Sony SE Owners' Thread

Let us know how they are please! Asus did in fact do a refresh, but changed quite a bit between the Zenbook and Zenbook Prime. If Sony did something similar with their displays, I will consider them.

 

Don't write crap!

Just look e.g. on the picture in this post.
There are two slim SSD's lying upon another in the normal hdd bay.
And they are connected via a special cable and not soldered onto the motherboard!

 

Apologies my bad. Regardless, while the SSDs are in fact user replaceable there is still only one bay which was the OP's question.

 

We all know that Sony offer terrible support for the switchable gfx on the SE specifically the 6630M. Has anybody looked into the possibility of using drivers from another laptop manufacturer who runs the same 3000/AMD combo? Would it work?

 

This update from the US site seems newer than the UK site although it looks like the actual drivers are the same?

Sony eSupport - VPCSE25FX - Drivers & Software

 

you can always use drivers modified by Leshcat. just do a Google search of that name.

 

I read about them, thanks. They seem to come with some issues?

Anybody fancy trying the new Z3 drivers to see if they are compatible with the SE?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/668974-new-vaio-z2-pmd-drivers.html

 

I'm using leshcat's drivers on the SE and they work great.

I wonder if they will work in Windows 8... I've been playing with that and the SE doesn't save as much power/gets hotter because it seems to be running off the AMD card no matter what the switch is set too.

 

Sony canada has the old sandy bridge on sale s15 for $900 otd with 6630m upgrade and normal i5 or the sa13 inch(6630m, i5) for 879 otd, are either of these worth it? I would really appreciate if someone could give their opinion/experience because I need a new laptop really bad my 3 yo dell is totally crippled and its such pita to use this thing. Are there any major issues to worry about with these noise wise/heat wise? I checked the red orange issue in store today and its no biggie especially for 900 bucks.

 

For 900 dollars it's a great deal. Fantastic screen if you don't mind a little orange

I can have the laptop bare on my leg and it's tolerable. The fan gets really loud under stress when using the AMD card during games. Every other time it's fairly quiet, especially on the Intel Graphics mode.

You will have to tweak a few things to get rid of some annoying issues, (sound, gesture trackpad, display dimming, drivers) but once you're settled it's a great laptop.

Take some time and go through the thread, it's pretty comprehensive in terms of what you're going to run into if you purchase an SE.

 

I bought the VPCSE190X Laptop from the Sony Outlet. It was working fine for a couple of days. Now all of a sudden I'm getting no picture on the screen. It appears to turn on and run. I can hear the hard drive running and all the lights are on. Sometimes during bootup I can see a flashing "Computer is Turning on for the First Time" and I have also seen "Checking Graphics Performance" something like that.

I have tried this with just battery and also AC but no change.

I'm already returning the computer but just want to find out if this is an issue with this model or this is a one time deal.

I notice the new Sony SE's are on clearance right now so I will get one of those.

 

Sounds like you got a lemon.

I don't remember anyone having that problem in this thread before. Good luck with the return.

 

I'm sorry i didn't follow the page from the beginning but still want to ask a question.

Does anyone succesfully replace the screen with something like 95% color gamut screen?

 

I don't think so.

Someone attempted to do that on an Envy 15 but they said the panel was too thick even though the connectors were compatible.

 

I just noticed that the ICC color profile from notebookcheck and another someone posted here messed up photoshop. I applied the ICC profile in windows 7 color management which makes everything else look much better, but photoshop will somehow apply the color shift twice, making green look much greener and everything brighter. From reading through the internet, I think the color profiles are broken.

Can someone regenerate another one?

I decided to buy my own Spyder 4 Pro color calibrator, should be here in a week or two.

I really am frustrated with the colors with this laptop. I'm starting to look for another laptop for graphics, photos, CAD, product design work. The new Macbook Pro has amazing specs, but its a mac. I cant run my software on it.

Why can't someone make a laptop with similar specs? I don't see why it would be much more difficult. I just want, IPS high resolution screen with accurate colors, swappable HDD slot with SATA3, 2 DIMM slots for up to 16gb RAM, full speed processor.

The SE comes close, but no SATA 3, and inaccurate screen colors.

The new Lenovo X230 looks good, up to 16gb ram, but the screen is only 12" 1366x768. It might be alright... but i prefer at least 13" 1600x900. This would be something like the SA with a good IPS screen, or the Z2 with expandable RAM slots and a normal HDD slot.

 

You might want to look into the new Asus Zenbook Prime which will have FHD IPS. There are some reviews already on the 11 inch model, but you can also get the 13 inch once it's released. It does have ULV cpu though, so it will be a bit slower. Also maxes out at 6gb of RAM which is another drawback.

Another option is the new Asus N56vz which is quad core with Geforce 650m and FHD screen. It's a TN panel so you won't get IPS viewing angles, but it's apparently pretty good in terms of gamut.

