Official Vaio Pro 11 Owners Lounge (SVP11 2013)

I'd thought I'd share my experience so far with this laptop. I got the i7 with 8Gb of RAM and the 128Gb SSD (missed the back to school offer) with carbon skin+touchscreen, and Windows 8 pro with TPM as it was a free upgrade. I updated to Win 8.1 Pro today (make sure you have a local account setup, not a MS one, because it hangs post install on "let's add a safety account to this") and I dualboot with UEFI into Ubuntu 13.10 which detects everything and works fine out of the box, bar the UEFI stuff. You need rEFIne with secure boot turned off to dualboot niceishly. Instructions on getting that in place from Ubuntu's live image booted off USB are here: [SONY VAIO Pro13] win8_ubuntu13.10_uefi . It should be possible to boot both OSes securily (probably using a signed shim to go to grub-x64.efi). I'll be trying that out later on. One thing that bugs me is that I thought I'd have a backlit keyboard on this laptop but it doesn't appear to be there! (Neither Windows nor Linux can detect it).

 

No touch screen is only available in black color.

VVTF?? FFUUUUUUUUUUU!!!

I wanted no touch screen in Silver.

bаstаrds!

 

I'd really really love the Vaio Pro 11 with a frameless 12,7" display, that would absolutely rule!!

I agree with you on keyboards. I have a Samsung 9 series, and while I love the keyboard on that one, I like the one on the Vaio Pro 11 better, though I have only tested it in stores. Its not perfect though, it could flex less, to avoid unintended additional 'travel' and the keys would be far better with a slightly concave surface!

.
I just got notice that my Vaio Pro 11 was shipped by Sony USA.
I ordered it with a matte non-touch display, 8GB RAM, Win Pro 8, 256GB (annoyingly no bigger SSD offered) and purposely the i5-4200 processor to cut down on heat and noise, as I spend much time in tropical areas. Also got the slice battery, though I don't much like the stilts design of it, I can live without the notebook getting lifted up and would prefer the battery being flat and taking up less space in my backpack. Quite possible that I won't even take it along, if I can't find a space saving way to stow it.

A nice option to add back the ~100 gram removed by eliminating the touch screen would be the option of a solar panel on the back of the display lid!

 

Thanks a lot for that picture, even though its smallish...

I spent all day calling various Sony numbers and even a Repair center, not to mention extensive use of Google, just to find out if the SSD connector in the Vaio Pro 11 is of the mSATA or the M.2 type.

According to one repair center's information, the type of connector used can actually differ from model to model on the Pro 11! So basically, in spite of your picture, I still can't be sure what connector I will find in my unit.

I want to upgrade my SSD, and M.2 SSDs are still hard to find, but not impossible and the price premium is not huge over an mSATA device.

Another question I could not get answered so far is, if all M.2 sockets support PCIe, or if there are some M.2 sockets that only support SATA.


All this just to figure out what drive I can purchase for it, and so far, I'm stymied. If Sony can't tell me, who can?

 

I always go one step down from fastest CPU, to reduce heat and fan noise...

That is a good idea! I was thinking of putting some struts or a titanium plate under the keyboard, but your idea is better if it works!

Please do keep us posted if you get around to it, my Pro 11 is still en route to me, but I'm already trying to figure out how to get rid of fan noise and keyboard flex... I bought it mainly for backpacking, but there's a chance I'll use it for everything except recording, where the Samsung 900x3e is simply best, cause it makes no noise whatever.

I don't like the new hinge design and the glossy display, so I recently bought a 900x3e, which is beautiful, silent and fantastic to operate!
But after getting home from test typing on the Pro 11, its keyboard suddenly seemed too large!

 

HERE COME THE PROBLEMS I'VE NOTICED SO FAR:

Fan noise: The fan isn't all that bad. It's actually fairly quiet on Silence mode. Definitely noticeable whirring sound when CPU gets working, but still, not too much of a problem. The fan, in fact, becomes annoying as it makes uneven noise but not a smooth and even whirring sound as usual.

