Official Vaio Pro 13 Owners Lounge (SVP13 2013)

In addition to the wifi drop out problems, I am very worried about the posters and reviewers who have reported (1) fan noise even when the Pro is idle or with only light work-load, and (2) that the key pressing itself is quite noisy, with a ticking sound, perhaps like an old typewriter?

Can anyone give more information about these possible issues?

 

WiFi is definitely an issue for me. Its unacceptable.

Fan noise is not too bad, sometimes it appears for a few seconds and then goes away again on the silent setting. The other settings can be fairly noisy at times, but not too bad.

The keyboard ticks, but again not too bad.

 

I'm finding that the track pad button can be in inadvertently pressed when holding the laptop from underneath as the whole chassis flexes.

 

I have this, love it

http://www.amazon.co.uk/sports-leisure/dp/B0041LQ0VC

 

I chose the black alcantara sleeve ( originally designed for the Macbook Air 13) and casually asked whether it could possibly be adjusted to perfectly fit my Pro 13 (given the Macbook Air 13 is slightly bigger). Mailed them the exact dimensions of the Pro 13 (based on the specs I found online) - and they immediately responded it wouldn't be any problem whatsoever because all their sleeves are custom-made in-house anyway. Paid the exact same price as for the off-the-shelf Macbook Air sleeve via paypal request and received my custom-sized alcantara sleeve two weeks later.

Given that they already have the dimensions of the Vaio Pro 13 now, you should basically be able to just look for the fabric and design you like best - and write a short email asking whether they can make that specific design to fit the Vaio Pro 13. In my case, it was a breeze and the contact, as I noted earlier, was very responsive and helpful.

I'm very happy to recommend them - should have asked for a discount with the prospect of doing some serious word-of-mouth promotion, though

 

I paid roughly 50€ (including packaging and shipping). Might sound a little expensive - but as far as I'm concerned, the perfect custom fit and the great premium alcantara material are really worth it. The fabric they use for the inner pouch is very nice, too.

They do offer designs / materials that are way less expensive, though.

 

Same here.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

I am having no issues with wi-fi dropouts, no issues with fan noise, and no issues with keyboard noise and I'm the first person here who received one to my knowledge.

Like any other product-based forum, you hear a lot more from those with issues than you do from those without. Visit an iPhone forum, you'd think it was the worst product ever made.

Those with issues are in receipt of legitimate defective units which happens when you buy something very early and get one off of the first production run. I got lucky, seems some others didn't. Don't let the discussion over these problems that a few are experiencing dissuade you from buying the Pro 13. It's a great machine.

BJ

 

Got mine today. Fan noise is defenitely a problem. While surfing or using Word it's absolutely silent, but as soon as I start streaming or using Youtube or play a game the noise is getting ridiculous.

The trackpad is defenitely buggy, but I guess software updates will help. What leads me to another problem: Vaio Update is defenitely not working. I'm also having a problem with automatic brightness, which I can't turn off. WiFi and Bluetooth working fine.

The display is sick, the best I've ever seen on a laptop. Love the keyboard. Also, the speakers are pretty good for such a small machine.

Going to call the support tomorrow. Let's see what they say.

 

Is yours a CTO or did you purchase your Pro 13 preconfigured? I've known from people that post in this site (prior Z's) that CTO's tend to have issues over store bought.

 

is it possible to upgrade the wifi card on this laptop? will that solve wifi issues?

 

Check this post from page 53:

Didn't work for me, so have arranged a replacement. Has worked for some.

 

Same here, even worse. I have been using the laptop for 2 hours now, and while I really like everything else about it, the fan noise is driving me crazy. It sounds like I am flying to the moon and I am just using Firefox and Skype, no HD video, no games, no nothing. I'm gonna monitor this, probably there are some updates running in the background (I haven't used Windows 8 before, so I don't know), but if it stays like this, I definitely will have to return this. :/

 

Mine was preconfigured, I ordered it 5 minutes after it went live as I wanted the first one available. It arrived 48 hours later.

BJ

 

I personally grabbed the sleeve for the duo 11 (from sony) for my pro and I checked in store and it fits nice and snug.

 

I have the same problem. There is no option in the Vaio Control Center and no adaptive screen option in the Windows 8 Power Management. The constantly changing brightness really is annoying.

 

Hi everyone.
Just obtained this laptop.

A silly question - how can I connect the external microphone using that single connector (3.5 jack) available at the right side?
All the answers in the Internet tell that I have to use the external USB card but I definitely don't want to loose 1 USB slot for that purpose.

Are there any alternatives to USB?
Are there any handsets compatible with that single 3.5 port available?

