Official Vaio Y 13.3 Series Owners Lounge

The version to be sold in China has dedicated GPU - ATI 540v:

VAIO Y21ϵÁÐ ±Ê¼Ç±¾µçÄÔ | VAIO ±Ê¼Ç±¾µçÄÔ Ë÷Äá¹Ù·½ÍøÕ¾

 

All these add ons, might as well get a S from BB.

 

I know!

Before you know it this things battery life will end up around 3.5 hours.

 

Think they had the S at my BB. Specwise, seemed alright. Not impressed by plastic materials.


I'm betting on the Envy 14 for now.

 

Now available on US sony store with customizer:
VAIO Y Series PC | Sony | SonyStyle USA
I guess it should be rolling out in other countries soon.

 

I doubt that...

The model with the U5400 can be found on most European Sony websites but no model with an i3. In the US Sony website, you can find the model with the i3, but not the U5400.

That tells me that I shouldn't expect an i model around these parts...

EDIT:
Forget what I said above, it's false...

The UK website only has the U5400. The French and German websites both have the i3/i5 models and the option to customize the laptop. The Portuguese website, it's like the UK one, only U5400 and not customizable.

I just wish I could at least get the i3...

 

It's an i3-330 UM, so it's probably not such a huge leap performancewise from the previous SU7300.

 

What does the UM mean exactly?

Intel stated that the new Core i ULV processors were 30% faster than the previous (SU7300 for instance) Core 2 Duo ULV models... Maybe that UM is not part of that "new Core i ULV" processors?

If I was to buy it right now, I would have 2 choices:
SU7300 (699€ » $860 USD)
U5400 (799€ » $983 USD)

(conversions from Euro to USD with Google)

Do you think the U5400 is worth the extra cost?

The CPU and probably the battery life are the 2 most important things that changed between the models (the ones available here at least). If the battery life is better than in the previous model, than the extra cost would already compensate for me, but we don't have any info regarding battery life yet...

I'm still undecided between the SU7300 vs the new U5400 because of the price difference, I need to know if the new one is worth it. Of course, that would be a much easier decision if the battery life was improved on the new model.

 

First off, it's Intel making the 30% claims, so I'd read the fine print and see what the likes of Toms Hardware and others who compare performance benchmarks and real life usage have to say. Also, which processors did Intel compare the SU7300 to? If they compared the i5-540UM to the SU7300, expect to see smaller improvements with the i3-330UM.


I can't comment on battery life as I haven't seen any tests for the new processors. If you want really nice battery life, you should also check out Asus's UL30VT/UL30JT lines, though the UL30JT seems to be available everywhere in the world except America. Asus like Apple these days packages their notebooks with proprietary power-saving software with their Windows 7 installations. In contrast, Sony is disappointingly absent in this area. If a long battery life is a major criterion for buyers, you'd think Sony and other companies would hire a few more software engineers to design software for their ULV configurations.


But my main concern is the value proposition this notebook offers over the previous version through the pricing on the i3-330UM and i5-430UM configurations. The SU7300-equipped version of the Y was already deemed pricey by notebook blogs at $800, but that was somewhat justified by the nice build construction, a great keyboard, and a pretty good touchpad, things we often miss in lower-priced ultraportable notebooks. I was personally hoping that Sony would drop the price on remaining shipments of SU7300-equipped versions and sell the i5-430UM version for the old $800 price with the occasional $100 discount that Sony occasionally though quietly posts on its website. Since school starts in a month and a half, I can't expect Sony to discount it so soon, so the final price in my mind excludes any such promotions.


However, Sony just discounted the starting price to $769 for the i3 version and made the i5 upgrade worth $100 more. While this refresh 5 months after the 1st generation's January earns Sony brownie points for its dedication to remaining competitive in this recession, $869 for the i5 version leaves me feeling kind of sad as it pushes my $700 money-saving budget for a ULV notebook. I'm not expecting more than a $100 discount on this 2-3 months from now, and with little time left to decide on a notebook for school, I'm not counting on Sony to discount the Y before my deadline. The $869 price point pushes the wallet.