Keyboard flex: There is some flex, but not too bad for me. With such small keys, you don't expect to be typing too fast anyway. I really enjoy any chiclet keyboards.

High-pitched noise: This is probably the most annoying part to me. Whenever I work on something (e.g. scrolling a webpage) there will be a very slight high-pitched noise coming out. Neither from the fan nor from the speakers. It's probably from the SSD since I also notice the noise when I copy files from disc to disc.

UPDATED: This can be fixed by disabling the USB selective suspend in advanced power setting.

Wifi issue: Wifi signal is pretty weak and inconsistent. It would drop when you are in the weak wifi areas. However if you have strong signal coming out from a nearby access point, there will be no problem at all. Carbon fiber is possibly the cause.

Other than those above, I am currently not experiencing anything else. I did have issues with screen brightness and touch pad, but they were all fixed with the help of SONY e-support. If anyone needs any information or needs some help to resolve the issues, I'm willing to share and help.

 

.............

 

No idea what that's for but it seems to help get rid of the noise. Thanks bro!

 

don't worry it will not affect vaio pro it's useful for old laptops to save some battery while laptop in sleep mode .

 

Oh I forgot one issue with build quality.

The two corners, bottom left and right, of the laptop seem to bend a lot. Whenever they bend to some certain point, the touch pad will click down itself and hold there, which makes the laptop practically unusable. However if you work on a flat and hard surface, it will be fine.

 

Well i've just gone for my first premium notebook as im starting a new business and felt i'd need to have something with quite a decent spec that should last. hopefully this will prove to be a wise purchase, plus i think i've gotten a cracking deal, just waiting for it to arrive now

Non touch screen
8 GB
256 SSD
Intel® Core™ i3-4005U 1.7 GHz
Windows 8 Pro

Managed to double Memory and Hard drive for free and get a 10% online discount for this popular black friday malarky, total cost just under £750.00, saved just over £240 all in

 

Does anybody notice the screen's "butter"/ grain effect issue?

As if there's thin layer of butter distributed over the screen, from inside? You won't notice it when pixels aren't lighted with a light color. So just open a white background image in full screen mode and examine the screen upclose.
This grain effect is hardly noticeable, and I think it's present in the SVP ultrabooks that were produced in the late 2013, older versions don't have this screen issue, for sure.

 

Hi

I have just received my Sony Pro 11 - very happy so far. I was wondering if anyone could recommend any sleeves \ cases for the ultrabook. In order of preference, it would have to have:
- zips
- lots of protective padding with reinforced corners
- does not move inside the case
- water resistant
- pocket for spare USB extension
- able to also hold the sheet battery when inserted into the laptop, but not sliding about

I have thought about the Brenthaven BX2 for MacBook Air case but the dimensions look a little off. I would be very grateful for recommendations!

 

I'm using the Incase Sling Sleeve for MacBook Air 11-Inch - Black (CL57828) for my pro11, a perfect fit!!
Don't know about the fit with the sheet battery!

EDIT: tried it with the sheet battery, and it does fits OK!!

 

I so would like to purchase this Vaio Pro

With my Dell Latitude e6430, I can run 3 screens easily and flexibility of a docking station between work and home.

Does Vaio Pro have any option to do these 2 things somehow?

 

Isn't there a screen protector on it?
It wouldn't be that much of a surprise since Sony tends to put it on every phone/tablet they sell, thus why wouldn't they put it on their laptops? That's even more true if yours has got the tactile screen.

 

Nice hint, thanks. I am using the extra battery and the maximum height with this battery is 1.5". Could you tell me if it will fit then?

 

Just wondering what sort of battery life people are getting from using the extra battery sheet? The total runtime I got when I first got my ultrabook back in August was around 19 hours (this includes normal battery and extra battery sheet)! This has now reduced to about 11hrs or so. I'm wondering if all the updates that have been done over the past month's have somehow decreased efficiency of the system..

How much runtime do you guys get out the batteries?

