Official VAIO SR Series Owners Thread

eh? haha, it really disappeared for a while, i guess the "amazing sale" is back again

 

What a rip off.... Even without using the rebate JR.com's model with a P8700 comes to $1282 after bing cashback. Slap the rebate (if you get it) on and it's -$100 more, and you're still eligible for the bundles. And shipped a week later? Ouch.

 

That is a good deal at JR. Oh well, to late now. I looked at the site and it was 1250 AFTER the mail in rebate for the gray one.. a black one is 999 with P6500 speed.. good deal. I'm fine w/ the processor speed I ordered P7350 (typo on my last reply btw), not a big difference to me... I'll sacrifice some speed if I can save some battery juice. I just noticed it shipped today, so hopefully in a few days. Thanks for the heads up though. Bonus - it's personally engraved : )

 

Like I said, $1182 after rebate and bing. Meh, as long as you're satisfied.

JR processed and shipped pretty damn late. Ordered dawn of Monday and they shipped it out 2 days after on Wed (used to same day shipping and people talk about how JR's fast), won't get it til next frekin' Wednesday (thx to edge of coast to edge of other coast shipping) for a total of 1 week 3 days. Fail imo.

 

The exchange rate, import taxes and high shipping screw Australia over far more than Canada, and there's no CTO. That configuration costs $2500 AUD here normally, but you can get it down to $2300 if you look around.

 

So there have been some people wondering, or worrying about the SR's color saturation and/or clarity with its LCD panel. Here is my desktop, a standard Windows 7 background. It's absolutely brilliant. Great saturation, even back lighting, crisp and clear. Basically everything I want in a display. Now, of course, it's only going to look as good as your screen since it's an image of an image, but at least you'll be able to see that these fears are unfounded.

 

Is that a screen shot or a picture?

Cuz' if it's a SS it's not going to capture anything about the LCD.

 

It's a photo - and on my Z you could clearly see uneven brightness at the bottom and diagonal 'interference' throughout the desktop image.

 

why not just take a picture of both displays. It will show the difference clearly

 

I really don't see the washed out thing on my SR some people complain about. It's extremely crisp and the colours are very, very vibrant. A 720p movie looks absolutely brilliant.

But the thing about the screen, which I mentioned briefly before, is the sort of small dot-like things you see now and then. Well, it's more like a very small net. You catch a glimpse of it occasionally when you pan in a game or the camera pans in a movie and you happen to look at the screen at a certain angle. If I had to guess, I'd say it has something to do with the backlighting of the screen, that is, the LED lighting.

No, still not a huge deal. The good points of the screen (thin, very bright, vibrant colours, sharp image) greatly outnumber the bad ones (the screen can be... uh... too bright if you use the brightest setting, and that net thingy).

 

Thanks.

 

Ok, a little update concerning the battery life.

Again: SR41M with a T6400 CPU, HD4570 GPU, 32-bit (still Sony bloated) Vista Home Premium.

I'm running the computer on the Power saver mode with default settings, apart from a couple of exceptions:
-"Turn off the display" - Never (default 3 minutes)
-"Put the computer to sleep" - Never (default 15 minutes)
-Brightness ~ 40% (default 30%)
-Processor Maximum State (On battery) - 100% (changed into this after about 30minutes into the run) (default 50%)
-Wireless off

Started the run at 10:28, it's now 14:14 with an estimated of 16 minutes of battery life left. So that's roughly 4 hours. I've downloaded files through a home network, installed a game and patches (took a long time, I'd guess around 1,5 hours), browsed the Internets, watched Youtube and did a couple of small things. Apart from the installation, the computer has been otherwise idle for about 60% of the time.

All in all, I'm quite impressed. I can very easily imagine getting around 4,5-5 hours if keeping really stingy settings (brightness possibly a little lower, put the default max 50% processor usage back) and only doing light things like typing and browsing.

