Official VAIO SR Series Owners Thread

From what i read Z has a lot of flex and I don't consider it a problem.

Sonys LED screens are very thin. I've owned a TZ and SZ they both had a lot of flex on the screen, it was never a problem.

I do recommend using a keyboard protector so you don't get prints of the keyboard on your screen, but I recommend that with every laptop.

 

From a couple pages back, ShinyFalcon posted:

This heat problem concerns me quite a bit, considering the SR doesn't have switchable graphics, and the Dells are known for overheating problems with the nVidia 8400M chips. Has anyone else who's seen the SR in real life noticed heat problems? It seems that a display unit idling shouldn't have heat output that's uncomfortable.

 

The models weren't really idling, they were all running the Bubbles screensaver before I played with it, which may have contributed to the heat. But yes, I was concerned as well. I planned on bringing lots of programs the next time I'm out to check temps and hardware, but finding transportation is rather difficult.

 

Why is that?

 

For heat management Dell and Sony are in completely different leagues. So no need to worry in my opinion. Let's wait what the reviews say.

 

http://www.techradar.com/products/computing/laptops-portable-pcs/laptops/sony-vaio-vgn-sr19vn-428132/review

 

"There's no denying the smaller chipset's efficiency when it comes to ventilation, however.

The SR19 remained cool to the touch after long periods of time, which is impressive considering the compact chassis, high specification and dedicated graphics card."

Thanks for the link dj_mercury.

 

Hmm. Conflicting reports! Maybe just the air near the ventilation is hot, but the laptop itself is cool? I guess I'll just wait for NBR's reviews then, which should have the temperatures of CPUs/GPUs being measured.

 

any bets if they will actually ship on the 28th? earlier? later?

Sadly, I say later, beacuse sony was late to post the new flash on the website by many hours... lol

 

BATTERY LIFE REVEALED

Setup: ATI Card, P8400, 7200 RPM harddrive, 4 GB RAM

http://www.techradar.com/products/c.../sony-vaio-vgn-sr19vn-428132/review?artc_pg=2

Claimed battery Life: 3.5 hours

Likewise, http://vaio.sony.co.uk/view/ShowPro...9VN&site=voe_en_GB_cons&category=VN+SR+Series

claims battery life of 3.5 hours also.

Conclusion: With that setup, according to 2 sources, expect around 3.5 hours of battery life. I am also assuming that that time is NOT based on power saver performance mode, because who the hell would put a laptop to a performance test on power saver mode? (reffering to the techradar review)

======
On the other hand, the integrated GPU solution with 3 GB ram and 5400 RPM HDD, claims 5 hours of battery life.

http://vaio.sony.co.uk/view/ShowPro...9XN&site=voe_en_GB_cons&category=VN+SR+Series

Quite a difference!! So I guess the answer is clear for those looking for battery life...

 

FYI, I just got an email from sonystyle saying my laptop is being built.

Hopefully this takes only a few days (sonystyle says 5-7 but I disagree with most of their dates. They are either late or early..rarely on time.) Where I live (Northern CA) it should take only 2 full business days to deliver my laptop once its done. I purchased from sonystyle a few times before and 2 days has always been the time of shipping (regardless of shipping method. I've shipped standard ( supposed to take 7-10 days, according to representative )and expedited(2 day shipping) and it always ends up coming in the same time from where I live). Odd, but it's good news nevertheless.

Anybody else get this email?

 

They just dropped the report on the FW, does anyone know when they'll get their hands on an SR?

 

What report?

 

Another FYI, You can now order (NOT PREORDER) some of the pre-configured SRs. It no longer has "pre-order" on some of them.

 

Has anybody got any reports on battery life yet?

 

Yes they have. I believe they got around 3.30 hours under typical use of internet browsing, downloading and on balanced mode. Don't quote me on the mode, but I'm pretty sure it was not power saver. I remember them saying they have brightness above half way.

 

Is that from online reviewers, or from people on this forum? If the latter, i must have somehow missed it.

 

whoops, i meant "they just posted their review"

 

Anyone have the SR with XP installed? Care to report on battery life?

 

for anyone in canada and interested in the CTO of the SR, I stumbled onto it accidently trying to mod a FW lol.

here is the page
https://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wc...Id=20153&langId=-1&LBomId=8198552921665492323

in case that doesn't work, here are the images attached below.

as well fresh start is available and says subtract 1 dollar for fresh start hehe.

