Official Sony Vaio Fit multi-flip PC Owners' Thread

It says here that they are:

https://docs.sony.com/release/specs/SVF15N190X_mksp.pdf

I also called Vaio and they confirmed it. And I saw a review for the 14" and the reviewer said it is soldered, which led me to ask Vaio directly. See here.

Btw, not sure what you mean by the A suffix, the one I ordered didn't have that:
http://store.sony.com/vaio-fit-15-f...atid-All-15-Ultrabook-Flip?vva_ColorCode=null

But then again I'm new here

 

Welcome to the Flip thread apav

I opened my 14A yesterday and had the Samsung stick of DDR3L in my hand so no, it wasn't soldered on. Just two small metal retainer clips and out she comes. The 15A (or 15, depending on Sony's mood) has two slots and I highly doubt they are soldered on.

About the "A" : I have no idea what Sony is doing there. Just look at the models on this page from the Sony store and tell me what you think :
VAIO Flip 15 - VAIO Flip PCs Sony Store - Sony US

Look at the 14s : same thing.
And look at the specs page you linked to : it says "15A" at the top

Edit to add : we've mentionned this before but quite a while back, so... just know that the DDR3 needed for these Flips is "DDR3L", meaning low voltage RAM (1.35V). Regular 1.5V sticks are rejected (one member tried).

 

Hi Muha,
Did you make all the updates ? In the right order ? Both devices are working fine for me. The intel get strong signals... From home , work... On trip...

For the touchpad I think there is also a new update in European sony support .
Might help ? Also did you try to finetune the touch parameters ? Sensitivity , delay ,etc... ?

Don't remember the actual reference for the intel lan. I know lisa gade said it was the Intel N-7260 802.11n dual band.
Link : http://www.mobiletechreview.com/notebooks/Sony-Vaio-Flip-13.htm



Envoyé de mon Nexus 4 en utilisant Tapatalk

 

Hi apav, the specs you sent says max. Memory fixed, nothing about memory being soldered to the motherboard..
Max mem. Is 16gb on the 15A this is fixed ....not possible to go higher...

That's how I translate it at least.

If I remember correctly in the tear down video you can see the ram of the 14A model being not soldered... With the metal clips....

The 13A have 1 mem. slot SOLDERED, maybe the support made a mistake ?

For A suffix... No clue on why they stuck it there but we're talking about the same thing...





Envoyé de mon Nexus 4 en utilisant Tapatalk

 

Hey, made all updates with vaio update when I got it two weeks ago. Then updated to WIN 8.1, and installed every new update from the sony europe site since.
Finetune, sensitivity etc won't help much, because when this problem occurs it isnt just, that there are delays, or bad sensitivity or sth. the touchpad simple wont recognize the input oder only from time to time, or the mouse literally moves itsself on the screen, without even having my hands on the touchpad. also, I am not the only one having this problem, read about it a few times before.

I know that Lisa says that it is dualband in her review, I am just not 100% sure if this is true.
Dont want to get a dualband router specially for my flip, so that I can use it at 5ghz wifi, and other devices in the house, still with 2.4ghz, and in the end the flip doesnt even have this feature.

 

Hey there thirteen13

Support folks usually know diddly-squat, especially on the technical side. They have index cards for troubleshooting and instructions from the higher echelon to discourage people from upgrading stuff themselves. Options sold by Sony earn them big $$$, so they don't want us adding RAM and SSDs ourselves.

I assure you, apav, that Flip 14s have non soldered memory sticks, unless the plant is doing different versions with different motherboards, which I strongly doubt. Other people have opened Flip 15s and have not reported soldered memory sticks either. Flip 13s have soldered sticks, reported a few times here by owners like thirteen13

Can you please show me that review on the 14, where the person says the RAM is soldered ? Thanks

===========

@muha : I wouldn't be surprised if Sony uses more than 2 different wi-fi cards in the Flips. I'm pretty sure I have the single-band N Intel card myself in the 14.

 

I hate to sound like a broken record, but is anyone else still having trouble with delays on their order? I ordered a custom 15a from the U.S. in late October and have gotten delay after delay. I finally just got an email yesterday:

Anyone have any ideas what I should do?

