Official 2012 Sony S Series Owners Thread

I am looking to buy an S 15, once I sell my current laptop. Any one have any arguments over why I should get the I5 or the Quad I7. I am leaning to the I7, but does anyone have anything to say. I just use the web, and play Civ 5, and Minecraft. But I want a special laptop, I do not just want to get the same old Dell/HP.

 

Well from what others have responded my concern about this, for your uses the i5 will be a better choice. It just consumes less energy, thus allowing better battery life. Plus, it's significantly cheaper. The i7 is useful for heavy processing works, such as graphics work, video editting, CAD, heavy programming (rendering) etc. If you just game and surf, the i5 should be more than enough.

 

Hey thats good to know!

 

So the score is, I5=1, I7=0.
Hopefully more people will weigh in over the next few days.

 

On the other side, the i7 will get the job done quicker so it can return to a power saving state faster, therefore saving more power

It just all depends what you do with it IMO, getting the i5 also saves money.

 

I'm a new S15 owner (model SVS15113FXB). I replaced the HDD with a 256GB OCZ Vertex 4 SSD. I did a clean reinstallation of Windows 7 and installed all the necessary drivers etc. My laptop runs fine except for a couple of power related problems.

When "rapid wake from sleep" is selected from VAIO control center, the laptop hangs for around 10 seconds each time after waking up (cannot click with mouse etc) even tho the wake up itself is "instant". Upon checking the Win7 power options I'm under the impression that the rapid wake is just another interface to toggle hybrid sleep. With the SSD installed the system wakes up pretty much instantly with the rapid wake/hybrid sleep off anyway. But still I believe hybrid sleep allows the laptop to save more power during sleep.

Another thing is that hibernation does not seem to work properly. After computer goes into hibernation, booting up again results in the laptop staying in the bios startup screen forever. I do have legacy as the boot mode instead of UEFI. Not sure if this is related to the problem. Not that I really intend to use hibernation with a 15 sec SSD boot time though.

 

Actually, the only benefit of hybrid sleep (or rapid wake) compared to normal sleep is that in case of power failure the computer can still resume without losing data.

Sleep: Keep all data in RAM. Nearly instant to enter, nearly instant to resume, lose data/computer state on power loss. Draws power to remain in sleep.
Hibernation: Store RAM on hard drive. Takes a while to enter (because of the write operation), takes a while to resume (because of the read operation). Does not draw power.
Hybrid sleep: Keep all data in RAM and store it on hard drive. Takes a while to enter but when no power loss has occurred should be as fast as sleep to wake from. Draws power while in the fast resume state.

Personally I don't see the benefit of hybrid sleep, if I'm not going to be using the laptop for a longer while then I just shut it down. I use sleep for short transitions (like going to school etc.). But someone might find it useful, so I guess it's good to have the option there.

 

Thats up to certain amount.
64BG versions are often slower than 128GB versions, but 128GB versions have often identical specs to 256GB versions.

You can, but not every mobile CPU.

Do you have any data, how much less i5 consumes compared to i7. While browsing spreadsheets/web for example?
I have a feeling that the actual power consumption is pretty similar on idle/ half idle.
On paper, i5 3210m and i7 3612qm are both 35W TDP.

 

Hybrid Sleep was developed for use by desktop PCs which don't have a backup power source. If power is lost while the PC is asleep, the state is not lost since it's also backed up to the hard drive.

Laptops don't need Hybrid Sleep because they have a backup power supply: the battery. Even if power is lost while the laptop is plugged in, nothing happens because the laptop just draws from the battery to preserve the contents of memory. Of course if you put your laptop to sleep and leave it unplugged there for a week the battery will eventually die, that's why laptops generally are set to Hibernate after a set amount of time in Sleep.

 

I am looking at buying a Sony S13 Premium. 2500 euro for the i7 and 512GB SSD is expensive but you do get a lot in return.

Does anybody have experience with disabling the RAID0? It would be great if I could have 2 separate SSDs: decent I/O and less failure prone. If one disk fails, I still have my data on the other one.

