Official 2012 Sony S Series Owners Thread

The Sony has more power and the fan control is cra on the UX32VD. I would go for the Sony any day.

 

Just tried out some BF3 to get some frame rates for you guys. I set everything to medium, including textures, and turned off AA and AF. I played at 1366x768 because at native 1600x900 everything was TINY. Way too uncomfortable to play at that resolution.

I played a 64 player Conquest Large in Operation Metro. Average FPS was around 40, with the max being around 50, and it even dipped down to ~35 when something nearby exploded. While flying in the jet my FPS was ~45.

VRAM usage did not exceed 500MB, which is excellent. Save yourself a few bucks and don't get the 2GB version, 1GB of VRAM is plenty.

CPU temp stayed at around 75, and GPU temp was around 65.

this is all without the BIOS mod to increase the core clock.

If there are any other games you guys want me to test out let me know. I have plenty of Steam games I could try, including Skyrim.

 

News on the S13p screen. Saw the flickering in the model at the Sony store, was pretty obvious and annoying. I ordered one anyway as hardware kinda makes up for it. Received it yesterday and was surprised to notice that my screen is not flickering at all. I still have to run tests but at the store it was really obvious and I tried all level of brightness and different color situations. So I guess it might have been a bad batch?

First impressions are great by the way, build quality feels awesome and gunmetal doesn't have that plasticy feel that black had at the store. Can't wait for my ssd.

 

With flickering, do you mean the slight flicker in the upper hand right corner?

 

One more comparsion shot about the "red issue"

Heres my S15 and my HP ZR24W IPS on the backround.




Not too bad i´d say. On everyday usage i dont even notice.
Screen produces darker red very vell. its the 255 0 0 type and lighter, what looks orange.

Id rather use different desktop than this on my multi monitor setup tho.

 

I am soon going to buy the S15 but since my use is almost no games and nothing which is CPU intensive, i am going for the cheaper version on amazon.com which costs like 830 $ or may be less than 800 $ from a different vendor.
I wanted to ask that since i am planning to go for the version WITHOUT the Nvidia card, i am expecting that i will not have the stamina / speed button at all right ?
Anything else i am expecting to be not there except this ?
I also know the RAM will be 4GB and HDD will be 500 GB which is fine for my needs.

 

My first S15 was i5 and had the Intel graphics but still had the stamina/speed switch. To what end I do not know. It did not make a difference and it was right around $800. The fan broke and I returned for a full refund, ending up getting a new S15 with the i7.

 

So what is the point of the speed/stamina if there is only the on board HD4000 graphics ?
Btw is there a general problem with the cheaper version(without nvidia) or may be it was just your unit which was bad ?
Since i am going to buy from amazon.com (as i have enough balance), i want to avoid encountering any issues.

 

@david_k: yes

 

Supranium - How does the S15 screen compare with the with your N56VZ?

 

Hi guys, quick question:
I'm gonna get the S13P in a few days. I'll be in NYC in a couple of weeks to pick up the order, and I also wanna purchase an SSD at some mortar and brick store. The thing that worries me is the caddy (to replace the ODD): Will I be able to find the suitable caddy, or should I just order it online aswell? I didn't see any link here recommending any type of caddy, except for some links to eBay. Does any1 know where I can order a suitable caddy from?

On another note, does anyone know if the Crucial M4 or Samsung 830 can be found in common electronic stores in new york?

appreciate the help!

 

Damnit, I notice myself still being interested in this computer. Especially now since I heard some people got a screen without the pixeljumping in the upper right corner, that thing was really annoying me. Wonder if I should call Sony and ask them to replace it due to the screen instead of refunding me...... Sucks to be picky.

 

I'm thinking of buying this and have searched reviews everywhere for the model number that keeps appearing on the configuration page 'SVS1511C5E'. I can't find any. I'm torn between this and the T430.

The design, weight & specs are very appealing. But I keep hearing that the keyboard/lid is flimsy, battery life is poor and the fan is very loud. Are they the people who are picky? Or is there actual 'problems' with these things? (On the 15.5" laptop)

Are there any reviews posted by fellow forumers for the s 15.5"?

