Official Vaio Y 13.3 Series Owners Lounge

Simple solution: Don't move it fast.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

... or the infamous quote: "Just avoid holding it in that way."

If the screen feels too loose to you, remember that you can get a full refund within 30-day period.

 

I think screen quality has dropped off quite a bit. 5 years ago, the consumer market was full of "multimedia" laptops and many of them had nice screens. Now, if you walk into a retailer like Best Buy or Microcenter, you won't find a single nice screen in the place except on the MBP and even that one is half ruined by the glass finish.

Keyboards have gone downhill too, and overall build quality in general just isn't the same as it used to be. But then again, prices are a lot cheaper now. I think the arrival of netbooks put a lot of pressure on mfrs to drop the prices on their consumer laptops and quality has really dropped off.

There aren't many. Sony Z, Envy 13, and MBP are the only ones I've seen that I would call "good", and only the Sony has a decent anti-glare finish.

 

Yes. Burn a set of recovery DVDs first. After the re-install, Google for and download the Sony extractor tool. You'll need it to extract the .mod files on the recovery DVDs. Then browse the data folders on the recovery DVDs until you find the software you want to install. Most of the .mod file names are descriptive so you'll know what they are, but unfortunately some are not. So if you don't find what you're looking for by file name, you'll have to start extracting the unknown ones.

 

So what is the point of the hidden partition if one still needs to burn recovery DVDs?

Should I burn the DVDs using Windows' built-in software or one of the Sony programs?

 

The recovery partition is redundant, but redundancy in this case is good. Some people won't bother to create the DVDs, others might lose the DVDs, and some DVDs might go bad.

You'll want to burn the recovery DVDs for two reasons:

1. If your hard drive ever fails or you upgrade to a SSD or other drive, you'll lose the recovery partition. If that happens, you can use the DVDs to restore the factory configuration or to create a new recovery partition on the new drive.

2. You can browse the contents of the recovery DVDs but not the contents of the recovery partition. So if you want to manually install bundled software that's not available for download from Sony, you'll need the DVDs.

You'll need to use VAIO Care to burn the recovery DVDs because Windows can't see the recovery partition. You can also burn a system image at any time using the Windows recovery tools. The difference is that the recovery discs you burn through VAIO Care can restore the system to its factory configuration, while the system image discs you burn through Windows can recover the state of the system when they were burned. It's really best to burn both. Burn the VAIO recovery discs when you first get the system and then burn a system image once you're done installing all your software, transferring your files, and setting up the system.

 

hello

can someone help me choose between the Sony VAIO VPCY216FX and Toshiba Portege R705.

I'm having a really hard time choosing!

Toshiba R705:
pro: better processor + DVD drive
con: battery life issue(read some people are only getting ~4hrs even though toshiba advertises 8 hrs)


Sony VPCY216:
Pro: better battery life than toshiba due to ULV processor?, bluetooth(not crucial)

Cons: slower processor, a little heavier than toshiba


I'm looking for a light laptop preferably with a dvd drive that I can take to school without the power adapter. The Toshiba would be great for this purpose except that many people have started reporting that it's almost impossible to get 8 hrs of battery life on it.

The Sony laptop has a great battery life (true or false?) but is a little slower and does not have a dvd drive which means I would have to buy an external drive.


Which laptop would you get if you were in my shoes? any comment on their build quality?
Thanks for your input!

sony specs:
Sony VAIO VPCY216FX/B Laptop Computer - Intel Core i3-330UM 1.2GHz, 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, 13.3 Display, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, Black at TigerDirect.com

toshiba specs:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba...Blue/1007392.p?skuId=1007392&id=1218207656035


on a side note:

does anyone know a laptop with similar specs and long battery life but
with a 14 inch screen?

 

well, does your Y do the same? I just want to know if other people has the same problem or just me. So I can bug them within warranty. I always forget moving slow.

I had it for a couple months now, couldn't really get a full refund. Plus, Sony Store never had a full refund. As long as you open the box and wants to return, you have to pay 15% restocking fee.

 

Thanks. You've been most helpful.

 

Carrying around an external dvd drive sort of sounds like a pain in the butt, so if you really need this I'd be tempted to go with the Toshiba. Alternatively, have you thought about purchasing a 16 or 32 GB flash drive?

 

Not sure about battery life. Sony only advertises 6 hours for the new Y. They used to advertise 8 hours for the old Y with SU7300, and it could get 6-6:30 on a charge doing web surfing over wifi and a bit more if you're just using office apps. The jury is still out on the new model, but maybe an hour less? That would put it in close competition with the Toshiba R705.

If you need more battery life from the Y, you can order it with the extended battery. Alternately, if you have a Sony Style store nearby, you can still buy one of the old models. Most still have stock remaining and will discount.

