Official 2012 Sony S Series Owners Thread

Sorry as I am not up on the battery details, but does this mean you are ordering the sheet battery from last year's SE, and using it with this year's S15? They are compatible? I would have thought it wouldn't quite fit properly?

 

Lisa from mobiletechreviews said she got around 6 hours on the s13p but obviously the 15 inch IPS is going to use more energy. But sony hasn't actually released how they measured the battery life.

 

Hey guys, first post.

I did my best to read the majority of the thread, but I kinda skipped a bit around page 120

My order for a S13 is showing as "This order has been dispatched" on the sony site. Does this mean it's out for courier delivery? (I'm in the UK) I haven't had any email with a tracking number or anything, only the one saying it's been shipped from china

Also, what was the flickering problem people were referring to a few pages back...?

 

Yes it most likely been dispatched from the factory and is on its way to you, if you have the normal s13 with the 1366x768 display then there is no reported case of the flickering problem, that only reportedly happens on the premium display (1600x900).

 

Damn, I do have the "premium" display...

 

Im pretty sure that S15 will not last 6 hours on battery, if it isnt idle´ing.
You´ll need extra sheet battery to be sure.
Good thing is that even with sheet battery, its still rather light notebook which has 10+hours of usage.

 

However only some people only have reported it, you may not experiance the same problem or even notice it, sony gets display panels from a multitude of manufactures which ranges from lg, sharp, sumsung .etc So it depends on your luck.

 

Playing D3 drained my battery to about 25% from 100% very quickly in speed mode (stock battery). However, I've had over 3 hours of battery life on stamina, power saving mode with auto brightness just browsing firefox and downloading lots of things.

 

I have the S13p and haven't noticed a flicker. I'm in the UK. it's supposed to be in the top right of the screen right? what does it look like? is it obvious?

 

Its supposedly like pixel walking look at this page to get a gist.
Inversion (pixel-walk) - Lagom LCD test
Some of those will induce flickering. Note these are extreme cases and some people have more sensitive eyes which can pick up flickering

 

Was finally able to boot up my S15 yesterday (it was delivered 7/05 when I was out of town). Played around with it completely stock for a bit, and really liked it. Personally, I don't notice the Orangegate issue unless it's right next to another display, and they're both showing large areas of red (255,0,0).

Installed a 128GB Samsung 830, and in the process of installing Windows 8 Release Preview (yeah, I'm one of those weird people that really like Win8). Found out I had the 32bit version, so had to redownload the 64bit, and will install that later when I get home from work. Hopefully all the drivers and Sony software I want to use work. Will report more later.

Also happy to answer any questions

 

Alright so I ordered my S15 last week and its got...
-i7 3621QM
-4GB RAM (planning to get a 8GB RAM card from Newegg for about $47)
-2GB NVIDIA GeForce 640M LE
-Blu Ray Burner
-670GB HDD (sometime in the future I plan to dump this for a really nice SDD when they get affordable)

Anyone think I might run into problems with this setup? I heard people saying not to go with the quad processors, but I couldn't help that quad 'in-spec-sounding-wise-for-the-comp-nooblet' just sounded better than the duals.

Also does anyone know long it will take to deliever this product to my house? I live on the east coast and opted for free shipping... It still saying its being built, which I had no clue it takes a week to build a laptop either, but hopefully they might be wrong? (Ordered 7-3, saying it will ship 7-12)

AND another quick curious question: I am seeing that the backlit keyboards are a different color... I'm ordering the white color; what color will the backlit keyboards be? I asked a rep and they said it should all be a primitive blue and not aquatic, but here...
- http://www.trustedreviews.com/sony-vaio-s-15-2012_Laptop_review
its aquatic blue, and at the store they were white. Anyone know what's going on here?

 

My second order came a couple days early, but don't count on it just hope for the best! I have the quad core and have not had any issues to date, although my first s15 i5 fan broke. Not due to the processes of course. I swapped out the hdd for a 120gb ssd and it is so worth it. I'm very happy with my setup which is the same as yours! As far as the back-lit keyboard goes my first s15 was silver and the one I have now is black as far as I can tell there is no difference.

 

Woah, it's certainly noticeable with the fullscreen 7A test. Now what to do about it.. Am I bothered? hmm...

