Sony Vaio Duo 13 Owners Thread

Does it say, its being built?

 

i ordered mine from japan
thats why getting earlier
few hundred dollar difference, though some people say that UK and Japan version has built in gps. so i think it pays the difference.

 

Congrats!

Do you have a chance to check if pressure sensivity is supported now with the N-Trig pen when using Adobe Photoshop (there is a trial version if you have no license)?

I still need a confirmation if that works now before I order it again.

 

Yay! Mine Shipped from Japan today! CTO with 5000 graphics chip ordered on the 6/16. Est. delivery was originally 8/23, boy am I glad that was wrong! Have hope guys and stay positive!

 

Thanks for sharing the experience with the Surface Pro. Amongst what's available at the moment, the Duo 13 is my top choice, it's just the price ... nearly two Surface Pro. I'll wait for the local announcement & price / specs, keeping my fingers crossed.

 

No, still processing...

 

Finally mine is being built. I ordered it on 6/9.

 

Prices in Singapore,

SVD13215CG - SGD$2,499
SVD13218PG - SGD$3,299

https://www.facebook.com/notes/sony...-pre-order-terms-conditions/10152340617117137

Guess it is a no go for me Any suggestions for cheaper alternatives to Duo 13?

 

So you bought it from Sony.co.jp website or do you have a friend over there? Thinking about buying one from Japan as well but im not sure about the shipping cost and warranty. Also the 19% import tax .. :s

 

19% tax...thats quite alot...where are you from?

Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 2

 

yes, getting it through a friend. there are lot of people offering service who can buy and forward it for you. just google it

im just taking chances with japanese version. i hope it comes with gps. if it does , then im lucky. im not.. bad luck..

though im not sure how to check whether it really has gps or not.

 

Can anyone tell whether DUO SVD13215PXB (ready to ship version) has a Sim Card slot for 3G support?

 

Germany. I would pay about 2000€ without shipping (8GB RAm 4650U, LTE 128GB SSD). But I rly like the japanese keyboard and the 4650u. Another question is if I can use a sim card in the japanese Duo 13.

Looked a bit on the japanese website. Cant find GPS to be honest. But I hope its still build in, cant imagine that japanese dont has GPS in build. Also my old and cheap japanese phone from 2010 had inbuild gps.

 

I checked the Japanese site and found this:

"無線WANをお選びいただくと、GPSが搭載されます" --> "When you choose the wireless WAN, GPS will be installed."

 

please check this link
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use find option and type gps, it will show you.

More notes on GPS module:
http://www.sony.jp/vaio/productinfo/info_13q2/info/index.html#GPS

If gps module is passive, i guess i dont need internet or data plan to see my location

 

Great find ! thanks for that. im happy that my machine definitely comes with gps!

 

So now my order says my VAIO is being built. Woohoo!

 

Wow, so the hook for the screen are really tight? That was one of my concern after viewing that review as I plan to buy some sort of stand or someting so that I can use te screen vertically for a presentation. Because the angle looks way too inclined to do that, I think you need to tilt the base to put the screen more vertically.

How's te viewing angle, as others as pointed out? from an early video review, it didn't look that great but other reviewer says it's very good. Any color shift or inversion or contrast loss when you move from straight on? If so, at what approx. angle?

 

I estimate that the screen starts to move when it's at 120-140º, when you have it at 90º it`s rock solid. Viewing angle is really good with little color shift.

My only concern are reflections, my office have quite intense illumination and can be disturbing at certain angles.

 

I assume this is horizontal view (left or right of screen). What about Vertical (up or down)? Is it as good?

I'm pretty sure the reflection are pretty bad on the screen (as almost all convertible/touch screen). That's why some sort of stand with ajustable angle would be perfect fit for this convertible, although I'm not sure it exist!

 

that's calculated the same as what Australia sells for, it seems its not much cheaper anywhere else unless you want less features

 

there are many expandable ipad stand that can be used to support 13inch. but its not possible to use the built in keyboard, just any bluetooth keyboard will do for that.

for example:
The $2 iPad Stand - The Digital Story


only thing is whether it can hold the weight or not.

but the original ipad is about 800gram. i think it wouldnt hurt to add another 700gram on the stand.

theres no stand for vaio duo , just need to use the suitable and expandable ipad/other tablet stand

 

Great, thanks!! Something like that might do it actually as it's only for occasional presentation and for 2$, I don't have much to lose! Oh and actually, it's only 500g difference between Ipad1 and Duo 13, as it weights 1.3 kg.

