Official VAIO E Series Owners Thread

strange yes, guess its the uk regional manager's fault then. i thought it was because the 14inch one would be too cramped for the 5650 in terms of ventilation. asia seems to think otherwise....

 

Buying a VAIO E series is such a chore. I am surprised Sony stays in notebook business at all.. No wonder Dell sells a lot more. At least, buying a Dell Inspiron does not induce any headaches about "so, where do I get one with 5650 graphics, i5, and 1080p screen" (granted, I don't think HD5650 is an option on Inspirons, but you can have Inspiron with 5470, a mouse click away..) I myself bought VAIO EB with i3, HD screen, BD drive, and HD5470 from newegg.com, even though I also kinda wanted the 5650 and i5. But apparently even my model was one of their last of that kind as they run out of them weeks ago, and still don't have them..

 

By the way, I just had a brain fart and realised why some E-Series are scoring 6200 3DMarks and some 6800: screen resolution.

3DMark's default resolution is 1280x1024, but because the lo-res screen is 1366x768, 3DMark scales down to 1280x768 on those machines, but runs at 1280x1024 on the HD screens.

duh! always look at the most obvious solution..

*hides in shame*

 

Hey thanks for telling that. I could have never figured that out. I was pretty upset getting only about 6050~(with i3 350m) on 3DMark06 on stock settings and seeing others get 6800.

But that clears alot and makes me feel better. Thanks again.

 

Hey all,

First time poster here and proud owner of the full HD, i5, 5650 UK model.

I would like to replace the battery with the higher capacity one (5000 mAh) but I don't really fancy paying Sony the 150 quid that they want to do so.

Has anyone purchased one of the third party batteries (about 80 quid) from China and do they perform as reported, or does anyone know of a good deal on the official batteries here in sunny England?

Cheers

 

HI ALL...I AM SELLING MY EB16FG (i3-330M/5650/1080p SCREEN/4 GB RAM/500GB HDD)
ITS ONLY 5 MONTHS OLD, I GOT IT FOR TRAVELLING ROUND ASIA AND NOW DONT NEED IT DUE TO A POWERFUL DESKTOP AT HOME.

THE REASON IM POSTING HERE IS I SEE A LOT OF PPL HAVE INSANE WAIT TIMES TO GET A NEW ONE(WILL EBAY IT IF NO-ONE REPLIES AND PUT LINK UP HERE)

TO PREVIOUS POSTER...YOU CAN OVERCLOCK THE 5650 WITH LATEST AMD GPU CLOCK TOOL...ONLY ONE I FOUND TO WORK...I FOUND MY PARTICULAR MACHINE TO BE STABLE AS AT 645/925.
I ONLY HAVE TO TURN DOWN DEMANDING GAMES LIKE MASS EFFECT 2/OPERATION FP2(HAD TO PUT RES DOWN) BUT DRAGON AGE PLAYS FINE ON FULL RES AT MEDIUM AS DOES COMPANY OF HEROES.

EITHER MESSAGE ME OR EMAIL [email protected].

7 MONTHS WARRANTY LEFT..CAN PAY TO EXTEND TO 3 YEARS.
BASED IN CORNWALL.

 

On the UK site, the 1920x1080 LCD is out of stock for the 15.5" E series. The current offers end on 23rd August 2010; is it expected that these will be replaced with alternative offers after this date?

I had one on order (had settled for the 1366x768 screen) but have since cancelled to wait for the higher resolution screen to be in stock.

The last time there was a refresh with offers on this series, what happened?

Also, does anybody have experience with pushing the UK sales team for a better deal - am I likely to have much success in this?

Thanks

 

Hi everyone, I'm from US. Just wondering if this laptop ( Walmart.com: Sony 15.5" VAIO VPC-EE23FX Laptop PC with AMD Athlon II Processor, Flash Drive, Case & Printer Bundle: Computers ) for sale is a part of the E series? The names are throwing me all off!

 

Yes I believe it was in June they introduced the E-series AMD models. Should be worth mentioning that the Athlon II P320 is really weak even compared to the Intel i3.

 

it is part of the E series, if the first letter after the VPC is an E then it is an E series, this series currently has EA, EB, EC, EE, and EF. the EE(the one youre asking about) has been manufactured for the low cost market. thats why they they are so cheap. and so you'll get just the right kinda stuff for that money, a weak processor and integrated graphics. but then again it depends on your use. if you dont require heavy specs, and just need to do everyday browsing and some videos then i think the EE will do fine, plus looks like youre getting a whole bunch of goodies with it,

 

so i bought an eb16fx recently. ati graphics, blu ray, i3. the problem is, whenever i'm on battery power there's a high pitched hum, which becomes exponentially worse whenever i plug in a usb-powered device (usb hard drive, i.e.) while also on battery power. it's infuriating! sony has replace the lcd inverter already to no avail, and now they're talking about replacing the main board... no one's mentioned the battery. anyone else heard of this? it's frustrating

 

Hi all,

I'm thinking of buying a 17.3" E series and wouldnt mind a few opinions on the options available. Main uses will be general university stuff and a bit of gaming (GTA IV, FSX, FS2004).