 

It doesn't boot when you press either the power button or the Assist button, until maybe 20 tries. Yesterday it finally failed for good and wouldn't boot again.

I exchanged it for an Asus Q550 which has a great IPS screen and actually works

 

Funny, I got exactly an opposite problem... I recently saw that every second time I close the notebook, and it goes to sleep-mode, it wakes up 1 second after that. Then I open it and the camera-"app" is on, ready to take pictures. I couldn't find out how the hell that happens.

When I open the notebook it is not coming out of sleep-mode, although it did that before updating to win8.1. Any ideas?

 

According to sony my fit 13A is being built in Japan. How long does it usually take to receive a tracking no. After that

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Erratic mouse behavior,

There are periods where the mouse keeps jumping between open widows or to the right part of the screen where the charm is hidden. This is a nerve racking behavior when you are trying to type a document. It does not depend on the particular hardware as it happens with logitech and cherry devices. This may be in fact be a win 8.1 problem. If somebody knows something about the probable cause, I would be most interested to know.

 

I've the Flip15 now for 1 week (Ordered on 8th October). I did all updates (including manual updates from the Sony website (Bios update)) and win 8.1.
When idling or light browsing the fan is almost always off. But when the CPU goes over ~20%..... The fan kicks in and is way too load for my liking. I saw a 4-5W power usage with screen (the 2880x1620 variant) @ 20%: Very Nice!. Unfortunately the battery is only 47WHr. If it was 90WHr (Like Dell XPS 15, Samuns Ativ 9, MBPr 15)... It would have had an incredible battery life, now it's just average at 5h (No demanding taks).

I can tolerate some fan noise at full load, but NOT on an ultrabook with a 15W processor. It's only 15 watts ... it's almost possible to dissipate 15W fanless. Investigation time! Open up that thingy - I just like to see internals. (No actual reason needed to take it apart anyway.)

See all detailed pics @ Flip15 - Imgur

FAN Related stuff:


Quite a big radiator for just 15W, I didn't order the 735M (That thing is barely better than the HD4400 and eats up the battery with its 17W TDP). The cooling seems up to the task even with an 735M installed. At full load the software reads an 60-65°C for the CPU. Yes I did load testing with the bottom cover removes so I could measure heatsink temperatures. The software 60°C corresponds to 42°C for the CPU heatsink assembly, the radiator gets 38°C. 20°C lost in die -> Heatpipe transfer. An other 4°C lost in transferring the heat from the CPU to the radiator through the (very thin) heatpipe. And yes, the fan was very load when testing this with the bottom casing removed an the i5-4200U loaded with Furmark and wPrime.

My conclusion: Very very, very bad Fan control. It's not the "long" and thin heatpipe nor the radiator or an undersized cooling system, it is the control of the fan. Shouldn't be too hard to fix in my opinion.

Note: 60-65; 42; 38°C is with bottom cover removed in an upright position. With bottom cover the software reads are BELOW 60°C: 58-59°C. With bottom cover = lower temps. This is not abnormal. Because with cover it forces air though the machine as how it was designed to flow. Without there is no airflow guidance at all. Yes cold outside air can reach everywhere but there is no forced air flow, just natural convection which is not that efficient.

Note2: The flips shuts down completely when the fan becomes blocked. *tested*. Just wanted to know if I slow down the fan how much the temperatures will rise. At full load, fan slowed down to barely spinning, caused a minor a temperature rise of a few degrees. Thus I decided to block it completely, turning the flip in a 'fanless', fully silent system, but that is not permitted by Sony. No, that's not reckless, there is a lot of temperate headroom and it can't just increase by 30°. I was also monitoring with IR thermometer.


Something I discovered: the wide vent on the side is the hot air exhaust as well as the air intake!

Air flow: Intake towards to back, exhaust near the HDMI port. No need for vents on the bottom.

The air vents on the bottom, as well as the venting through the hinge is just for the other components.


I really do like the flip idea, but there is definitely room for improvements. Active digitizes are the way to go for touchscreens: See fan drawing .