 

there is an option to turn off automatic screen brightness in the vaio control centre. its under "image quality"

then go into the Intel display properties (blue icon in the taskbar) , and click "on battery" and turn off "display power saving technology"

stopped it completely for me. with little to no difference in battery life.

 

Any headset will work for earpiece and microphone through the single 3.5 port. I've used my iPhone headphones, many other brands.

BJ

 

The most common 4-conductor (TRRS) 3.5mm jack as used by the iPhone, most recent smartphones and the Pro 13 is directly compatible with 3-conductor (TRS) headphones. For a mic, I am not sure you'll find a converter cable off-the-shelf - although you could certainly build one - but you'll find adapters that convert the 4-conductor jack into a headphone jack and a mic jack like the following available on Amazon, NewEgg and other places: StarTech.com MUYHSMFF

For a headset, any modern 4-conductor smartphone headset will work. If you want a professional/PC headset, not necessarily earbuds from the smartphone aisle, you can get a plain "analog" headset from the PC aisle with 2 3.5mm jacks (one headphones, one mic) and use the adapter above. That's what I do (and it has the benefit of working with both the Pro 13 and a smartphone). Make sure you get a headset with 3.5m jacks. There are headsets with 2.5mm jacks, commonly used for cordless phones.

Laurent

 

I believe the socket is a combo headphone/mic port, in which case something like the following should work:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Startech-com-3-5mm-Headset-Splitter-Adapter/dp/B004SP0WAQ/ref=pd_sim_ce_1

Edit: Seems I was a bit late with this reply; I have been beaten to it multiple times

 

Can anyone who ordered CTO in the US comment on how long it takes for the laptop to ship? (If anyone's even received a CTO yet) I ordered last Saturday and got an estimated shipping date of 7/23/13, which is an awfully long time. My order status right now is still "Processing". Is that ship date accurate? Or does it usually ship sooner?

I know I should be patient, but with new electronics you kind of want it as soon as possible.

 

Okay... It might not mean anything, but based on what I've observed through the years - Z Series Owners Thread, the preconfigured models are much more reliable than CTO's. I'm now curious if those having these issues with BT, WiFi, and Trackpads; if they're Pro 13's were CTO's?

 

Fix for the adaptive brightness:

Go to Intel Graphics Properties -> Energy settings -> choose "battery" in the upper right corner -> shut off the adaptive display power saving technology

Sorry, I have the German version so I cant tell you the exact wordings in English. If you have trouble finding the settings, Ill try to find the exact wordings.

 

I had ordered mine online and the shipping date the SONY web page quoted me during the order process was not correct. As soon as I had paid, it moved the date back by three days......

 

Yeah, thanks. It seems that I have to find an adapter, but it's a tricky thing in our country (Belarus)

 

I ordered a CTO with i5/8gb ram and 128gb SSD
my status is "Delievery" but when I called yesterday they told me it is still in production...

I m really looking forward to finally hold this machine in my hands, but I am a little scared of the problems with wifi some of you guys expirience.

there is no ultrabook on the marked that looks better so i really want my pro to be perfect on the first order

 

Anyone able to test if the HDMI controller on the Vaio Pro 11/13 is version 1.4b? (you'd need a high speed HDMI cable with a hdmi to DVI-D adapter and a 2560*1440+ resolution monitor to test it reliably).

 

Yes, I tried.

First time with tv 4K in sony store, there were all resolution options on laptop with 4k resolution and lower, but works only with 1080p.

I tested with Dell U2711 too hdmi->hdmi. But Dell officially works with 1080p only on hdmi.

Regards

 

Has anyone successfully disassembled the Pro 13 yet? I am looking to upgrade the WIFI card to the new Intel 802.11ac. Thanks in advance.

 

I don't seem to be getting the battery life that a lot of people are enjoying with their pro. I've got the i7/8gb model, and I thought at first it was the initial update Dropbox was doing to syc with the new computer, but that's done and now I'm only getting 3-4 hours. Is there a good way to see what might be eating away at it?

Thanks!

Edit: I should add that I'm primarily using Chrome, Excel, Outlook, and some data analysis with Stata. I'm not draining it with Netflix or Youtube.

 

I returned first laptop to store with noise problem, they confirm noise, but new computer have this same problem. Fan's starting at over 40C, over 50C I can hear noise from next room. MacBook Air is silent with over 70C.

I've burned CPU using hyper-pi

4 thread, cold CPU vaio start max processor speed is 2,27 after 25secs CPU speed is reduced to 1,77GHz at 62C

I made many test and Vaio maximum CPU temperature is 65C on MBA 98(!).
You can hear MBA fan at 90C but Vaio fan is still lauder.

Next issue is moise pointer. Run hyper-pi in priority High. On normal computer all works fine, on vaio moise pointer dies.