At the moment I'm torn as to whether I need the 1080p screen or if the ordinary 1600x900 will do, is the high res one really only useful for Blu Ray? In this case I'd need to get the Blu Ray drive too adding more cost. I'm obviously going to go for the ATI 5650 card but I'm thinking that the higher resolution screen will slow down my gaming for a not very noticeable clarity improvement? Also I hear running the 1080p in a lower res is not a great idea.

I went to a Sony Centre the other week and the staff claimed that Sony no longer do 17" laptops (strange considering I can order one on the Sony UK website) but also said that if I order a custom laptop through them in the shop it will only take 2 weeks for delivery, does anyone know if this is true?

 

Hi. I am observing this issue too. If you search the history of this thread you will see that it's a well known issue. It seems like Sony hasn't soundproofed certain components well enough. I personally just learned to live this it. The noise is noticeable only in quiet environments such as my bedroom. Any place when I am likely to run the notebook on battery power is much nosier than the noise that this notebook makes.

 

yhis was bought up recently in the last few pages and i think it came down to a cpu voltage issue which can only be corrected by firmware upgrades such as the bios driver. try and update your notebook.

 

Hi, Im having the battery drain issue whenever i shutdown my pc or put it on hibernate. What I do to avoid it is put my laptop to sleep mode .. is there anything i can do to fix it?

Cheers

 

Full HD LCD is back in stock. Please check.
Earlier there was Free Blue Ray Writer on offer with this model. They might bring it back on 23rd Aug.. but no one can confirm before 23rd even if that has to happen..

No. Their hands are tied with what is their on system. :-(

 

Try seeing if there's an update for Bluetooth. I recall some people saying it was solved after that. Though my model doesn't feature Bluetooth, so can't say anything.

I have to say though, that I don't really believe in my own battery drain. If I plug in the AC right before I power up the lappy, my battery will be at 100%. If I don't it's always on 90% regardless if I'm using the 3500 mAh battery or the 5000 mAh. I believe that in my case, something is simply misreporting, which might be bad for the battery in the long run.

 

Why is that?

5650 is great for the price. It can play all the latest games on at least medium settings and many on high. And I don't regret getting the 1080p screen at all!

 

I heard that if you try to run it in lower than its natural resolution (as many games are) then it can get a bit blurry, dont know if theres any truth in that though

 

me too but i did a clean install and no more battery drain issue.
very strange!

 

This is 100% true. I have a 1080p screen on my laptop, and 1280x1024 on computer. And if I run GTA IV on computer on 1280 (it's native res) things and text are crystal clear.

But if I run GTA IV on laptop with 1280x720 resolution things especially text become blurry. Though it's not that bad, but you can certainly notice that the text is blurred. Graphics still look good though. But you can notice there is a bit difference.

~Ayu

 

ahem, yes, lowering the resolution means that you lower the sharpness of the frame because you are cutting down on the number of pixels. anyway, lcd monitors are not like crt, they only and only work best at their default resolution, when you lower the resolution the monitor gets the image and expands it to fit the native resolution. to get optimal frame rate, select the highest resolution and turn off all antialiasing.

 

Hi BobbyAcid,

I just received my E series white glossy 15.5 1366x768 with blu ray writer and 6gb RAM, and I am regreting not having chosen the FullHD screen, apparently the contrast and quality is much better in the FullHD, maybe mine it´s better for gamers, but I think for me it would have been better to pick the FullHD one, but I guess now it is too late, is it possible to get the screen changed for a FullHD one?

 

Hello all,
I just purchased my new E Series with an i5, and I needed some advice as to how to maximize the life of the battery.
My previous laptop was a Vaio FZ140E, purchased 3 years ago. I dont really have any complaints about this laptop, except for the fact that the battery life was always quite poor. When the laptop was new, the battery would barely last 2 full hours on the powersaving mode, and now I'm lucky if the battery lasts 15 minutes.

So my question to all of you is, how can I avoid this happening with my new Vaio E series?? I have read about the trick where when you first get a laptop, you charge up the battery, then unplug it, let it run down all the way, and recharge it. You are suppose to repeat this process a number of times. Has anyone here done this, and if so can you describe the complete process? Do I charge and then let the battery run out until it dies, or until its down to a certain percentage? And how many times do I have to repeat the process?