 

I haven't received my S13P yet, but I get decently much flicker on the 4a on my Dell U2412m and I couldn't be less bothered. If you push your screen to the limit you will always find some faults.

 

Exactly. I've never seen it flicker in normal usage. The only annoying real life problem with the screen are the vertical viewing angles. But I've not seen a laptop without the same issue.

 

For everyone who want to order, for at least the UK site, some other European sites I checked and maybe all Sony sites:

Sony is pre-selecting some stuff for S13 and S15:
£ 23 / € 29 : 1 year McAfee® Internet Security - 1 year protection
£ 39 / € 49 Adobe® Photoshop® Elements

Needless to say: DESELECT THEM!

Sorry for the using bold and capital text, but I though I really had to notify you all. First I did not see it either, and someone else told me. Really nasty trick Sony is doing in my opinion. Making it's reputation for me at least not better.

- Maybe something to put in the start post? Petrov? -

 

My current 3DMark11 scores :


Source : NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M LE video card benchmark result - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3520M CPU @ 2.90GHz,Sony Corporation VAIO score: P1865 3DMarks

GPU Config : 705MHz Core Clock, 1100MHz Memory

Temperature difference after playing games compared to stock, went up roughly 6c only.

Will do some more test, not perfect yet.

Credit goes to the person who MOD this, not me.

 

Just got off the phone with Sony Canada sales. Offered me a 50$ off discount and said that was all he could do. I then ask if that was in addition to the 100 dollar discount someone posted here, and he sheepishly said no, it's one or the other He did say though that they had been told there would be a back to school sale for Canada, but he didn't know when it would be starting or if it would be the Playstation offer. He also told me that if I took the 100$ discount, and then the playstation offer came out within a month, I would not be eligible to get it. I guess if you take any discounts, it voids any future offers. Anyway, if any of that helped there you have it.

 

So since everyone is saying the S13 Premium has a terrible 1600x900 display, should I go with the version with the 1366x768 display?

Also, how soon is everyone receiving their laptops after placing their orders? Can you state when you ordered the laptop, when it shipped, and when you received it?

 

That's needless to say very sneaky charging us for unwanted bloatware I mean McAfee is not even good. I guess it raises more commission and revenue.
I'm going to leave it in my signature so that it raises awareness.
Sony is playing a dangerous game if it doesn't improve it may go in a death spiral which RIM is currently in.

Now I am just waiting for the screen quality issues to clear up and then I'll consider purchasing the s13a/premium

 

apparently, that's how Windows handles the refresh rates. it's got nothing to do with SONY. 59Hz is actually 59.94Hz (rounded down) which is equivalent to 60Hz.

 

do yourself a favor and don't get a 1366x768 screen. for god's sake, it's 2012 now, and 768p just does not cut it anymore. the 1600x900 display is not that bad, if you ask me. it's even better than the 2011 SA series display. unless you're doing video editing/photoshopping professionally, you won't notice the difference in average daily use.

 

Fair enough however since they are quintessentially treated the same it's best that they rounded it up. I now see that the s13p display is using the same (compatible) timing as an NTSC display. Hey I've learnt something new today.

I agree I hate that resolution after regrettably purchasing a 15.6'' HP with 1366x768 which barely had enough room to do real work, it also has major back light bleed and uneven lighting plus crap colours .etc but that was a cheap laptop so it's sort of forgiven. Speakers weren't great but at least loud.

Unfortunately the consumer will think that he/she is spending £1000 (~1500 US$) on a machine that has a mediocre display and mediocre sound whereby the competition has much better offerings around the same price bracket. Such as the Asus Zenbook Prime - 1080p ips display and nice full speakers. But I suppose sony gets away with it as it is marketed as a business laptop, where sound quality and screen quality does not matter so much.
Saying that, poor phone like speaker's dont matter to me much as I have headphones but I want to wait and see whether the display improves by 2 Months time. (Not holding my breath)

 

What exactly is wrong with the display? All I am looking for is a laptop with a 900p matte display, but this one seems to have issues. Would a standard user planning to use his laptop for college notice anything wrong with it?

