Official Sony Vaio Fit multi-flip PC Owners' Thread

You will be fine ordering the pen separately. The digitizer is built in whether you order the pen or not.

 

Guys, today i brough my 13a to vaio service. It was located in a big computer store named TeknoSA. at there while i was reviewing tester 14a models an employee came and told me that sony is going to take back flip from market next week.

But he couldn't tell the reason.

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Hi ultrabook

As in a major recall type of thing ? That would surprise me very much. I could see them recalling one model if they had found a significant hardware flaw, and I mean so major they would be willing to spend millions fixing it for the company's image. Sony sold VAIO, so company image is less of an issue right now I think. The new owner has just spent a fortune buying the line and I doubt they have the cash flow to soak up a huge recall campaign.
And then you have people who like to start or fuel rumors.

But hey, stranger things have happened.

 

Been playing with my new 13A, there's something that's bugging me and wonder if anyone can confirm whether there is a problem with the screen.

My Windows 8.1 currently has a black background, when I open an application with a white background (e.g. Windows explorer), you can see the application gradually increase the brightness from grey to white in slow steps. Has anyone experienced similar 'feature', and if it is a feature, can this be switched off please??

 

Try Vaio Control Center / Image Quality / Disable X-Reality (last 2 settings at the bottom). I am not 100% sure but I think that this is the cause.

 

Thank you. I did go ahead and order them from separate sources - was getting a bit nervous this might be my last chance. In 2-7 days it should be on its way : )

 

Also, I just noticed, that on the UK official sony outlet site, clearance Flips appeared, even there is a 11A, as a clearance listing among the refurbished ones
I would understand, the 13-14-15 inch models as cearance listinfg, as there are upgraded versions of them on the market, but the 11 is fresh and new model

 

Thanks kalhimeo, I'll give it a try later and report back.

 

Well after the PC has suddenly shut down without warning 3 times now, Sony have suggested that I send it back to them for a second time to have a look at. I expect I will have to do so, but for now, I'm going to see what happens if I just accept a bit of fan noise & just run it in Standard mode. With some saying that they no longer have the options of different modes, I'm wondering whether the Silent mode was largely an unrealistic setting. Although I did have a silent machine for many weeks seemingly without any problem, PCs are not tablets (even when they're a Vaio Flip) and probably get hotter than tablets ever do & so it may be unreasonable to expect it to run without a fan in the way that a tablet would. So perhaps in Standard mode with the fan presumably working without any compromises, the machine will be better behaved. Time will tell.

In the meantime I hope that a new BIOS will also appear on the UK site and that will help. But with all the other changes going on with Sony and their PCs, I wonder whether I will ever end up with a machine that I'm totally happy with - especially for the length of the 4 year warranty that it came with.

 

I had the same issue with the unexpected shutdowns.. they sent it back to me once with the issue still persisting.

After the 2nd time fortunately it seemed to work without issue (according to the repair protocol the issue was with the firmware but who knows if those reports are accurate)
Hope the same doesn't happen to you.. nothing worse than the device being sent back still broken.

Concerning silent/standard mode: using wprime as verification benchmark I found there to be no slowdowns regarding CPU performance when switching from performance to silent mode so you should be fine running silent mode all the time if the fan noise in standard annoys you.
Chances are however that slowdowns may occur if both CPU and GPU are taxed at the same time, I didn't check for that.


Unfortunately to this day there doesn't seem to be any way to directly control fan speeds on the VAIO Flips.. but at least the're bearable in silent mode so that will have to do for now.

Also you are correct with your assumption about haswell ULT CPUs running a lot hotter than tablet CPUs.
You can either have high performance or low temperatures but not both.

 

Agreed, I'm a big fan of the pen as well.

 

Is "silent mode" still around? I'm on a 15a running the 2.40 bios and I can find it anywhere in control panel.

