Official Vaio Pro 13 Owners Lounge (SVP13 2013)

Does the PRO 11/13 HDMI port support resolutions over 1080p? Would it work with a WQHD screen?

Is anyone able to try this? (if you own for example a Dell U2711/U2713 you'd need to use a HDMI to DisplayPort adapter, since the HDMI port on the monitor itself only supports 1080p input).

 

I got a WUXGA screen, so I can try it when I get mine. It will be shipped between the 5th an the 10th. Does anyone know if they ship all orders from asia? In that case it might take a few more days...

 

I have the dell U2711, But how do I know that the adapter itself supports higher resolutions than 1080?

 

Didnt realise the U2713 didnt support over 1080p over hdmi. Is this in the manual (couldn't find it).

 

@dart22
That might actually be VERY hard to find out. You'll need a HDMI 1.4b standard cable for full HDMI bandwidth (or any high-throughput HDMI cable), the trouble would be the HDMI to DL-DVI/DisplayPort adapter (no telling what standard of HDMI throughput it might support). A short length HDMI cable will have a more stable throughput, so if you're willing to experiment I'd suggest a short 1.4b HDMI cable + any HDMI-to-DL-DVI adapter.

HDMI 1.4b is fully compatible with DL-DVI ports (meaning both cables/connectors support the same throughput), so theoretically they should work together, and give us the answer.

@andyman2
You can find the info regarding 1080p input here: Dell U2713HM Review

The reason HDMI ports are limited is because of hardware/manufacturing standards. Complete bull, but something we, as consumers, will have to live with. For example, Intel HD4000 (ivy bridge) is fully capable of 4k resolution playback/output, but HDMI/DP/DVI has been artificially limited to 1080p/WQHD for years. Only the next generation of ports (basically, any devices/motherboards released after the introduction of Haswell), will support higher (up to 4k) resolutions input/output.

The only ports on the U2713 that supports WQHD are the Dual-DVI and the DP.

 

Appreciate the info here, many thanks. From what I've read on the z series, even if you can get the full res working, the refresh rates generally drop to a painfully low number.

Andy.

 

@andyman2
No problem. Yeah, it's possible, unfortunately the only limiting factor is the actual HDMI port on the motherboard. The graphics card supports higher than 1080p resolution, cables support higher than 1080p resolution, monitors support higher than 1080p resolution... but the &$£@& motherboard connector doesn't support higher than 1080p throughput at 60hz (or 1440p at 30-or-less-hz with modification).

It's pissed me off for a full year, since Ivy Bridge (Intel HD4000) is fully 4k capable, but manufacturers has kept it out of our hands until the hype is high enough so that people will have to buy new devices as soon as 4k becomes mainstream.

I'm hoping that, with the impending onslaught of 4k screens, manufacturers will finally relent and put ports with enough throughput to support higher resolutions. Intel HD4400 and HD5000 both support 4k-and-up resolutions, it's down to HDMI/DP/DL-DVI ports to let us make full use of it.

Vaio Pro 11/13 is one of the first devices that can prove whether this is the case or not. Hopefully we can confirm that the motherboard has a 1.4b control chip circuitry (which is the first HDMI specification to support the higher throughput).

 

Does anyone know if other Sony AC adapters (such as VGP-AC10V5) are compatible with the Vaio Pro 13? I am struggling to find a genuine adapter in the UK and am not bothered with the USB charging on the native adapter......

 

Bluetooth doesn't seem to work on my Vaio Pro. Just tried to activate it using the corresponding switch in Charms -> Settings -> Change PC Settings -> Wireless, but all I get is an error message ("error during activation").

Hardware and drivers seem to be OK (as far as the info in the device manager goes).

Did anyone else experience something similar? Any suggestions to solve this issue?

 

Thanks again for the info. Very annoying. If only they just used displayport I'd imagine we'd be in a much better position!

 

anyone know if this supports win8 secure boot? any details about drive encryption?

 

This happened to me every once in awhile, the answer is just to shut the computer down and do a restart.

There are new Bluetooth drivers out there, don't remember if you're running them but if you aren't you might as well give that a try.