• Drop the trapezoidal shape. It's annoying to find the inner-located ports. This eliminates the "sharp" corners as well. The system-part of the device is really thin, but this is obscured by trapezoidal shape. The screens is rather thick compared to the lower sector due to the flip mechanism I suppose.
• Increase the battery. Going from trapezoidal to just plain rectangular creates space. No need for wig-shaped either (thinner towards the front). Just go for larger battery. Ultrabooks are about battery life and portability.
• Drop the 735M option: go for Iris 5100 at least. The HD5100 processors are 28W TDP. The Iris Pro 5200 is comparable to the 750M, but is 47W at least (=Not an option for the Flips cooling system right now)
• The 2880 screen is nice, to overcome the reflection a brighter backlight is desirable
• Minor: place the status Leds on a Visible spot. Who though that placement them on the bottom was a good idea?
• Minor: place the volume rocker on a more reachable place; also in normal laptop mode.
• The speakers are just bad. Although they take up quite a lot of space in the flips body.

The battery charges fairly quickly, but only when the system is powered down. Little headroom from the 40W PSU.
The HDMI->VGA dongle works good. HDMI is not supposed to be convertible to VGA. I tested to dongle on other HDMI ports but that didn't work. Sony Magic Only. (Projectors/Beamers still need VGA ports...)
Pro for the trapezoidal shape: easy to hide & protect a (Logitech) wireless mouse dongle .
I come from an 15" 1680x1050px (16:10) laptop and the flips screen (140% DPI setting) just looks SO much bigger. Very weird. Going back to my old 15" 1680x1050px laptop and the icons and text etc. looks sooo big (100% DPI). I the past, I already received comments from people saying that everything on my screen is "so small"...

I planned to replace the configured 128GB SSD (just 30€ for 128GB SSD vs 750GB HDD: spare SSD of course) for a samsung 830 256GB I have from my old laptop, but this is a no go. The flip comes with proprietary placeholder for an M.2 SSD (Sata 6gbps): MZNTD128HAGM


I consider sending the flip back, but the problem is: this is no alternative. At 1050€ for 2880 screen, 4 year extended warranty, active digitizer + pen hybrid tablet - full laptop, SSD, 3x USB, i5-4200u, not bad. I'm going to keep it for at least 25/30 days , hoping for a Real bios update that solves to fan issue because, for me, that is the main reason for returning it.

See all detailed pics @ Flip15 - Imgur

 

Great photos. Thank you very much.

I though the hdd could be a ssd of 7 mm.

Enviado desde mi GT-I8190N mediante Tapatalk

 

Wow Smoerijf... great stuff !! Thanks for the pics and details

I am litterally shocked to see a PCIe (M.2) SSD in a Flip 15. This is a first. What have Sony done ????
I understand they would use the smaller SSDs in the 13 because it is a thinner, smaller and lighter ultrabook, but the 14s and 15s have plenty of room under the hood for a regular drive. We can see from your [wonderful] pictures that the blue plate under the M.2 SSD has the shape of a regular drive so the motherboard is the same ; the M.2 drive kinda looks lost on that board, haha.
Two possibilities :
1) Sony has run out of regular SSDs and the supplier cannot keep up with demand, so they've switched to M.2 drives they've been using in Flip 13s
2) Different SSDs for different regions. That would be silly though.

Darn it. Now all the folks who had wished to upgrade SSDs themselves on 15s (and 14s ?) cannot know which drive they'll be getting. That sucks BIG time.
My advice to people who wish to upgrade their SSD : Wait for your Flip before you order your own SSD. Run the little "Speccy" program (free) which will list all your hardware and you will see your drive's model number. You will know which drive you have without relying on Sony's word (they won't tell you what you have, or they won't know what you have...) and without having to open the case just to confirm... If you have a M.2 drive, you can wait a bit and buy one later when they become available in stores.
Man this sucks...

To those wondering if the RAM sticks are soldered in the 15s, just look at the pictures. We see the metal clips there

On my 14A, the fan spins much slower since the BIOS update. The fan also doesn't start as often as before the update. I did see temps of 63-65C under full load at one point, and the fan was able to bring it down to roughly 60C and then bring temps down to mid 40s on light load quickly. I used "Core Temp" to monitor temperatures.

