Official Sony S11/S12/S13 (2010) Owners Thread

Does anyone have any recommendations for screen settings on the Sony s with Intel graphics.

 

------> http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/475297-my-two-months-vaio-s-review.html

 

Sorry...I just don't know much about Sony
Seems like there are also laptops are manufactured in Malaysia or Indonesia??
Yeah, I do know most laptops are made either in Taiwan or China, where I come from. Well, that explains why it takes 2 or 3 weeks to ship out, just to ship from China to the UK would take around 2 weeks. Although Sony updated my order saying would ship during 03/08-10/08, hopefully this is correct and not gets pushed back.

 

Anybody else sells that scheme one's laptop ?

 

Shipping from China to Europe takes 3 working days. Have in mind though that you ordered an individual configuration... and you are most likely not the only one. It will take up to 4 weeks, but could be 10 days as well.

 

Please help me out guys !

 

3 working days!!That's damn fast!!I've sent some parcels back to China via royal mail international signed for service and most of them took 2 weeks to get there.I guess it's just royal mail is too slow?I know DHL would be much faster.

I hope I could be the lucky one whose order gets processed in 10 days. I'm praying for it now.

 

VPCS11 v/s VPCS12

S11 is older if i'm right ? Or hey are same but for different market ?

 

S11 is the initial version. S12 is the current one. Some say some small issues have been solved by the S12 (for example the loose battery that is present by almost all S11). No major differences though. Wouldn't look at that too much - it is the configuration that matters.

DHL Express as well as TNT deliver for exactly 3 working days from china. Most self-respecting companies use one of both. No idea about Sony UK though.

 

Gracy123
Thanks for the heads up !

I wanna engrave my name on it so any site where i can order & that provides that facility ? It's a pity i sony uk won't ship worldwide..
I'm stuck badly

 

Engraving is only available to Vaio Z (and Vaio F, but not sure) as far as I know.

 

In the UK, engraving is available to S series as well

 

In the Z Owners forum, there have been complaints of the Black-Colored Z's palmrest - the color on the palmrest is rubbing off. So far no complaints on the Silver Z Palmrest from any owners.

Has there been any issues with the S-Series Silver Palmrest color fading, deteriorating etc. Thanks for your feedback on this.

 

I'm afraid none of us here have the silver S, but no one has yet complained about the black/gray palmrest either! Could be a problem by the Z only...

 

Engraving is also available for the S, at least in Germany it is ! It shows up when you review you customization and actually buy it.

By the way, I figured out that sony offers some new kind of student-discount programm which gives you a discount of 7% on all Vaios and up to 10% for some other sony stuff: In germany it's called "Sony Bildung"

I am going to buy one S12 and looking for the i5 450 in it, but I read that the vaio S has some problems with the whine-issue as well as so many other laptops have (e.g. the envy 14). So I am anxious to really buy it now. I don't wanna waste 1000€.
Another question I have is about the 128GB solid state disk sony offers. I am aware of the bad price/storage -ratio of SSDs but they still atract me, because I don't need that mich storage. My question is: Does anybody know what kind of SSD Sony uses and whether they are up to date or not? (TRIM support?)

Last question: How likely is a new version of the Vaio S in early 2011?

Best regards


PS: As you can gather from my post I am german as well, so please be patient with my english skills.

 

I don't know of any whine issue...

I'd wait until the new Intel SSD come out this fall. Rumours say they'll double the capacity at the same price.

Intel will push out new processors this winter, so a refresh is more likely than not

 

Are you already a Windows 7 user? I used to believe I can live with the capacity of a SSD right until I started to use Win 7... those illusions felt apart at that very moment

Not saying there is anything impossible... just that if you haven't used Win 7 until yet but plan to - think twice about the HDD capacity you would need....

About engraving - obviously I'm wrong then Never looked into it but couldn't remember seeing it when doing my research. Maybe it came after that. Anyway.

Such information was never confirmed. If you mean "Sandy Bridge", no official announcement has been made yet, but even if anything new pops out at the end of this year, it will be a desktop CPU. Mobile CPUs will most likely not be presented until late Q1 2011 or even Q2/Q3. What is supposed to come up next is an "Atom" alternative, but that would only affect netbooks.

 

In fact I am. I know that Win7 needs a lot of space, but as far as I know it's not over 16 GB for 64bit, is it? Lets assume it's up to 28GB, you would still have 100 GB left for office and some other basics that need to be installed. Everything else I will outsource to an external HDD anyway.