My budget plan is to either spend $1,000 to $1,200 for a premium notebook with robust specs, a beautiful screen, large multitouch touchpad, and a magnesium/aluminum chassis or up to $800 for a well-rounded ULV. Because the previous generation Y didn't fulfill my personal set of criteria for a "well-rounded ULV" with its mediocre battery life, I wasn't all that inclined to pay $800 for it. As with the SU7300 version, the i3/i5 version more than likely won't have the 10+ hour battery life we're seeing with other 13.3" notebooks out there unless Sony has this time chosen to install its own custom software to manage battery life as Asus does. Compared to the UL30VT, the UL30JT with the i5-430UM actually loses an hour or more of battery life, runs hotter, and runs louder. So when you toss in my expectation that the i3/i5 versions won't have long battery lives and the $869 price tag for an i5-equipped version, I'm left tempted to take another look at the Macbook Pro 13 even though the Mac doesn't run Windows natively. In sum, I wasn't up for shelling out $800 for a notebook with so-so battery life. That's why I was hoping for another $100 off discount on it. Now that the i5 version is $869, I may have to look elsewhere unless Sony comes out of nowhere and offers at least a $100 coupon to sweeten things up.


In the end, if you just need a light notebook with ok performance, an enjoyable keyboard, solid build construction, and a livable touchpad, I would recommend the i3-equipped Y over comparable notebooks. But if you want the i5-430UM's extra performance and don't need to Windows natively, I'd shell over extra $ for a Macbook/Macbook Pro 13 or an Envy 14 if it lives up to the hype. The new Macbook Pro 13s get an estimated 10-hour battery life and have faster processors.


I'll be weighing my final purchase decision within a month or earlier upon the Envy 14's upcoming release. If the Envy doesn't come with any generous discounts, I may find myself coming back here and re-evaluating my notebook buy. Here's to hoping Sony offers a generous discount within a month.


In the end, I blame Intel for its de facto monopoly. We're not seeing as much innovation in the PC sphere as we're seeing in mobile devices because of Intel's chokehold over PC CPU competition. AMD's inability to claw itself past its position as distant runner-up has led to a repeat of the 1990s-early 2000s: Snail-slow improvements and no revolutionary breakthroughs.

 

The Asus are out of the question... Although the JT is not yet available here (but there are lots of people waiting for it), Asus support is very bad lately (around here anyways) but that's not what's putting me off of Asus. Two friend's of mine had Asus laptops before, the construction was horrible and it felt cheap and plastic. My girlfriend bought a recent Asus, U30JC (not ULV type, but it has around 6h of battery life) and I don't like it's construction either. It feels cheap and weak.

About the Envy, I didn't knew it until all of you started talking about it and then I saw it as an HP. It may be a good lappy, specs wise, bu I don't like the HP designs, the laptops are too round for my tastes.. Also, they keyboard is ugly as hell; I find the laptop quite ugly overall.

Mac's are also out of the question, but I don't want to start a discussion on that.

I can't tell you what Intel compared the new ULV's with, I just saw this:
Intel Core i3, i5, i7 Ultra-thin - Engadget Galleries

And I know I should take that with a grain of salt, but it will be difficult to find benchmarks with all these new processors in a few days, we'll have to wait until they are more widely available.

About the battery life... I don't need something like 10hours as the Asus claims their new ULVs. I mentioned the battery life and the difference between the new and old Sony Y models because of one simple thing. The old models claim to have around 7hours of battery life but most reviews of the Y series claimed a lot less (can't remember how much, maybe around 4.5/5). Now, if the new models (which seems to be around 9hours as claimed by Sony) were around 6.5/7h and the little extra performance out of the U5400 vs the SU7300, than the 100€ difference would be worth it to me.

If the battery is the same and the performance between the U5400 and SU7300 is not that big of a deal, than the 100€ might not be worth it...

I'm still undecided on that...