 

Is that Net thing problem on all SR notebooks? Anyone had this?

 

Just a heads up for you all :

MicroCenter and Frys got the SR430 J/B for $1279.99 AR. And tax free days are coming up next few weeks.

I wonder if you can sent in the rebate to get the free battery and travel charger. Anyone knows?

 

Hey all, just received my SR46gd (Asian model: p8700, 4gb and 320gb for $1650 )
First impressions were quite good, it's lighter than its weight imo (my friends's 13' mbp were much heavier) and the screen really blown me away.
But currently I'm having 1 tiny problem so I will ask a very noob question here
At first, I could adjust my brightness easily but not now, I still hear a "beep" but the function thing dont work anymore
Thanks in advance for any help

 

Have you tried restarting your VAIO?

 

Oh yes, that what I was thinking off but currently because I'm downloading a huge file so I dont dare to do that since my internet speed is horrible. Its my bad and I know that I should post this after I restart it but I think that there maybe another solution so I try by posting it here and partly I cant stand the 8/8 brightness
Anyway, I think I should be patient and report it later

 

Oh, you probably should use some Download manager! So that you can safely turn off your notebook and restart it.

 

You can change the screen brightness from the power options menu. There's probably another place too but that's most likely the fastest one.

 

Because the Z was returned to Sony Style before the SR was delivered. Trust me, no tears were shed.

 

I'm glad to see this SR thread is getting active again.

 

Does the SR has shiny screen? I think it does right?

The Z does not have shiny screen.

 

Nope. I believe it is a matte screen.

 

The SR has the same weight as the Studio 14z but the screen is larger 14.1 vs 13.3

I cant believe a laptop without a DVD drive makes such a big difference.

Also when is the 750MB or 1TB coming for the 2.5" ? Then I want to put this on my new laptop.

 

I have one more question directed primarily at mattedmunds (or any other owner of a machine more or less like: SR490 with the T9600 CPU, the Radeon HD 4570, 4 GB of RAM, and a 320 GB 7200 RPM HDD). Where did you buy this setup? The only place I've seen one like this is on SonyStyle. I was wondering if there was anywhere to go to get it any cheaper?

 

I have the same glitch with mine all the time. It has to do with going between outlet power and battery power. I don't know a fix for it and the only way to get it to work again is by restarting it (unless I do it from the control panel). It is annoying as heck.

On another note, has anyone found out yet if it is possible to upgrade the ram to more than 4gb on the SR290? I know you can go up to 8gb on the latest SR's but was hoping someone may have found out if it is possible on the 290. Thanks in advance.

 

Yes, I just downloaded the cracked 5.17 version

Yes, it's just a tiny problem but its an itch to me too. I just bought it hours ago so a good impression's really necessary but this small bug really annoyed me as it seems a very simple command, nothing earth-shaking here but still => restart

 

Ok guys, this's getting annoying. Everytime I closed the lid, the brightness go full again and I cant set it back by every method that I know

 

I thought the sr490 had a glossy screen because it said it had trubright or whatever in the sonystyle website. Can someone confirm whether the Sr490 has a glossy or matte screen?

 

I think mine's glossy

 

Wow.. this isn't good to hear as mine is coming in the mail soon. I'm tempted to return it, box unopened and buy a Dell 14z..

I hope there's a simple fix for this.. not good.

 

Now I close the lid and open it back but the brightness stays the same but still, I cant adjust it
The most simple way I think is not to close the lid all the way lol
But hang in there, I'll contact Sony and let you know later

 

PEBKAC imo. Or you're running Win7.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=360408
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=292687

And Lols @ the dude who's returning it because of one person's report. You must return every single thing then... since there's always a complaint for everything in the world.

 

Does the SR430 has glossy screen?

 

Every SR has a glossy one, to my knowledge.