 

Although both maybe 35w tdp, but a quad core will inherently draw more power, it has to draw power to four cores rather than two, secondly if the core is idling it still draws energy, thus if 3 of the four cores are idling they'd still draw some energy. Now if more cores draw energy the core will also run a little warmer too.

Now TDP The TDP is typically not the most power the chip could ever draw, such as by a stress program, but rather the maximum power that it would draw when running "real applications".

So most definitely if you're running the CPUs at 100% then the quadcore will definitely use more power.

But if you're doing CAD/Rendering its good to have a quad CPU as really a dual core i3 is not really good at rendering things (yes I tried), but I have my desktop for that.

I don't think Sony allows you to disable raid 0, otherwise it would defeat their purpose of an ultra-fast SSD which is typically two times faster then normal SSDs (Sequential tests users have done on this forum.)
Sony also uses proprietary connectors to connect their SSDs so raid might be at hardware rather than bios level.

 

How do you turn off intel turboboost...?

Petrov.

 

Sony 512GB SSD is suicidal to wallet. I strongly recomend you to buy HDD version and just buy 512GB SSD from cheaper place.
After you can just make 2 separate partitions. If SSD hardware failure happens then both partitions are lost anyway. Best way to secure your data is to make backup to another physical drive. If you dont need disc reader, then you can place your backup drive in to odd bay.

 

Of course the quad core draws more power when on full load, but it also gets work done equally faster, so in the end you may end up with equal watts used .
Another note. Intel does not put TDP just for fun. Its calculated to average power consumtion.
Thirdly. After my previous post i went to do some reasearch about i5 vs i7q power consumption in idle. I compared several notebooks in notebookcheck tests and it seems that theres no difference what so ever.
Bare in mind that Intel i7 quad core idle is typically at lower clock vs i5 and most likely at lower voltage is given to cores as well.
Until we dont have some rock solid review, i would not dare to say that average power consumtion for 3612QM is indeed higher than 3210M or other 35TDP i5 CPUs.
i5 also has higher clock speed per core and also higher vcore for full load. Thats where 35TDP comes from.

 

You can't sony locks that off in BIOS. You have to wait for a bios hack if there will be any.

Now you can say they have the same idle power .etc I am also taking into account usage and well typically a quad core does use more power than dual core would, each additional core is less efficient as the processing power is not scalable well the Core i Series anyway so twice as many cores does not necessarily mean twice as much performance. Plus using the i7 for just word processing and browsing the web is not only a waste of CPU but a waste of money as well. I recommend to anyone to order a laptop that suits their needs.

 

Did previous versions had modified bios? Im not familiar with that information.

 

The 2011 Model had a custom bios made by pyr0 check this thread, he unlocked the advanced section of the bios, His aim is to get SATAIII back.
Note this is not for the 2012 models.

 

Control Panel > Power Options > (whatever plan you have selected) Change plan settings > Change advanced power settings > Processor power management > Maximum processor state > set to 99% instead of 100%.

 

Nice! I would never have thought of knocking that down by a percent to stop turbo boost. Having said that I usually knock it down to 60% when on battery - works a treat on my ageing 6910p, get around 4.5 hours now.

 

Do you work at McKinsey? Great thinking, thanks mate! + rep.

EDIT: you have to also set minimum processor state to 99%, as the default setting is 100% for that too.
EDIT 2: Have added this tip to the first post of the thread.
Petrov.

 

Can someone please show a picture or video with the results of this kind of adjustment? Just show the S15 picturing a site that contains red as a main color. Many posters say it's a physical limitation and it s therefore not possible to show color red on this screen, no matter what calibration.

 

Perhaps not 100% strictly to do with the VAIO S but relevant...

I'm intending on getting a USB sound card to go in the docking station (for various reasons but primarily so I can get low latency and not have to bother with an extra lead). This is because as far as I can see, the dock does not contain any audio ports (bit of a shame really).
If I have a USB sound card plugged into the dock, can I configure Windows 7 to always use that one when docked but use the internal one when not-docked?
I know I can do it manually but was wondering if it can be set automatically?