 

Also, can anyone at all please, PLEASE comment on the S15's battery life? I seriously need that 6 hours it provides, but only if it truly provides it with brightness very low and running on the IGP doing very basic work.

 

Probably not unless the course requires graphical work involving photography, filming, cad/3d modelling .etc where colour accuracy matters.
Standard users (internet browsing, word processing .etc) probably wouldn't notice unless they were comparing 2 screens side by side.

Battery life is reported by Sony to be up to 6 hours - unfortunately Sony doesn't reveal directly how they measure this using stamina mode and use Benchmark MobileMark 2007 to determine battery run time (in the footer notes). But users on this forum have reported around 4-5 hours of usage during web browsing .etc (non-intensive use), however you can always get the sheet battery which will double the runtime.

Sony Japan/Asia tend to be more close in claimed battery life (up to 6 hours) I can see no way of anyone getting up to 7 Unless it had everything off and lowest brightness and idling.

 

Unfortunately I was not able to compare my problematic display with any other S13P, since Sony Store here don't have any unit available. But I'm hoping this is a batch issue. It doesn't make any sense the "premium" 900p display to have lower quality then the regular 720p version.

I returned my laptop and request one identical. If the problem persist, I will give up from Sony and go back to Dell.

Please keep us informed by the moment you receive your new S13P!

 

You won't get 6 hours on stamina with the S15...probably more like 4.5 hrs with light surfing, normal office work.

 

That's about right. 3-4 hours for me surfing and downloading on stamina mode with brightness at about 1/3rd or 1/4th. This was before a clean install though.

Not that I don't believe you, but then when I'm choosing the refresh rate on my s15 monitor, why is it giving me 3 options: 40hz, 59, and 60? Is it really just a .06 difference, or are they actually two different options for the same actual refresh rate?

Nice. Any word on when the MOD will be available to the rest of us? Or who the modder is?

 

I just got four hours on an external monitor, so screen completely off. Working on documents, 10 tabs open in firefox, one of them being youtube playing music. would have been 4:15 if I let it die. Disappointing.

 

After installing an SSD I get around 6hrs with light usage. Today in a 0:50hr lecture I only killed about 10%.

 

Well, I have had my S13p for a week now, and like it pretty well. I ended up with the gunmetal S13 with an i5, 2GB GT640m LE, 12GB RAM (added 8GB Gskill myself), 1600x900 res, and a 500GB HDD.

So far, I like it really well, except I am having a pretty severe throttling issue when gaming. The laptop idles around 55C doing web browsing and the CPU runs at the normal 2.8GHz. However, when running Skyrim, even on lowest settings, it skyrockets to 81C and immediately throttles to 1.1GHz, killing my FPS and making it unplayable. What gives? The GT640 never tops 70C, even when the CPU throttles. I rock a good 45FPS on medium for about 5 minutes, and then it just slows to a crawl. Has anybody figured out a solution? I here the fan running, and everything returns to normal speeds after just 30 seconds or so of having Skyrim minimized.

I bought this laptop with the expectations that it would at least RUN skyrim, even if it isn't pretty. There is no way this laptop can't handle this when my friends 3 year old HP on integrated graphics can.

 

PHP:

dude come on.. just read a page or two in here. you would have seen that you just need to force the game to run on nvidia and set the ventilation to "priority to ventilation" on windows to prevent throttling... -_-

 

I did read quite a bit. I already went through and set Skyrim and every Steam app I have to run through the 640m. I did finally realize after going back through every setting that I made a mistake and uninstalled Vaio Control Center when I got the laptop. I had set it to priority to ventilation originally, but since I later uninstalled Vaio CC, when I moved the speed/stamina switch it didn't change anything. I reinstalled Vaio CC and everything runs smoothly now.

 

I'm assuming you will be linking us to this modded BIOS and instructions for flashing it after it has been sufficiently tested?

edit: Oh hey, my Google-Fu just leveled up again.
http://forum.techinferno.com/alienw...gher-boost-clocks-users-testing-wanted-8.html

I'll be watching that thread I guess.

 

Are you sure about that? Two additional hours seems like a lot since with my HDD I get right around 4.

 

Why does the S15 get so much less battery life than the S13? Lisa from MTR said the S13 gets 6+ hours during light use, how does the S15 only get 4? Does the IPS display really use that much power?

