Sony SE Owners' Thread

Could somebody please check by looking in the BIOS if hardware virtualization is available? At the beginning of this thread somebody was mentioning that Sony Vaios have it disabled, but Google shows this as a 2009 problem which should have been fixed by now. Thanks.

 

How much thicker does the sheet battery make the unit?

 

It's available and can be enabled.

 

Thanks for the information.

 

I went to see the Vaio SE at the store a few days ago and was really impressed by the screen: no reflections, great viewing angles and good brightness. Then I read about the bad colours and went to see it again. I put a red wallpaper and it just looked like orange. The Vaio Z and even the 13"SB have nicer looking reds.
My question is if there's any way that can be fixed or calibrated? If not I think it's really a dealbraker since the reds on my 4 year old cheapToshiba laptop look better.

 

I think it should be possible to mitigate the worst of the effects if you're using a color-managed application, such as Firefox or Photoshop. (Which reminds me that I need to experiment with this...) But in Windows itself and in general applications, I don't think there's a fix.

 

From your link ^ and some searching, ABR does not work so well with Windows 7. Got any pointers? I am mostly interested in a very easy way to insure that it will work. I read about some patches and can do that, but if it isn't foolproof and simple, there are other methods I prefer- including re-entering the OEM key. Thanks

 

Having just read a couple of reviews on the SE, I'm a bit concerned about the noise emissions..

Googletrans from notebookinfo.de: "Users need to make concessions on volume development. Even in idle mode, we measure a base level of 33 decibels (A). Let's start a high-resolution video displays, a rash on our meter over 40 dB (A). We also have a video rendering of the resources of Intel processor up to 53 dB (A) can be achieved. The high-frequency noise, the fan can push also annoying to the ears. After all, warm up by the high fan speed upper and lower, on average, not above 33 degrees Celsius."

And googletrans from notebookjournal.de "Once again, a Sony laptop shows its weaknesses in ergonomics. Because the fan is too loud under load, and we measure simultaneously high temperatures, it only extends to 2.5 stars" and "The noise level is regulated, in principle, agreeable. As long as the notebook is loaded with little work - for example when writing e-mails - the aggressive fan remains virtually silent. As more load is applied, we measured 49 dB really bad".

Is it really that noisy? I don't care too much about the noise levels under heavy stress, but one of the main reasons for buying a new laptop is that I can't take my current laptop to the library or in lectures without it disturbing everyone.

 

@edonis:

Other than when I ran BatteryEater... fan has not come on for me. And even then, it wasn't any louder than fans on my other notebooks.

But I've only been using it for web browsing so that's really "light" use.

 

Ok, thanks! Guess I have no excuse for not placing an order then

 

It's definitely a noticeable amount of thickness. I don't have it in front of me now, so I can't say for sure, but maybe half an inch? It doesn't add too much weight though, and if you use the computer on your lap at all, it does seem to absorb / mitigate a lot of the heat, so that's a nice bonus.

 

That's strange. I am so surprised Sony made a screen that looks so nice(much nicer than Vaio SA anyway) and yet they screwed up with the colours. I hope they look into it and fix it somehow or someone else finds a decent solution.

 

About half an inch.

 

+1 Here. I've heard the fans perhaps 3 times since I've had the machine (little over 2 weeks). Typically quiet as a church mouse but I'm mostly using it for VPN access to work.

 

The nice thing I've noticed about the add-on battery is it's not really a solid slice... but actually hollowed out... so you get some ventilation and it makes it lighter.

I may one if they lower the price to below $100 (vs. $150).

 

$134.22 shipped no tax: Sony VGP-BPSC29 Notebook Battery VGPBPSC29 - Buy Sony Notebook Tablet Accessories | PCNation.com

Ordered it today, I think it's well worth the money.

 

I just went to plug in my dual monitors and noticed that a standard vga connector blocks the hdmi port....

Looks like I'll be ordering a docking station sooner than I thought.

 

Free slice battery being offered on store.sony.ca....

Hurry up pay cheque!!

 

ABR Backup works absolutely brilliantly with Win 7, that's what everyone is using. It couldn't be easier, one click to backup, one click to restore. Just keep it on a USB and that's it.

 

As I'm approaching my 30-day (next week actually), I've decided that the Sony SE is a keeper.

I realize the color reproduction isn't perfect (thanks to moralar) but the screen still looks amazing. The battery life is average... but it's so thin, light and portable. The sound is much better with Dolby activated and I'm slowly getting used to the left of center keyboard (but will always prefer centered).

I just need to Anytime Upgrade to WinPro and I can retire the old Dell Inspiron. Now that my search for "Biggie" is coming to a close, I think I will concentrate on finding "Smalls". The leader is the Tosh Z830... but I just hate that 1366x768 resolution, esp with this 1080p SE. Maybe "Smalls' will end up being the new Transformer Prime... at least that runs 1280x800... every little pixel helps... hehe.

 

I know that one person had a bad screen, and described it whitening or "bleaching" out. This has happened to mine 3 times, where the colors start to distort. If I turn the display off then on, it goes away. Seems to happen on battery - anybody else have this happen?

