Official Vaio Y 13.3 Series Owners Lounge

Code:

Dear Mr Amaral,

thank you for your e-mail.

At this moment Sony doesn't offer configure to order computers in Portugal, due to the fact that the market for this has been estimated to be too small. As the concept has been very successful in other countries though, and more and more people are requesting personally configured computers in Portugal, Sony is now investigating the possibility of introducing configure to order computers also in Portugal.

We do not yet have an estimation for when Sony will introduce configure to order computers for the Portuguese market, but any news in this matter will be announced in our website, so I can advise you to keep an eye on Sony Style Store ahead.

With kind regards
Josefin Ahlström
Sony Style Europe
www.sonystyle-europe.com

It sucks...

 

So I went to BB yesterday to see if they had the Sony Y or the Toshiba Portege, and they didn't have either, though they had a bunch of new computers... Dell's, HP.

Thankfully HP got rid of their aweful slick shiny metal touchpad that was impossible to use.

Anyway, frustratingly they had the Portege, but they just didn't have it out yet! Ugh!

Once again I was impressed with the Sony S series keyboard. If the Y keyboard is basically identical, then it would be hard to beat. But, I'm curious to see why at least one poster thinks the Portege's keyboard is ugly, hee hee.

Heck, so long as it feels good to the touch I'm perfectly happy.


Sony does make an amazing keyboard though. The new HP's went with the chicklic style too, but it is nowhere near as nice as the Sony S series.

Anyway, I'm hoping BB gets their act together and gets these new laptops out on the floor so I can see them!

 

After seeing the following video:
YouTube - Toshiba Portégé R700 and Satellite R630

Comparing it to the Sony keyboards, it just looks ugly to me. Seems too plastic and too square for my taste.

Also, why the hell does it have "BACK SPACE" written in such huge letters? Never seen this before and I don't like it, a simple arrow, as usual, would suffice.

 

My desktops all say "Backspace" on their keyboards. I also spot a Dell laptop across the room which also says it. I think perhaps it's more common than you realize.

Ugly is subjective. It looks fine to me (but everyone is entitled to their opinion here).

 

All of my laptops have "Backspace" written on the key. So does my external keyboard.

The only thing different about the R700/705 is that it says:

"BACK
SPACE"

instead of:

"Backspace"

 

Could you guys drop that already? Jeez... Ok, your keyboards always said "backspace", I never noticed that one the ones I owned, ok? That was simply the less important part on my post...

If there is a reason to stop me from getting the R700 is not the "back space" letters written on a key. It's whole the keyboard, which compare to the Sony, it's ugly, plastic and square. That's my opinion of course, I shouldn't need to state that.

 

Well, you're pretty much going to get some kind of response when you say you have Never seen this before and when As Usual gets underlined.

 

Hey, you're the one that said "why the hell does it have "BACK SPACE" written in such huge letters?"

I agree, the Sony keyboard is better. No argument there. But the R700 (or R705) is not that bad of a laptop, overall.

 

Meh. Both keyboards look like they'd be easy and quick to type on. Chiclet's in these days.

 

You need to realize that the US is not the center of the world and not everyone lives there...

That's because I don't remember ever seeing a keyboard like that and I'm not used to it...

Sure, but I never questioned the laptop as a whole.

 

I never said you did. I was just stating my opinion, if that's okay with you.

 

Let's calm down, people.

 

I am in the middle of deciding between the Y series, or the UL30vt-a1/x1.

Is anyone in the same boat? I played with the Vaio at the SonyStore and it is fantastic albeit a bit chunky (getting it to replace my T250m).

The UL30VT is thinner, but as I cannot play with one in store I can only judge by other reviews and pictures. To me, it does not look as fancy as the Vaio in the pictures. I do not care about switchable graphics, but I care about the keyboad and display. Can anyone chime in?

 

I got a chance to play with the UL80 at Best Buy. It's pretty sweet. I think I like it better than the Y. It has an Nvidia 310 graphics chip which automatically kicks in using Optimus (which is excellent). It also feels quite lighter than the Y.

The other one I am looking at is the Toshiba R705 Portege. What I like about that one is the 2.3GHz processor instead of the 1.2GHz found on the Y and the UL80.

All three appear to have equivalent battery life.

 

Another nice thing about the Toshiba is that it's only 3.2 lbs.