 

I do not have the extra battery sheet so no comment.

However a weird thing I see is that the wear level of the battery still remains 0% after 4 months of use (I used a software to check that).

My last VAIO T13's wear level increased 1% per month on average... Not sure what's going on.

Overall I still think this Vaio Pro 11 is a pretty damn awesome laptop.

 

My battery #1 wear is now showing 1.6% after almost 6 months of use. Second battery #2 is still showing 0% wear.

 

It is M.2

The M.2 interface supports many buses like PCIe, USB, SATA...

There are 3 different types of M.2 SSDs (the latter two are making use of faster PCIe x2/x4 speeds):
SATA (conventional SATA upto Rev 3)
SATA Express (multi lane SATA over PCIe)
NVMe (pure PCIe drive)


There are two different M.2 SSD Sockets: Socket 2 (key B) for PCIe x2 SSDs and Socket 3 (key M) for PCIe x4 SSDs.

A while ago I started a discussion here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...ket-upgrades/722154-lets-talk-ngff-m-2-a.html


Having said that, have people replaced their drives already?

 

Though I used about 1 battery cycle per day on average, my battery #1 still shows 0% of wear after 4 months... That's really weird. Unless my battery is immortal somehow

 

Have just ordered a non-touch i7 4500 8.1Pro and it lists the ID as SVP1122C - is there any major changes from the SVP1121 models?

Also has anyone successfully downgraded to Windows 7?

 

Yes. Windows 7 works perfectly. You need to download the appropiate drivers from Sony's website and you need to change boot mode from UEFI to Legacy and reformat the SSD in MBR, so I'd suggest to make a recovery USB before that as you'll lose all information.

 

I'd like to know this too. I'd rather buy one with 128GB and replace with my own which will be much less expensive.

 

Seems like they've fixed the fan issue in the refreshed models... I've not given it a good thrashing yet but on start-up the fan is completely silent, and with standard apps it stays quiet, so it's either broken or better!
Also no strange trackpad issues yet- touch wood.

The product number is SVP1122C5E, model number SVP112A2CM.

Now whether to downgrade to 7 or not... will try it with Classic Shell first.

 

Is the vaio pro 11 for $899 at amazon worth it?? I know this is the ivy bridge version and might carry the horror issues with the wifi, fan etc... Let me know

 

When changing to UEFI will that mean I loose the VAIO assit parition? Assume I can just boot from the USB in future and restore?

 

Yes, you lose everything, but the recovery USB will restore it back. I tried and works very well.

 

Cool - thanks for the info.

Spoke to soon about the fan - does make a bit of a whirring noise when it gets going!

 

Well, Vaio 11 Pro $899 model just bumped up ~ $80 to $980.

 

Was the actual capacity higher than the "rated" capacity to start? That happens frequently where your battery holds a charge higher than the spec max capacity. I see that quite a bit.

 

The silver is still $899 at amazon with the i5-4200u

 

Thanks, I also noticed that later. Has anyone successfully done a clean install of Windows 8.1 without too much headache? I know Sony is notorious for having proprietary everything especially drivers and system partitions.

 

HT, bad news, it's now back to $999 at Amazon. However the yoga 11s i5 haswell with IPS display and 128gb SSD is on sale at bestbuy for $750 so I'm thinking of grabbing one at bestbuy.

 

Actually I snagged the Vaio Pro 11 for $800 It dropped down to that price middle of the night last night, not sure if it was a fluke but I jumped on it. I also had $300 in Amazon.com gift cards that I decided to apply to it, so in the end only cost me about $500.

The one thing I don't like about the Yoga 11s is it has the i5-4210y which is a limited version of the i5-4200U:

Clock speed: 1.6-2.6 / 1.5-1.9
TDP 15W / 11.5W
GPU: 4400 (1GHz) / 4200 (850MHz)

Although I don't know if Sony gimps their CPU in that thin machine anyhow. I guess I'll find out!

But I do like the flippable screen. That is a nice feature to have.