 

Note that the wifi drivers just appeared on the Sony website, although they are the same 16.0.5.3 as have been available on Intel's website for a while...

Link for my SKU: Sony eSupport - SVP13215PXB - Drivers & Software

Laurent

 

Get Battery Status and look at how much power you're burning. Posts on this forum seem to indicate:
* 2-3W with nothing installed, airplane mode, low brightness doing nothing or text editing (10+hrs battery life)
* 4-6W with a basic install, medium brightness doing not much (browsing...) (6-8hrs battery life)
* 8-12W watching video (3-4hrs battery life)

From what you describe, you should be in the middle category. So look at what batstat says as far as power. Then look at your task manager (Ctrl+shift+esc / processes / more details / sort by CPU%) and see who burns CPU cycles. Even at full idle, some apps (like web browsers) can burns several %, which can cost you 1-2W easily that turns into hours less of battery life. So use the batstat power monitor, the task manager and figure out who is the culprit.

If all else fails, buy a sheet battery

Laurent

 

Hi!

I've been waiting for some decent Haswell-ultrabooks and it seems that my options are the Vaio Pro 13 and Macbook Air, as I need the laptop in a month or so. I'm a bit worried after reading this thread, mainly because if I order the Vaio, I would get the CTO model which takes a while to deliver and people have been experiencing some problems, so I might not have time to return it if needed... tricky. At this point I would go with the Vaio because I'm not a huge fan of iOS, the Full HD screen and the fact that I can get a machine with 256GB SSD + 8GB RAM for about 1050 euros instead of spending €1150 on a Mac with 128GB SSD + 4GB RAM.

But... I actually have two questions for you guys:

1) Is the Pro 13 capable of running older games, especially Team Fortress 2? I'm fine with running it on low/medium settings, as long as it's really playable. Haven't been able to find too much information about this. I would probably be getting the non-touch model with 256GB SSD + 8GB RAM, if that's relevant. If the answer to this question is a no, then it's a deal breaker for me. The Macbook Air can handle TF2 quite well, hopefully someone can verify that the Vaio can as well

2) I'm from Europe so I'm stuck with the SATA-SSD. Someone already asked about this but is the SATA-SSD really as good as PCI-e -SSD when it comes to actually using the computer (gaming, general speed), not just numbers? Would I notice a difference if I had two machines, one with SATA and one with PCI-e and didn't know which is which? Would be great if someone had used both and could tell their opinion.

Thanks!

 

I own the most low-performance (if you will) Pro 13 available, i5, 4GB RAM, wondering if the reason I am getting great battery life is because the strain on the system is lower? Wondering if those who build their own i7's are creating beasts that push the ultrabook too hard? Just a thought.

BJ

 

Does anyone have experience with an anti-glare matte protector on a vaio pro touchscreen?

Thanks in advance!

 

Thanks!! Downloading now....

 

Thinking about buying a non-touch pro 13. Is the image quality better? Is the battery life better? Doe it weigh less?

 

As Laurent noted above, you really shouldn't get any less than 6 hours of battery life in a "normal", mixed-use szenario. If you don't do some really processing-heavy stuff, 3-4 hours of battery life seem really low. You could check your idle CPU voltages (see the posts earlier in this thread). Mine looks like this:



Some Vaio Pros seem to come with outlier CPUs that run on slightly higher voltages, draw a little more power and run hotter (see Laurent's earlier post with his personal experience). Given that the Pro's battery is rather small, even a slightly higher power use can make a huge difference ...

Personally, I'm really happy with the batterly life of my Pro. Noise isn't a problem either (and it will only get better after the summer). I do agree with dzik that Sony's fan management for the Pro is REALLY overcautious, though. Maybe we'll get a firmware fix that pushes the base temperature (at which the fan starts to kick in) a little higher somewhen in the future? 40°C (which is the same threshold I observed) is REALLY conservative. Could safely be increased to 50°C or more like in the Macbook Air.

 

I don't have a direct comparison, but I use the European 256GB SATA-SSD and apart from all the performance numbers, it really FEELS blazingly fast. I don't play any games on my Pro, but I searched my stop watch for you and did some quick real-world tests:

• Windows 8 boots in ~4 seconds (time between pressing the power button and getting to the lock screen)
• Wake-up time from standby is practically non-existent (though that's probably more related to RAM performance).
• A complete restart (time between hitting the "restart" button in the system menu and the lock screen popping up again) takes ~11 seconds.
• Photoshop CS5 takes ~2 seconds to load when the system is freshly restarted. Even less when opening it for a second time.
• Word, Excel, etc. all practically open before you fully release the mouse button.

I seriously don't see how an even faster SSD could make a huge difference in the "normal" real-world responsiveness of the system. People might argue about improvements when editing huge data (videos etc.) - but that kind of stuff will probably be stored on a bigger external HDD drive anyway.

