Official Sony SB/SA/SC/SD Series Owners' Thread

Does anyone know what the size of the vaio SB dvd optical drive is? Is it a standard 12.7mm slim drive?

Just want to know to see if I can replace it with a blu-ray burner like the Sony BD-5730S instead of paying $500 for the one included.

 

just took the bottom cover off, I see where it's located, thx Benny

 

How many leads are? 2 or 3?

 

Thank you, that sounds good, too bad no-one tried running prime yet, but since falout NV is quite a heavy game and the notebook doesn't heat up, normal applications should be no problem.
I'll go to my local sony center tomorrow to do a last check and maybe buy it.

 

I saw 2 leads

 

Wont this void the warranty?

 

I'll answer this in the same manner that the other warranty questions are answered...just put the OEM part back before sending it in

 

No Problem

Yep, its two so the Ultimate-N version is out (unless you want to add in an antenna )

The one I got, the 6200 Advanced-N, which is a 2x2 instead of the 1x2 that the one that comes in there has. So it will be faster as well as have 5GHz support, which is why I got it.

Thanks for clearing that up. But yea, Sony doesn't have to know what you are doing with your laptop on your own time.

 

Yea, it's a half height mini pci-e. I actually noticed when I was looking just now that they have a new version, the Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205. Doubt there is too much difference but the processor location and wires do look a bit different.

Anyway, I went ahead and ordered the 6205 from ExcaliberPC, it was about $26 shipped. I always seem to need the latest and greatest, can't help myself

 

So today I went up to Frys to take a look around. I went to check out the external hard drives as I want to upgrade from my USB 2.0 one. Anyway, I decided just for the he11 of it to take a look at their SSD's. A couple of them caught my eye. Both were Corsair, a 128GB and a 256GB referbs. The 128GB one was on sale for $139.99 and the 256GB was $254.99. They were OOS there but were available at the other Frys, about 20 miles away. Asked them about the 256GB one and they said that it was a non-working customer return and that they were sending it back to Corsair. Dammit! Oh well, ended up getting the 128GB one, which was a customer return as well. Got home tried to clone it and the damn thing is dead. Stupid POS

Oh well, for the price I got it for, I'll bit the bullet and go ahead and RMA it to get a working one. I'm not to worried about having the fastest SSD around so this one works perfect for me. Being right at about $1 a GB isn't bad either! Still would rather have that 256 though!

 

I ordered the 6200 and am taking back a USB adapter I bought

 

Does changing the wireless chip affect the power consumption?

 

I asked the guys at the sony centre if the SB could charge from USB while off and they said categorically no but:

So can anyone confirm that you can charge an mp3 player from a usb port while the computer is off and the sony reps got it wrong?

 

Can anyone recommend a good USB 3.0 2.5 HDD? I need one that I can open without too much trouble to swap the hard disk. If it comes with a high capacity 7200 rpm drive or a hybrid, that would be a bonus!

Thanks!

 

Went to the sony center today and I was able to run prime95 and hwmonitor.
Temps where about 79°C after 3 minutes and the core was around 45 while idling.

So I bought one and got to take it home immediately.

VPCSB1S1E/W

Intel® Core™ i5-2410M-processor
4 gb ram
500gb HD
AMD Radeon™ HD 6470M

 

Can one of the lucky SB owners please post the pictures of the AC power adapter and the info printed on it?

 

Measurements are (approx):

Height: 1.25"
Width: 1.9"
Length: 4.8"

 

Thanks, mate. I was thinking about buying the universal power adapter from Innergie but taking into consideration the similar size of the stock one I see no point in spending extra 80 bucks. SB's power adapter is also made by the Innergie's parent company - Delta Electronics.

 

I am planning to buy the new SB series laptop, however I have not been able to see one in person. I live in Memphis (TN), USA and the Best Buy's here don't have it on stock.

I called the Sony customer care and they don't have any style store here in Memphis.

Do the best buys elsewhere have the new SB series laptops in stock?

Apart from Best buy, and the Sony style store, where else can one see this laptop in person?

Thanks!