Spoiler

 

Definitely a great steal HT. When you get it, pls do an extensive review of it like you did the w230st since you do it the best

Anyhow, I think the i5-4210y on the yoga 11s for under $800 is still a great deal don't you think since it comes with SSD standard and an IPS panel, high res on an 11.6 I don't need, this is going to be like the replacement for the acer v5-122p I returned few months ago since the cpu on it was just too slow but the 768p resolution at 11.6 is perfect.

 

I agree. The V5-122p is a good bargain at $380, but if you want something relatively fast, the AMD A6 ULV just doesn't cut it. I'm sure the Yoga 11s will be fine. Still outperform the A6-1450 in both CPU and GPU performance by a significant margin. I'm just very enamored by the weight of the Vaio Pro at 1.96lbs. Very impressive.

I will certainly do a review. I just hope it lives up to my expectations. I would have much preferred the 8GB RAM, i7 CPU, 256GB SSD version but that's at least $1500. More money than I'm willing to spend. 4GB/128GB is adequate actually, especially with a clean install of Windows 8.1 for the performance of the machine. If I can manage 80GB free on the SSD I'll be a happy camper. I'll probably OP the SSD by 10-12% (probably 15GB) just to ensure a decent performance over the life of the machine. My netbook isn't something I use all that frequently, but enough that something too slow for basic tasks gets to be annoying. But I also don't want to spend $1500 on something I'll use maybe a few hours a week.

Once I get my larger notebook, however, it might see some more use.

I hope whoever buys Vaio ends up improving the product and continues to innovate with light and high performance components for reasonable prices.

 

Koop HT. What day will you get your Vaio Pro 11 from Amazon? Can you investigate the wifi issues that the others are talking about and that fan noise and that weird squealing they are complaining also when you get it.

Thanks HT.

 

My laptop should come Wednesday. Wi-fi is my biggest concern since it seemed to be a recurring issue, but user feedback seems to suggest it's been fixed with driver updates. I'll be sure to offer feedback. That squealing may be a capacitor. I've had that before and the solution was, if you could isolate which one it was, to put hot melt glue over it and it would stop, mainly because something was vibrating at a very high frequency and encasing it in glue would stop it.

I plan on doing a full clean install of Windows 8 and then update to 8.1, because I don't think I can do a clean 8.1 install with the embedded product key. But only after I play with it for a while.

 

You really got lucky HT. The Amazon price of the Vaio Pro 11 is now back to $1,199! Really good steal for $800.


Update:
Now is back down again to $999 for the silver version. Amazon likes to play with us lol

 

It has been all over the place for some reason. I was just up late one night and while pondering noticed it drop so I just added to cart and bought it. It shipped, so they honored the price.

My only fear is that it comes with a lot of dead or stuck pixels or something. That is one thing I cannot tolerate is dead pixels. Maybe, just maybe if it is in one of the upper corners. But most of the time they're in the center 50% of the screen.

 

Well, it came today! Wow that was fast.

Very light and thin as expected. But a few things turn me off with initial impression:
- the keyboard FLEXES SO MUCH! I don't remember the one I trialed to be that bad
- the fan is a whiny high pitch
- touchpad doesn't always activate tap to click
- no keyboard fn key to turn off the backlighting

If I decide to keep her, I will definitely look into a mod for stiffening up the keyboard. Just a thin strip of something underneath it to keep it from bending.

But so far my $350 Acer seems to have better construction than this thing, although performance is at least 2x and the screen is 1080p vs 1366x768, and battery life is like 6+ hours vs 3+ hours, so it all boils down to what I want/need.

 

Thanks for the update HT. so the fan really has that annoying whine noise? Does if flex even with normal keyboard typing or only if you really push it down hard with your fingers? How's the display on it in regards to the graininess/grease effect that people are talking about especially on white backgrounds. Is it as clear as your w230st?

Btw if you are interested to know, the yoga 11s haswell with IPS display is on Lenovo Outlet for only $510 version and about $540-560 after sales tax. Might be a great steal for $550 for IPS display, 6+ hours battery, SSD, even if it's refurb/scratch&dent outlet. About $250-300 cheaper than buying it brand new at best buy for $800-850.