The second thing I read about is the Vaio's new 'Battery Charge Function'.
How To Extend Sony Vaio Laptop Battery Life With Care
Anyone know anything about this? From my understanding, when enabled it causes the laptop to only use about half of the battery power, helping to prevent battery degradation. Has anybody used this, and if so, should I have this enabled at all times to fight against battery degradation? Would this include having it enabled when I am charging the battery in the beginning and then letting it discharge itself all the way down?
Thanks in advance for any help

 

Battery Care prevents that happening in theory by only charging to a certain level (50% or 80%) so there isn't a constant trickle of power going into the battery. Batteries are always going to degrade, but it helps at least. If you're going to use it on mains power for long stretches though, the best way is just to remove the battery.

As for the full charge/discharge thing, personally I don't think it makes any difference, other than calibrating the battery.

 

you can send your laptop back ASAP and ask for a refund. Then reconfigure. Are you in the UK? what graphics card do you have?

 

I don't think you can send back if you have specially configured one, that's what they told me when I asked on the phone. Although maybe if you pushed it, I'm sure they would do something.

Also Raveperch, have you heard from Sony, judging on your date of purchase yours should have gone into production now?

I'm asking because they told me it would go into production on sat and I heard nothing from them, then I rang up to chase and they had forgotten to email me to let me know but apparently mine is in production now. hopefully yours is too!

 

Hi, my SSD will arrive soon.. Is there any process I should do first, before I remove the laptop's HDD.. I don't have windows 7 home premium installer. Will the windows 7 backup feature can be enough to restore the OS? Or is there any other way to do it?

Thanks in advance

Cheers.

 

You can't use Windows Backup to install the OS, you need a install DVD. Either the VAIO Recovery DVDs, or if you want a clean install, the Windows DVDs - see here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...-7-download-links-just-like-vista-before.html

 

Just wondering with all the questions about specs what is the reliability like for the VPC-EB2X5E? I'm not sure how long it's been out for but any one have any problems with it that do have it?

I've heard from friends that they have had Sony Viao laptops just breakdown after not too long a period. I'm assuming that there are reliability differences between models so just wondering if the VPC-EB2X5E is okay.

Any other cons would be greatly appreciated?

Cheers

 

^Wow they forgot to send you mail? Is there a chance they've forgotten to send me my dispatch to logistics centre mail then? (Last mail was production email sent on the 8th). Cause it said I'm meant to have recieved my laptop between the 13th-18th, & not even got a dispatch letter yet, so I can't see my laptop being here in 2 days time

 

Thanks Mythdat.. So i will just extract my win 7 key from my laptop, then install the the win 7.

Thanks again..

 

It's possible.. I didn't get an email to say mine was dispatched until 2 weeks after it actually arrived. You never know where it could be!

 

nope, i was said different, they said i could send it back and the most extreme mothod would be to refuse the delivery when it arrives, other than that, the guy was ready to cancel right there! i ordered on the 9th of july, i have a shipping time of 23rd july.

 

Ah I just phoned up after about 5 minutes of waiting (I had to call up 3 times cause the first 2 times it sounded like they hung up on me as soon as it rang!). But the guy was really helpful & said my laptop has actually been dispatched & should arrive here Wednesday 18th the latest, & reason why I never got an updated email is cause their automated system is messed up at the moment.

He also gave me a tracking number & said to type into Google & it should appear, but it doesn't work.. So does anyone know if there is an actual site I can type into? Otherwise I'm not too fussed

Oh I also kinda pestered him about the warranty thing, when I did mine it was one year Free, I checked today & it said 2 years free, he sounded like he was playing dumb & didn't know anything about it.. I was hoping if there was a way I could get that instead lol, well worth a shot! Failed though, nevermind

Raven you still haven't gotten your laptop & it's been 2 months, no?!

 

I rang them up the other day and the guy said I should *hopefully* have mine by the end of the month but gave no specifics on dates, reason was delays in Japan...

My order status is still "Your VAIO order is being custom built for you".

5 weeks 2 days and counting...

If it wasn't for the great features for the price I'd have told them to shove it already lol.

 

Thanks ravenperch. I'm not a gamer of any sorts, just need to use for web browsing, word documents, etc. It's just a new notebook for college. I just want one that will last for more than 2 years lol

 

well check Xuia, he's at 5 weeks, but i think thats because of the stuff we ordered, call center guy told me that blu-ray writer stocks and a couple more stuff are at an all time low....so he said at around the 23rd...

damn...wha?...18th???!!!! that's crazily lucky...thats so lucky, its insane...howcha...wha???...

oh, and about the tracking number, i doubt sony have their own logistics service, so they probably have contracted deliveries with a logistics company. you need to ask sony, who their logistics service is, i.e. what company is delivering my laptop...fed ex..ups...and then its their site you have to enter the tracking number...you may be able to search around and find who delivers for sony or just try like the top 10 logistics comany's....

damn...wha?...18th???!!!! that's crazily lucky...thats so lucky, its insane...howcha...wha???...