BJ

 

Cool, thanks for sharing. I'd recommend this one instead, it's called Start Menu 8 and it's great:

http://www.iobit.com/iobitstartmenu8.php


Here's one that I love as it fixes the biggest annoyance in Windows 8- how to get to PC Settings, put it on your desktop, specifically "Wireless" which I use all the time to toggle Wi-Fi on and off:

How To Make Pc Settings Desktop Shortcut in Windows 8 | Techmell


There's also an easy way to put a shortcut to Control Panel on the desktop, you can find that here:

Simpliguide - Create a shortcut to Control Panel in Windows 8


BJ

 

The same happened to me. Just go to the device manager and uninstall the bt and restart the vaio it should work
Are you using a bluetooth mouse?

 

I'll happily compare the screen to my 2009 Z when I get home at the end of the week.

Just a comment on the reports of fan noise and wonky wireless & bluetooth- I'm getting none of that. All radios work well and I'm using a bluetooth mouse. Power mode has been on balanced, and it is absolutely quiet most of the time, and when it kicks up, at its loudest it is quieter than my Z fan at its quietest (about as loud as a whispered shhhhh).

 

Thanks. Are you still able to utilize the touch functionality of W8 if you switch to classic view (W7)?

 

To try to make sense of the huge disparity in battery life:
* On a fresh W8 install with nothing running in the background, min brightness and airplane mode, I do see power dropping to a similar 2.6-2.8W, which is very good and means huge battery life with the 37WHr battery.
* On my current W8 install with a bunch of IM type things (Skype, Lync, Gtalk) running, wireless on, Google Chrome with a dozen windows, Outlook running and 50% brightness, which I consider my standard idle, I hover around 5W (4.5-5.5W), down to about 4W after enough inactivity. I did notice that turning on airplane mode is counter productive. Apparently, all these apps madly try to connect and burn more power doing so than the wireless does when it is connected...
* Playing HD video (Netflix, Youtube) is about 12W.

Depending of what your install looks like, your idle number will vary a lot. going from 0% CPU to 5% CPU is several W, which at these levels can easily halve battery life (my case vs. the quoted post).

Hardware factors that may influence battery life but are hard to A-B compare:
* i5 vs. i7. I have stated before that there might be more standard deviation within each CPU type than there is static difference between the two. I have had 2 i7 and my first one was quite bad.
* 4GB vs. 8GB. If indeed twice as many chips are soldered down for 8GB (unverified, but likely if this is 1 vs. 2 channels as hinted by the perf difference), there could be a difference of 100+mW at idle.
* SATA vs PCIe SSD
* SSD size
* Temperature

Note that ambient temp has a huge effect on fan noise. In a cool outdoor or an air-conditioned office at 21C, it's easy to keep the CPU temp in idle in the low 40s C, where the fan is quiet (for an office environment - not so much in a quiet bedroom in the middle of the night). In a California house with 32C ambient, it's easy to reach the high 40s C where the fan starts kicking more seriously.

Another point for those using this laptp in an office environment with a "docking station": connecting a monitor directly through HDMI works well and is lower power than using the built-in screen. However, the external USB3 docking stations (I use the Targus one with the ubiquitous DisplayLink chip) need several %CPU do drive the remote display and that easily kicks the temp up 5-10C depending on how much action there is, which in turn kicks the fan noise up substantially. Solution: drive main display from HDMI, others from the USB3 docking station. The other issue with the USB3 docking station is that it seems to be victim of the Haswell USB3 bug, so the display disappears on sleep or reboot...

Laurent

 

Wireless activities are battery killer (drain). The more wireless usage, the faster battery draining.
I have checked this with my Duo11 and SVZ.
CPU for the same line of model have he same TDP. The faster CPU is, the better for battery life. At the same task, the faster CPU uses less power than slower CPU.

Sent from my SGPT12 using Tapatalk 2

 

Thanks for your reply. The Wifi and Bluetooth problems are really getting on my nerves. Didn't seem a huge deal during the first days - but my Wifi connection has been really unreliable today. Lots of hickups and lost connections ... and bluetooth doesn't work at all.