BTW, does anyone happen to know if the SSD is user replaceable? I heard it's a new form of SSD and am afraid it might be difficult to buy seperatly. That's one of my last concern about the Duo 13 as I plan to upgrade it to 512GB (it can wait a couple of months though) and do not want to pay 800$ for the upgrade !!

 

not sure about ssd. but i wouldnt dare opening that tiny machine
however current good performing 512gb ssd would cost about 500usd after discount.
im not sure what ssd they would use it on duo 13, if its latest generation and good performing ssd, it would cost 800usd surely
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Elect...UTF8&qid=1372516496&sr=8-5&keywords=512gb+ssd
http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Technolog...TF8&qid=1372516496&sr=8-12&keywords=512gb+ssd

can people start posting their duo 13 pic / video / review if they received it?

 

It's not a 2.5in SSD like those you showed. From what I have seen it's a mSata NGFF Sata3, which I'm not sure will be sold as OEM. Still, we won't know until someone open the case, and I'm not willing to pay 800$ extra on top of what they already charge for the 128GB if it can be changed for 500-600$, not knowing the performanche of the 512GB they put in there (the 128 is not really impressive...)

 

I got my duo 13 from.japan. been us ing it for 2 days.
regretted buying that. reasons as follows.
1. keyboard travel very very shallow. after 30mins of typing. fingers and wrist pain.
2. track pad too small. no room to move fingers.
3. track pad right click extremely insensitive.
4. colors not as vibrant as duo 11. dimmer too.at same 50% brightness.
5. wobbly screen unlike duo 11 when opened.

only advantages are.
1. lightweight
2. 13.3inch easier to read than 11.6

I think you any of you are keen. you should test it out at shop s before deciding on it

 

Thanks for your input.

Did you get the i7-4650?

 

That 512 ssd price is clearly overpriced. $300 could be fair

 

This is surprising as the Duo 13 as it has a much better screen in terms of color gamut. Mayby the dimmer screens is playing a trick on you!

----

Yeah, even Apple charge a 500$ difference between 128GB and 512GB (300$ from 256GB). I hope the SSD in the duo is replaceable because otherwise, that makes Sony even lower than Apple (although that wouldn't surprise me!)

 

finally! a negative user post

looking for more negative posts!!

but those cons seems to be fixed with a portable mouse and keyboard.

and dimmer screen / screen instability? thats a big question. please make sure that you didnt get a defective item.

any words on performance? whats your system spec? hows the pen? hows the touch screen response? hows the overall feel apart from keyboard / trackpad.

 

How is the keyboard compared to Duo 11's?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

Can anyone comment on performance and list their specs? That post from radi9red isn't very descriptive or insightful. I felt the Duo 11 was just fine for a keyboard, so is the Duo 13 better or worse? Trackpad too small...you had to know it was tiny when buying it, so that I won't consider a downside since I love touch and use a mouse a lot. What are you doing that the right-click is extremely "insensitive?" Colors aren't as vibrant on yours and it's dimmer, but every other comparison I've seen from tech sites say otherwise. That seems odd. Did you play around with color calibration or gamma settings at all? Is the max brightness brighter than the 11 at max? Maybe the auto-adjust brightness is on in the Win 8 settings on the 13?

How is the screen wobbly when it has the same little latches as the 11 but supposedly a better hinge? Does it tip back farther when you touch it or something? The 11's felt perfectly fine for me, so I probably won't notice a difference or care much.

Not that it'll likely be a good comparison for performance and battery life, as that last post seemed a bit off...but it'd be great to get. The main games I play on the go are Dota 2 and StarCraft 2...not very intensive, but I'm curious what the performance difference will be when I get my 13 vs my 11 with the i7-3537u and 8GB ram. I went with the i7-4650u and 8GB on the 13. Kind of worried the HD 5000 will be hampered by the single-channel memory. I travel a lot though, so any performance increase on the go is better than nothing.

I really just care about the battery life, size/weight not being much more, better display, better keyboard, performance increase (even if it's minor). If those things aren't any better, I'll probably be sending it back but I've loved my 11, and hopefully will meet my expectations.

Only ended up paying $1450 after my wife's education discount for the i7-4650u, 8GB, 128GB model (I have a fast 64GB SD card with 90Mbps read and 55Mbps write for media and files)...so even then I think it'll be hard to disappoint.