 

If it matters, I have an ASUS Xonar U3 USB sound card that I use with my current laptop. When I take it out, the laptop automatically switches the input to the speakers (or 3.5mm jack if you have soemthing connected). When I put the sound card back in it automatically makes it the primary audio source.

So yes, as long as it is routed directly to the PC, it will be the primary source, and when you remove it from the dock, the audio will switch back to the speakers or 3.5mm jack.

 

I'm noticing the same on my Fiio E17 USB DAC connected to my S13A.

Even if it doesn't work via the dock, there is at least one decent autohotkey script for swapping default sound outputs via hotkey or other trigger.

 

Gold S13P arrived today. As promised, here are some pix.

 

where are those pics?

edit:

i see them now.

really, i thought gold was not looking that good on a laptop.. but it does look sweet as hell

 

TNT now say they will deliver my S13P on monday, hooray! I will then post pictures of a Gunmetal S13P and also do some benchmarking.

 

Thanks for the tips guys. So it looks like it will most likely just auto-detect the USB sound card when I dock it but if not I can run a script to change it pretty quickly. Sounds like no issue there then.

Nice Enterprise blueprint on the desk.....

 

;-)

Indeed...

 

Did you notice any banding or flickering at the top right side of your new S13P display?

Thanks

 

I don't think I have seen this commented on yet, but if you were configure the S with only HD4000 graphics, would you see an improvement in battery life? I had to ask as I was unsure, but my thought was that when in stamina mode it runs on HD4000 anyway, so it wouldn't have any effect? Thanks

 

Question to the S13 owners: is the ram soldered to the motherboard or can you change it yourself? 80 euros for 8GB is quite a huge price.

 

I also want to know if you noticed any banding on the display. Hopefully the new batches are good.

 

None thus far. The display is not great, however, it is not glossy, so I do not expect the same level of colour saturation. I wonder if as it breaks in the individual pixels will be less noticeable.

 

ram is cheap and simple to install yourself. Just buy the base configuration and add 1/2/4/8 gig stick into the spare ram slot next to the hard drive compartment. Its easy, fast, and cheap

 

Awesome! I still got a 2x1333MHz 4Gb sticks in my old laptop, will sell it with only 1 stick then .

 

Got my S13P a couple hours ago. As far as I can tell I have no problems with anything except that certain things look a bit greener than they should, mostly with pictures of people (skin color?). It just so happens that green is my favorite color so I won't be trying the color fix found in this thread for a while longer. The display is otherwise fantastic. I've always had 768 resolution until now, and for those of you who are like me, you'll love this screen. I'm thinking others who are complaining have just had too much exposure to incredibly amazing screens that they can notice things the average user would not. I used to own a 2010 vaio S and was completely satisfied with that display. This is definitely a step up from that. The entire feel of the notebook is awesome as well. If you've only owned plastic laptops, this is a sweet upgrade, it also feels really thin and light. Worth it for showing off.

Another note. This thread is filled with overblown issues. All laptops have problems that we just get over or don't ever notice at all. Why become all nitpicky now? The negativity in this thread had me doubting myself constantly. I was already set on buying the S when it was first announced. and I almost wish I had never found this thread. There are still many awesome things that came out of here though, a lot of which I'll be taking advantage of. For those of you worrying about every little remark posted here, think back to your previous purchases, and ask yourselves if you put this much thought into buying those. I never have, and computers are my profession! My last computer I had bought at bestbuy on a whim, simply because I wanted something faster. I only thought about it for a few minutes and never looked back. I'm thinking and hoping this will be the same experience.

I'll be checking back here every now and then, but the constant negativity ruins the fun that is getting a new shiny laptop.

 

Has anybody been able to get the $100 off the sheet battery + ps3 with this? Just tried over the phone by chat and got no love. Reps seemed completely unfamiliar with the battery promo

 

I ordered my S13A over the phone because I thought I would get some special promotions going on. The phone rep told me that there was no promotions or discounts offered on this laptop. I am in the USA btw.