If you actually want to use a DVD drive while you're away from home, e.g. to watch DVDs that you haven't ripped to the HD, then the Y is not a good choice. I never use an optical drive except for installing store bought software, so I don't miss it on the Y.

Build quality is good on both machines. The R705 is lighter and a little smaller, but feels just as sturdy. I think the R705 is a little more stylish and attractive. They both have average screens. The Y has a better keyboard and runs really cool & quiet. The R705 has more power and DVD drive. I was put off by the heat generated by the R705 and the location of the fan intake (blocked when you're using on your lap) otherwise I would have gone with that instead. I think the R705 would actually be a better machine with an i5-430UM or i7-640UM ULV instead of the standard voltage i3-350M, but the price would probably be higher.

 

thanks. i think you're right. i think i'll go with the toshiba. i think it's lightweight enough that i can carry the power cord.

thanks!

 

Nice comparison. I haven't seen a Y myself (and the R700 is tempting) so I was curious about how the two compared.

 

Hey everyone,

I've been lurking around this forum for the past week as I've been wanting to read some feedback on Sony's Y series since I'm in the market for a ULV Laptop. I've also considered Asus, Acer and HP's ULV series in the decision making process and had originally picked up a Asus UL40VT and the keyboard flex was too much for my taste, noisy keys especially on the WASD side of the keyboard and I just couldn't get the use of the touch pad and a single touch pad key bridging the left and right button.

But Sony's Y series seemed to have a better build but no dedicated GPU but I'm not in the market for games. I had originally purchased the VPCY216FX which has Intel's SU7300 processor and it was a great little machine but once I found that Sony had discontinued it and that I had bought an open box unit as the Futureshop I went to were using these $799 laptops for training(which is stupid). The techs had restored the laptop which took about 1 1/2 hours and CHARGED the battery while restoring which I found even more irresponsible of them as computer technicians, so I returned it

I'm picking up Sony's VPCY216FDB which has finally arrived in Canada and is exclusive at Futureshop at a hefty price of $899. So if there are any Canadians here check your local Futureshop if your interested.

I'll post up the Windows Experience Score, my own take on the laptop and battery life on real usage(web browsing, spreadsheets, programming etc).

Let me know if you guys want me to look into something specific about the laptop and I'll try to answer you the best I can.

 

For those who bought the Y Series, because it's fairly new, did Sony solve the battery drain issue when in standby or hibernation? I searched the thread and did not find a definite response. Thanks.

 

Sony revamped their Canadian website yesterday. You can order the i3-330 UM version from their website for the same price Future Shop is selling. I'm expecting the color choices will also be available in the near future.

 

Nice, it's about time they updated their website. But I just picked it up and I don't mind the Black only thing I wish was that they keyboard wasn't bilingual all these extra characters on the keyboard just makes it look too busy.

 

Oh that kinda sucks.
The SU7300 version doesn't have that bilingual keyboard.

 

I received my laptop on Monday and I absolutely love it. It may not be as sturdy as ThinkPad, but it's tolerably well built in terms of sturdiness. Windows Experience Index scores are as following:

CPU - 4.2
Memory - 4.9
Aero - 5.0
Graphics - 6.1
Hard Drive - 5.9

I'm surprised how smooth it can run Half Life 2 with maximum graphics settings and native resolution. CPU may seem lacking, but I don't think WEI is a good measure to evaluate the performance of Core i3, because everything just seems much smoother and snappier than my previous laptop, which had CPU score of 5.2.

 

Ya thats what I loved about the VPCY216FX's keyboard and now I'm hearing some sort of ticking noise which could be the HDD's needle so I might go exchange it sometime during the week.

 

The 4550 is doing you great! I'm glad to hear you finally received your VAIO and that your enjoying it =)

 

Well, after two attempts, I was able to conduct a clean install. I got the order of operations wrong on the first attempt, resulting on all sorts of weird problems.

Here is what I did...

Bios: Change boot order to boot from USB first
Connect external DVD USB drive ($45 from Newegg)
Booted from Windows 7 Pro 64 Disk
Deleted shipping C: partition and made two new C: (100 GB) and D: (185 GB) partitions (formatted capacity is about 295 GB out of the 320 GB
Installed Windows on the C: partition

After first boot...
-Installed Vaio Care
-Vaio Care accesses the "hidden" recovery partition, which I kept.