 

Also curious to know about the Duo 13 keyboard compared to the 11, as the Duo 11 keyboard is not great!

 

Just received my Duo 13. I will compare it to my X220t.

 

I've using the Duo 13 for a couple of days at work:

- It's great at meetings, pen responsiveness and accuracy is very good, just a couple of minor drawbacks, palm rejection is not very good implemented, if you touch the screen simultaneously with pen and palm, the hand action is recognized, you have to avoid that gesture and place the pen close to the screen before touching it with your hand. In N-Trig HP Slate 500 it was possible to configure several methods to avoid this problem (by example, touching the screen with the pen deactivate touch until you perform a double tap with your finger ....), also detected pressure points are displayed for a short amount of time (in HP Slate 500 this behavior could be changed)
- Battery life is impressive, it can stand a typical work day without problems (right now i'm at 47%) but battery life estimations are not displayed in taskbar icon and power options are really limited (in Z2 we have tens of additional options in power plans regarding wifi, bluetoth, ....), also, i've not been able to activate hibernate options (even using 'powercfg -H on' ....)
- About performance, it's subjective but using complex IDEs response time, startup or compilation times seems quite similar to my old Z2 with i7 processor.
- The DUO 11 (i think) has a functionality to cut a screen region to the clipboard using a pen button, i've not been able to activate this functionality (if present ...)

One big problem, finally my micro SIM card has arrived but is not detected I took the LTE chipset option but the Operator/SIM it's 3G, can it be the problem or i'm dealing with a hardware problem? Tomorrow i'll call to sony support but i'm afraid that i'll have to return and substitute it with another Duo 13 with 3G chipset.

 

Interesting tid-bit, the Ram is based on DUAL Channel architecture. Look at the official Sony support forums. Vaio Duo 13 RAM - Sony Community

 

Just sleep or power off, I slept another windows 8 tablet for a week and didn't loose much battery maybe a couple of percent, in an LTE phone they are backward compatable with 3g sim cards, maybe try someone elses first

 

Ah, I was just about to share this info with you guys. I am "Blas", the one who started that thread. Despite the Duo 13 having 1 fixed stick of LPDDR3 memory, it is indeed dual channel. RyanC is pretty reliable with his answers, he was right about the NGFF SSD, so I would say he's right about this. So, to all those worried about hampered performance, fear not!

 

Still no one who tried Photoshop on the Duo 13 (regarding the pressure sensivity issue)?

 

I know it's not supported for now. Go to N-trig's website and send them inquiries on Duo 13 WinTab support to let them know there is a demand.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

I do not have the Duo 13 yet but my guess is that it doesn't work. I've even emailed Ntrig (no answer yet) and Sony (told me there was no update available yet and have no date for one but to keep looking on their website!) This is not a big issue as I do not need this now but will eventually and hope this will get resolve in the mean time! I do find this ridiculous though...

 

I've gotten a reply once from N-Trig. They said they were working on it but no specific date could be given. That was 2 months ago...

 

Appreciate the info! This was really the only thing I was wondering about performance and if it'd be worth the increase over my Duo 11 (which I just sold and it nearly covered the cost of my 13), and from earlier in this thread seeing that it may be Single-Channel got me questioning the purchase.

The new Mac Book Air performance I've seen on notebookcheck and other forums was what I was trying to judge what the Duo 13's performance would be like, but they've been basing it all on the i5 and 4GB RAM...I'm guessing it will be a lot better (25% maybe?) with the 8GB if it's running in Dual-Channel with the i7-4560u with HD 5000.

 

Someone already tested the wifi on the duo 13?

I've seen a lot of complaints in the Sony forum about the wifi of the new vaio pro11/13 ...

 

I've just had the chance to play with Vaio Duo for about 15 minutes and honestly - it was worse than I expected.

Bottom half of the device is awesome - it thin, solid and feels like a premium ultrabook should. Keyboard is good and trackpad is actually much more useful than I assumed.

But screen wobbles noticeably, sliding mechanism feels squeaky and fragile and glass on the screen is surrounded by cheap looking plastic frame. And the worst part was that it did not notices touches from time to time. It probably is an issue of bloatware like vaionote or whatever it called, but still - is was not what I expected from such an expensive device.

Plus FullHD on 13.3 inch screen is too much for my eyes, fonts and some controls are really tiny on that resolution.