Edit to add a third possibility for the M.2 SSD in your Flip 15. It just dawned on me : what if they only do this for 128GB SSDs ? That would explain it. They stock the PCIe 128GB drives for 13s already, so maybe they use them all the time when people order a 15 or 14 with a 128GB drive.

 

Listening in...

 

Indeed those pictures are great, but what a surprise to see a M.2 SSD there.

It means that those who want to upgrade manually to a bigger SSD should always order their model with a normal 500gb HDD to avoid any surprise.

But there could maybe be a possibility to disassemble this M.2 and the related "?converter?" in order to leave room for a normal 7mm drive.
I doubt that they used a different motherboard for this laptop, so the controller for a regular SATA port should be somewhere there.
I am not an expert in those new SSD format, but from what I understand M.2 does not specifically mean PCIe interface. In this case I guess it's a SATA 6 interface but for sure the socket is not the same and that's why I guess it could be something like a socket converter.

I would be very interested to know more about that

 

From Sony's perspective I do understand the M.2 SSD: they just have to stock 1 kind of ssd (The vaio pro also used these): 128 en 265GB variants only. The most annoying part: There is NO SATA connector. just a flatcable that connects to the placeholder. If i could put my "old" SSD in (SATA, the 830 can be fitted in a 7mm space), it wouldn't be much of a problem for me (the 128GB ssd would be just a spare for this machine). Now I'm stuck with a 265GB SSD I don't use and a new laptop with 128GB, which is way to small (yes, it is already full, few GB's left). The free 4 years warranty are still in place, prices haven't changed: I can and will reorder if there is a fan fix within 30 days (very unlikely with the information I've read about Sony Vaio pro and Sony history I general).

Now I'm also curious how the construction is for a normal HDD: flatcable to sata instead of flatcable -> placeholder connector.


There are also electronics on the placeholder-board hidden underneath the flatcable running over it. So there is more converter work going on. No sure what because M.2 is just plain "old" sata6 (see specs for the SSD itself), it's not PCI-e.

M.2 SSD will become more common as this is the "new" standardized formfactor for SSDs, I though the spec was 2.2mm in height. Very much suited for Ultrabooks or just 2nd harddrives in a laptop.

 

I edited my above post just after you posted, kalhimeo, adding the possibility that Sony does this only for 128GB drives.

Yeah, there should be a SATA connector available in there somewhere. I'd just be worried with warranty though ; it's one thing to upgrade an existing drive using the same connector, but tinkering with the mobo might be a little too much for Sony to accept. Once the warranty period is over though, not a problem.

Edit because I am too slow : just read Smoerijf above saying there is NO SATA connector available. That sucks...

 

very interesting, but I can understand the disappointment too :/

That makes me curious too. I would say flatcable to sata but a 15A owner would confirm that.

From my understanding, all M.2 SSD use a SATA6 interface. PCIe is only involved on the SSD itself, thanks to an onboard PCIe controller for faster I/O operations of flash NAND.

 

An interesting read from Tom's Hardware : SanDisk A110 PCIe SSD: Armed With The New M.2 Edge Connector - SanDisk A110 256 GB: Introducing The M.2 SSD Form Factor
On page 2 you have a diagram of the two possible connection schemes for M.2 drives.

And wow... : http://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/samsung-xp941-m-2-pcie-ssd-review-512gb/
This drive (or a variation of it) is in Sonys right now, or so it says in the article.

 

M.2 for 128GB is possible Because it is not possible to order more than 8GB of RAM with 128GB SSD. I really do not see any reason why, but it show they clearly differentiate between 128GB and 128GB+ models.

The multi13 en sony pro can be ordered with 265GB as well. I don't see why they would only use M.2 for multi15 for 128GB SSDs and not 265GB or more.

Multi14:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFxufF4LSS0

The SATA connector in on the motherboard. The design of the multi 15 is different: there is NO placeholder for a SATA connector anywhere (Also because of the 90° angle of the drives position). It will always use the flatcable either to connect to a SATA connector or a the placeholder board. Knowing this makes it even weirder what they did to the multi15: will they use a placeholder for the multi14 with a regular SATA connector to continue using M.2 across their production lines?