Basically spent about three hours today just re-installing wireless/bluetooth drivers in all possible combinations and restarting the machine over and over again (at least the boot times are fast) - but nothing seems to help.

The newer Wifi drivers (16.0.5) seem to be a little better - but they don't entirely fix the problem for me. Bluetooth, as stated above, can't even be activated on my Pro. Tried everything. Even downloaded the newer bluetooth drivers LaurantR posted earlier in this thread (took me half an hour to downlad the ~30MB file because the Wifi kept choking ...) - but all they do for me ist to "grey out" the slider to enable bluetooth.The original release BT-drivers on the SONY support site enable me to actually click the slider - but it doesn't activate. Gives me the error message cited in my earlier post. Not installing the additional bluetooth software at all makes the slider disappear altogether - even though the bluetooth module is still listed in the device manager (Windows uses the "generic" bluetooth drivers in this case).

Really frustrated at the moment. The wireless drivers don't seem very mature (to say the least).

 

Anmipe, sounds like a defective wireless module. This is more than just occasional wifi or BT drops which could be attributed to drivers. I can turn BT on and off all day long with the original and updated Sony drivers as well as Intel's updated drivers.

 

Seems like this is going to be a hit or miss. I'm counting on it being not-so-annoyingly-loud because I know it's not going to be silent. I do have a low tolerance for computer noises so it might be going back. I can imagine Sony getting a lot of early returns.

 

I tried Windows 8.1.....uninstalled it within 2 days by refreshing the PC (beware that you cannot easily uninstall 8.1) as iTunes and Sonos controller were not working.

 

I tried it. No, you don't lose touch functionality. The main problem I noted was, that the Windows button doesn't take you to live tiles page. Rather, it opens classic shell menu. I uninstalled it. Pokki is a lot better.

 

It's quite small actually.

You can only tilt as far as the pictures show, less than my previous Sony Vaio.

 

Thanks for trying that out. I'll definitely give Pokki a try when I get my Pro 13, which may be this weekend. I'm even more eager to try W8 knowing you can use touch on classic start-up W7.

 

I really tried hard to deny it, but fear you're right. Just mailed SONY a quick support-request. Hope they react fast and don't put me through even more hassle.

Problem is I really need that new laptop to stay productive. Shuffled all my stuff onto it during the weekend and spent hours to streamline the OS and get rid of all the bloated gimmicks. So much work for nothing

Anyway, thanks a lot for your help!

 

i also have an error when i try to start bluetooh, didnt try any drivers yet

 

Hi everyone. I have the vaio pro 13, UK non touch screen model, i7, 8gb, 256gb hard drive.

overall very happy. no issues with wifi....

1... ive had to turn auto screen brightness, and intel screen battery saving OFF - the flickering screen was too annoying.

2... Ive had to turn Bluetooth off, due to the high pitch noise.... (would never use it anyway, so will save a bit of battery life anyway) did it via device manager.... is there an easier way?

3... find the trackpad a bit unresponsive.... misses taps sometimes, and scrolling is not responsive.... any solution to this yet?

everything else seems fine so far... battery life good, nice keyboard, a bit of flex to the chassis, but that understandable with it being so lightweight.. its nice to type on, etc.

classic shell works well... got a proper start menu, disabled metro and charms ... so windows 8 is bearable.

 

oh and one other thing... text is sometimes too small to read...... especially on Skype desktop... tried increasing text size to 150% but it all became very blurry... so switched back to 125%

 

Yes, the touch functionality of W8 works if you use Start Menu 8 and boot directly to the Classic Desktop. What Start Menu 8 does is like a macro, it just hits the button needed to hide the Charms and bring up ye ol' desktop.

Above is a screencap of my desktop. You'll see the shortcut to Control Panel, the shortcut to Wireless, and the Start Menu 8 start button. Note that to get back to the Win 8 Charms I only need hit Start > Switch To Metro.

There is no downside to using Start Menu 8.

BJ

 

@ BoltJames

That looks so cool. I really like it. That solid black background, is that a standard screensaver? I like the subtle burst of light center top.

I hope to get my Pro 13 either this weekend or next.