 

I did that - no answer from N-Trig. Sony support said, they have no information and an update is not announced. This all says nothing so I would like to hear it from someone first hand, who tested it on a Duo 13 by himself.

 

I don't get what you're saying.. "This all says nothing"? Pen pressure sensitivity does NOT work on Photoshop with Vaio DUO series yet. Isn't that what you wanted to know?

 

Too many complaints about wobbly screen.

first time i heard about touch screen problem, it suppose to be the best touch screen out there.

 

That's true with the Clover Trail platforms as well. The new power management feature that exists in both Clover Trail and Haswell U/Y is probably the reason for it. I'm guessing the reason is because the hardware needs very fine control of the whole platform to take advantage of lower power features, so allowing user adjustable control would mean loss of the battery life improvement.*

*If the rest of the hardware wants to go to lower sleep states, but manually set device is at high power states and is interrupting the CPU too much, then the whole system would be affected. How low the platform can go in terms of power states is determined by the highest power state device.

 

Intro: I use my laptop for proposal writing, meetings, business trips, and some entertainment. I have to get a new laptop to replace my Lenovo X220T urgently. I just thought some of you might be interested in a comparison between the Duo13 and the X220T. Hope this post & review would be useful for some of you.

Design: Winner = Duo13
I have a black Duo13. The design is beautiful! This is my first convertible ultrabook. The Duo13 is really thin and light. My X220t simply can’t hold a candle to the Duo13. There was a post about cheap-looking plastic frames. I personally feel that nothing in the Duo13 is cheap-looking. This is an ultrabook that can turn eyes (I won’t encourage you to buy the Duo13 for this purpose of course).

Build quality: Equal
X220T is built like a tank and it can take abuse. The Duo13 is not too shabby either. I didn’t notice any screen wobbling or material flexing. I do worry about the durability of the Duo13 (as it looks too elegant to be abused), but there are no physical signs that worry me at this point.

Touchscreen: Winner =Duo 13
The touchscreen of Duo13 is more responsive than the touchscreen of X220T. I haven’t had a single problem with the touchscreen (missing touches etc). The pen works great in Onenote and pdf readers, which are the software that I use on a daily basis. I did test the pen in Photoshop and I don’t think Photoshop recognizes pen pressure. 30% brightness in the Duo13 is equal to 100% brightness in the X220t! The 13inch high-res screen in Duo13 is much better for productivity than the screen in X220T. I really miss the old days when Thinkpad laptops always come with a high res screen.

Keyboard and touchpad: Winner=X220T
The keyboard and touchpoint in X220T is amazing (good pitch, spacious, sensitive). The keyboard of the Duo13 is not superb, but it is fully functional. I can already type without errors after one day of use. Lenovo removed the keyboard light in X220T and I do not like that design choice. The Duo13 comes with a backlit keyboard, which works great in the dark.

Convertible form factor: Winner=Duo13
I am new to Windows 8 convertible laptops. The design of Duo13 impresses me in a few ways: 1) it can convert really fast between tablet and laptop modes. 2) In a very subtle way, the screen is closer to my hands in the laptop mode, hence significantly shortened the travel distance between my hands to the screen. Due to this design factor, I am using the touchscreen more than the one in X220T! 3) The Duo13 is significantly lighter than the X220T: reading news and watching youtube using the Duo13 is a pleasure. The screen is locked in the laptop mode when I use it on a couch. The fixed angle of the screen doesn't bother me as much as I expected, likely because of the wide viewing angle and my sitting posture.

Wifi: Equal
The wifi in the Duo13 stays connected in my office. However, back at home, the Duo13 can lose wifi connections sometime. Since the same wifi issue also happens with my X220T, I suspect that the weak connection is likely due to my router at home.

Battery life: Winner=Duo13
I haven’t been able to test the exact battery life of the Duo13, but it is definitely longer than the battery life of my X220T. This makes intuitive sense due to the new Haswell processor.

Windows OS: Windows 8 in Duo13
I am very impressed with Windows 8. I can work efficiently using Windows 8 in the Duo13 just one day after the transition from Windows 7 in X220T. So far, I have been able to find most of the software that I need (youtube, evernote, trello, rss reader, skype, onenote, lastpass, etc). The Windows app store seems good and I believe it can only get better? I can’t wait to try the upcoming flipboard and facebook apps! I also hope for metro apps of google calendar and gmail.