 

Ordered over the phone and they gave me the free PS3 and 3% discount on upgrades. Asked about discounts on the docking station and sheet battery, but nothing that big, just the same 3% as other upgrades

 

4GB is soldered, a removable slot makes up the other half. As I ordered mine with 4GB of RAM, it was free.

I've noticed it, but I think it will just take some breaking in. I can't notice any flickering, although I do with that test a few pages back. I'm not into movie/ picture editing, so it doesn't bother me too much.

I will say this though: In the UK at least, the amount of crapware pre-installed is ridiculous - almost to the point of embarrassment. The laptop is actually slow booting and doing stuff. I'd strongly recommend people do a fresh install, which I'm in the process of right now.

 

Have an issue with SSD Magician. It's saying that my SSD is not a supported Samsung SSD. Might be something to do with running Win 8. I'll try reinstalling later with compatibily mode on.

Also, after installing SSD Magician, the computer wakes up a few seconds after I put it to sleep, but without the display. The only way to get it back is after a hard reset. I uninstalled the software, and the computer sleeps soundly again.

I turned on TRIM, but wasn't able to find the registry key for AHCI. Do I have to create that myself if it's not there?

 

Sony VAIO S Series 15.5 Review Pt 1 Ivy Bridge 2012 - YouTube

Skip to 5:00 for a demonstration of netflix red using those tweaked gamma settings. In all honestly I ended up putting my gamma back to default as I found it was alittle too blue at times (when windows UAC pops up, the background looked navy). I don't mind the default calibration, it's very easy on the eyes.


If what was said earlier with rapid wake being designed primarily for desktop PC's I'd reccomend everybody switch it off when they get there VAIO. I know I did because I didn't like the amount of time it took between closing the lid and the laptop actually falling asleep (data being written to the disk) and the whole thing was making the process take much longer than usual. Might not be the case with an SSD.

 

Just a video of all the S13A colors,

starts with black, 2:08 gunmetal, 4:16 gold
VAIO 2012夏モデル Sシリーズプレミアムモデル（13P） デザインレビュー - YouTube

I like the gold but I want to see a good picture of the gunmetal screen cover, clearly showing the finish in white light or sunlight.

Cheers

 

-.- Wrote up a big review then the touchpad acted up on me.

Just got my Sony vaio 13p. Impressions: Keyboard is lovely. Installing ram was easy. Fast so far and I'm going to test gaming. It's ungodly quiet in stamina mode.

Cons:With a white background the screen is noticeably grainy. upside is that any colors look very pretty to my lay eye.

I might hate this touchpad a little. Not enjoying using it after my white macbook. I think the extra size was a terrible innovation as now you have to place your right hand far far to the left.

 

Hello all, just got my Vaio 13A today in the mail and I am truly digging this laptop. I feel like it's thick ultrabook with full laptop power. One question I do have is what are some good bloatware programs to get surely to get rid of before I clone my HDD to my SSD? I have gotten rid of the Kaspersy Antivirus, Bing Bar, and Sony Media Gallery, and Evernote so far. Is there any others that people thought were definitely worth getting rid of? Thanks

 

Yea, I'm not having much luck with the touchpad at the moment. Luckily I have a spare wireless mouse.

Does anyone know if it's possible to disable bluetooth other than in the BIOS? (if you can there either..) I hardly use it and it's just wasting battery being on all the time.

 

Do you have Vaio Smart Network? You can disable it through there when you load it up. If you dont have it installed, its on the Sony drivers site - linked in the first post of this whole thread.

Petrov.

 

Has there been any confirmed issues with using 1.5v memory or using 1600 MHz memory instead? Samsung do not really sell much memory over here in Sweden so the only 1.35v 4 GB stick I can find is a Crucial dual voltage 1.35v/1.5v (will run 1.35v if supported) 1600 MHz one.

There's also a 8 GB 1.35v/1.5v 1333 MHz one. Will running 12 GB slow me down much due to it not being 100% dual channel?

I did read the first post but there wasn't too much info about memory there.

 

I'm running a 1600MHz 1.5v Corsair 8GB chip - in CPU-Z it's showing 1333mhz speed and 9-9-9-24 timings which I'm pretty pleased with. No issues that I can see