Sony SE Owners' Thread

I'm not going to post it here because this is a sony forum but if you go to tech bargains under HP iit's there.

 

After a few recharges with the main battery and the slice I've been getting around 9.5 hours (basic web browsing with brightness at 50% and bluetooth off). When I first got it I was getting around 6 but I guess the battery calibrated?

 

I think so, it happened to my mobile battery. In the first days was going over a day, but now, one week later, it's working for 2 or 3 days without any recharge.

 

I've got the i5 version of the SE with a 512G M4. It pretty snappy. I can confirm that the interface is SATA 2 reported by SiSortware Sandra Lite.

I've not done any real battery testing but I do watch the battery meter constantly. I'm seeing around 4 hours in VPN sessions (basically using it as a wifi enabled terminal). I had the SA3 for a few days and it got nine hours with the slice battery doing the same activity.

 

Installation of a SSD is fairly easy.
- turn the VAIO and place upside down on a soft surface.
- remove the two screws holding the cover part placed on bottom side (as described in manual for replacing memory module).
- the disk is located in the lower left corner.
- remove the four screws holding the disk
- carefully disconnect from the SATA cable
- remove the two metal bars placed on the two sides of the disk, each being hold by two screws. Remember how they are fixed on disk.
- mount the two bars on your SSD.
- carefully connect the SATA cable at the SSD
- place the SSD in the device
- mount with the four screws
- close the cover and fix with two screws
- restore your system on SSD e.g. by using a recovery USB stick
- enjoy the speed gain (interface is unfortunately SATA II only but real live speed will be not affected to much).

 

Hi Franzel,

many many thanks, I'll definitely use it when installing the M4 on my Vaio SE.

 

Ok, I'm impressed. The SE is as close to the "Holy Grail" of a development machine as I've come accross. Maybe I'm still in the Honey Moon phase.

- It's fast (especially with an SSD)
- quiet (much more so that the SA)
- very light-weight (even for a 14" laptop)
- good battery life (4-5 hrs on standard battery - you're mileage may vary)
- excellent screen (I'm outside in bright direct sunlight now and still can reduce the brightness a couple of clicks)
- Decent backlit kryboard
- Relstively inexpensive - best buy out there for around $1000

If Sony could squeeze the form-factor down a bit to closer to a 14", drop the DVD and scrap the keypad I'd never look at another lappy. Ok, maybe s quad-core processor and a cup holder.

 

Does anyone have scrapped off paint on the right in the gap? Mine has three of them. It's quite noticeable on mine, its a CTO machine. I think I'm gonna return/exchange mine.

 

looks more like a clip to me...

 

and a related question: does anyone experience this with the platinum silver color option? I'm on the fence as to which color to order and this might swing the balance. Thanks!

 

I tried to look at mine but I can't see a real noticeable difference in color because it's already silver. I see some light irregularity up near the PgDn screen but it's very hard to tell.

I agree that I think it's either clips or where the chassis clips into the keyboard deck and you see the paint scrapes.

In other news, I originally reported having the screen bezel that was disconnected that I had to snap into place and still showing some warping... turns out I still had to snap it in a bit more and now the gap between the screen and the bezel is not noticeable.

Are these really aluminum/magnesium alloy?

 

So it seems like with silver, any discoloration is harder to see? That sounds good. How about fingerprint / grease smudge? The last silver laptop I had -- a MacBook Pro -- after a while there are black shadows where I rest my palms, and I can't scrub them off.

RE: aluminum/magnesium -- I think they are, but because the laptops are so thin and wide they flex more than comparable ones. Even the SA/SB exhibit flexes and they're less wide than the SE (and equally thick)!

 

I haven't used it enough to determine if it will be discolored. It seems pretty resistant to finger smudges too.

My Dell is going on 8 years and it shows little wear (dark grey/silver model)... but a friend of mine had the same model and his showed palm marks badly (but he was also a big WoW player).

Maybe I have very dry hands?

 

Mine does not appear to have the same marks - at least not examining it with the naked eye. I did notice when I replaced the HD and added memory that these are areas of the case that are not painted on the inside. My SE was not CTO but a retail Microcenter machine.

 

The black version is a fingerprint magnet and gets pretty hot in direct sunlight. But I remember an earlier post that said the white letters were hard to read against the silver keys (not sure if that was just when back-lighting was on or not).

 

That was me and it was when the backlighting was on.

I fixed it by turning the kb backlight off but it would be nice if there was a Fn key combo instead of having to go into VAIO Controls.

