, at least on my machine, I don't see any software called "Rapid Wake". All I see is an option to enable or disable it in the Vaio Control Centre.

Great questions. I tried using CPU-Z but it shows no DIMM information about the soldered module [or the motherboard]. I have put 1.5v in the empty slot, and I don't see any problems whatsoever.

Frankly, it's not as durable as I'd like it to be. While the laptop itself feels solid, but the screen lid is dangerously thin and creaky. I have a feeling it's going to snap in two someday.

I could, but honestly, it's not going to tell you much. It's a laptop display -- how many angles are you going to see it from anyway? If you have a group of people watching, use a cable to connect it to a TV. For a single person, I love the 1600x900 matte display I don't know how people watching from side/top feel, because I don't have people watching my laptop from side/top, and I don't expect to.

 

When did you order? I ordered on 6/11, just received the free PS3 today (listed as being backordered when I ordered). The S15 is still being built.. I'm hoping I'll get my hands on it next week, but it's scheduled to ship on 6/20.

 

@rohandhruva

How does your S13 screen look compared your Sony VAIO CW screen ?

 

The 2011 SA screen suffers a lot from poor viewing angles, and poor contrast, and I want to make sure that the new S13 doesn't have any of these issues. Particularly bad on the SA screen is the vertical viewing angle, you have to be pretty much dead on for it to be acceptable, and even then black text on white backgrounds looks terrible due to the contrast. These issues are present for a single person looking at the display, not a group, so that's why I'd like pictures (if you don't have time, that's fine, just asking anyone who has access to one of these display )

 

I'd like to know that as well.

 

I love the high resolution. It also comes down to matte vs glossy, and I prefer the former, so I think that the screen is a huge upgrade.

No, my mistake -- I take my words back, sorry And I know you were not asking of me specifically, I just wanted to find out how it matters. I will definitely try to take the shots you told, because now I'm curious too. Is there any "standard" or "benchmark" image to put on the screen, which will give you a better idea?

 

Let's say you have a 64Gb SSD. That's 59Gb of usable space. A typical Windows installation (with 12Gb of RAM in your Vaio) will take up about 32Gb, leaving you with only 27Gb of usable space left.

Disabling hibernate (a useless feature, really) will free up 12Gb of SSD space. This is because Hibernate feature reserves enough SSD space (12Gb) to be able to suspend and store EVERYTHING that could possibly be in the RAM. If you have 12Gb of RAM, Hibernate will take 12Gb of SSD.

Page file takes up SSD space in the same way that Hibernate does. So, that's another 12Gb gone. If you disable both page file and hibernate, you'll have 24Gb more space on your SSD.


Also, to everyone, installing 1.5v RAM will not harm your Vaio. Sony uses ULV (ultra low voltage) RAM to increase battery life. It doesn't actually affect the real world run time very much though. Go ahead and install 1.5v RAM. I actually recommend it. It's a much more universal voltage for DDR3 than 1.3v.

 

Something akin to what noteboockcheck uses for their viewing angle shots, like http://www.notebookcheck.net/typo3temp/pics/f6d01aba8b.jpg would show it perfectly.

 

I spoke to a sales rep. on sony chat today, and he told me the screen on the SE15 was the same as on the old one. He also said the gt 640m LE is the DDR3 version and not the GDDR5.

 

so does that mean SE15 is not worth buying

 

By what metric?

Whether or not it is worth it is up to you, don't you think?

 

Just got my s15 in the mail, initial impression is that it has amazing build quality. the whole laptop feels solid, except for the left area of the keyboard, which is a little squishy. The screen looks amazing, the speakers are actually fairly loud (but not perfect), and it makes no noise except for the cd drive on boot.

I'll be doing game benchmarks sometime tonight, any requests?

 

Civilization V would be great if you have it.

GTA IV as well. Thanks.

Glad to know the build quality feels good.

 

Can you tell if the on-board memory is 1.35V or 1.5V? If you order it with extra memory, is it 1.35 or 1.5?
Thanks.

 

Don't have either of those unfortunately. I'll be trying BF3, source games, and League for sure though.

EDIT: didnt see the other question

Mine came with a 2gb stick (preconfig off newegg). There is no voltage printed on the label. This is what it says:
"Hynix 2gb 1Rx8 pc3l-10600S-9-11-B2
HMT325S6CFR8A-H9 N0 AA 1215"

 

starcraft 2, 1080p @ lowest settings would be nice!

how bad is the orange/red orangegate problem with the s15?

 

Sorry for double posting...I forgot to answer this.

I ordered on the 9th. So sounds about right! I got my free PS3 yesterday, and my computer as aforementioned was scheduled for 6/19.