 

5 weeks is torture, so 2 months is like - /dead!!

But guys I really am quite sorry you have to wait that long, & here's me complaining/worrying when mine is pretty much on schedule, just their system is pretty screwed right now so nobody knows what's happening!
They should at least compensate you with free goodies & stuff, or did they just take off the delivery charge?

Oh & yeah, thanks for the tracking info - I edited my last post, I typed in a wrong key, put in '2' instead of 'z' - my handwriting fault lol. It is with UPS though, my laptop is in Eindhoven right now & should be delivered on time!

Best of luck with getting your deliveries fast, seriously!

 

I've removed my post because I realised my query could be answered easily via Google

 

As I had previously posted, ordered a Vaio EB190L supposedly with 1600x900 screen (sonystyle Mexico). 1366x768 screen arrived 2,5 weeks later, called to complain within 5 minutes after opening the box.

2 weeks later (!) the DHL return AWB finally arrived and the laptop is now on the way back, to be replaced with a Z.

A few comments on what I saw while having it:

* Vaio logo not engraved
* The green color actually looks good in reality (Had big doubts there)
* Keyboard is good (did not sense any flex)
* Lots of bloatware - its pretty slow without a cleanup
* High capacity battery is not significantly heavier, does not stick out either
* Design feels slim (For being a 15")
* 500GB@7200rpm harddrive was a Seagate
* No backlit keyboard available - too sad.
* If Sonystyle Mexico had been able to get me a 1080P screen, I might have kept it. (And saved $$$ for not looking at the pricier Z..)
* Sonystyle Mexico have no idea what they are selling
* Sonystyle Mexico take ages to handle returns (2 weeks to send the DHL return AWB!)

About the screen - 720/768P is definately too low for me, but it was bright although I missed sharpness.
The Dell Studio 15 LED screen is far better from what I've seen. (Albeit bulky design)

Resolution: I had the chance to try out a Vaio Z 13.1" 1080P screen - ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS! I was instantly sold and despite the much higher price definately went for it..
Text is small yes, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder and if you like high res - that Z 1080P is the worlds 8th wonder. Absolutely no problem (for me) to use it on a 100% DPI setting, totally crisp.

I don't see how 1080P on 15" could be an issue (except for gamers), but its obviously a very personal preference.

I did see the 14" EA with 1600x900 res - just missing it as a CTO option, along with backlit keyboard, 1080P and newer i3-370 or i4-450 processors.

 

noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! got an email from sony, saying that it will be delivered on the 1st of spetember!!!i ordered on the 9th of july...thats definitely....2 months...this sucks!!!

 

Ouch, I guess I can expect my E-Mail soon then, or knowing Sony not.... lol

What a blag.

 

That's not even funny!!

 

What was your estimated delivery time when you ordered, 2 months is a joke, tbh I would probably have cancelled and gone with a competitors notebook. As much as I like my E Series theres nothing "special" which would stop me going elsewhere.

 

Anyone know if the upgrade from 4GB RAM to 6GB is worth the extra £50?
Or should I just upgrade later if need be?

 

I can not imagine many PRACTICAL situation where in 4 GB RAM would be insufficient and 6 GB would suffice. It may be useful if you would be running VMs on your laptop.

Getting 6 GB would mean there would be two chips - 4GB and 2 GB. It is always better to have equal capacity RAM chips in both slots for better performance.

IMHO I don't see any reason to shell out extra 50 bucks to get 6 GB upgrade.
Instead you better invest in better graphics card and 1080p screen if possible.

 

Two months is certainly more than what it should be.. but this is exceptional case. I placed the order on 26th Jul and getting it delivered on 23rd Aug.
Not bad considering I am getting FREE BluRay Writer upgrade which makes the machine less prone to get outdated in near future.

And I beg to differ with opinion above .. Please tell me SINGLE company out there which offers Core i5 + 5650 + 1080p screen. I was in search of such a nice combination for more than 5 months and finally clicked 'Buy' button on sony style UK last month.
I always had the misconception of Sony and Apple just rip the money off..
Can not doubt this RIPPING OFF with Apple but I must say my opinion changed about Sony.
While I agree to the fact that many higher end Vaio models still dont justify the bill, this E Series is well worth each penny you shell out.
It may not have backlit keyboard or nice speakers like Dell but other than that it is BETTER than any other model at this price.

 

Okay, thank you for the advice

Would you still recommend the 1080p screen if I was planning on plays games? (only planning on the sims 3 at the moment, but maybe more in future)

I also plan to hook it up to a bigger monitor, probably 1090p, via HDMI

 

If you want it for games like Sims 3, then no doubt go for the 1080p one. It runs like a charm on all max settings. And sims require more screen space, so it will always be handy.