 

Yeah. I totally understand. The Envy 14's aesthetics aren't for everyone and the Asus's plastics and mushy keyboard drove me toward the Y. If Sony would work on tweaking up battery life as Asus does, I wouldn't be so ambivalent about pricing. I'm willing to go the budget route for a well-rounded ULV or splurge more $ on a premium notebook.


Didn't read your original post carefully, so I'm afraid I talked about oranges while you discussed apples. I don't know how well the U5400 fares in real life applications, but FWIW, it seems to be a slight performance boost over the SU7300. I don't have benchmarks to look through, but if it's like other incremental processor upgrades out there like the i5-430M vs. i5-520M, I don't think it's worth $100 more unless you have CPU-intensive applications that will run significantly faster. If you do, you may fare better in ditching the UM-series and checking out better performing CPUs.

Comparison chart here shows the U5400 lacks Virtualization support. If you're running multiple OSes or instances of an OS, the SU7300 will be the logical choice.


As for the US version...wish they'd make the i5-430UM standard. i3-330UM with no turboboost is lame!

 

I've been looking at the sony Y for the same reasons and was just hoping for a moderate increase in battery life. I don't like the quote of 6hrs on sonystyle.com

I've now turned my attention to the new Toshiba r700, any thoughts?

 

No detailed reviews on it. The internal honey-comb design and the new cooling system sound nice on paper. Release date's in April, so all we can do is speculate on it until someone gets their hands on one and reviews it.

EDIT: The fact that it's lighter than the Vaio Y, has i3/i5-M processors, and still manages to stay cool should be enough to cause Sony to think twice about the pricing on the i5-430UM. If you have time to wait for the R700, I'd wait. It looks extremely promising. Though only so much can be deduced from videos and short blog descriptions, it's not as cheap-looking as the Asus UL30VT/JT.

 

Hi guys. I just noticed this laptop on SonyStyle.ca. I used to have an SZ260 and now have an HP laptop (dv5-1157). I like that this Y-series is small and portable though.

When it comes to the processor, I know it's a 1.3ghz processor... what does this mean for performance for someone with the usage described below (basically typical average computer usage)? My current computer has a 2.0ghz processor, and I'm wondering performance wise if I'll be able to do the same things on a Y-series as I can on my current computer.

I use my computer for work, MS Office Suite, media (movies, music, images), some very light image editing (Paint Shop Pro), and the usual internet/email/etc. I don't really play any games, unless you count the occasional spider solitaire and free online Tetris

Would it be a big performance downgrade going from my current computer to a Y-series?

 

I knew I had forgot about asking you something, this was it...

What exactly does Asus do to tweak the battery life? How can they improve it through software? Better yet, what do they do that you can't normally do with Windows itself? Cant you just tweak the power settings yourself to your liking and increase battery life?

I supposed you are talking Power 4 Gear and I'm really interested in know exactly what they do with it and if it should be installed. I'm asking this because my girlfriend has the U30JC and when I clean installed Windows I decided not to install Power 4 Gear cause it looks to me that it doesn't anything else that you can't already do with Windows power settings.

From what I've read, VT-x is only beneficial if you want to run 64-bits OSs, if you don't, it doesn't matter cause it doesn't do much. If that's true, than I don't need it. I use VMware and have both Linux and Windows XP running but they are 32bits and quite frankly, I don't need them to be 64bits.

But if you can point me any other advantage on VT-x that may be worth it to me, I'm all ears and might consider the SU7300. My research about the subject, came up only with the 64bits thing, nothing else.

 

Good point.

 

I'm not 100% sure whether it's Power4Gear, but I can tell you it's the software alright. Software is the main reason Apple's Macbook Pro 13 manages to pull off a 10 hour battery life. The problem with Windows 7 as an OS is it's not built specially for any special configuration. Microsoft just makes the OS and leaves it to the PC companies to create their own hardware configurations. Apple has only perhaps 5 different hardware configurations and as a result is able to optimize their OS software and integrate it with the hardware.