I installed in this order...
-Realtek Audio (reboot)
-Broadcom Bluetooth
-Marvell Atheros Lan (wired)
-Ricoh memroy card drivers x 3
-Intel Chipset drivers (Chipset, SATA, Management Engine, etc.)
-Synaptics Trackpad (reboot)
-Marvell Atheros WiFi driver

-Sony Firmware Extension Parser Device (important)
-Sony Shared Library
-Sony Notebook utilities
-ATI Driver (needed to download/install the file from the Sony site)
-ATI HDMI Driver
-Webcam driver/software

-Windows Updates
-Microsoft Security Essentials
-Office 2010 Professional Plus
-Office 2010 Updates
-Flash, Java, etc.
-Everything else (Including installing/updating Adobe Elements 8, etc. from the recovery partition.)

After it's all said and done, my laptop does seem to run smoother. No annoying Norton AV pop-ups, etc.

I saved $50 by not doing Fresh Start but then again I am an MS TechNet member, so I have easy access to the entire MS software library to include Win7 64 Pro, Office 2010, etc.

All functions work on the laptop as they should with the exception of the "Assist" button which now acts as a mute button. The "Vaio" button launches Vaio Care. All function keys work as they should.

No annoying Sony bloatware software either.

At the end of the day, I am happy with my purchase. This thing is small, light weight, easily portable, yet with all the power I need to have a seamless desktop experience. (I have used netbooks before and know how sluggish that experience can be and this is nothing like that.)

As for battery life, it's hard for me to judge. With 80% charge, it's saying I have 4 hours, 20 minutes of life remaining, but it hasn't budged from that for the past 15-20 minutes. I would guess I am getting at least around 5 hours with this with WiFi on and screen brightness at 50%.

In the end, this is the only laptop I found that had all the features I wanted, and I am quite happy with it. It feels solid, aside from a slightly loose battery, and I hope if I take care of it, it will give me a good 3-4 years of service.

In terms of features, I suppose that new wireless screen technology from Intel would be fun but certainly not necessary.

 

My Windows Experience Index:

CPU: 4.0 (Intel i3 330UM at 1.2GHz)
RAM: 5.4 (4GB)
GPU: 5.0 (ATI HD 540v)
Gaming: 6.2
HDD: 5.9 (320GB at 5400 rpm)

 

Which part of Canada are you in? I don't know if all of Canada will receive the bilingual keyboard.

 

U5400 vs. SU7300


The U5400 has lower bars on everything but I can't find the meaning of the benchmarks so I don't know if that's better or worse.

Does anyone know?

 

Did you have to do anything beyond asking nicely?

 

I logged on and asked the rep for a price quote on Y model with A specs (ATI, green, etc.). She came back with the online price ($860 OTD). I then asked her if any discounts were available. She came back with like $20 off or something. I then thanked her and told her I would take my business elsewhere, telling her I wanted it for below the "psychological barrier" of $800. She then told me to wait again while she spoke with her manager. After a few minutes she came back with the $100 discount for everything that I wanted. And I bought it.

I was polite and kind, chatted her up a little. Gail M is Canadian, so I even typed something along the lines of, "I'm one of those Americans who likes Canadians" or something silly in that direction. All in all a very pleasant transaction.

 

I cant decide this and the U700. Main difference I get it lighter with a DVD drive and 3 yr warranty for $800 with bing and ebay bucks. I actually like the Y too. Right now is 50/50 and dont know what to decide.

 

I found I never used my DVD drive, so why not get a laptop without one and save the space and weight?

I did buy an external DVD such that I could backup the hidden partition and install Win7 Pro 64 from a DVD. Otherwise, it will sit in the drawer.

 

Thanks. I'm lucky that I have a Sony Style store 30 min from work and a Best Buy right across the street from it, so I could see them both back to back. The R705 is a very tempting machine.

I'm not sure it was ever a problem with the Y.

I'm only losing about 2% per 24 hours in hibernate. I did change a few options (e.g. disabling wake timers for scheduled events) to prevent the computer from waking up, but I'm not sure that matters when in the hibernate state. I haven't really checked the loss in standby. I have it set to hibernate after an hour or when closing the lid, so it never sleeps for more than an hour.

For the SuperPi, Cinebench, and wPrime tests, shorter is better. For 3DMark, Dhrystone, and Whetstone, longer is better.

It looks to me like there is a single result for the U5400 but multiple results for the SU7300. Also, in most cases it looks like the U5400 result falls within the bounds of the SU7300 results. One exception is the second SuperPi result where the U5400 is much faster for some reason, but SuperPi is really the worst kind of synthetic benchmark - single threaded and not representative of real world tasks. Basically, I read these results as inconclusive. Further, the WEI and PCMark results I've seen show the i3-330UM to be only slightly faster than the SU7300 in CPU performance. There's a bit more of a difference in integrated graphics performance, but still not as much difference as I would have hoped for this upgrade.

 

By the way, the performance of the ATI discrete graphics option looks surprisingly good when paired with the i3-330UM. I can't wait to hear your longer term impressions of the battery life & heat.