 

Try this out, read on an aussie forum that a pro 11 user fixed his wifi issues by changing the power setting for the wireless. Worth a shot...hope it helps.

Systems Administration NYC: Tutorial: Windows 8 Laptop Keeps Disconnecting from WiFi Fix

 

I picked my i5 Vaio Pro 13 up on saturday and have installed Fedora 19 Linux on it.
Overall works pretty well, I get a solid 5-6 hours from the battery.
I wrote a post detailing the issues I encountered if anyone is interested Sony Vaio Pro 13 vs Fedora 19 | Nix Adventures

Let me know if anyone wants any more info or help getting Linux running on this beautiful piece of hardware

 

I'm just curious, what kind of battery life are you getting? I'm kind of interested in this non-touch version myself, but the low batterylife really is a turnoff for me. And that sheet battery looks rather uncomfortable to carry around aswell.

 

Thanks a lot for the heads-up!

Unfortunateley, setting Wifi to "Maximum Performance" in the energy settings was among the first quick (and futile) adjustments I made in trying to fix the issue.

As it stands now, the problem is just getting worse. Yesterday evening, I did a complete refresh of the system to make sure the problem wasn't created by anything I installed or changed. Wireless just completely stopped being usable now. It connects to my Wireless LAN indicating good signal quality (four bars) - yet loading the google search site takes a minute (and I'm not exaggerating).

Left the laptop turned on during the night to download the roughly 50 windows updates (~500MB) that were (again) showing up after the fresh install. Woke up in the morning and found that the download process was @ 81% progress ...

Converted back to my old (and beloved) TZ for the time being. No connection problems whatsoever ... quickly downloading huge files without the slightest interruption ... and bluetooth toogle actually works.

Reading that many users of the new, mid 2013 Macbook Air seem to report similar wireless issues, I'm starting to suspect a relatively fequent hardware problem with early Haswell ULV platforms in general.

 

Thanks for letting us know.

Just the bluetooth toggle problem - or are you experiencing any Wifi related issues, too?

Could you let us know when and where you bought your Pro?

EDIT: Just saw your earlier post stating you ordered from Spain - and around the same (early) date that I ordered mine, too. Maybe it's mainly related to the first batch of European models?

Funny thing is I can actually find and connect BT devices, btw. Just can't toggle the on/off setting. Seems to be always-on irrespective of showing up as "off" in the settings. So maybe a faulty BT module that somehow interferes with the Wifi?

In any case: greetings to Spain - hope your Pro doesn't let you down like mine did (given they were probably manufactured very much next to each other ... and made from similar batches of parts).

 

Just wanted to share this quick tip!
Been using the PRO11 for a few days now (I imagine this applies to the PRO 13 also) i really like the screen ( I have the matte one) but i noticed that the blacks while deep, they lack shadow detail! so it turns out there is a setting in intel HD graphic control that corrects it, its checked to "limited" by default turning it to "Full" does the trick!

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

@Anmipe

From spain, 1321c5e 8g non touch i5 shipped from china, arrived on friday, i bought it online the first week that it was available, some problems on wifi till i update the drivers from intel (they didnt work on first time, i reverted to the original ones on device manager and install them again i also increased the signal from a lynksys g54 router), i realize on the bluetooh problem when i read it from you.

I only restarted the system trying to solve it, i will try later unnistalling them and restart the system

 

@darksaboteur
thanx for sharing it, also for the wifi fix .rpm

 

Just wondering - has anyone done a clean install of Windows 8 on the Pro 13? I've tended to do this right after getting a new machine but am completely new to Windows 8 and reading around it seems to have a more involved process than previous versions. Also, is it pretty straightforward to get a complete set of drivers from Sony?

 

Has anyone tried this laptop running dual external monitors?

I'm currently looking for a replacement for my Lenovo T420s (had an original Z before that) but have a requirement to run 2 x 24" external monitors at 1920x1200. I'd love to go back to Sony and use this machine as a desktop replacement when in the office but take it on my many travels and ease the backpain of carrying a 14" Lenovo!

Thanks in advance
Matt

 

Guys, could you share the VAIO wallpaper from VAIO Pro 13? It looks really nice.