The Sony Vaio Pro has 2 options: PCI-e SSD and SATA SSD, both M.2 connector. My 128GB SSD is SATA. A normal HDD = SATA. Why do they need to electronics on the placeholder board?


Edit - An other question: I have the silver version and the letters-engravements on the keyboard are somewhat hard to read in broad (day)light conditions. The always-on backlit keyboard makes it only worse. How is the contrast of the "printing" of the letters on the black versions? On the silver it are transparent letters on an silver/gray key-background... little contrast makes it hard to read. (I need to read some keys in order to position my fingers right...)

Edit2: Knowing the cooling has plenty of temperature headroom at full load, and fan speed can be increased to max by software, a software fix must be possible. The exe file located at:C:\Program Files\sony\vaio system diagnostic\cpu fan diagnostic\fdu.exe increases the fan speed to max. Thus a call to the underlying driver is possible to put the fan to max is possible. Then I suppose a decrease or even full control must be possible someway. An attempt has been made for the SVP, if someone with the knowledge comes across.and has plenty of time ...
At other places I read people complaining about the bad fan. I am confident that the fan is OK (maybe not great, asymmetric blades etc) and the cooling system is up to the task. It is just a fan control profile that is way too aggressive. Most of the time I just feel (and unfortunately hear) cold air blowing like crazy out of the device (38°C air does not qualify as hot air, I couldn't push it beyond that). To my hearing it is just air blowing that I hear (or obstructed air because the radiator and the exhaust opening of the casing do not line up vertically). Not a high pitched whining sound.

 

I have the black 15" version. The keys are black with light translucent letters. As you can see, it's a fingerprint magnet!

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

Thanks for the link, interesting article although hard to fully understand

Just for info, the 13A it can even be ordered with 512Gb here in Belgium

 

I'm searching further through the internet for topics about Sony Vaio and fan control in general (not specific the multi flip (we need an abbreviation) or SVP) and Sony apparently have locked down their control very well. I have not found any tool that has control over Vaio's fans (Disclaimer: I may have missed something, the internet is quite large nowadays). So a fan-noise fix either has to come from Sony or it won't happen... [SUB]Yes or maybe hardware hacking , which isn't hard (as an electronic engineer): place a resistor in the power supply line of the fan. Preventing it from spinning at max rpm. This not a neat solution neither a desirable one.[/SUB]

I was just pointing out the difference between 128GB and everything not 128GB.
For those who haven't noticed I wrote 'en', dutch for 'and'. I'm too from Belgium - Nederlandstalig gedeelte, vandaar de 'en'.

 

You beat me to posting a full pic of the inside of my 15A - just did a tear down an hour ago. To answer your question, the HDD versions of the 15A come with a standard SATA conenctor. When I saw your pic, I was like " did they do?!" - well, no wonder the 500GB SSD was so expensive ($800 option in the US). I put in a 1TB Samsung 840EVO because it has much lower op. wattage than the Crucial M500 series. FWIW, the stock 500GB drive is a WD Blue WD5000LPVX, 7mm height.

Did you happen to dig far enough to figure out if the 15A has a 5GHz antenna? I think I traced the two antenna cables to the screen, but didn't take that apart to see if it was just two 2.4GHz working as diversity or a 2.4 and a 5.0. Might be nice to know if I ever upgrade my router and think about swapping in the AC version of the network card.

 

Has anyone noticed the screen "fading in" in discrete steps when switching between apps (maybe desktop to metro?). It's not a fade-out like the UAC dialogs, or regular fades - those are all turned off in settings. This is 6-10 discrete brightness steps about .5 to .8 seconds apart which is very noticeable (and quite annoying). I'm sure it's a W8 thing, but can't seem to find out what it is or how to disable it.

 

Maybe someone with experience take a look at the Embedded Controller register values in search of the fan speed controls: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/726361-vaio-pro-13-quest-silence-thread-6.html#post9491263 ?