 

I'd like to pick up one or two more AC adapters for the S15. Anybody know where I can pick up some aftermarket ones? I'm assuming the official Sony ones are way overpriced.

 

fifaboom, I've got the S15 and love it. I think the keyboard is good. Battery life isn't 6-8 hrs like some of the ultrabooks are, but they have crappy resolutions, fixed at 4 gig ram (a lot of them), and/or crappy GPUs. The BIOS mods are just gravy that make it more than an adequate gaming machine.

 

Oh right, I should have mentioned it earlier. I got my S13A on Friday (CTO model) and I don't have any pixel jumping issues at the right of the display at all. The display is a pretty bad display for the price you pay, but there is no pixel jumping. Also, the contrast SUCKS! Otherwise it is a decent TN display.

 

Ah darn, just saw that you have the S13 -- I was hoping it was the 15"! Anyway, today I tested BFBC2 and Skyrim (1600x900, medium settings) for a bit on the S15 and came away REALLY impressed. For both games I saw about:

- GPU = 65C
- CPU = 75C
- FPS = 40ish (35fps for BFBC2, 45fps for Skyrim)

Pretty much the same data as yours. What impressed me most is I tested the same games last week on the Samsung NP700Z5C (with a full 640m), and while the frame rates were not that much better, the temps were MUCH higher. Interesting.

-Matt

 

Yeah the temperatures for this laptop, especially the S13A, given the form factor, are amazing. I've seen gaming laptops with dual cooling vents, better TIM, and a much thicker design get much, MUCH higher temperatures, even with a mid range GPU.

 

However, the Sony S15 and the Samsung I mentioned BOTH vent the bulk of the heat out the back, right past the bottom of the screen. Today I noticed the bottom bezel was pretty warm. I wonder if that's a design/engineering choice that will stand the test of time.

-Matt

 

bumping my question back up..

I installed an SSD and did a fresh install. After following the link on the OP for installing drivers, my fingerprint scanner still does not work.
Does anybody know which driver I am missing? Thanks!

 

Install both of these:

Sony eSupport - SVS13A190X - Drivers & Software

Sony eSupport - SVS13A190X - Drivers & Software

One is the driver and the other is the software.

Good luck!

 

thank you!

 

I've got one in my signature

 

Hey guys, made a short review of my S13A in gunmetal. Let me know what you guys think.

Sure, it is a little unorganized but I tried my best. I'm not very good at speaking on video.

Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s-BqtrbwZU

 

I have answered that before, but ill do it again, since this thread has a lot of pages already.

Sony screen is brighter, more smooth(not so grainy). It has less anti reflection and because of this and being IPS screen, it has better whites and blacks as well. And better viewing angles of course.
Asus screen is very good TN screen with great anti reflection on it. It seems to have very accurate colors, but im not a professional on it, so you are better off looking those measures in reviews.
Overall i like S15 screen more. Its truly a very sharp screen. Red being an orange-like, is not issue for me personally.

 

Nice review - thanks for that, ComradeNF!

 

Does anyone know if it is possible to add the WWAN-card later on or to use the free mini PCIe-Slot for a mSATA-SSD?

 

But I still don't believe it's an hour difference because that is way too much. The CPU's are both designed to put out 35W that is converted to heat. This means that the input power can't be much higher than 35W otherwise the chip would put out more heat.

Then there is the efficiency, if the efficiency of the i7 is lower that the i5 then i would assume that the i7 would use slightly more power.

The i7 will always use more power then the i5 but the diffrence is not that big I think otherwise the TDP of the i7 would be higher provided that the i5 and i7 have the same headspreader lay-out. You simply can't double the amount of input power and still only get 35w of heat out of it. So that the two chips have the same TDP means that the more or less use abput the same amount of power, the i7 maybe 10-15 watts more.

The point is that I don't believe that the difference i5 to i7 is an hour in battery life because that would be 25-30% of the total capacity and that is just too much.