The only other option I can think of is the new Samsung Series 9, though again not IPS.

 

Hey Thomash2,

Someone wrote 100s of pages back that the Intel card causes problems with the colour profiles because of the programs igfxtray and igfxpers. If you disable them in msconfig it might solve the problem.

It might be a different issue though, I use Photoshop CS5 and despite red/orange problem that everyone is aware of shift now it works ok and I haven't run into the doubling of the color-profiles

The Sony Z might also be a good choice but maybe the screen is too small. It's a TN panel but apparently the colour gamut is amazing. You can now buy it without the PMD which knocks $300+ off the price.

Good luck in the search

 

I just saw this in the Envy OrangeGate thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...5-ips-red-vs-orange-tally-38.html#post8611958

Seems like HP is claiming there is a new LG screen and will replace it. Let's see how this turns out.

 

Interesting... I wonder if it's going to be in fact a new panel with the color issues resolved. At least HP has previously acknowledged the issue so I think it's possible they would try to fix it.

Did Sony ever say anything publicly that they are aware of the color gamut problem? If HP fixes it I would hope Sony would start to use the new panel as well instead of ignoring it.

 

Another consideration is the weight. I think the Asus N56vz is 2.6kg vs the 1.8kg (4lb) of the SE.

What I really want is:
15" (1920x1080 IPS, less than 4lb) or (13" (1600x900 IPS, less than 3.7lb)
i7 ivy bridge full speed mobile (not the ULV)
swappable HDD with SATA 3
ugradable ram to 12 or 16gb
integrated video is ok for me, as long as i have 12 or 16gb or ram, discreet graphics would be better

the new zenbook primes look like they have a nice screen, but I think they use mSATA, dont they? and the ram is soldered on, so not expandable. im waiting to see what the Lenovo x1c screen specs are.

 

Yeah the N56vz is basically a full on laptop not an ultrabook by any stretch. Not sure if the Zenbooks use mSATA, but only 2 gb of ram is onboard at least on the UX32VD which is the one with discrete gpu. There is an additional slot which they say takes 4gb max, but I wonder if it would recognize 8gb as well for a total of 10gb.

You're not gonna get 16gb on an ultrabook yet in any case. Only few laptops support 16gb right now and those will usually have awful screens, with the exception of the newest Sony SE, which has gamut problems. Might have to wait another year or so for your dream machine, same as me... If HP actually does start using the new panel hopefully Sony will do the same and that would probably come closest to your specs.

One good thing about the new macbooks is that by introducing HQ screens I predict other manufacturers will up their game as well, so hopefully we'll start seeing IPS screens as standard in the coming year.

 

I believe the UX32, which isn't unibody, can be set up as hybrid SSD and HDD. It also has one memory slot unlike the UX21 and UX31 and someone said they tried an 8GB stick to max it out at 10GB.

I'm also waiting to see how the Acer S7 is. I find myself using my ultrabook (Tosh Z835) and MBA more and SE not as much... haven't even touched the BluRay drive.

 

Yep UX31 is SSD only while UX32 is hybrid. I wonder if you can swap the HDD for another SSD so you have SSD cache as well as regular SSD drive. Did the 8gb stick work? The new models aren't released yet anyway so I guess if someone's already tried it they must've been talking about previous gen Zenbook.

The new black S5 from Acer looks great but 1366x768 = no go.

 

Back to OrangeGate:

This poster seems to indicate the new Ivy Bridge Envy 15 has a new LG screen where the reds are indeed red:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...tel-ivy-bridge-amd-7750m-143.html#post8615147

 

Just found out i can't record sound (using external source) into my Vaio SE. I thought headphone 3,5 mm hole can be used/switched to mic-line in. But it didn't work. Was any of you guys here successful? Looks to me only way to get sound in is to get external usb sound card. Thanks in advance for any ideas..

 

The Envy 15 specs look great to me, except the weight is 5.8 lb. I don't understand why they have to be so heavy when the SE can be just 4 lb. Although the Envy has an 8 cell battery, which I think is unnecessary. I would prefer a smaller battery. The only thing the SE is missing is the silly screen without the orange problem and SATA 3 support.

 

Diablo 3 runs nicely on this thing. Everything on High at 1920 x 1080. Not like it's a demanding game but it's nice to be around 30 fps at max settings

The fan gets loud during big battles or in town.

 

i was wondering this same thing, the laptop only has a single headphone jack, most external mic/headset have 2 jacks for plugging into a desktops soundcard. the internal mic on this thing is crap and im wondering how to use an external mic

 

I just got my Spyder 4 Pro display calibrator but I still encounter the same problem with Adobe color shifting. I applied the calibration ICC profile created by Spyder 4 Pro as the default profile for my SE screen in Windows Color Management. Everything looks much better except in Adobe software, which seems to apply the calibration twice. Gimp, Firefox, Microsoft Picture Viewer, does not have this problem. Below is a screenshot of an image created and embedded with an sRGB profile. You can clearly see Adobe shifting the colors strangely.