 

My new CTO SB arrived this morning and I wanted to add some notes based on points a few other people have raised in this thread. I'll post a more full "review" of the system when my after-market upgrades arrive tomorrow. The specification I ordered was as follows:

Optical Drive : DVD disc drive (to be replaced with a mechanical HDD once a bracket becomes available)
Hard drive : 320 GB Serial ATA (5400 rpm) (to be replaced with 120Gb Intel 510 SSD)
Processor : Intel® CoreTM i7-2620M 2.70GHz
Display : 33.7 cm LCD, 1366x768 + webcam
Graphics : AMD Radeon(TM) HD 6630M 1GB
Memory : 4 GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM (to be upgraded to 8Gb)
Battery : Long-Life Battery

Display
After seeing several people comment on the (poor) quality of the display I am pleasantly surprised. Colours are slightly more vibrant than my Uni-body Macbook, though blacks aren't as deep. The horizontal viewing angles are excellent with vertical angles being acceptable if nothing special. The anti-glare surface works extremely well, especially after working with a glossy screen for several years.

Overall: I'm happy with the screen especially after reading some of the user feedback here.

Heat & Noise
Things didn't fare so well in this department. After running Prime95 for around 30 minutes in performance mode, the CPU is hovering around 88-90c and the CPU fan is significantly louder than I would like. The heat coming off the laptop its self isn't that bad and I can keep my hand comfortably next to the exhaust port or have the laptop on my lap.

Gaming provided similar results. Running Heroes of Newerth the CPU temperature was around 74-78c with similar audio levels from the fan.

When idling or doing general office tasks the CPU is around 55-58c and the fan is inaudible.

Overall: I'm quite annoyed at the sound levels from the fan when doing intensive tasks, and while it's not enough of a problem for me to make me return the system, I can certainly see others doing so. Be warned.

Note: This is using the most recent BIOS revision - R1030H4

Bloatware
I've dealt with many Sony laptops before for clients so it didn't come as a huge surprise that there is a significant amount of (what I consider) useless software / bloatware pre-installed on the system. As I will be replacing the hard disk it's not really an issue for me, but worth pointing out.

Build quality
I'm impressed by how well put together and solid the system feels. As others have mentioned there is a small 1/16" gap between the DVD drive and case but this doesn't bother me in the slightest. There is also a small amount of screen wobble due to the thinness of the screen, but the hinge its self is extremely solid.

Other
The slice battery and dock connector covers are small rubber... things, for want of a better description. They need to be removed for either device to be attached and I can see me loosing them extremely easily.

After re-reading this post before submitting it does sound rather negative, but overall I'm very happy with my purchase and will no doubt be using it for a long time. Do bear in mind these are initial reactions based on only a few hours use.

If anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer them.

 

I've really tried to get some realistic photos, but my camera(s) won't seem to pick up this special purple my notebook has. It's almost the colour as on the pictures.. but it looks better in real life. The back of the screen is almost black (really dark purple/blue) and the inside is a deep purple, not too light .

Dropbox album

I also made a short unboxing video, but it really looks like an ugly blue there, because I didn't configure my camera correctly yet.

 

I'm sorry to hear about the fan noise you're getting while playing games. I'm receiving my laptop this week and was worried about that particular issue myself. I know that fan noise is a very subjective complaint, but I can see that it's been an issue with others here. Maybe I will invest in some gaming headphones?

 

just looked at the status screen at the sonystyle site. it now says completed, still with an estimated ship date of 4/21
hopefully i receive an email soon with tracking info

 

This was suppose to be a civil discussion since you were saying the 6630 > 6550 in the 3820TG simply on the GPU especially considering how highly overclockable the 3820TG is.

Also, based on the benchmarks I've seen of the GT 540m vs 6550 and 6630, the 540m is slightly better than that of the ATi, while not by a huge margin, it's still better.

But if you intend to act like an a-hole, please let me know and i'll ignore you from now on rather that proceed with a civilized discussion, thank you!

 

Looking at the teardown, it doesn't look like its an easy task to reapply the thermal paste on this machine because you need to remove the motherboard in order to get to the CPU/GPU.

 

Thanks for the mini review, I find it really helpful to get as many opinions as possible since people's needs and bugbears and views in general can be so different. Also however you look at it it's a lot of money, and I'd like to use it until it dies on me in 5 + years.

Quick question: can you charge an mp3 player from the usb 3 port while the computer is switched off (presumably it must be plugged in though)?

The folks at the Sony Centre said no, but an earlier poster (not from UK) said yes...

Thanks!

 

Set the max processor power to 80% or less.
The noise will reduce a lot

 

Can you give us the link for the video? Thank you.