 

That's Intel's Display Power Saving Technology. You can try either turning it off or setting the slider to maximum quality. It's in the Intel graphics and media control panel.

 

The blu-ray player/DVD writer isn't available yet as a configuration option on the UK store. The blu-ray writer is still a very expensive addition (+£370 vs +$300 on sony.com) but a reasonably priced player would be a nice companion to the full-HD screen (+$100 on sony.com.)

Also, the clip-on 3D panel, VGP-FL3D15A, is now showing up as a pre-order accessory.
Has anyone got this with their SE yet?
Is the 3D effect convincing?

 

Hello everybody!

After three years I think it is time to replace my current Compal notebook. At first I wanted to buy the new Samsung Series 7 notebook, but that screen is so bad that I don't want one anymore. I'm now looking for other notebooks, such as the Vaio SE and the Dell XPS 15z.

I will mostly use the notebook for school (Computer Science), web browsing and some light gaming (Anno 1404 / 2070 and possibly Skyrim). How do you think the Vaio SE will perform doing these tasks?

I did read some reviews of the Vaio SE and most reviews said the screen is great (I find that important), but I also just red in this topic that the screen is actually not that great (colors). And how is the build quality?

I really like the looks of the Sony .

 

I've seen the XPS 15z and the screen of the VAIO SE is better in every way. On the other hand if you're more picky with colours I wouldn't go with the SE either. That red/orange issue is just too obvious for me.
video: GT525 is almost the same as the Radeon 6630 so for gaming both should be similar and sufficient for light gaming.
battery: with the extra battery sheet the VAIO should last longer
build quality: definitely Sony.

 

hello @ all. I´ve got a further question to all the SE owners: does your display wobble while typing?
Meanwhile I´ve read several opinions...most say it wobbles easily while touching it... one wrote, it does even while typing.

 

Thanks all for replies about the red/orange of the screen. Went back to the Sony Centre today and it still looks very orange to me (the staff and store manager agreed), which is really a pity because it's such an amazing looking screen otherwise! (I did do a R-0 G-255 B-0 and a R-0 G-0 B-255, and green and blue at least look relatively correct to my eyes at least...)

The problem for me is that until I try using the SE in normal daily use I won't be able to tell how bothersome the red/orange issue is to me - but unfortunately the UK return policies aren't as generous as the ones in the US!

So at the moment I'm trying to decide between getting it now (and living with the red/orange, and hoping that I'll find that once I use it on a daily basis that it'll be something that I won't notice at all), or waiting for a refresh (provided that Sony keeps the SE series, and hoping that Sony will have picked up on this issue and corrected it which may or may not happen...).

 

Thank you all for swinging me from the Samsung Series 7 camp for this laptop. Sony does not promote it nearly as well as BigNerd does and you should be on their marketing team! Well maybe not because of the Justin Bieber thing but we'll let that one slide.

I was wondering if anyone has given Linux a shot on this lovely thing yet? I should get mine around thanksgiving and i'll try it around then if no one else has.

 

Same thing happened with me and the employee agreed it looks orange compared side by side with Vaio SA. It's almost the same dilemma with me but unfortunately I have to look for something else since I use it for photo processing as well.
I am guessing the next refresh of the SE will have the new Intel CPUs and will come in 5-6 months. Too long

 

Seems to work pretty good out of the box. I started with Ubuntu 11.10 and then upgraded to the development branch 12.04. Under 3.1, the iwlagn driver seems to "die" sometimes and has to be unloaded and loaded again. The sandybridge graphics work great, but of course there is no current support for the muxless AMD GPU, but there is support for cutting power to it via vgaswitcheroo.

I originally thought that the speed/stanima switch was a purely software thing, but it apparently also limits the CPU to 1GHz even under linux, which may or may not save power as it is often better to "race to idle".

Also, setting the battery life save option (eg, charge to only 80%) also effects linux but cannot be changed from linux.

 

Sounds solid, have you tried the driver from AMD's site? ATI Catalyst? Proprietary Display Driver

 

Not really noticed wabble while typing. Walking about with the lid up gets a bit wobbly and I've not used it while in transit (planes, trains, automobile).

 

Because of the muxless design, the AMD GPU has no outputs connected to it. Only the Intel integrated GPU has outputs. Both GPUs need to cooperate when the AMD GPU is in use, it isn't something that is yet implemented in Linux.

BTW, with:

pcie_aspm=force i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 i915.i915_enable_fbc=1 i915.lvds_downclock=1

I'm able to get idle consumption with minimum brightness and wifi+bluetooth on down to 10.7W. My understanding is that Windows has it down to 8.5W.

 

Thanks for this and your previous Linux-related post! Good to know that the hardware switch affects performance -- I'd probably keep it on Speed and disable the AMD graphics via sysfs. And it's good to know that the Battery Care setting from Windows is honored in Linux as well; sounds like a useful feature as I don't normally need the full 5 hours of battery life.