The integrated Wifi module does not support 5GHz. *tested*. Will the antennas support 5GHz? No idea, but 5 is almost double of 2.4, making it a possible to receive some signal even if they aren't designed to do so. Will replacing the module improve link quality? Probably not, surely not for 5GHz if it wasn't designed for 5GHz operation (which we don't know). I suppose it was not designed for 5Ghz as designing custom dual band antennas is harder than single ones. 2 antenna's (connections) doesn't mean 5GHz support. With 2 antennas, you can do 2x2 MiMo. Or always use antenna 1, and switch to antenna 2 if the reception of antenna 1 is too bad (due to fading).
I have not tore the hole thing apart, I just remove the back cover.

 

Thank you, Smorerijf for the excellent, detailed rundown! A couple n00b questions for you and the crowd:

I've actually been wondering, looking at the connections, do we think the battery will be replaceable in the long run? It would be nice if we could swap it out for something that lasts a bit longer as battery specs evolve. I'm hoping to keep this machine for the long haul.

Is the graphics card that bad? The whole reason I got a 15 instead of a 13 was so that I could play modern games. I don't need all the settings cranked to the max, I just want them to be playable and look halfway decent. My impression was the HD4400 just wouldn't be up to the task. I was hoping that anything with a discrete graphics card could do it. I ask because my unit has been indefinitely delayed in Sony's Japanese warehouse. I'm considering cancelling my order and getting something else. What exactly is the 735M capable of? (if it matters, pairing it with i7, 16GB RAM, an SSD, and the 2880 screen)

 

I have yesterday received my 14A, and it has many great features, but i'm having a major problem with the touchscreen.

The screen seems to randomly receive inputs that don't exist, so it will start opening and closing programs all over the place, or if i'm using the type pad it will start typing letters i haven't touched - this happens for about 30 seconds at a time, and is worse just after i switch from one mode to another. It will then calm down for a bit then do it again.

The touchscreen is also not very responsive when it does mange to work.

Any ideas? I'm tempted to take this straight back and get a replacement.

 

Hi Steve

I had a similar problem with my 14A and I think it is solved now. What I did : went to the Sony support site for my country, typed in my model number and looked at available drivers/software updates. There is an update for the touchscreen that is a calibration tool. Download and run that tool per instructions (real easy) and then reboot your Flip. Let us know if it helped.

 

Thanks Mark, yeah after quite a bit of searching i also found that and just ran it - it really seems to have fixed the problem. Slighly worrying though that Sony are sending out laptops with a touch screen that isn't calibrated. Anyway it's fixed now.

A minor problem i'm also having is with the screen brightness - i have it at full brightness, but it seems quite dim. Sometimes it will suddenly go to full brightness, then dim again - is there some setting that saves battery and makes it dim?

Thanks!

 

Re: battery - probably not...it's pretty full in there. A bigger one would have been far better, and would have fit with just minor case geometry changes. Oh well. Edit: I bought this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BB5VQCE/ref=oh_details_o09_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 to put in my laptop bag. It's a 96Wh battery, so it holds 2X the internal battery capacity and will (effectively) triple the "on the road" life of the machine. As a bonus, you can simultaneously charge the battery from an outlet and the laptop from the battery, meaning you don't have to take the original charger with you; just this one. Also, it has a 2.1A/5V USB port as well.

Re: geforce - I got the 735 because I read it was about double the speed of the 4400, prob on par with the 5000 intels. Now, 2xlousy is still lousy, but it's better than nothing. Anyway, here's a comparison: Notebookcheck Comparison
And if you scroll down about 1/3 of the page they have frame rates for some games (benchmarked on a vaio, though not the flip) http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-735M.90246.0.html

 

Has anyone in the U.S. taken delivery of a SVF15N18PXB Sony flip 15A, I have one on order since October 10, they just changed my date to December 26, this is the 6 th date change.

 

I ordered this thru a Sony company brick and mortar store these people keep lying to me. I spent4 hours on the phone today trying to get an answer. They bounced me from one phone number to another, from one idiot after another and no one can answer when I will get my laptop. I returned a duo 13 for this aggravation.

 

Something tells me you are wrong, because I am with my 13A, with an "Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-N 7260" just on a 5GHz network... But I got the european model.

 

Actually, the 13 DOES come with a dual band (AC), but the 14/15 only come with single band cards (B/G/N). What is unclear is if they put in a dual antenna anyway. I doubt it - I suspect they put in two 2.4GHz antennas and use them in diversity mode for better overall reception (mine is awesome, btw). If I had a picture of the antenna(s) I could tell - there will be two sets of "interlocking combs", one larger (2.4) and one smaller (5) if it supports both freqs.