Oddly, this does not happen if I use the display calibration tool with Windows Color Management. If I apply the calibrated profile from Windows, Adobe will display colors the same as in all other software. But I want to use my Spyder 4 calibration, and not the Window display calibration.

Adobe workspace is set to sRGB. If it's set to my Spyder 4 profile, the colors in the document will look correct, but I thought this was a no-no. In this setting, opened documents look correct, but screenshots taken with the print screen button show the same issue.

I could only find 2 workarounds to apply my Spyder 4 profile.
1) In Color Management, I set Spyder 4 as default profile. In the Advanced>change system default>Advanced tab, I enable and then disable "Use Windows display calibration". Then I set sRGB as the default profile.

2) I use the Spyder 4 profile chooser utility, select my Spyder 4 profile. Then in Color Management I make sure "Use Windows display calibration" is disabled and then set sRGB as the default profile.




In these 2 options Spyder 4 is somehow retained as the default profile but Adobe is tricked into thinking sRGB is the default profile. However, I have to do this every time I start my computer. Also, if I use ALT-CTRL-DEL to get into task manager, sRGB takes over and I lose the Spyder 4 profile. I have to then go back and set the profiles again. It's inconvenient, and I have no idea when the profile gets reverted, so I have to keep constantly checking by switching back and forth between the Spyder 4 and sRGB profile to make sure my screen is still displaying the Spyder4 profile and Adobe is still tricked into thinking sRGB is the default profile.

I have tried disabling ATI Catylist Control Center, Intel Graphics controllers, and Sony Vaio Control Center through msconfig, but the same problem persists. I have also tried switching between the Radeon HD 6470M and the Intel 3000 and both have the same issue.

Here are my color profiles.
12-06-20.3 is ICC version 2. 12-06-20.4 is ICC version 4.
SE (1920x1080 60Hz) 12-06-20.3.icm download - 2shared
SE (1920x1080 60Hz) 12-06-20.4.icm download - 2shared

 

If the profile from Spyder is when the change happens maybe you could contact them and see if they know the issue.

I'm at a loss, wish I could help.

Good luck!

 

Sometimes you need to do more than just disable igxpers.exe in msconfig (intel common user interface). I actually rename the file to insure that it never gets loaded by another process after startup, to be positive that the Intel graphics drivers aren't stomping on the color profile.

Oh, and thanks for the profiles, they work well on the 2012 S15 too.

 

I'm having an issue that hopefully someone can help me out with. I've had my SE for about 1.5 months now and love pretty much everything about it except for one thing. The trackpad every so often will freeze on me. Sometimes for just a second or so, other times for 5-10sec, other times indefinitely. I can fix the problem most of the time by either pressing Esc (though this only works sometimes) or if that doesn't work my other solution has been to go into the control panel and disable/enable the pad to get it working again.

Now I've read through much of this thread and it seems to have happened to a few others, but I'm not sure that what they had happen to them is the exact same thing. I think one person figured out it had something to do with some anti-virus software. I've uninstalled the sony one (norton trial I think) and installed MSE instead. I really don't think it is hardware, though I haven't ruled that out, but really don't want to send it back if I can figure out what the source of the problem is and its just software.

I've also tried uninstalling the sony drivers and installing the newest synaptics drivers, but that really didn't change anything, so I installed the Sony synaptics driver again.

My thought is that its some background process interrupting the mouse driver somehow, but that is just my guess. Anyone have any ideas?

 

My mouse input was freezing due to Trend Micro anti-virus. Once I uninstalled that, everything worked great. Can't speak for the trackpad since I hardly use it, but anti-virus might be a good place to start.

 

OK, so after staying up for 30 hours I think I have it figured out....
The reason why Photoshop was showing different colors from Firefox and Picasa was because it was in "no color management mode". After selecting those options, both Firefox and Picasa now look like Photoshop.

I was confused because even with Firefox and Picasa in "no color management mode" there was a visible change when the calibrated display profile was active, but the change was different from the change in Photoshop. All I can assume at the moment is that the calibrated profile created by spyder has 2 parts, one is a global change applied to the OS that removes the yellow tint on my screen, and the 2nd is a software specific change that remaps inaccurate colors to the truthful colors.

Possibly Window's own calibration tool only does the 1st part and not the 2nd, and applies it globally so that when I use Window's calibration as default profile, Photoshop looks the same as Firefox and Picasa.

The trick is getting all software to follow the 2nd part of the calibration so they all show the same. But what I don't understand is why this 2nd part is not done globally. Why can't it just be like a physical sheet of filter that I place over my screen to calibrate the colors in every situation and software?