 

Should be under Control panel -> VAIO Control Center

 

Silent mode seems to be only for the 13a

 

Unbelievably annoying isn't it? I can't imagine anyone sitting in a room saying: "wow this is such a cool feature!" If I knew who created it, I would punch them in the mouth.

Anyway - here's the post I wrote about how to fix it: http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...ti-flip-pc-owners-thread-101.html#post9494521

 

I have a bit beefier config - i7, 2880, GT735M, 16GB RAM, 1TB Evo SDD - and 5 hours is about the limit. I COULD burn it in 2 hrs or less if I were multi-core transcoding, but that's just physics. You might stretch the battery to 6 hrs if you're careful (and the batter meter will tell you up to 8-9hrs) - but in reality you're only going to get 5 on a regular basis. It's an awesome machine otherwise, thought - I really live mine, though it's really too heavy to be a "fun" tablet. Still, I wouldn't go back to a regular laptop now.

FWIW, I got this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DN0KBXU/ It's a bit on the pricey side, and heavy (over a kilo, iirc), and may not be available in Hungary, but it essentially triples the life of the laptop. I just keep it in my laptop bag, and it charges my phone, mini-tablet, wife's phone,etc. when we're on vacation.

 

Thank you for your reply, I just really hope, that there will be new flips around in april (when I get to the money I can buy it), and they won't be recalled, because I'm in love with the 15A after toying with it for 3 hours in the local Media Markt store.
This sh*t is mind blowing, even after I read the whole thread

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That would explain it.

 

Hello, I am really liking this Vaio , but I have a lot of doubts that are stopping me from buying it :


1 The Fan noise , is it that annoying? are there any samples to understand how it sounds? In the shop they didn't want to make it switch on to test .

2 The wifi is weak or works fine?

3 the assistance is good with Sony ? I am used to DELL and its awesome , they even send you someone at home to repair on site

4 The Sony gives you also the dvds of installation for the OS ? DELL gives you all dvds .

5 The manufacturing quality is good? I have never tried Sony but I saw how crap usually are acer compared to the quality of DELL .

Unfortunately DELL has nothing like that machine and I want a powerfull pc with a digitizer that is also very protable and best woudl be if also silent .

My main target is to take core i7 nvidia 730 , and an ssd , but I am undecided if to take a 512 or if a 256 is enough , and also if take 8 or 16 gb ram .

Also the other worrying thing is that the Sony sold the pc branch so to who will I have to ask for any issues, problems or even if I want to buy later some kind of upgrade , a pen digitizer replacement or whatever else I want to buy for that pc ?

thanks for any answer and sorry for my worried post .

 

Hi there Naima

Answers to your questions above would be highly subjective. In other words, we don't know your exact needs, your preferences, your *tolerance* to certain annoyances, etc...

- Fan noise : it depends on your tolerance.
- Wi-Fi : seems Ok now with updates. Depends on the card, too (Intel or Broadcom).
- Sony support : probably not the best or the worst. Some hate Dell support, you love them. Subjective.
- OS DVDs : no, Sony does not supply them, and it's the same situation with most PC manufacturers these days. Dell hands them out ? Perhaps for high-end business machines, but I doubt they do it for the cunsumer lines.
- Manufacturing quality : these Flips suffer from not-so-good quality control. Sony had a good reputation in the past, but lately it's been more like other big computer makers.
- 512 or 256 SSD : depends on your needs.
- 8 or 16GB of RAM : depends on your needs.
- The selling of the Sony computer line : unknown future, but many think we'll get support regardless.

HTH

 

- Well ofc all is subjecive , but the fan noise can be compared measured with other references?
- About the support I have read online of a guy that broke his screen and theyasked 1300 euros to fix it , wich is more than the pc cost
- OS dvds, DELL ALways provided me with dvds , and I have buyed always consumer lines, so far I bought 3-4 DELL pcs over the years .
- about the 512 - 256 I am not sure because I a not knowing how much space will take the SO , the programs installed by SOny and the backup partition , so I am not sure if I will remain with few useless gbs or if I am fine with "real" 256 gbs
- Unfortunately atm the 512 option is ont selectable for some reasons on their site .
- Also taking a SSD pure HD is a wise choice tohelp reduce noise and fan activity ?
-about the Ram , the 8 is in offer right now but I remember that 12 is not good because is not Paired ram elements as is made of 1 8 and 1 of 4 gbs , while the 16 is double paired , but how much in performance does this contribute to the machine? Also here helps battery life or noise to have more ram?
- Support ok , but future patches, bios updates etc?