 

I see. I am utterly disappointed by Sony. Great design, i could be the "next big thing" But on the last mile they just completely fail. Its the finish, the QC, the non-standardized components... Some users report that they got their 4th model and all of them are different?! what the...

Anyway, I can't return mine since I am out of the country for 2 months. I am quite happy that it *runs* at least without any bigger problems. I guess I am going to open my notebook within the next 1-2 weeks to see if I can fix the keyboard problem myself. I am just happy that I didn't buy the 512GB (or even the 1TB) 840evo right away, that would've been a hell of an expense for a piece of hardware I can't use then

So I'm going to summarize a little bit my 13a european model (SV-F13N1Y9E/S) now:

Consider the machine is up2date with all updaes + win8.1.

no issues:
my touchscreen works fine
my wifi has great reception (Intel card)
my touchpad is working fine (elan) except (see issues)
Although the fan is constantly running, its running on low rpm (low noise)
the screen-backlight is great when the adaptive option is turned off
WOW-sounds for that small thing of notebook


issues
the keyboards enter key is not working properly
the graphicscard sometimes goes, while playing a game, into energysaving mode although its power settings are all to high-performance
The computer wakes up from energy-saving mode and turns on the camera for no reason.
The elan-settings are being reset every time windows boots

fixed
The windows 8.1 update made more problems than it actually solved. The Evironment-variables were messed up, the users "home" directory was set to c:/windows/system32/*something* with the error that the "Desktop" does not exist. I then created a new user-profile (a local one), deleted my old one and connected the online-windows user with my local machine again. Honestly, that is the worst windows experience since Internet Explorer 5.0. I consider re-installing windows 7 if possible.

 

Just received the flip 15 today. Everything looks good except for the virtual keyboard and the windows key as neither of them works in tablet mode. I looked through the thread and see some people have the same issue as well. So...is there a solution right now?

 

Any chance for more discounts or coupons in the next few weeks?

 

I used a random 8% coupon code I found on the internet (Back in October). The 8% gave me a greater discount than the 10% student discount. This is 10% off for the on base-model only, not for the upgrades - at the end: the 8% for all (including the upgrades) won over the 10%.

 

My 15A has finally shipped on the 12th and should he here on the 16th.

Can't wait to get it, hoping they did all the latest updates.

 

Just keep checking the sony store online. There's usually some sort of promotion on each week.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

Okay, just updated to 8.1 - things seem mostly okay (some touch senstitivity seems odd, but I think I need to re-cal - def OS related). Anyway, the killer screen fade has come back and nothing seems to cure it. I can't seem to find the setting to undo this unbelievably annoying step-fade effect which happens everytime the screen shows lighter and darker colors.



Does anyone else have this, and have you figured out how to fix it? I can't imagine trying to work in photoshop with the screen wandering brighter and darker as I move about the picture!

Solved: http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...ti-flip-pc-owners-thread-101.html#post9494521

 

You're welcome

The touchscreen madness seemed to crop up after the 8.1 update, but I spent so little time on W8 that I can't be sure 8.1 broke calibration. Another weird observation I made was that the gremlins showed up only when the screen was sitting upright (90 degrees, give or take a few degrees in or out). When pushed fully back in laptop mode, the problem stopped. In tablet mode, no gremlins. From what others have reported post 8.1 update, I think the newer Windows really does break a few things...

Now the brightness issue : we discussed this here a few days ago. I'm in a bit of hurry right now to go back and search for it, but it's probably 10-15 pages back. These Sonys have a feature named "adaptive brightness" which is an auto-brightness thing meant to save power and your eyes at night, by dimming the screen without your input (or permission, heh). Funny thing is, the brightness selector will show you 100% even when it is dimmed via the feature, and there's no quick way to increase the brightness back to full.
Unless you turn off the adaptive brightness feature. You'll find that somewhere in the settings (I haven't done it on my 14A yet). Once you turn it off, you'll have full control over brightness again.