 

Review of the Gigabyte U2442N is already out :
Test Gigabyte U2442N Notebook - Notebookcheck.com Tests

Quite a high temperature.

 

How is your speakers? Did you try what DarkImmortal posted before and uninstalled the audio drivers to be able to check the +15 dB Bass Boost thing to see if it became better? I am really interested how much better it gets with that.

Maybe you could make a recording of speakers before and after if you actually try this? I am very interested in hearing this because the reason I sent back my S13P was because of the speakers and I am really thinking they might have been defective since they were so bad. Also, DarkImmortal said the difference after he checked the bass Boost box was big.

 

That's you?! I've seen all your review videos. Need to find more reviews though.

 

As I thought from that video posted earlier, same or similar panel to the s13a, certainly nothing special

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk 2

 

Hmmmm, so after i got an email about my shipping date being pushed back (UK), i had a quick look on the website and the shipping estimates have gone from 2-3weeks when i ordered to 3-4weeks for a custom built S13P.

Guess thats a good thing, as more people must be buying these, so we get better support from Sony in the end!

Bad thing is that i guess my laptop and other peoples won't arrive as soon as we might have hoped.

 

I still haven't had anything other than an order acknowledgement email from Sony (S15, order placed on 17th July), customer service will have to improve massively over the next week or I'll be cancelling and going with a Dell!

 

I checked my account on the sony site and after a bit over a week it went into production and stayed like that for a bit over a week until I got a mail with the tracking number, after that it took about 2 business days until it was delivered.

 

That would be fine, but I can't access my account for some reason and Sony have failed to respond to 2 emails. Doesn't bode well for future product support, but I'm going to give it until the end of this week, If I still haven't heard anything from them I'll be calling to cancel.

 

Another quick test for you guys/girls. Just got my ODD bay.

 

I have a couple of these bought in the UK. You'll almost certainly find them cheaper from other online stores.

 

Thanks, that was awesome! You did a great job.

Same here. Last night I thumbed threw a few 100 personal photos, and either (1) I have severe vision problems that prevent me from seeing that the red in my photos is screwed up, OR (2) it's not that big a deal! No reds seemed "true fire-engine red" but they also didn't look bright orange either. FWIW (no offense) I think the heavily-staged comparisons with full-screen RGB 255-0-0 shots on multiple displays may not be the right way to judge the issue.

And on a personal note: I decided to return the Samsung NP700Z5C and give the Sony S15 a try. I had no intention of keeping it -- but the screen is making that decision a LOT harder. It is just a joy to look at and work with. I also thought 1080p would kill my eyes (DISCLAIMER: OK, I am pretty nearsighted) but I'm dealing with it.

Hopefully later this week I'll post a thread comparing the two machines more systematically.

-Matt

 

I think I just got a bad unit. As I said I really don't know why the switch was on it, might be just how they are produced.

 

quick question: after I did a clean reinstall on my samsung 830 i cant adjust brightness or disable trackpad with the "fn" shortcut. How can I fix this?

 

You need to install the various sony drivers from the support page, link is found on the first page of this post.

 

i've done that...

 

I had the same problem. Tried reinstalling them and whatnot, ended up using the Sony restore disks.

 

Install drivers in the order specified on in the OP. I did it that way on Saturday with my new SSD and I have no issues at all.

Sent from my GT-I9100

 

Did you remember to do the following?

Sony - Sony® Firmware Extension Parser Device Driver 8.0.2.3 (reboot)
Sony - Sony® Shared Library 5.10.0.12150
Sony - Hotkey Utilities 1.0 (reboot x 2)

 

started suddenly to work now, after installing steam... lol!

 

Thats really wierd. Have you tried ringing them? Also where are you trying to access your account? I had problems using my ipad or phone to access the login page, it kept saying there was an error, had to use IE only.

https://shop.sony.co.uk/shop/b2c/z_ODW_login.do?shop=SST_GB_EN

 

Is it easy enough to remove the sony bloatware that i don't need, after i get the S15 ? I do not wish to do clean install and everything, just remove the unnecessary bloatware.

 

Just get the Fresh Start.