 

I still don't see/understand what the software does that Windows does not do already. And please note that I'm not talking about doing it without user interaction (like you said it's not built specifically for any special configuration). Windows has lots of advanced options regarding power consumption profiles, you can configure it however you want. My girlfriend's laptop, which is Asus, only came with Power 4 Gear (battery related) and what you could configure in that software, you could do it already in Windows without it. So, I don't see why the software is needed at all...

P.S: The last 2 paragraphs on your last post are mine, forgot to delete it from your quote? Or forgot to comment on something?

I was at my local store just a few hours ago and saw the new Y model (the one with the U5400), all I wanted was to grab it and take it with me. But I'm afraid of doing it and then the i3/i5 model comes out (which I honestly believe it won't happen, but you never know).

 

Yeah, looks like a booboo. Fixed.

The Asus software is somewhat of a mystery to me too, so much of what I said is mostly based on what I read in the Asus forums. I'm not convinced that Power 4 Gear does what Win7 already does. Win7 determines when the notebook sleeps or turns off the display. I'm willing to guess P4G or whatever software affects battery life has some control over CPU performance-oriented.


As for the i3/i5 models, they're now available for order on Sonystyle's US website. However, I can't justify the price increase the i5 incurs. In a change of heart from months ago, I've become a little more performance

 

No, Win7 does much more than that... There's lot of advanced settings.

 

Is the new Y i5 with 512mb dedicated video worthy of purchase as a 3D/2D designer's laptop? I am wanting the 13" size for ultra portability with use with an external large monitor - the Z would be perfect, but is really beyond my budget. I like the Sony brand over Dell, Hp.......and the Acer 3830tg may take forever to get to the US. I just don't know if the lower ghz speed is a deal-breaker. I want a purchase that will be a big jump from my 4 year old Dell desktop duo core.

 

You can now configure the Y series in the UK with an i5 UM processor. It can run to be quite pricey.
My nephew has got an Acer Timeline and i did a clean install also and didn't install any Acer special power management.
At first battery life seemed to drop but then i put the graphics drivers into max power saving and battery life went back to how it was out of the box.

Using the silent mode may also help to extend your battery life further.

 

That Toshiba R700 looks pretty tough. Apparently they will be on display in Best Buy coming this Sunday.

I think my money will go to the one with the longest battery life.

 

As usual, Portugal is always left behind...

I've checked the following Sony Style websites: Spain, France, UK and Germany. They all allow costumers to personalize their laptops with the components they want and Portugal is left behind...

It's not just the Y, we can't customize any model...

I either pick the U5400 or pick a different brand... But every other model out there, similar to the Y, is simply ugly, or have bad keyboards, or hav bad keyboards, there's always something.

Don't get me wrong, the Y is not perfect either but I would prefer it over any other laptop on the market right now.

 

I already saw it today at the BB store. Its model R705. They put other new models out too.

It goes for $799. It looks almost the Y or the Z. Only 3.3 lb with DVD drive. One thing I find is that the HDMI is too near to the edge.

 

Looks like I'll be stopping by BestBuy tomorrow. If they have it cheaper there, I might pick it up!

 

Same for the greek store as well which I'm looking at. They still have only the old model.

 

Toshiba R700 is where the fun's at. I'm going to read and watch reviews when they come out.

 

Give us a review when you get it.

 

Hi guys. Is there actually anyone who's taken the plunge and bought this lappie? In my country, they can only be had with the U5400 processor, at least, at the moment.So I'd be curious to know how the processor fares for HD movies playback, HD streaming, and multitasking, of course. What worries me though, is a complaint of a few folks who ' ve bought and returned the unit because of a fairly unpleasant high-pitched whistle kind of noise produced by the machine. Any thoughts ?

 

There must be a reason why they put HDMI on there. It sure will run 720p or 1080p fine. I heard about the high pitch noise also. That someone else can comment.

BTW, how to pay HD if you dont have blu-ray?

 

Son of a gun. It wasn't even there! Seems like my BestBuy is behind the curve!

 

Streamed movies, downloaded movies, and externally played vids.