My only concern is that the sony SSD is not up to date. What pugacioff said regarding that matter is very valuable information for me. Because when I spend a whole lot on the SSD I am really anxious to get the most up to date one, so I probably wait for new SSDs in Sonys portfolio as well as some refreshes in the processor line up.

Besides that, does anybody know what their general update cycles in terms of a new body design are? Once every year, once every two or three years?

thx

 

Does anyone know if a bios update fixes the lag when you plug and unplug the ac adapter for the S series. Thanks.

 

of course it's not confirmed, but it seems that Intel is pushing hard on Sandy Bridge: Intel's Sandy Bridge CPUs to arrive ahead of schedule, could be with us this year -- Engadget

 

First - what lag !?!? First time I hear about anything like this. No unusual behavior here.

Second - there has been only 1 bios update - it fixes audio quality distortion.

Here is some factual information: My "Windows" folder (x64) is 21GB (installed 2 months ago) and my "Programs Files" have total of nearly 8GB (nothing really special installed - office, acrobat, Photoshop, etc...) so total of 29GB.

Considering music, documents, movies, pictures, program installations, backup, etc., etc. I can't see myself with less then 250 GB and I do have 1TB external...
I used to have 80GB on my old XP machine and it was ok... but not with win 7.

But of course if you need it only for an office computer and don't plan uploading personal stuff to it, 128GB might do the job I guess....

I am pretty happy with the 7200 rpm HDD I put in the S - boosted the system speed noticeably compared to the original 5400 rpm Toshiba while I still have 500GB storage space and all that for a very reasonable price.

 

I got the S bought in March.
With the SSD. And its one from Toshiba. And not the actual one, still one without trim support. But i monitored the SSD Speed more than a month without a significant change...

 

How many ram slots are there?

 

2 as usual.

 

Can you elaborate? To investigate I ran a video whilst plugging the charger in and out. The screen darkened and lightened in the normal manner (power saving) but the video play (and its audio) was unaffected.

I do remember some discussion from much earlier in the thread where some users reported screen flickering or something when removing the chord. Is this what you mean? Luckily I've never seen this on my unit.

 

I just ordered mine from Sony Style UK! The free upgrade to i7 was too hard to resist!

Is there a guide on how to do a clean install of Windows 7 anywhere? The laptop will come with McAfee and i hate any bloatware.

Many thanks in advance

 

On the subject of SSDs and space, I have to say I think it’s much more an issue of what the end user loads than it is the difference between Windows versions. Sure, Windows 7 has a bigger footprint than WinXP, but that difference is only significant if you’re going to be loading the machine up with lots of other stuff (in which case every Gb will count). If you’re not loading music, videos, images and other space eaters, you’ll be perfectly happy with just a 64Gb SSD.

It would be interesting to do a survey and see the range of storage use amongst S users. I can’t escape the feeling that there are lots of 500Gb HDDs out there at way less than a quarter full.

Just FYI, my Windows (Win7 64bit) folder stands at 13.8Gb after a month and a half or so. I haven’t used any special SSD space saving techniques, and I have retained restore points, etc. Total used space on the disc is roughly 20Gb, although that will change a lot soon as I copy more graphics content over.

 

Welcome to the forum. There's a few going for the i7 S series now, so it'll be interesting to see feedback on heat/noise/battery status when they all arrive in the users' laps.

It'll come with a lot more bloat besides McAffee.

There are three* options:

- Keep the default setup and simply uninstall the unwanted bloat. This is the most straightforward but the least good at removing everything. Whether the bits and pieces left over constitute a significant problem is debateable.

- Install a MicroSoft issued Windows (e.g. download an ISO and activate with the Sony key) and use selected drivers and apps downloaded from Sony Support. This will be the cleanest in terms of Sony bloatware but potentially the most problematic in getting everything working properly.

- Do a "semi-clean" install using either the recovery partition or the recovery discs. This will get the S specific essentials loaded in the right order but is a bit of a fiddle.


The latter is the process I used and it worked well. I'm not going to describe it here now because it's too complicated for this time of night. There are a couple of locations on the site where it's discussed but I want to re-read them before I link because they're a bit disjointed and not S specific. Since I want to do this again I might write up a routine for the S series that can live in this thread.


*Three, given that Europe doesn't appear to have the "Fresh Start" option seen in the USA

 

Thanks PJF!