 

lol that's funny. It comes out 50 dollars cheaper on the canadian site than in USA(after converting) and even defaults with 2 GB RAM, where the USA has 1GB. AND they dont charge extra for color..in fact they even have classic pink on there where the USA sonystyle doesn't. odd

 

I just noticed something for USA Sonystyle:

All black and Glossy Silver and Glossy Pink options are pre-order and have estimated ship dates of 8/5

Yet the classic silver, classic pink options are reader to ship tomorrow, 7/30.


I hope this doesnt mean that the CTO black and glossy options have to wait longer -_-

 

Is there a silver w/ black keyboard option? Or do the silver ones all have white keyboards?

 

It would seem like both the glossy and classic silver have white keyboards. I'm even more glad I got ablack one now...

Anyways Duke, are you getting the SR or not? I heard you canceled your CTO from sonystyle.com a while ago.

 

Blah !!

 

i uncancelled it

im glad because i talked to a rep today and he said the hold up was because Sony secretly decided to add HDMI to the SR notebooks with ATI cards in them. (jk)

 

Wow, I would have received my newegg SR tomorrow, but UPS screwed up my shipment and sent it to Rivera Beach, FL (I live in northern Michigan for christ sakes). Now it won't arrive until next Tuesday and they won't give me any kind of express shipping for screwing up. I hate UPS sooooo much. I've never had any problems with Fedex...

 

Can anyone confirm if the HD is swappable to SSD?
I am planning to swap my HD to this SSD.

General
Brand SAMSUNG
Model MCCOE64G5MPP-0VA00
Device Type Internal Solid state disk (SSD)
Expansion / Connectivity
Form Factor 2.5"
Capacity 64GB
Interface Type SATA II
Performance
Max Shock Resistance 1500G
Power Consumption (Active) 0.41W
Power Consumption (Idle) 0.32W
Sequential Access - Read 100MB/s
Sequential Access - Write 80MB/s
Random Access - Read 80MB/s
Random Access - Write 30MB/s
MTBF 2,000,000 hours

Is it easy to access the HD, swap to SSD, and configure the BIOS? Anyone done this before?

 

call back and talk to a supervisor. say it extremely was an inconvenience and you needed it for a business trip which you leave on this weekend. morons should give you overnight for that crap.

 

Yeah, I did exactly that and they said they would get it to me by at least Friday if not tomorrow so its all good I guess, still bs though.

 

NICE. Told ya

 

You were worrying me there with the HDMI (not that I would probably ever use it), I like to know that I have a good laptop for the price.

Anyways, nice, looking forward to your impressions on the SR. So far they have all been pretty good, very fast laptop for the size (beats out everything i've seen in the 13 inch range from the NBR reviews).

Anyways, SoundsGood, yeah, the white keyboard is a turnoff, if they had a black keyboard, or a grey keyboard on the silver one, it woulda been tough deciding between the black and the silver (classic, glossy is too... immature, even though I am a high school student...).

 

Okay SR people, what's your status on sonystyle for your CTO orders? So far, mine has been in Building stage since 7/29 at 9:00 AM.

oh by the way, the rep. said that the SR models should start shipping by the 31st. i dont know if that's BS or if its true... sometimes reps tell you anything to sound good. hope its true.

 

i acutally ordered mine the day it came out and then sony tried to charge me on the 28th but my credit card thought it was fraud so they rejected the payment and sony cancelled my order. i had to call them back and REORDER it, but i spoke to the manager and he said he would put in a special request for moving my laptop up the manufacturing line. so basically i just received notification on the 30th that it was being built. the sonystyle site gives me Aug 5 as an estimated ship date. the previous order had said the 28th, but it never gave me notification that it was being built so i dunno if there was any actual difference.

 

sigh.. mine says 7/28. i wonder if they compensate for the delay... if my laptop doesnt ship by monday.. that's ONE FULL WEEK passed estimated date, would they compensate for this? this is getting ridiculous if 8/5 is the true ship date..and even then, can you trust that date?

 

I ordered my Sony Vaio SR CTO on 7/21, estimated ship date was 7/28 (the pre-configured models all had an 8/5 ship date when I ordered).

Here's my config:
Night Black
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8600 (2.40GHz)
ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3470
250 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive [5400 rpm]
4 GB DDR2-SDRAM (DDR2-800, 2GBx2)

$1,619.09+tax - With Corporate Perks 10% discount through my work.

My status changed to "Your Vaio is being built" on Tuesday, July 29th. The "Estimated Ship Date" still says, "07/28/2008". When I called Tuesday, I was given the line that since the shipping date hasn't changed, then it's probably on the way out of the warehouse and the status should just change to shipped. It was clearly BS. When I asked him if he foresaw any sort of delay for parts, he said no.