 

HDMI is one of the marketing buzzwords of today, mate. They put them on just about every notebook (or even netbook) these days. I´m talking from my own experience. I bought an Acer 4810t last year with a core2solo processor (a big mistake) and soon found out there was no way this otherwise nice machine was capable of playing HD streams , not even 720p. Despite it having a HDMI.

 

It is at my BB store in Morrow, GA. They put out all over new models this week. Here is link to BB store and click CHECK STORE.

Toshiba - Portege Laptop / Intel® Core™ i3 Processor / 13.3" Display / 4GB Memory / 500GB Hard Drive - Blue - R705-P25

It say BLUE. It looks more like a dark blue to me.

I was thinking of getting the Y, but for the same price and you get a i3 processor(not SLUV), a DVD drive and 3.2 lb vs 4.1 lb for the Y?

You might want to wait for tax free day coming up in Aug when kids go back to school.

I think the Y price should come down to $500.

 

I agree. Comparing the Toshiba to the Vaio S is a tougher call, but the Toshiba vs the Y seems easy.

 

Where can I find the latest Bios for the Y
I can not find it on the US drivers site and when i search the asia sites the only Bios they have is for the VPCY 115FG

 

Anyone else who bought a new Y series having problems with the fan not turning off.

The fan is always on and its loud.

 

I see your reasons.

 

Sorry, but if you're looking for an ultraportable, the Toshiba's an easier choice over the S.

 

I had the Y-series and it was the perfect machine. But I had to return it because the panel had a dead pixel which I couldn't get rid of.

 

Maybe it's just me but, don't you guys think the Toshiba keyboard is very ugly? Well, not as ugly as previous models, still, pretty ugly if you ask me.

It may have a better processor, DVD drive and less weight but the VAIO may have better construction, better keyboard and some other stuff too.

 

How so? I don't care how it looks as much as how easy it is to type with it.

 

Yeah, how so?

Agreed.

 

In what way it is ugly? I think almost everyone try to copy Sony keyboard. At least Sony came out with the big oversize TI calculator button first. Some call it chicket key?

 

Meh. I'm a guy. Aesthetics tend to come last in my buying decisions.

 

How does the Y handle video (streaming video and video conferencing softwares)? The model in Canada (non-customizable) has the following processor and graphics specs:

Type: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo SU7300
Speed: 1.30GHz
L2 Cache: 3MB
Technology: Consumer Ultra-Low Voltage (CULV)

Processor: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD Total Available Graphics Memory: 1759MB
Chipset: Mobile Intel® GS45 Express Chipset
Max. External Resolution via VGA: 2048x1536
Max. External Display Resoluton via HDMI™: 1920x1080

 

Handles streaming video just fine. However, bottlenecks like your connection speed and internet traffic come into play like everything else. I'm not sure about video conferencing as I never tried that out.

Please note that this Y-series has already been discontinued in Sony Stores here in Canada. The new ones are coming soon.

 

Oh, really?! I didn't realize - I just noticed it on the SonyStyle.ca website recently. Any word on when a new one will be coming out?

Thanks for the information, BTW.

 

When I returned my Y-series they said the new ones should hit the Sony Style stores end of June or early July. They didn't have any more of the current Y-series in stock and they couldn't order any because it's already discontinued and they would get slapped on the wrist for ordering discontinued stock. Main difference with the new refreshes is the processor (will go apparently to the I3-U5400 and a 500gig hard drive).

Price will increase to $899. However, the difference in price does not justify the difference in specs. There is no visible difference in performance between the SU7300 and the U5400 from what I've read.

If I were you, I would go to a Sony Style store where you live and see if they have any current Y-series in stock and ask them to reduce the price for you since the new ones are coming out.

Aesthetically speaking, I really liked the Y-series I had. Everything was in a matte finish but I would have preferred a matte screen instead of a glossy one.

Your local Sony store will always get the product first before you see it on the Sony Style Canadian website. The Y-series hit the stores and only showed up on the Canadian website about a month after.