I will report back on experience with the i7 processor unit in the S series as soon as i get it.

I will probably go for option number 2. I am a bit of a control freak when it comes to programs leaving bits and pieces in the hard drive even after they are uninstalled.

I was looking at the US site and there is an option for a clean install. It is rather unfortunate this is not offered in EU. Oh well...as long as i can use the serial key to install a clean version that wouldn't bother me too much.

 

i got 2 x 8gb ram coming, hopefully it will work for both of the S's i deal with

 

2 x 8GB ? You mean 4 x 4GB I guess that you plan putting in 2 notebooks?

 

make an educated guess anybody ?

Is it more likely than not that they will reveal a successor of the S-series in 2011?

 

Wikipedia.org has Sandy Bridge as 4th quarter 2010 availability. I'm guessing Sony will refresh VPCS11 series in January. Sandy Bridge may take a backseat to new Atom notebooks (smaller, fanless, 1080p, HDMI) and Android tablets. Should be fun to watch what happens.

Sandy Bridge (microarchitecture) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I swore off spinning hard drives after one crashed during a working session for my client. When this happens, one quickly realizes that SSDs are actually cheap insurance besides the other compelling benefits.

SSDs in America have dropped from $3/GB to $1.50/GB in just six months. I'm guessing they'll be $1/GB at year's end. Regardless, for my situation, their value proposition is a no-brainer right now.

I have 40GB, 64GB, 128GB, 256GB SSDs from various manufacturers. Although their specs are different, they all have awesome speed.

 

I personally believe that an update (cpu) of the S might follow up in first half of 2011. I don't think they will change the optics in the next 1,5 years though, as the S was just released this year.

 

Hi, I have just ordered my S series in the UK today (again, free i7 was hard to pass up).

I am going to self-install a 64-128GB SSD. Does anyone have any recommendations to a SSD that works well in this notebook? I have heard good things about the OCZ vertex 2E OCZ 60GB Vertex 2E SSD 2.5" SATA-II Read 285MB/s.. | Ebuyer.com

Does anyone know if this is compatible? Any & all suggestions welcome.

Thanks.

 

Yes, it is compatible and also very easy to install. All you need to do is clone the original HDD onto the SSD, unscrew the panel on the bottom of the laptop, pull out the HDD and insert the SSD.

I have also heard good things about the vertex series, although I am planning on getting a second generation (34nm) intel X25-M (160GB, although you can get 80GB ones). Make sure it's a second gen one though, far superior to the first generation, confusingly both first and second gen are called X25-M. The read / write speeds quoted in manufacturers sites and publicity is generally for sequential reads / writes of large files, this can be misleading at best, because for general usage, 4KB reads / writes and access times are a lot more important, unless you plan to do a lot of copying of very large files. Do some research, if I remember rightly Intel’s X25-M (second gen) manages 4KB sequential reads of approx. 20 MB/s and access times of 0,1 ms, which may not sound amazing, but if you compare it to a traditional 5200 rpm HDD it really is, it’s a HUGE difference!

BTW, there’s a lot of useful information on SSD optimisation on the Z owners’ forum, although some may specific to the Z. That said, a good SSD will be far superior to any traditional HDD with no optimisation at all.

 

thanks for the info. i found a review from anandtech here The SSD Diaries: Crucial's RealSSD C300 - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News , and they compare the crucial c300 to the ocz vertex 2. the 2nd gen intel you mentioned was also used as a comparison, which seemed to perform slightly poorer than the 2 in question.

i agree; research is key. i will try and find something better, although imo in real life situations the performance of 'even faster' drives must be unnoticeable at this level.

cheers

 

The Crucial C300 is the one I put in my S. It works and is very fast. Cold boot and shutdown times are currently marginally faster than this Z :

YouTube - Sony Vaio Z, boot and shutdown time (720p HD Video)

Note that it's not just < 30 seconds to the desktop screen, everything comes alive immediately after it appears. Wireless connection, Vaio Gate, Norton, etc, etc. I just cold booted, opened Norton and downloaded the updates in 37 seconds, and that included a trackpad faff by yours truly.

I doubt a user would notice any difference between any of the good gen2 SSDs. The Intel X25-M G2 in my desktop is just as quick (the clockwork desktop bios takes longer than Windows boot).