Has anyone's SR been shipped yet?

 

Sony Reps are terrible, most of them. They BS alot. If sony ever reads these forums...YES YOUR REPRESENTATIVES FROM SONYSTYLE SAY BS ALL THE TIME. Even the online chat people say BS 80% of the time.

I got the SAME message from the rep. "Oh well it should have shipped 7/28 so Its probably a mistake and is shipping now."

I said "But I don't have a tracking number. And why is it that only the black and glossy silver are pre-order on sonystyle, but the other colors are available. will this affect my CTO order since its black?"

"Umm no. Just give it another day or so and then we can look into it."

"Why can't we look into it now?"

"Uh it would be better to wait because the status may change."

"Ok thanks bye"

"thanks for calling sony style"

Urgh. AND DON'T SAY "DUKE YOU SHOULD HAVE ORDERED FROM NEWEGG"

I talked to a rep. form newegg on the phone a couple times and she was a *****. attitude up the kiester.

 

Lol. I think I found you bx01z. That name rung a bell.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/i...Ag67UVfA--&paid=answered#HYN2EE7eNFFCp0S3VAS9

 

Meh I dont really like black on silver. (The macbook air keyboard is rather hideous) White on silver is a little better, but I still think it would look best all silver.

 

Yeah, I posted on Yahoo! first, but no one seemed to care. I had read threads on this forum too, but I didn't post on here until today.

Apparently, it's still being built. When's the last time anyone spoke to Customer "Support"?

 

i called them up and the rep said the site says early august. i told her my estimated shipping date had said 7/28 and she said aug 1 is friday therefore it makes sense....except it doesn't at all.. july 28 is not aug.

maybe 7/28 is the day you get charged? aug 5ish is the day it ships out?

 

I too called for the last time (hoping) today and they said my laptop was actually put up for shipment just yesterday (wtf??) but hasn't been scanned yet to update it on sonystyle. She said by monday by the latest I should have a tracking number and it should begin shipment.

one week late... but whatever. i just want my SR.

 

It sounds like another one of their BS answers to have you stop calling until Monday. Let's hope she was telling the truth, though!

 

double post

 

I highly doubt it. I called LAST Thursday. The rep. said "It looks like It's actually almost done and they are just putting the last touches on it. It probably will ship on monday the 28th"

then again I called monday and the guy said "It probably shipped but the site wasnt updated." He said it would be pointless to look into further detail and just wait a few days to see what happens. What the hell?...


Sigh... WTF Is up with Sony? Their Customer service sucks even more than Dell's. I thought Dell was bad with all the accents and stuff.. but at least I got honest and accurate answers from them!

EDIT: UPDATE!!!

I JUST checked my sonystyle! It shipped!!! est. ship date of 8/4/2008! (Standard shipping)I got a tracking number!! Check yours now!!! It looks like it shipped out at 4:00 PM but the sonystyle didn't update until now.

 

You're right, I logged into my account and saw that it has SHIPPED with a tracking number. It says it will be delivered to Pittsburgh on 8/6/2008. A bit longer b/c of distance, but I'm excited none-the-less.

Enjoy your new arrival! Thanks for venting through the wait.

 

No problem. I hoped I helped you out on yahoo answers as well. you may want to update the question.

 

YEAH! finally, mine shipped too. est ship date is Aug 7 cuz i'm on the opposite side of the country rofl. still happy though

 

so all your CTO SR's are definitely centrino 2 with the 5100 chipset?

also for those who already have their SR129E/B...isit made in china, japan or the usa?

 

Hey guys, I just got back from Harvey Norman (i'm in Australia) with my brand spanking new SR16GN I love it so far but I have 2 questions:

1.) Where is the setting to adjust how much additional on board ram the graphics card should use? (my model has an ATI HD3470) It's not in the BIOS

2.) Has everyone else's SR NOT got a door/flap on the SD slot? Do SD slots normally not come with flaps? Every other card slot has a flap besides the SD slot which is directly below the touch pad. Found this a bit odd looking (on an otherwise beautiful notebook )


EDIT: Oh btw to everyone in AUS, VISA are having a promotion where if you purchase a VAIO on sonystyle.com.au using a VISA credit card, you get 3% off your purchase. If you let Harvey Norman or most other retailers know this, they will match (and sometimes even beat, as I found out!) this offer. See here for more details: http://international.visa.com/entertainment/au/details.jsp?offerid=7066