 

Yeah that reason is sort of why I am debating between black and silver. The silver model appears to be harder to see the keys when the backlight is on in moderate lighting however its easy to see when the backlight is off or when the room is totally dark. I just worry about the black showing smudges over time a lot more then on the silver one.

 

Are you saying the keys are hard to see with the backlight on even in the dark? I agree a fn key solution would be great but it seems the Sony has an option of only turning the backlight on in the dark so that would seem to be the best option.

 

Backlit in a dim/dark room is fine.

Backlit in a bright room... not so good. I'm not sure why the sensor doesn't recognize that there is sufficient lighting to turn off the backlight, but that only occurs in certain places.

In my office at home, the backlight doesn't behave in that manner. But I've turned it off anyways to also save on battery.

 

I've seen several posts corroborating the "fingerprint magnet"-ness of the black version. I have a Vaio Y (plastic surface) that's quite a fingerprint magnet, but on the bright side, being black the palm rests don't seem to get smudged over time!

I have really oily hands (not wet, just oily) -- even reading glossy magazines cause problems as the ink would bleed if I touch them too much! So I'm a bit worried about a silver model acquiring unremoveable smudges, that would just not show too much on a black model. Thoughts?

As for the keys being harder to see with backlight, well, I'm a touch typist, and I intend to get the black keyboard skin anyway so even with backlight they would show up clearly

 

Has anyone found a nice sleeve and/or backpack that fits the SE? I tried a Swiss Gear backpack that that was supposed to fit a 15.6" notebook, but the SE stuck out a bit...

 

I think you have to go with a 16" backpack.

Too bad Targus doesn't make AirPort (as in air bag padding in the notebook compartment) bags anymore.

 

Just did measurements on the 1080p screen using ColorEyes Display Pro and X-rite DTP-94 sensor:
Black level 0.34
Luminance 287
Contrast ratio (calculated): 844:1

Pretty darn good if you ask me. Makes up for the reduced color gamut.

 

Can you post the color gamut coverage info ?? How much of sRGB does it cover ?

 

Hi, please can any of SE owners confirm or deny that stamina mode (when running on battery) sets display refresh rate down from 60 Hz to 40 Hz? I have read a review mentioning this. And if you try to put it back to 60 Hz manually it causes crash of Vaio care program. That sounds very strange. Does it happen even if you are plugged in but in stamina mode? Author of that review claims sensitive people can see blinking of display in that case.

Graphics memory is GDDR3, right? Thanks in advance.

 

Your luminance reading was similar to mine, but the black level is lower. Wonder if the backlight bleeding in my screen is causing this...

 

1. Stamina mode sets the refresh rate to 40 Hz by default.

2. I did not experience any bad behavior, program crashes or otherwise, by having a 60 Hz refresh rate in Stamina mode. However, Vaio Care is a hog and written like a piece of malware, therefore should probably be disabled anyway. You can run it manually when you really need it to create recovery discs or something.

3. I do sometimes notice that the display gets a bit flickery in 40 Hz.

 

Yes there seems to some significant differences in luminance, black level, and thus contrast ratio between your SE and his. Unit to Unit difference should not be this major. That is why I asked about his color gamut coverage info.

 

Yeah, I'd definitely be interested to see what he gets. However, I've now looked at a total of three demo units in two different stores, in addition to my own system, and the reds were orange on all of them.

 

Maybe Sony is using multiple panels ? Maybe random has one with a different panel. Otherwise such a discrepancy is not expected from the same panel.

 

Does ambient lighting effect the results? Could the stamina/speed switch make a difference (AMD GPU applies color correction factors, gets painted onto Intel framebuffer, which then doubly applies correction factors, or maybe just the AMD and Intel GPUs have different correction factors).

 

From what people reported on the SA/SB owners' thread, you need to set separate color profiles for those two, but some of the bundled software are buggy and prevent the right profile from being correctly applied automatically upon switching. Can't remember what exactly though; Google is your friend since the forum's search tool is not working.

 

Is this guy really lucky or is the screen really so good ?

Sony Vaio VPC-SE1E1E/S - YouTube

 

an icc profile will clearly show regarding gamut and greyscale if there is an difference. Measurements reg. Blacks and Contrast are similar. I have many different measurements of the Dell WLED FHD screen in Latitude/Precision. such variations of same panel inside are usual...

 

Unfortunately, I'll be returning my new Vaio SE. There's something wrong with my screen. I'm not sure if the issue is hardware, software, or a combination of both.

My screen randomly whitens out for a few minutes, than goes back to normal. Sometimes it happens after the sleep mode, and sometimes in the middle of typing/web-browsing.

Also, the screen is not very bright. It's only bright enough at the maximum brightness setting, but anything less than 100% looks very dull. At 50% brightness it looks very dark.