 

For the Y to compete, the price need to come down to $600.

 

That'd definitely dominate the back-to-school market.

 

Meh. I'd argue it should be $700 for either

(1) i5-430UM+Intel integrated

or

(2) i3-330UM+ATI integrated



IMO the Sony has a better keyboard and build construction.

 

I'd take the second option. It seems better to take some burden off of the poor little undervolted CPU.

 

Yeah. School functions mostly use CPU. But youtube and websites as well as applications (e.g. VLC player) that utilize GPU acceleration are on the rise. Youtube doesn't stutter at all with Flash 10.1 for me. I used to get brief stuttering within the first 5 seconds of a high detail 1080p vid with Flash pre-10.1. Not anymore with 10.1.

 

Wow I have been thinking like that for over a month now. I like Y's build quality better than UL30. I'm certain on buying it but Canada only offers the SU7300 processor and black colour. I know someone who works at SonyStyle but even he couldn't give me a date when Sony could bring ones with new processors. I will wait until the end of August and see what they have to offer. Its very hard waiting tho. T.T

 

I had the Asus UL30 and the Sony has a better and brighter screen.
Sony has a better keyboard and its better built

The Asus is lighter, longer battery life and thinner.

 

hey guys,
i had another question. Does the core i3 processors also make the high pitch noise?

 

My laptop is finally sold. Now I'm out to shop for my Vaio.

Do you guys know if Sony Style retailers have Vaio Y for showing?

 

This is sort of neurotic, but could anyone measure the distance between the top of the 'R' or 'T' key and the bottom of the space bar?

I'm trying to get a feel for how vertically roomy this keyboard is. The number and function keys ain't a big deal.

TIA

 

Yes they do.

 

It is 7.2 mm

 

No.
But my HDD was making a high pitch noise.
Sony is replacing it for free, even though I was going to replace the Toshiba HDD with a 7200 rpm WD HDD for $80

 

Ah thanks. Looks like I'm gonna buy the model with i3 processor.

 

Thanks, but actually I was looking for the the length of all 4 rows of keys (from top of 'R' to bottom of 'space bar'). It should be something like 5 or 6 cm at least I would think. This gives a pretty good idea of how scrunched up the keyboard is vertically.

From the photos I'm assuming it's pretty descent horizontally.

 

My local Sony Style store had the new model with the i3 right next to the old model with the SU7300. Neither was making any high pitched noise.

I was reading the VAIO F owners threads where some cases of high pitched noise were reported, but those were solved by changing a microphone setting in the volume mixer or something like that. Sounds like an internal RFI/interference problem, since the microphone input has high gain. In any case, the problem seems fairly rare.

I measured 2 7/8" from the top of the T key to the bottom of the space bar.

That's 7.3 cm.

The keyboard is essentially identical to the one on the S, so if you can find one of those to play with you'll know what it's like.

 

I just have purchased a Y-series today. It is to arrive around July 15th.

 

Can the i5-430um and intel graphics handle 1080p youtube vids smoothly?

 

Even Core 2 Duo SU7300 with integrated graphics handles 1080p videos flawlessly. I don't see why not.

 

is it possible to do any light gaming on the Y?

I'm also thinking of either Asus UL30VT or the Y with i3.

The Asus will handle CSS for sure, but how about the undervoltet i3 + Intel HD?

 

Awesome, thanks.

Even better, I think I'll whiz by the Sony Style Store. I just checked and there's one not that far from here. I didn't even know there was such a thing.

 

If I can get some decent bunchmark numbers for the i5-430UM, I might be sold...

 

I'm thinking of getting the i5-430UM version with the Intel/integrated graphics.

If anyone has this version, could you give me some clue as to what to expect for battery life? If anyone has the i3 version, that would probably be useful too.

Also, has anyone installed Linux on one of these?

 

The Acer 1810t and Asus UL20A & UL30A supposedly can handle CSS. They both have SU7300 + integrated graphics. So the Y with integrated graphics should be able to handle it too.

But why not go for the Mobility Radeon HD 4550 option? The i3-330UM with HD 4550 will be a better gaming option than the UL30VT, and the HD 4550 is only an extra $50 from the US Sony Style site.

The i5-430UM + HD 4550 configuration should be roughly on the same level as the Asus UL30JT, but the i5 is a $100 option so it's a little harder decision.