 

Until everything work as it supposed to.

Currently it works a bit weird. hahah.

The modder is as per below mentioned.

Ahah... yup, that's the one.

I don't think you need to keep checking on the thread.
Coz it's abit out of topic from the thread(Alienware thread).

Don't worry, will share with you guys later.

Offcourse, have to ask permission from that guy first.

 

In my experience, real-world battery life is between 3-4 hours with brightness at a reasonable level doing stuff like browsing the web with Firefox and watching some videos and that kind of thing. I have a Samsung SSD in mine. It's nowhere near Sony's claims of 6 hours 30 minutes, not even close. Someone needs to tell Sony that other notebook manufacturers report battery life based on realistic use these days. It's actually pretty roomy inside the S15's chassis, they could easily have fit a 6-cell battery inside instead of a 4-cell if they really wanted to. The battery life is pretty disappointing coming from my Thinkpad, I don't want to buy the sheet battery but I might have to just to have a reasonable unplugged time.

 

Does anyone know if Sony will do a back to school discount on the Vaio S15 in the UK during the coming months? Also, what kind of discounts have people in the UK gotten with the sales reps? (if any) I've read about a few people getting discounts elsewhere but not the UK yet.

 

no cable??:


i tried charging it when the laptop was 100% battery but didnt work and is it supposed to come with a cable? if not what does that thing do?

 

So wait, what color is the backlit keyboard then?

 

Shlomi - You can plug the laptop power adapter into the charger that comes with the sheet battery. This allows you to charge the sheet battery even when it isn't connected to the laptop. Also - Can you please re-size that photo? Not everyone is on 1080p+ displays.

 

the same thing happens on my laptop as well. it's set at 59Hz, and when i select 60Hz and click apply, it reverts back to 59Hz without any screen flickering or going blank. however, if i select and apply, say, 40Hz first, the screen flickers, goes blank, and then it shows the current refresh rate to be 40Hz. now if i select 60Hz, the screen again flickers, goes blank, and sets at 60Hz without reverting back to 59Hz. (this is in Intel's Graphics and Media Control Panel tab of the graphics property window). and all my google searches (in here and in other forums) shows me that Windows treats 59.94Hz and 60Hz equally and that 59Hz and 59.94Hz are the same. after a while, i decided to let this go.

 

That's crazy Amal! Good on you for testing the bios changes, + rep.

Petrov.

 

i just received my 15.5" 3612 QM, 4gb ram notebook, nvidia 640 le 2gb. I have a question. My windows index score is coming out 4.6.

Graphics desktops performance for windows aero..is only coming out 4.6 and it seems everyone else has been getting higher numbers. I reran the index but still coming out with 4.6. I ran a search but the search doesn't not seem to work on this site.

Processor. 7.5
ram. 5.9
graphics 4.6
gaming graphics 6.8
hard disk. 5.9



Can someone with the same setup tell me your scores and why mine is low?

 

Looks like it's using the Intel graphics. It should be detecting the Nvidia graphics automatically and using them. You can force it in the Nvidia Control Panel.

 

I got my S15 the other day and finally got it all set up and stuff, only to notice that a slow tilt of the laptop forwards or backwards or side to side makes the hard drive make a terrible grinding/buzzing sound. This movement isnt even fast enough for the sony software to enable the hdd protection. I'm running the 640gb 7200rpm drive from sony, and wondering if anyone else with that drive has noticed this on their s15 or s13. I've ran a hdd test and it said there were no errors, but i know that can't be good for the drive.

 

Also for those of you wondering about throttling issues. I set my s15 with a 3612qm on a nice hard surface (my desk) and ran prime 95. (no i did not run anything to stress the gpu at the same time, but really if you max out one the chances of the other been maxed are slim.) After an hour it was still running at 2.8 ghz (according to cpu-z). yes it managed to stay cool enough to run at the boost speed for an hour. Never went over 90C. no i had it in my lap and tried the same thing, albeit only for like 10 min because the thing gets pretty dang warm, and it managed to stay at the boost frequency on all 4 cores. I have not managed to drop to the stock 2.1 ghz clock stressing only the cpu, which is great news for anyone looking to do some rendering, after effects, CAD, video production, or transcoding.