 

Thanks. They all say TFT, I don't see any IPS. Maybe I just need to keep checking back. I'll be giving this machine a go though maybe it will grow on me.

It does require a little excessive force to flex it, but not a whole lot. The keys just feel cheap too. I'll just have to play with it a bit and see how it goes.

I haven't noticed any graininess/grease effect so far, but I haven't really used it much on light/bright backgrounds yet (installing 8.1 right now).

 

Sounds like a plan HT :thumbsup:. Btw, don't forget to update us on the wireless connection investigation later on.

In regards to the outlet yoga 11s, I'm also uncertain whether it is IPS or not, but i think it's the former because the i5-4210y yoga 11s are bestbuy exclusive only and those are IPS panels so I think those returns from best buy being resold at lenovo outlet but not sure.

I'm also looking at the Sony Vaio Flip 11 that just came out 2 months ago and for $799, you get an 128gb SSD, FHD IPS Triluminous display and backlit keyboard. The only thing I'm unsure about is the new quad core Bay Trail Pentium cpu it has but it might be powerful enough and for $800 it might be just the sweet spot for it. What do you think HT? I mean compared to the AMD A6-1450 cpu on the Acer 11.6, how does it compare to the pentium bay trail cpu on the new vaio flip 11?

 

windows remote desktop - small font because of high dpi:
could be solved with Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Manage
Download Remote Desktop Connection Manager from Official Microsoft Download Center

keyboard flex:
with attached extension battery there is much less flex (besided great runtime)

whiny fan:
just switch to silent or standard mode for cooling and only switch to power-mode when you really need it

wireless probs with intel 7260 chipset:
switch to a 5GHz network (and hopefully the intel drivers will become better)

 

So far Wireless has been fine. I have a 7260 in my current laptop with zero issues with the drivers released by Intel end of 2013.

That Pentium Bay Trail fits nicely between the Atom Z3740 in tabs like the Asus Transformer T100 and the i5-4210Y in the Lenovo Yoga 11s. The Atom is actually a much better performer than I ever thought. I have a T100 that I actually just sold. It's perfectly fine for basic web and MS Office type tasks. Check out the different CPU's from Transfomer T100 to Vaio Flip 11 to Yoga 11s to Vaio Pro

Part of the reason for this laptop, for me at least, is the thin and light. I can buy other laptops that weigh 3 lbs with similar specs at similar price (or cheaper), not to mention that is a $150 fix, plus looks a bit awkward.

The more I use it, the less it runs, especially with Win 8.1 and running in balanced power profile mode. When I get a chance, I'm going to open this thing up and figure a way to reinforce the keyboard (usually just some thick foam tape works wonders) and repaste the thermal paste, as well as a see if I can adjust the fan a bit.

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So far no issues with Wi-Fi (knock on wood). I have the same wireless card in my Clevo laptop and the latest drivers seem to make it pretty stable.

 

I opened the backside of the laptop and replaced the 7260N card with a AC card (but same probs at 2,4GHz).
Opening the backside is easy, the screws are below the rubber-strips; but disassemble up to the keyboard will be much more work.

sound like you live in a un-crowded 2,4ghz environmet, 2013 drivers didn't help me, have not yet tested the 2014 drivers with 2,4ghz as I'm now happy with 5ghz.
symptoms at 2,4ghz are that ping-rates goes up and down from 10ms upto 400ms.

 

Well OK, I'm using 5GHz. I switch to 2.4GHz when I'm outside for the added range through the walls, and actually I have the 7260AC card in my Clevo, I was thinking that's what was in this Sony, but it's the N. I did have ping issues with the 7260AC card, but when gaming most of the time I play online plugged in because of it. It did go away for the most part but it does rear its ugly head now and again.

As far as disassembly, as long as things are glued together I'll be ok. I can't stand when glue is used and no reason for it really.