 

Mine were bought yesterday and its the latest model so I dont think that its a driver problem. And, things worked again now; right after I'm thinking that ok, I gonna go to Sony tmr to make them fix this. I think that the computer was scare about this so it made things smooth again lol

And yes, I second that recommendation. It's best that you should try sth before buying rather than reading reports.

I can confirm that mine's glossy.

 

What the hell? It's not working again! Ok, go to Sony tmr.

 

It's glossy, but not nearly as reflective as the new macbook/MBP screens.

 

I bought it at Sony Style. Yeah, it was a little on the expensive side but I had budgeted for a Z and due to my issues with that series I ended up returning it (them, actually) and buying the SR and a set of front brakes for my car, so it ended up working out nicely.

The T9600 in the SR is absurdly quick. Photoshop CS4 loads astonishingly fast, and I have the regular 7200rpm drive, not an SSD. I doubt I really needed a clock speed so high but I'm trying to future-proof my purchase at least for a couple more months until it's obsolete with the calpella platform

 

Help me decide here.

I wanted to get the SR* but if the weight of the SR* and Dell Studio 14z is the same, I would rather go for a big screen 14.1" vs 13.3". Right?

So now this is the problem I am in.

I dont know what to do.

 

Well, Sr is slightly lighter and has a more powerful graphic card. I would choose sr for sure

 

It your choice. Remember 14z doesn't have CD/DVD drive...

I haven't owned a Dell, but I think both of them would have great build quality.

 

I never use a CD/DVD except only when I install a OS. I mean thats the only time I use it. All my software are ISO and I virtual mount it.

Actually the SR is almost the same weight as the 14z with much bigger screen.

You know if Sony drop the drive, it might be even thinner.

 

Well, thanks to Sony's astronomical prices in Canada, I've decided to get a macbook after wanting a sony for 2 months. Thanks sony.

 

No..just the opposite...if I'm gonna spend this kind of loot, I don't need a headache with a simple yet pain in the butt problem, when I can buy a cheaper system ala 14z for considerably less (with some reservation). That's why I was hoping for some kind of explanation from Sony... and he didn't sound like the only person.

 

Finally got my shining new SR4 customized. I'm using it for a few days and must say that's impressive. The Radeon 4570 (yes, not 4550 eheh) beats my two years old desktop tower. I'm amazed. The 7200 rpm disk makes photo editing a breeze. It's not as hot as I expected, on the countrary, it's pretty cool even on load.

The only problem I found so far are:
1. Battery life: I get about 2:30 hours of life with normal use (with enough machine stressing). That can be ok, even if it seems to have some kind of battery drain even with machine shutted down. But I must investigate further.
2. Microphone recording: I needed to record an interview and, using a SHURE microphone I got orrific results, with too much hissing and background noise. Postprocessing for noise removal with the driver option does something but definitely destroys the initial sound quality. I'm really disappointed with that.

While for the first problem there's not much to do... is it possible to fix the second one? Is it a matter of drivers? Is it hw problem? Do I need some kind of fancy external device to get a decent recording and if yes... some suggestions?

Thank you.

 

If you think this is bad, for many many months, Sony have no 64bit support for the Z.

 

Getting my first Sony Vaio SR420. I'm moving up from a crappy HP that broke on me. Hopefully this will work better as a portable productivity and gaming system.

I'm interested in the extended battery. Anyone know if there is a good reputable place that sells it for my laptop for a cheap or decent price? Also anyone have any idea of realistic expectations of an extended battery use time?

Couldn't find anything after I googled it.

 

you can get a free extra standard battery through the sony promotion. Also I installed XP on my SR420 and I get about 4:30 hours battery life on the laptop but the battery meter is totally wrong. This is all timing it myself

 

Usually after recharging your battery from empty to full a couple of times you may see an increase in battery power, also windows 7 should help out.

I used to have a xps 1330 with extended battery, and it laster for 3 hours, I will be glad if the standard battery gets that much, honestly. (Dont have SR yet)