 

Hi,

I got my Vaio Pro 13 (i5, 8GB, 256 GB) yesterday.

At the moment I am not 100% happy.

Negative:

• Glare is a problem (tested @ work)
• the touchpad is quite unresponsive
• the fan can get quite loud (only sometimes)
• fingerprints all over the system (even the carbon)
• cant get bluetooth working correctly

Positive:

• performance is great
• the keyboard is great
• the ultrabook is super light

Neutral:

• wifi disconnecting (fixed it by changing the "power settings")
• 1920*1080 makes fontsize a little small sometimes

At the moment I am thinking about sending the unit back.
I think I would prefer a unit without touch to get a "non glare"-display.
In addition I'm thinking about changing i5 to i7.

Can someone with a non-touch-unit give me some feedback about the display (glare, image-qualitiy).
Also: Is the build quality of the black non-touch version the same as the carbon touch-version? What about finger-prints on the unit (black)?

Thanks a lot,
tec

 

These problems with the bluetooth seem very widespread! Very worrying.

 

I use a dual-monitor setup with a Targus USB3 docking station, but I only have 2 1080p monitors. Most (if not all) USB3 docking stations use the same display controller from DisplayLink. A quick look at the list of products using their chips DisplayLink Store :: Docks reveals that some docks support dual displays up to 2048x1152, some support single displays up to 2560x1600, but I can't find one with dual display at more than 2048x1152, although their DL3900 chip's product brief doesn't rule that out. It may be worth sending them an email to ask if anybody makes what yousre looking for.

Laurent

 

Can anyone who got the i7 version say something about battery consumption? I'd be interested in how it holds up against the i5 version. Thanks.

 

On a Pro 11, but I did a clean install of Windows 8. Setup isn't too different than Windows 7, but there is a slight learning curve.

You'll need:

• Windows 8 install on USB flash drive (eg: ISO from Microsoft, use Windows USB Download Tool).
• Vaio Pro drivers from Sony eSupport (should work regardless of region). Sony eSupport - SVP132190X - Support
  You can put these on the Windows 8 install USB for convenience.
• Additional USB flash drive for Vaio Recovery Media backup
• [Optional] Start8 or similar program to make installation easier

Build recovery media

1. Backup anything you want to keep (Vaio Wallpapers, etc).
2. Open Vaio Care and create recovery media to USB flash drive.
3. [Optional] Use diskpart to delete recovery partition and reclaim some space. WARNING: Don't delete OEM, EFI, or Windows RE paritions unless you know what you're doing.

Install Windows 8

1. Turn off your Vaio Pro.
2. Insert Windows 8 install USB.
3. Turn on your Vaio Pro by pressing the Assist button.
4. Boot options interface will load, and you can select Boot USB.
5. Install Windows 8 following on-screen instructions.
6. Set up user information and initial preferences following on-screen instructions.

Intall Drivers

• Once Windows is installed and at the Modern UI, you can open up Desktop, go to Windows Explorer, and start installing drivers.
• You can use Start8 to make rebooting and returning to the Desktop less painful.
• You can disable UAC (Start > Run "msconfig" > Tools > Change UAC Settings > Never notify) to make Administrator nag screens less annoying.
• You can keep track of driver installation by opening up Device Manager (Start > Run "devmgmt.msc"; or Win-X > Device Manager) and confirming the "Unknown devices" install properly.

If you run into trouble, you can use your Vaio Care recovery USB. Insert and browse to \Sources\autorun\AutorunUI.exe. Choose OK to recover drivers/applications, and you can choose which drivers/apps to recover.

 

Bluetooh doesnt work reinstalled drivers not working called sony nothing they asked me to reinstall it all, from recovery partition, not very happy i am thinking on sending it back, i will do it tomorrow if it doesnt work i will send it back for another one

 

There would not be an appreciable difference in either battery life or performance to warrant the price difference. Battery tests are too variable to compare anecdotally.

 

I agree! I also belong to MacRumors.com (I have a MBA in addition to having a Vaio) and quite a few of those that purchased the 2013 MBA are also having these same issues. After reading all these documentarians from people, I'm wondering if I should wait for the refresh on the Pro 13.