 

Can you make a capture screen with CrystalDiskMark? My Intel X25-M G2 is not very good at 4K Write when using in my S

 

Seems like all you users in Europe are at an advantage. In the US, the S series in not upgradeable and the "lag" I mentioned simply means that when one removes the ac adapter, the screen goes black for about a second the same with plugging in the ac adapter. I just think that if I am going to pay $1200 for a laptop, it shouldn't do that. I actually think that sony is trying to push consumers here in the US to buy the Z series instead of the S which I am strongly considering. But I do love the S series, I just wish I wasn't stuck the the 430M I5 processor and that lag I was talking about. Any suggestions would be helpful.

 

Humm, will read that when I get a moment. I’m not sure but if I remember rightly, when I looked into which SSD to get, the intel 160GB drive seemed like (for my needs) a good compromise between price, performance and storage space. If I’m not mistaken, the price per GB of the Vertex is higher, plus if you want more than 120 GB (like I do) you have to go all the way up to 240, which is more than I will realistically need in the next 4 years, and is, at least for me, silly money!

 

Really? Could you provide some benchmarks? How is it with real life usage?

I'm especially interested because as I said I'm going to get an S series and was going to put one of these in it!

Thanks

 

Hello All,

Is anybody having any issues with the sound on the S11V9E?

I know the sound output is generally poor in terms of volume and quality but for some reason when I try and play podcasts or music via my Apple headphones (the version you get with the iPod, iPhone etc), the quality is distorted? I actually requested a new laptop but this version also has the same issue.

In addition, when recording via Audacity, the laptop records the fan noise which doesn't happen on my old thinkpad - it's not picking it up from the MIC either because I don't change position when recording on my old laptop - the Sony is right with me..

Anyway, frustrating fault with an otherwise good laptop.

Thoughts?

PS - updated the the latest sound card driver as well.

 

I have the same submodel and had audio problems as a result of messing with the audio drivers. I updated them to some that were not released by sony but were supposed to be newer. I had some issues with the video as well - same reason - used "newer" unofficial drivers.

Ever since those problems I use only drivers from Sony's website and have absolutely no issues with Audio or Video. Stick to them. To me the Audio quality is above average (for a notebook) - compared to the Thinkpad T400 I use, the S sounds much much better on my Creative speakers.

 

Thanks for your reply. I thought there was only one color on the S, which is Silver sold at Best Buys. Where can you purchase the S in Black? Thx.

Edit: Got it. Here in the US, one can only purchase the S in Silver and only at Best Buys due to that Contract Sony had with them. Forgot that in Europe, it can be had in Black.

 

I went back through the thread using various search words and it seems all the discussion of this issue was towards the beginning. The lack of current moaning from users makes me think the problem might have been fixed. Can any US S series owning forum members (with the model from Best Buy) tell us what the situation is?

Unless and until Sony USA starts making other versions of the S available, your only option for better specs is to personal import. Aside from the warranty complications and compatibility issues, the costs are likely to be so high that you might as well by the Z. For example, to buy the current UK version of the model I have would cost you over $2000 just for the laptop. Add on shipping, duties and tax - well, you've got to really love the S.

Looking over the Sony USA website shows that other laptops in their range are shortchanged on specs compared to Europe and Asia. Bizarre.

 

Your second S11V9E was purchased in April whereupon you reported to the thread this continuing distortion issue with these same headphones. In the intervening months, have you tried a different set of headphones (as in a different type)?

Coincidentally, a BIOS update was released just yesterday (R0300Q3).
Listed fixes:
- Under certain circumstances, sound may be distorted.
- Some USB Dongles may cause the system to hang at boot.


Never had problems with headphone use on my unit, thankfully. I use a set of cheapie Sony MDR-V150 and they sound great on the Vaio and my iPod Classic.
.

 

Sony UK updates posted yesterday* for the VPCS11V9E:

VAIO Care 6.1.2.07220
What does it fix?
Battery usage improvement.
The 'Accept' button for the German End User License Agreement is corrected.

(Gracy123 will be pleased about that last one )


VAIO Control Center 4.1.1.07160
What does it fix?
The value of the cache memory is not correctly displayed


BIOS - R0300Q3
What does it fix?
Under certain circumstances, sound may be distorted.
Some USB Dongles may cause the system to hang at boot.


Have loaded all. Machine still works. Will report any issues.


* still today as far as my being awake is concerned.

 

Hi guys, VPCS11 owner here.

Just wanted to ask if anyone know if sony provides 32 bit window 7 drivers? I had a look on the sony support website and they only seem to support drivers for window 7 64 bit systems.