Finally, during a Blue-ray movie, the picture wobbled in the bottom half of the screen, similar to a pond water wobbling if you throw a stone in it...

Other than my problem with the defective screen, SE is a wonderful laptop. It's very light, the keyboard if comfortable, the screen looks amazing, and I've got 12 hrs battery life in Stamina mode with a sheet battery.

 

I found the SE keyboard skin on the .jp sony site:

‘Ήž¤•iEƒAƒNƒZƒTƒŠ[ | VGP-KBL10 | »•iî•ñ | ŒÂlŒü‚¯ | VAIOƒp[ƒ\ƒiƒ‹ƒRƒ“ƒsƒ…[ƒ^[ | ƒ\ƒj[

The VGP-KBL10, you can see in the image that it is shorter than the other keyboard skins:

¤•i‚Ì“Á’· | VGP-KBL10 | »•iî•ñ | ŒÂlŒü‚¯ | VAIOƒp[ƒ\ƒiƒ‹ƒRƒ“ƒsƒ…[ƒ^[ | ƒ\ƒj[

And bonus, it lets the backlight through.

I really want to order one of these, but I don't know how.

 

I just ordered on by calling the sony phone number. If you ask nicely and give them the order number for your laptop, they'll probably give you a 20% discount and wave shipping.

...and just got a confirmation email for the VGPKBV3/B with a totally different price total.

...and call back to try to fix it and they try to sell me a skin for an SA...because, hey its an S series, right?

Pro tip, don't ever call the sony store.

 

This was the measured black level after calibration using the ColorEyes Display Pro software. Perhaps the black levels differ with different calibration curves. Also, perhaps there are differences in the backlights between monitors. Or it's possible that one of our measurement devices is not accurate. But compared to my calibrated NEC PA301W monitor, the 1080p screen on the SE looks subjectively just as contrasty and vibrant, and the colors seem very accurate...with the exception of the "orange" appearance of the reds.

ColorEyes Display Pro doesn't provide the gamut chart.

 

Hi,

If you post your icc profile - you can see the gamut with other software.

Best, Walter

 

Hi!

Read several places that this doesn't support SATA 3.0, and some places that it does!

Isn't there a "HM 67 Express"-chipset inside? And last I checked, HM 67 supported both SATA 2.0 and 3.0 (from Wikipedia; List of Intel chipsets - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)! Or do I have to read it again?!

SO.. Would it be possible to order one with HDD, and later on put an SSD (SATA 3.0) in it?!

 

Does anyone else have a problem with the Vaio SE's screen going white all of a sudden?

 

I have not seen that yet.

But if it's niggle time... I do notice that the left trackpad button is a bit misaligned or not level. It looks like it may break with extended usage.

I checked out another black one to look for those paint scrapes/clips, but I couldn't find it on the display model.

For anyone with the extended battery... how much weight does it add? Says about 1.36 lbs, but is it noticeable?

 

I have extended battery. Yes, the added weight is very noticeable, but it still feels much lighter than the F series.

And in stamina mode, the battery lasted 12 hours (browsing and similar light tasks).

It's such a shame I have to return this laptop... I'm on the fence whether to order SE again. I wonder if it's just my computer that's defective, or if it's more wide spread.

 

If you have a sony or microsoft store nearby, you can check a working one out. I haven't received mine yet, but its a pretty sure bet that it is most certainly *not* supposed to do that.

 

If you literally mean pure white, then I have not seen this phenomenon. But I have seen what looks like some kind of color reduction/screen fading routine gone haywire. This effect occurs at random times, and when it does, it typically fades in and back out over the course of about 15 seconds. I've never seen it when plugged in, so maybe the power saving routines in the graphics drivers are a bit buggy.

 

Yes, this is it. The color gets reduced dramatically, everything is kind of blurred white. I had this happen both with battery and plugged in.

With mine it's sometimes much longer than 15 seconds.

 

The colors going weird is the "display power saving technology" of the intel graphics card.

 

Have you seen that white-out while in Speed mode?

 

I'm not sure. I was playing with both Speed and Stamina modes, but I didn't notice which one has this annoying white-out issue.

I spent 3 hours on the phone wiht tech support, they installed an updated graphics driver and a BIOS update, but neither helped.

 

If it's the same situation as with the SA/SB/SC models (13-inch S-series) then the SATA support was downgraded to SATA II in the early October BIOS update. Your SSD would still work, just with a SATA II maximum transfer rate (3 Gb/s rather than 6 Gb/s). Hopefully Sony will develop a proper fix for whatever the problem was instead of throttling the SATA bus.