Could you check if these tricks work? (this is not the first Sony laptop with switchable graphics, and in the past you *can* switch between the two). Is 8.5W under Speed or Stamina mode? If it's in Speed mode, maybe properly disabling the AMD graphics would bring power consumption down (sadly toggling graphics would require stopping and restarting X)

 

Do you know if it's possible to use stamina to only switch graphics, but not limit CPU frequency? It would be great if you could set that switch to simply be an Intel - AMD switch and CPU settings would be independent.

 

I'll give it a go when I get a chance, but I'm quite doubtful.

Its based on the battery capacity divided by the amount of hours in stamina mode reported by sony.

And the 10.7W *is* with the radeon chip powered off. It saves around 10W

 

My guess would be no, but since I don't know how the switch works, who knows. Some poking around with ACPI calls may be instructive.

Of course, the other way around, there doesn't seem to be a reason you couldn't switch between the two GPUs some other way than the switch.

 

Ahh, all these brand-specific AMD switching solutions! I've spent ages on my Acer till I could disable it totally, I've been happy ever since. But I'm thinking of upgrading to an SE in a few months, and it would be great if this could be hacked like the Acer.

Do you know if the HDMI port works on Intel?
Also, has the hidden Intel menu been revealed in SA and SB's BIOS?

 

There is a new review for the Sony-Vaio-VPC-SE1Z9E-B-Notebook at

Test Sony Vaio VPC-SE1Z9E/B Notebook - Notebookcheck.com Tests

They give it 83% and highly rate the screen . Currently only available in German, at notebook check, give it a few days, but the general views can be gained via Google Translate / Chrome.

Not sure if this is the same screen available on all SE versions? No mention of the red/orange colour issues that others have reported.

 

They do mention it:

Das Panel hat jedoch einen Überhang im Magenta-Bereich.

That means, it got a surplus of magenta (sorry, I don´t know the correct English translation).

 

I don't speak German, so I don't know the correct translation either, but their picture of the color gamut matches up to the measurements I took. So I'd guess their review unit also has the red->orange shifting issue. They still give the display a 94% score, though -- it's so hard to find alternatives with this combination of good viewing angles, high pixel density, smooth semi-matte finish, and high contrast...

 

^
Yes that's their highest display score this year for ANY laptop I believe or maybe the second highest. I think some laptop received a 95% score for display. Don't remember which one exactly.

 

Sony F22 - 90%
Lenovo W520 FullHD - 88%
Lenovo X220 IPS - 91%
Dell E6520 FullHD - 92%
Dell XPS 15 B+RG - 86%
Sony Z21 - 86%

These guys really have a strict criteria for displays...

 

A couple other good displays:

Vaio Z13 FHD - 94%
HP Elitebook 8740w (Dreamcolor) - 98%

 

Um, it says the battery life is only 2:40 while surfing on WiFi, the same as for DVD playback. I hope this is a mistake...

 

Usually the battery life values from notebookcheck.com are quite trustworthy and accurate. Although it could be that some Sony bloatware was running in the background while they testet it.

 

On my Acer just by installing a clean windows with no additional software and using it in Intel only I could get it to idle at 10 hours vs 6:30 at notebookcheck. But Acer has terrible quality bloatware and virus scanners installed, Sony might be a different case.

Moralar, it seems you have a background in color calibration. Do you know if 3D LUTs and color management applications are able to offset the orange-shifting? This way we could at least use a profile for Photoshop, Firefox, etc.

 

I was a stunned by this as well. I've come to terms with the SE not having the best battery life without the slice, but 2:40 seems really low. I don't know if the i7 uses so much more power in stamina mode compared to the i5, or if the battery needs a couple of charging cycles to improve and that they haven't accounted for this or what, but notebookcheck seems to be very thourough.

 

I have the i7 with no slice, and I get much more than 2:40 while surfing on wi-fi. I suspect, however, that they probably had their 3G radio on during their tests -- which is not an option for me as I don't have one. Also, if they're not running a Flash blocker of some type, that would further cut into battery life. There's only so much you can expect out of a 48 Wh battery, but I think it's possible to get more than 2:40 with some judicious configuration choices.

 

I don't really have a background, I just learned the bare minimum necessary to be able to cope with owning a wide gamut desktop monitor. There are some real professionals lurking around here who should be able to give you a better answer... That said, I do think a customized 3D LUT might have potential to correct the hue shifting in the reds. This would involve sacrificing some saturation in return for hue accuracy, even if the net dE ends up being larger. I don't think a standard calibration/profiling package will do this, so perhaps the LUT would have to be hand-rolled. (Professionals are welcome to chime in at this point!)

I did notice that, with my current ICC profile, RGB (255,0,0) gets mapped to (255,0,49), showing that it's trying pretty hard to get rid of the orangeness. The result still looks orange to me, but if I then go into Intel graphics properties and set hue adjustment to about -10 or so, then I get a somewhat pale red. Of course, that method messes up all colors, whereas the right 3D LUT might be able to adjust only the reds...

Nevertheless, all that effort wouldn't be able to correct the screen's physical inability to display a pure, vivid red.