Ps I work with photoshop and Zbrush as well and the pen digitizer is one of the reason I am choosing a Vaio , but I read ntrig doesn't support Zbrush with pressure sensitivity , is that confirmed or its just about waiting time for a driver update?

 

Did anybody already receive his 13A revision 2 (for Europe SVF13N2C5E) ?

If yes, does your screen backlight bleed as well ? In my case it does a bit at the bottom (see my post here) and even my local Sony Center suggests me to send my unit back and order a new one.

Since my first 13A (revision 1) had the same bleeding problem, I wonder if this is common on the 13A or if I am particularly unlucky with y orders ?

Thanks

PS: for the questions above regarding the fan noise or performances, as mark said, it s very subjective and depends of your experience with laptops and your expectations. This model is not the absolutely perfect laptop which makes 0db with ultra high performances, but I my opinion the revision 2 (and maybe the rev 1 with last BIOS 260, I can't tell) is a good compromise between form factor, size, performances, and noise. You will not find any other equivalent model. Of course if you if don't mind about the convertible and digitalizer, maybe you can find some other very good ultrabooks.

 

I find the fan noise is no problem, but I have a 15. Might be worse on the smaller ones. The hardware seems solid, it's all aluminum. My only complaint is the keyboard, it's a bit spongy (again 15 only, smaller ones might be better).

 

Jep, got the refreshed 13A, some bleed is present in the bottom. But mwe, couldn't care less about that.

 

Hi kalhimeo, I have just had a quick check, there is still slight light bleed in pitch dark, but nothing noticeable. I have used TFT test screens

@Naimo, I have the 13A and in normal mode, it's comparable to my other Acer Aspire S7 391, but I turn on the Silent mode and it is quiet. If you say the Acer has bad quality, I can honestly say that the Acer (S7 391) feels a lot more solid than the Flip. I just don't get the premium feel with the Flip, the whole laptop feels cheaply constructed and not £1000 worth. This is purely from personal opinion as I have 2 x Dell XPS 12, 1 x Acer Aspire S7 391 and recently played with my colleague's Lenovo Yoga 2, all feels rock solid in comparison.

Don't get me wrong, there are many things I do like about the Flip - the design, the keyboard (way better than the Acer), it's quiet, the stylus, like I said, it just doesn't give me that premium feel.

 

If you ever resolve the fan problem, pls give a sign. I am in a similar situation and I rest my case: no update works, nothing works at all: the fan is a mess.

 

I think I am almoust convinced to take it , as if I am not wrong the fan problems regarded more the 13 " rather than the 15" that I am aiming , anyway now my problem is :

256 gb or 512 ssd?

the last costs a lot more and I would avoid if possible , but , I am wondering how much space do I actually have if I get the 256 , taken out all the backup , the OS and all the crap that woudl have been installed by default .

Also I have seen a review that this laptop is pretty much upgradable in terms of ram and HD .

Also how much difference is visible inperformances between 8 and 16 gb ram?

 

I'm waiting for mine - and as you say, it should be pretty easy to upgrade yourself, so what choices you make now - you're not stuck with them.
If the price of the memory is as affordable in your country as it was here I'd just get the 16gb - it's nice to not have to worry about it when you're working with hi-res images and lots of layers (that being said, you probably wouldn't have much trouble with 8gb either). In theory 2 RAM modules should draw more power than one, have no idea if it's enough to have any meaningful impact on battery though.