And another issue I haven't been able to solve yet is how to get screenshots to paste correctly. When using the Print Screen button to capture screenshots, or right click on an image in firefox and selecting "copy image", the values copied are not the source values from the source image, but the modified values after the source value has the calibration profile applied to it. So when I paste it into Photoshop, it will have the modification applied a 2nd time by Photoshop and will look wrong.

I can try to return the pasted image back to it's original value by assigning the calibration profile to the image, then converting it back to sRGB (the original image color profile). But the resulting colors are not exactly the same as the source, because of all the conversions.

What I want to find out is how to copy and paste the original unmodified values of the document so I get the original values and not some "near original" but slightly shifted image when I take screenshots.

 

Sorry if this has been answered before, but I couldn't find it...

Currently my SE does not awaken from sleep when I open the lid - I have to press the power button or a key on the keyboard. I can't seem to find an option anywhere to configure this behaviour.

Am I missing something?

 

1. Open VAIO Control Center
2. Click on Power Management
3. Click on Lid Action Settings
4. Change the Behavior When Opening LCD Screen lid to Resume from Sleep
5. Enjoy

 

I have no "Lid Action Settings" in Power Management, only "battery" and "power options"

 

Similar to moralar, my screen has a similar profile, but I get even less green.


It will never have red. And even after calibration, my greens still look a bit yellow even in color managed applications. It's also a headache searching for software that will read the calibration profile. As a note,the only browser that will use your color calibration is Firefox. Nothing else will. Safari might, but it won't render untagged images correctly. It's good enough for the moment, but I plan to do professional graphics work soon, so I think I'm going to buy a different laptop. I'll see whether the Lenovo x1c has IPS. The x230 is supposedly good, but 12" and 1366 is a bit small. Dell xps15 specs are good but too heavy, over 5lb. Waiting for the specs of the new Asus zenbooks but they're stuck with low ram. the Vizio has similar problems I think, the lightweight ones don't have customizable ram, and regular ones are just as heavy as the xps15. the HP envy 15 is too heavy for me. 5.6lb.

 

From the HP Envy threads, it seems there is a new LG 15" IPS panel that corrects the red issue.

Maybe Sony will update their SE line with that.

 

Yes, as it was confirmed before it's the panel's hardware issue, so I don't think calibration will be able to fix it.

I would either wait for Sony to update the panel or get one of the new zenbooks. Aparently it's possible to use 8gb stick for a total of 10gb ram, and let me tell you, I used to work with really massive PSD files (around 2-3 gb) and while 10 gb is not sufficient for files that big, if you have SSD for your scratch disks I doubt it will get too slow.

 

My problem with the zenbook also is that it has a ULV processor. I need a full speed mobile processor.

I saw the SVS15, the new version, and it still uses the same screen. they didn't fix it. I emailed them several times. they just say to call some customer relations number, but i haven't called because im outside the US.

Sony eSupport - Electronics - Contact Customer Relations

You guys can call and complain if you want.

 

Yeah I'm pretty much in the same boat. Waiting for some Ivy Bridge benchmarks between ULV and regular mobile CPUs to see how much difference there is in numbers.

I've read through the Envy Orangegate thread and I'm still not clear whether HP is in fact using a new corrected panel or not.

 

i have a few questions if you don't mind to answer them please.

1. does this laptop over heat? if it does how fast.

2. is the sound quality that bad, if so will my headphones and my own speakers sound bad?

3. is the fan loud?

4. is it fast for surfing the web, gaming and other stuff

5. should i get 15.5 inch or 13.3?

my spec's will be:
Quad-core i7 at 2.1 ghz, 1080P display, NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M LE (2GB), 640GB (7200rpm) HDD, 4 GB RAM

thanks

 

1. not as far as i know. it might get hot depeneding on how compute-intensive your task is, but i wouldn't call it overheating.

2. your headphones and externals speakers will sound good. only the on-board speakers are bad-sounding.

3. to me, no. for some other people, yes.

4. yes, it is fast.

5. only you can answer that.

you're talking about the 2012 models (S13A and S15), not the 2011 models (SA and SE).

 

bec. i read on google and other sites that it went over 100° Fahrenheit in 30 minutes i couldnt believe it lol and does the 15.5" have less fan noise?

 

are you talking about the 2011 model or the 2012 model? if the latter, you should ask in this thread.

 

im talking about this one?

VAIO S Series PC | Sony | Sony Store USA

 

that's the 2012 model. i think you'd get more concrete answers from people who actually use that machine. look at the thread i posted above.

 

is the 2012 model better than the 2011? and thanks.

 

define "better".

it has a stronger GPU (by about 20%), a CPU which runs a bit cooler, and a revised touchpad. it's up to you to decide if you want to pay more for these features or not.