 

When reading reviews for other laptops(3830TG specifically) with this 3.0 usb charging feature, It's not required that the computer is plugged in, and there was a setting that allowed you to choose which percentage of battery life you'd allow the feature to operate until. So if the threshold is set to 30% you can use the 3.0 USB port for charging other devices, until the battery(of the laptop) reaches 30%. The feature would then no longer work, until you charge the laptop again, beyond 30%.

 

Hmm.. no spring 200 coupon being honored, so $1109 as a price.. (i5-2540, 4gb, 500gb, 6630, blu-ray burner, slice)

Now were moving away from no brainer towards $770 for a 3820 + $$$ for a SSD upgrade...

ho hum....

i'm the worst shopper ever!?!?

 

With all the reports of the SB being loud and hot could you who has got it please post temps and db-levels and your configurations?

I am hooked on the base SB but noise levels is a real dealbraker for me.

And a question, in Sweden the base SB with i5, 4Gb. 500 5400, 6470m and DVD-RW costs 1600$ and the higher spec with i7, 6Gb, 6630m and bluray costs 2200$. Is the difference worth it or should I go with the base model?

 

Measuring db-levels would be indeed interesting. How could this be done, so that its comparable through the thread? Any idea?

 

The notebook check review had db levels: Review Sony Vaio VPC-SB1Z9EB Subnotebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

 

i was just going to post that review as well

 

Temps are posted all over this thread, people that have tested some heavy gaming on this laptop report the temp didn't get above 91*, which is very good. And as I have said many times, the laptop stays cool to the touch no matter what I'm doing.

Not sure who is going to have a dB meter hanging around but notebook check reported some numbers.

 

Very nifty indeed. The Acer 3830TG is another contender for me (along with 4830TG). So hopefully someone can confirm that the SB does have this feature...

 

Just tried it and no, it doesn't. At least not for my iPhone, plugged or unplugged.

 

Just curious. Where are you ordering from? How are you getting this price? I know in the states you can;t get the 6630 unless you get the i7 and in Canada it is more expensive then that.

 

Just noticed my order changed to completed and also says "payment processed" rather than being built. I ordered on Thursday 4/14 too. That was way faster than they said. Hope they don't just hang on to it until 4/25.

 

Congrats, yea they usually ship it out pretty quickly so you should be getting your laptop soon.

 

same thing with me. they took my money. i'm just waiting for a email saying it shipped. my date was 4.21

 

I think that's the Canadialand price since he mentioned the SPRING200 code.

 

I was looking at replacing mine too as I have a 5GHz simultaneous dual band router that has the separate SSID for 5 and 2.4. Is the bluetooth on the current wifi chip? I have taken wifi cards out before and they were bluetooth/wifi in a single chip. I need the bluetooth and was just curious if i replace the wifi chip if I need to get a combo chip.

Btw newegg has the 6200 for 20.95 + 6.29 shipping. Not sure what the difference is on the 6205 ExcaliburPC has.

 

I never got an email confirming my order originally. All I got was a spam email from Sony telling me about all their deals and stuff. Not sure if I will get the shipping email either.

 

Has anyone managed to get a microphone to work with the SB. The reviews referred to the headphone jack being a dual headphone/mic jack and so I expected to be able to use an iphone type dual mic/headphones set. I've tried my iphone and blackberry 3.5mm headsets and neither worked. There's also no sign of the external mic being listed in the recording devices section in control panel.

The Manual also says you can't plug in a mic. Are the reviews wrong or is there something else that I need to do? I know I can plug in a USB adaptor but that's one more thing to carry around.

 

Why not just get a USB headset?

 

No, the bluetooth and wifi is a different chip, I made sure to check.

Here ya go:

ExcaliberPC - Intel Centrino Advanced-N Wifi Card

It's $18.50 + whatever shipping you choose.
They only have 434 of them in stock so you might want to hurry.

 

I'll take 5 so I can scalp them when they run out of stock. Overnight shipping of course....

Edit: Also, do you know the difference between the HMWWB version and HMWG. Excaliber lists both as same price, one with a pic and one without. Everything else looks identical.

 

Anyone have SSD recommendations? I was pretty set on the Intel 320 since its intel chip and nand, and most likely extremely reliable if the X-25M is any indication, but I know the laptop has SATA 3. Should I just grab an Intel 320 160GB for 300ish or is there any other drive near that price and size with good performance and reliability. I am not interested in 999999MB/s sequentials and etc, more about real world use and reliability.