As for the SSD - unless they have some special offer soon, I'd say it's better to go with the basic HDD, and upgrade to a bigger SSD yourself. If this is a secondary device then getting by with 256gb would probably be okay - if it's your primary device though I'd definitely recommend something larger. Your Photoshop swap file alone can eat a lot of space if you work with multiple layers on large documents.

Future support, service etc. I guess we just don't know. I'd expect them to fix whatever hardware problems might show up during the warranty period, but I wouldn't hold my breath for firmware updates far into the future.

 

So, I ended up returning my 15A for the following reasons;
- Battery life was 4.5 hours, no matter how much I tweaked
- geforce 735m is an utterly useless video card that will not make any game playable, so don't think it will
- my touch screen decided all input is a pen, even after a wipe. Had to disable the pen input in device manager to allow touch input
- gestures on the touchpad were flakey at best
- spacebar would double space about 50% of the time I hit it.

All in all, it wasn't worth anywhere near the $1250 I paid for it and it just annoyed me every time I used it, so I dropped another 250 bucks and got a macbook pro i5 with intel iris graphics, which scores better in almost every benchmark thus far, and JUST WORKS.

 

New problem that cropped up with my 14a, right after opening it up to install the Crucial SSD and then a recover install->all updates->Win8.1 last weekend. The keyboard will intermittently switch off and not respond. The backlight stills stays on. The onscreen keyboard works. Often a reboot or two will solve the issue. I'm on the latest BIOS 2.60. I was real careful when opening up the laptop cover, don't think I disconnected or touched anything but the HDD.

 

Hoe does the 500 HDD + 16 gb SSD performs compared to the 256 SSD only ? Is it better to go full SSD or a Hybrid woudl be fine in terms of performances and noise?

will the SO and all the crap be memorized on the 16?

Also what is clean start for?

 

I have the 256 gig SSD and after moving my recovery partition to a USB drive, the drive shows 236 gig capacity. (I also got clean start which removes a lot of bloatware)
RAM - Not many programs will use 16 gig unless you are video editing or something intensive like that. I have 8 and I've been happy with it.

 

If you can afford it, go pure SSD - it will give you a substantially snappier system than the hybrid-drive.
A hybrid-drive does give a nice boost over a pure mechanical though if space and affordability is important.
Clean-start should be more or less like a clean Windows install - I assume there will still be some Sony specific stuff though. Can let you know when I get mine - ordered with clean start.

 

I can't order the pc because it says the pen is not available , where can I buy the Sony pen ? I checked online other shops and they ask double time the price on the Sony shop .

 

Also why have to pay and use windows 8.1 pro to get the other crap removed? Isn't simplier get the 8.1 norman and remove ourselves ?

But among the Vaio apps installed , what are those? anything valuable or important for the PC work? Like dunno CPU control , gpu stuff fan silence mode etc?

 

Was the same here, pen was sold out, and they said they wouldn't get it back in stock.
Got one off eBay for a reasonable price - but I do see a lot of them are overpriced, especially the ones direct from Japan.
Also got one from the Asus Taichi which should be a Duosense 2 pen as well - will report back on the difference between them (and if the later works at all).

Are you sure this is the right computer for you?
I think we might have to live with a few quirks - but at least for me, that hi-res display combined with the digitizer makes for a killer-combination that will have a direct impact on the way I'm able to work, and as such it's shortcomings becomes minor.

If you're looking for something closer to perfection you might have better choices if you're willing to go with something smaller.

 

What do you mean right for me?

And are there any valid alternatives to that pen?

 

I have received my 13a: also some bleed on the bottom of the screen. I don't find it to disturbing in normal use. My vaio z and tz have the same bleed



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Ok I have ordered this version :

Sony vaio flip 15 "

---------------------------------------
Intel® CoreTM i7 + NVIDIA 2GB
Windows 8.1
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256 GB SSD Flash SATA
---------------------------------------
The 512 version was no more available
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8 GB 1600 MT/s DDR3L-SDRAM
---------------------------------------
I think that I can upgrade in case should I need after and anyway I guess I might not need exceptional size .
---------------------------------------
39,5cm LED, 1920x1080

I ordered this because I thought the supr res woudl just cause visibility and readability problems , I experienced that with other laptops when I chose a super resolution , Sure I can fix it in the windows but I usually cannot fix in all other tools and programs that I use .