On top of all that, the Samsung PCI-e SSDs probably are TLC-based (as opposed to the MLC-based European Toshiba SATA drives). The latter should be a little more reliable in the long run (which is actually important for me as I tend to use my laptops for at least 3 years).

When all is said and done, I really think most of the hype around those PCI-e SSDs is down to marketing and benchmark numbers. Real-world differences should be negligible.

 

8 hours of video playback on a i7, can anyone confirm it? Sony Vaio Pro 13 Touch Ultrabook Review - Watch CNET's Video & Read Our Review - page 2

I'm really undecided about to choose i7 or i5 :s It will be my laptop for the next 3/4 years. Now I'm using a sony vaio cs11 that will make 5 years next November. Most of the things I do here is code, compile some big projects, matlab and solidworks should be the most powerfull applications I'll be running...

The indecision between i5 or i7 isn't about money but battery, can I still have 6 hours of browsing in an i7 like i5?

 

Thanks! My Wifi dropped every 5-10 minutes, the new drivers didn't fix the problem first. Then I uninstalled them via the device manager and installed them again, et voila - now it's working for 3 hours already without any problems. I'm permanently pinging my router (ping routerip -t) and I didn't notice a single error since then. I will report if I notice any problems again.

Btw, if someone is still interested in the non-touch version of the screen: it does reflect a very little bit (not completely mat), but it's way more comfortable than with the touch version. As somebody already stated before, the screen looks a little bit coarse compared to the touch version. This effect seems to occur on all mat screens I know, and it doesn't bother me in any way. I would definitely buy the non-touch-version again by the following reasons:

• The device is lighter (below 1kg!) and thinner
• There are way less reflections
• There are no Fingerprints on the display
• It's cheaper

Is anybody interested in any particular pictures? I didn't know what to post because everything seems to have been posted already.

 

Should be realistic. Just did a quick test on my Pro (i5 / 8GB RAM):

@50% brightness and with Wifi and Bluetooth activated, watching a 1080p mp4 video in WMP drains my battery 1% roughly every ~4:30 minutes. Battery drain rate averages out at a little under 5W. So you're looking at ~7.5h of full HD video playpack without disabling wireless and at good screen brightness.

i7 and i5 configurations should not differ that much in this respect.

 

Just solved another Windows 8 annoyance, thought I'd share with the group.

Used to be that Windows Photo Viewer was the default for quickly motoring through a set of photos in a folder. Click the first image, hit the arrow key, boink, boink, boink you were skipping through hundreds of photos to find the one you were looking for.

In Windows 8, the default is set for the awful Charms photo viewer that only opens a single photo, doesn't allow you to skip to the next one. Here's the fix:

From the Charms Screen, just type "Control Panel" to search and locate it.

When the Control Panel opens, click the Programs category. Click Default Programs and then click Set Your Default Programs.

The Set Default Programs window appears.

From the left pane, click Windows Photo Viewer. Then select Set This Program As Default and click OK.

That tells Windows Photo Viewer to open all of your photos, bypassing the Start screen’s Photos app.

After following these steps, a double-click on a digital photo fetches Windows Photo Viewer.

BJ

 

Sounds good, thanks for the info Now if only someone had experience on gaming, I'd like to hear about it before I order the Pro.

 

Anyone having troubles keeping the dim display option off? Even after disabling it through vaio software and gpu software it still dims the screen randomly.

 

Well sony just changed my ship date by an entire week now, I ordered last friday and removed the fresh start option on purpose in order to get it faster but it seems now it is shipping as it would normally if I opted for a fresh start, this is rather annoying and I am leaving soon from here and it might look like I won't get it before I leave, kind of f'ed up here and disappointing, especially since I spent close to 2000 on the damn thing

If they can't deliver it on time, I'll just pick up a regular version from the store and then complain over the phone.

 

mine is currently at Pudong Airport^^

cant wait to finally hold it in my hands

 

You won't see any difference in gaming. Gaming performance will be limited by the cpu/gpu but definitely not by the SSD. I also got the SATA SSD and I couldn't notice any difference in daily work, everything is incredibly fast.
Gaming is only possible in less demanding games in low resolutions and with low details. I tested Sonic & Allstars Racing Transformed and Diablo 3 and both do work, but only on very low settings. If you really want to use it for gaming regularly, you shouldn't buy an ultrabook.

Yep same here Sony definitely has some work to do with drivers. I've got a notion that Sony just wanted to push the device to the market asap to be competitive against Apple and didn't give it's devs the time they needed. See Apples WiFi problems; doesn't seem to be better there. I'm really relieved my WiFi seems to be working now...