HTH

 

Finally, I opened the 13A. I could locate the problem of my enter-key and fixed it by putting in the right screw there. Based on the fingerprints I saw on my mainboard (which are not from me) I guess someone opened my laptop and just put the wrong screw there, before it came to me. This made me quite angry and the fact that I can't easily send it back. It was for sure the last Sony product that I bought without extensive testing and I will advise everybody not to buy Sony anymore, since the quality is now on the level of any china-crap you can get on alibaba.

Anyway. Following things:

There is a samsung ssd inside, non standard form factor with an M.2 slot.
The rams are soldered in.

See pictures!















and because I HATED it when I was not registered that I have to login first to see the pictures:

imgur.com/a/3LU53

Tom

 

Hi overzeetop

I just wanted to comment on that statement. First, let me point out that I have a 480GB M500 so you and I are rivals now LOL. Just kidding. Two great drives (the EVO 840 and M500). I also researched this before buying. I ended up buying the M500 because it was the first I found when Black Friday shopping.

About power consumption : funny you mention "op. wattage" because in tests, both drives draw fairly evenly under load. Well, evenly on average because each drive has strenghts and weaknesses with power under load. The biggest criticism on the M500 I've seen is for idle consumption : roughly 1W compared to 0.15W for the EVO. Folks who tested (Anandtech, Tom's Hardware, etc...) did this testing in the spring or summer of 2013, on testbeds with Desktop equipment and Ivy bridge processors.
When you look closer at the specs, you notice that the M500 was designed to take full advantage of some new power management features offered by Haswell processors (the ones found in our Flips). Not only that, but the tests did not figure in any type of Sleep mode, where the SSD hardly pulls anything anyway. With Haswell, the M500 specs sheet says it will pull less than 100mW while idle (the EVO pulls 150mW roughly). In all fairness, I don't know how the EVOs perform at idle with Haswell ; they could be doing just as well. Factor in Sleep mode and you have negligeable power draws in idle from both drives, which is what we ultimately want.

Other differences between drives : the M500 came out with industry leading security features and encryption capabilities, leaving competitors (on the consumer drives side) far behind. The EVOs came out with great speeds and overall performance for the price. 480GB and above M500s are very close to the Entreprise drives from Crucial, so speeds and reliability are really good.
Samsung announced they would improve security and encryption via firmware updates. I'm sure Crucial will improve power consumption on non Haswell systems with new firmware as well.

Two great drives. More to tests than meets the eye


Cheers,

 

Maybe from hand-assembly in china? Maybe the wrong screw was accidentally used during assembly. Or yes: someone took it apart or some Sony maintenance/service/repair-guy...

I don't see the problem by getting a machine someone else returned? Should Sony trash those returned devices? They are new. Yes they should thoroughly verify the machines before repacking. But a switched screw... no repackaging QC is going to catch that.


A small individual issue is not avoidable for large quantities with a large amount of parts... I think the fan problem is the most persistent problem to blame Sony for. (And the Wifi problems for the SVP series as well)

 

En Garde!! Haha!

Yeah, at the time I bought, the M500/960GB and 840EVO/1TB were just a few dollars apart. I actually have a pair of M4s in my desktop. Both were tops in performance. I actually have zero concern about security on my machine SSD so it wasn't an issue. I was looking at overall operational usage (which is mostly idle for an SSD!), and 1.15W vs .15W is a big enough deal I figured it was worth it. Of course, a few hours later, after I was informed my drive was in shipping, the M500 price dropped by another $60. That probably would have swayed me ($460 for a TB?!?) That is interesting about the idle wattage under Haswell- it wasn't really expanded on in the TomsHardware review. Lightning fast drives - both of them! My cold-boot time is currently about 14.5 seconds to the lock/login screen.

 

Where are you located and when did you order, I ordered mine in October in Pennsylvania and they have no clue when I will receive mine.

 

Same deal here. I ordered a flip 15 from the U.S. by phone October 21 and they gave me four different dates before giving up and saying they have no idea when I'll get the thing. Did you also order a custom model with a 2880 screen by any chance? Call and ask them how they will compensate you for the delay. It's worked wonders for me in the past to get discounts, etc. Be prepared to be put on hold multiple times for a while.