What you think of my choice?


Now the problem is that I had to order without the pen wich seems pretty strange b, but since I have to test the pc with the pen once I receive I need to order one asap somewherelse, but every one is making absurd prices like 80 or more .... any ideas if Sony will put them back?

 

Looks like a sensible choice to me.
If you make a search for VGPSTD2 you might be able to find it closer to home than the ones on eBay.

 

Thanks overzeetop, I'll have a read over the weekend when I get the time to play with this.

Filled up 90% of my 128gb SSD, so tempted to upgrade it with the recently purchased Crucial 480gb, another few more weeks I guess to make sure the laptop is all OK.

 

That's almost what I got minus the NVidia card and I'm happy with it. Sony charged me $40 USD for the pen when I bought mine 2 months ago (not sure where you are).
Here is a link, looks like BestBuy charges the same and they are available (sorry if they don't ship to you)

Sony Active Pen Stylus VGPSTD2 - Best Buy

 

Seems all prices for the flip models on the EU site went up today. And no 512 GB SSD on the 15A

 

Yes and I was going to pay this morning the config I saved yesterday ...

The weird is that the price went up of 200 and my config is not anywhere present !
I asked the telephon sony shop and they said that basically they cannot do anything .

SO guess what I give up !

Bye bye Sony , when I get the pen I ordered from America I will sell it for double it here in my country.

 

I don't know how you concluded that. I ordered mine last week, and the price is still the same. Even the promotions have been extended a week it seems...

You're right about the 512Gb SSD, but they are way too expensive anyway.

 

This is a reminder, but might help some determine whether they want to buy the 512GB PCIe M.2 SSD option from Sony, or... get one themselves like a 480GB Crucial M500 :

UK (228 GBP) : Crucial M500 480GB, M.2 (CT480M500SSD4) | Skinflint Price Comparison UK
UK > cheaper here but out of stock as I write this : Crucial CT480M500SSD4 Crucial 480gb M500 Sata M.2 2280 Ssd Shop UK : Ballicom.co.uk : Buy
US ($254) : Amazon.com : Crucial M500 480GB SATA 6Gbps M2 Internal SSD [Crucial PN: CT480M500SSD4] (480GB) : Computers & Accessories
Germany (201 Euros) : Crucial CT480M500SSD4 M500 interne SSD 480GB grün: Amazon.de: Computer & Zubehör
etc...

Search word : CT480M500SSD4 (Crucial part#)

 

Just received my vaio 15A yesterday with i7 4500u, 16GB Ram, nvidia 735M 2GB, 2880x1620 screen and 512GBHDD. I ordered windows 8 english version but it came with japanese version (I live in Japan) :-(, rather than send it back and waiting again, I just installed english pack from microsoft. After finished all of the update, I cloned the HDD to samsung 840 evo 500GB and swap the drive. It is quite tricky to open the HDD but if you are DIY guy, than it is not big problem. The HDD and sata connector is sealed with silver tape and their location is near ram module.

Now, I plan to replace intel WIFI adapter into intel AC adapter. Vaio WiFi adapter is not reliable at all, May be 2014 version has fixed it. I think I will do it after microsoft release update for windows 8.1 then I will clean install it and replace the wifi adapter and antenna.

 

I think the free i7 upgrade is gone. My 13a is 300 eur more today


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I checked yesterday evening and on the 15A it was still there (If I remember correctly until 17/3)
No idea about the 13A
The I5 option is only 60€. I don't think there is much to gain from an I7.

 

There was an intel wireless driver update on my 15a just a couple of days ago here in the US. I'm pretty happy with the performance of the wi-fi.