 

Heat is kept to a minimum from what I can tell. The bottom nor the top get very hot or even very warm. You can feel some warmth if your hand is near the exhaust vent on the left side of the laptop. But compared to any other non-netbook notebook I've used, it runs the coolest.

 

I'm in Toronto, Ontario. More specifically Scarborough

 

Thanks DMK2. Keep us posted about the battery drain experience as I swore before I wasn't going to buy another Vaio until Sony fixes this issue.

 

So, if you had to choose between SU7300 ($700) and the U5400 ($800) in this Sony Y Series model. Which one would you pick?

For simplicity sake, let's just assume $1 = 1€, than, the prices above are the prices I can get those models here in Portugal.

 

Interesting that you would get the bilingual keyboard. I'm in Ottawa so we would definitely get it here.

I hope the new M-series won't have it.

 

This little ATI card is ridiculous! I'm right now playing Batman: Arkham Asylum with medium settings in native resolution, showing 25 - 40 fps.

 

Is that good or bad?

 

It's of course good. I just didn't expect it to be this good.

 

Trying to make this decision myself. I just read a post in the R700 forum of someone getting 5.5hrs on the R705 with light browsing. That seems to make more sense than only 4hrs but it's all relative until you get the lappy in your hands and do some testing on your own with your own settings

The Y is tempting with the discreet graphics option but you are also paying more for a heavier unit with a less powerful processor.

Haven't seen the Y yet but the R705 is really impressive in person.

Thanks for all the posts guys, all opinions/info are greatly appreciated!

 

The sony has a nicer display and ati 4550 instead of intergrated. The toshiba is lighter, thinner, has full processor, dvd drive. So it depends on what you want personally.

 

Any one having issues with hibernate.
My computer will not hibernate anymore.
I am using Balanced power opt.
And yes my Hibernate is turned on. Something is not allowing my comp to hibernate when I close the lid( again yes , its set to hibernate when lid closes)

The only thing I have changed is the HDD.
The original HDD that came with it (Toshiba 320 gb / 5400 rpm)
now it has (WD 320 gb / 7200 rpm)

I made a copy of the old disk using Paragon PM.

 

Acer TimelineX 4820T.

 

When I do an upgrade of this thing, it will be the HDD. I wonder how 7200 rpm affects battery life?

Anyway, no problems with hibernate here. In my experience, hibernate has problems if the drivers are not in order.

Please to say that I am getting 5+ hours of battery life.

My criteria before buying was to have enough juice for a transcon US flight, and I think I have that here.

 

When I saw TimelineX 3820T that one of my colleagues has, the first impression was that it has a massive flex on the keyboard and about 1/3 region of the screen. I wouldn't recommend it if it needs to be carried outside a lot.

 

upgrading to the 7200 rpm HDD made absolutely no noticeable difference to the battery life. I was getting 3.5 hrs with full bright and wifi and ~4.25 with 1/2 bright and wifi.
Stayed basically the same with new HDD.

 

Easy choice. I'd take the $100 and the old model.

There's a review of the Y with U5400 right here on the front page of NBR. Looking at the benchmarks, I see no difference between the U5400 model and the SU7300 model in PC Mark and only a small improvement in 3DMark. The WEI scores posted for the i3-330UM model with integrated graphics are also not significantly different than the SU7300. So I don't think you're going to gain any performance with the U5400. You also lose SSE and VT-X support with the U5400, though most people won't use them anyway.

 

Do you have a wake problem? In other words, does it try to hibernate and then immediately wake up again? If so, try again and after it wakes up, open a cmd window and type "powercfg /lastwake". That will tell you what's waking it up. Let me know what it says and I can help advise.

If it's not even trying to hibernate, it may be a sharing problem. Are you sharing folders, printers, or media?

Or do you have a old USB mouse or wireless USB mouse connected? It might be a selective suspend issue.

 

does the performance improve alot if I'd choose the i3 UM instead of U5400?
I really really like the Y, but have some doubts wether the performance is enough.

Purposes are like surfing, MS Words, a lot of multitasking, playing Wc3 and CSS and listening tu music.

 

After being "sold" on the Asus UL30VT-A1, I'm now leaning back towards the Vaio Y. Build quality is really important to me and I feel I'd be much happier with the Sony. I do, however, have a couple of questions that I hope you all can help me with.

1) I do want to get the HD4550, but I'm concerned about the hit to the battery life. Could I count on 5+ hours with wifi on? I have a stacked schedule at school this fall and I don't want to have to worry about my laptop dying.

2) Would the i3+HD4550 combination be capable of running SC2, D3 (nobody knows for sure yet, of course), ME, Steam, etc?

Thanks!