 

The color is noticeable initially, but I just turned down the brightness of the red channel in my graphics settings, so it's not there anymore.
>SC2
urgh, big download. I dont have a ton of space on my ssd (putting it in right now), so you are going to have to wait a little.
But dont worry it should run sc2 on high at 1080p fine. My old laptop with a 6550m was able to.

 

Thanks a lot I took some sample pictures of one of the default images that comes with Win7, my phone actually makes them look a lot better at those angles than it really looks. Personally for a laptop I'm more interested in the slight angles off the centre (especially vertically) rather than extreme angles like they show at notebookcheck, as like you said you don't tend to use portable laptops for showing content to multiple people.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18932827/12060005.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18932827/12060006.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18932827/12060007.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18932827/12060008.jpg

Don't worry about the curved screen, it's just my camera's fov!

 

Ok no problem. I can wait I just want to know SC2 at 1080p on lowest. If it gets good framerates then I'm a happy camper. Could you also check CPU usage in game for me too? I'm semi-professional and I stream often, and it would be really awesome if I could stream from the laptop as well.

 

The display looks quite great.

But does the standard battery on the S13 gets to 5hrs of med/intensive usage with wifi on Stamina?

And does it really lasts 30+ days when in standby mode like in the commercial?

 

Definitely not. Expect 3.5-4hrs.

 

Well I have it up and running. Still on the regular hd, SSD is on its way likely for next weeks install.

FIrst impressions are great, the build quality feels exceptional to me. The gunmetal has a slight bit of resistance to the greasy fingers, however it still shows them on the lid. The palm rests seem to not have any of this issue.

I have yet to run any tests yet, but will be happy to try and particulars.

Regarding the viewing angles, I would say they are fairly limited, not a big issue to me as it looks wonderful when you hit the sweet spot.

Opening the lid, I find it very easy to open with one hand form the center of the lid without holding the base wih the other hand. From the corners it is a bit more difficult but it still opens right up.

 

Is this possible with the standard S13 too?

 

Here are some images I came up with:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/84zf4gs6e5x68h3/jdDQJKA94O

I am not sure if they're really good to judge the viewing angles -- if I missed something, please let me know.

Also, in everyone's opinion, how do these look? I've never really paid much attention, so I'd love to see how S13A's display stacks up against others.

The lid might have something to do with the increased weight and width of a 15" laptop. I am definitely to scared to try this out on the 13" -- I'm sure I'll end up snapping it

 

I am on the 13 premium. MIght just be my own comfort with it.

 

Ah I see -- I thought you were on the 15". You're my man I have a few questions for you:
- Was your bottom battery cover shoddily screwed on?
- Does your screen lid creak a lot when opening/moving?
- Fan noise, heat on the bottom part when you keep the laptop on a carpet/bed?
- How long does Suspend take [as compared to Hibernate]?

 

Has anyone found a disassembly guide for the s 15 yet?

 

My S15 comes tomorrow and I'll probably be taking it apart before I even power it on just to investigate the SATA port speculation and add some RAM. I will take pictures and see if I can make a guide for you.

 

Just checked. The memory is Low Voltage single Rank Memory

Memory > Laptop Memory > Hynix HMT325S6CFR8A-H9 - Hynix 2GB PC3-10600 DDR3-1333MHz non-ECC Unbuffered CL9 204-Pin SoDimm 1.35v Low Voltage single Rank Memroy Module Mfr P/N HMT325S6CFR8A-H9

 

I guess I will pick up this Crucial 4GB low voltage. Newegg.com - Crucial 4GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Laptop Memory Model CT51264BF1339

If you are interested in 8GB and don't care about low voltage, it's pretty good price here. $39 for Newegg.com - GeIL 8GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10660) Laptop Memory Model GS38GB1333C9SC

 

Just tried League of Legends. Unsurprisingly, you can run the game maxed at 1080p with vsync and still get 60fps. The fan barely made noise.
One thing I've noticed is that the top of the screen/bezel isn't very strong, I can bend it without much force.

 

-My battery cover appeared to be installed fine.
-The screen hinge does creak during any movement.
-I would say the computer is nearly silent. When I updated the bios is the only time I have heard the fan really going full blast. At full blast it is loud. Regarding heat, during general use the only place it apeears to be warm is roughly where the U and I keys are located.
-Is suspend the same as Sleep? Putting the computer into Sleep from the various methods took the following amount of time to appear to be complete, form the start menu it took roughly 17 seconds, closing the lid or pressing the power button took roughly 25 seconds. When set to Hibernate mode from the power button it took roughly 30 seconds.

Resuming from sleep is nearly instanteous, and of course takes a few seoncds from hibernation.