Have you seen the review & benchmarks of the Asus UL30JT on netbooklive.net? It's the i5-520UM instead of the i5-430UM, but they should be in the same ballpark since the 520UM has a slightly lower standard clock rate but slightly higher Turbo Boost rate. The Asus also has the Nvidia 310M, which is about on the same level as the ATI HD 4550.

Review is here
Benchmarks are here

I was pretty impressed by the performance, but it sounded like heat & battery life suffer a bit.

 

hey all, don't mean to butt in to a conversation, but I had a question. I'm currently searching for a laptop that will be used during college, and the Y caught my eye. I love everything about it, especially that its a good $200-300 cheaper than the other notebooks i was considering, but what threw me off was the low processor speed. 1.2GHz? I'm not extremely well-versed in how the different components of a notebook will affect its performance, but it seems to me that that is pretty low.. I know its focused on battery life so its low-voltage, but how much does that affect its performance?

Would I be hurting myself by getting this over something like an EA/B or Envy14 or Asus U33 bamboo or something like that? I don't plan on running really any games at all, but I do like to multitask- for the sake of argument, lets say typing a word document while listening to music and skyping and browsing the internet.. would the Y be able to handle that?

And also I use Hulu religiously, and I plan to buy an external DVD drive if i get a notebook, so would the Y be able to run movies and Hulu videos crisply? Thanks very much!

EDIT: for readability

 

I got the Y.

Like a few of you, I was tempted by the Toshiba Portege R705, which is only $800 at Best Buy. But ultimately, I decided there are very few times where I'd appreciate the extra power of the i3-350M, but I'd always appreciate the lower power consumption of the ULV and lack of heat on my lap. The R705 also had odd key spacing and no bluetooth (not deal breakers, but contributing factors). I had previously ruled out the alternative ULV laptops from Asus and Acer because of the keyboards, displays, and build quality.

amill311 - My usage is similar to yours and a ULV processor seems to be fine for that. For that matter, my 5 year old VAIO S560 was fine for all that too, after a memory upgrade & some optimization. Even the Atom powered Sony X can do HD Flash video smoothly now that Flash 10.1 is out. The only reasons I see for a faster computer are games, editing/encoding/transcoding HD video, or maybe some of the fancier Photoshop effects on really large images. I think we've reached a point where Intel is capable of speeding up our laptops faster than Microsoft can slow them down.

 

Congrats! I'd consider the Y myself, since I mostly do basic stuff. But I wanna be able to edit AVCHD video every now and again, so the ULV is a no go for me.

 

Is there a need to get a delicated graphic card for the Y if you dont game?

How much of a battery power do you save by not choosing it in a typical run?

 

Damn...damn...damn...

A few pages back, I said I'd lost interest. But with the reality of there being next to NO time in law school, I'm thinking I should settle for the Y so I can't game regularly HAHA. What do I DO!!!!!

 

@dmk2- thats good to know, I'm rather new to notebooks (family likes desktops) and after reading through forums and reviews and stuff, I got to the point where it seemed that if I didn't have an i5-540 and ATI 56xx graphics and a full HD screen, I wouldn't be able to run Word without lag haha.

But if the Y can run movies and light gaming (nothing more than SWTOR when its released and WoW, if that) and multitask, looks like I'm set. Would it be better to go with i3UM and ATI, or i5 and Intel? I know i5 and ATI would be best of both worlds, but I feel like that would compromise battery life too much.. or would it?

 

I have had no problems doing multitask with the Y.

Most of the time I am running FF with 2-4 tabs, Excel 2010, Outlook and Camtasia for PP.
I watch HULU and Youtube with 1080,720 and no stutter problem what so ever. The only time I have problems is when my Comcast connection struggles at peak hour.

 

No.

The Y has no problems playing Hulu,Youtube or any other online video in HD.

I have some Blue ray DVD and it plays fine. I use WMP with CCCodec.

 

Which processor and GPU do you have?

 

I have the basic model
Intel® Core™ i3-330UM (1.20GHz)
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Features: 13.3" LED backlit LCD, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, Bluetooth®, webcam, HDMI™ out

I will be upgrading to a 7200 RPM HDD later in the week.

 

Sorry,
it has the basic Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator HD