Sony Vaio Duo 13 Owners Thread

Thanks Krulemek, I had seen that comparison before I posted... however the reviewer doesn't actually have both machines at once. So there are no true comparison shots. Also it seems he never really used either machine for any extended length of time as he mentions non-issues (like the Vaio Duo 11's hinge) while failing to address potential issues that a user would be more privy top. So I was hoping for something more so based on the opinions of a true user.

 

two quick observations on the sony duo 13 I received yesterday---first some reviewers have been negative about viewing angles---I find them the best I have seen. The pen does click but for note taking in bluebeam revu and onenote---in terms of accuracy and not problems in corners--best I have seen (and I am a tablet pc person from way back and used a lot).

 

I note from her review that Lisa Garde thinks it is a fantastic machine with, among other things, a very impressive and bigger display and about 9 hours of battery life with constant use and the screen brightness at about half or just above BUT also noted: screen brightness mentioned to be at about 255 or 265 nits (presumably at 100%) and of course no extended battery. The Duo 11 of course does have that option, plus, according to Lisa's previous Duo 11 review, 400 nit brightness capacity. Has the lesser maximum brightness and lack of an extended battery been of annoyance to anyone?

 

Hello everyone .
can you guys share your windows experience index score from your computer properties

 

Any comments as to what you did not like about the Duo 13 or preferred in the Duo 11?

 

I watched it and it was stunning. Reds and greens really pop and look so real that they almost pull you in. The macaws were especially impressive. My dad agrees, he thought the reds were DickTracy-esque and thought it was right up there with the HTC One in terms of best displays he's ever seen. I'm sure the Ativ Q will have a great display in its own right and that the pixel density will be a major factor in that, but I doubt that it will match the phenomenal color reproduction of the Duo 13.

 

Ok. So the display is vivid although less bright than the 11. Does it suffer from the same ghosting? Super tempted to get one.

Sigh. OT. With how frequently I switch computers I might be better served by leasing them. Anyone out there doing anything like that?

 

I haven't encountered any ghosting issues. Would be nice to see other users chime in too.

Leasing laptops wouldn't be a bad idea at the right rate, seeing as how they are all but guaranteed to depreciate in value.

 

Thanks Ota-Con ! Your answer helped me to get more confirmation in what i was looking for a month )) Now I want to know how to unlock At&t WAN module if it is possible I checked a lot of online sonystores but could not find adequate price for this model with 3/4G inside.

Some countries offer either 3G or 4G.. but prices are quite crazy in Russia and most of the European, Asia countries . As I understand, US offers the lowest prices for computers, however there is a state tax around 9% in most of the states except NewJersey which is excempted from paying state tax for computers if i'm not wrong.

 

Im really curious about the pen tipping sounds and the machine sound. Someone got a screen protector and uses the sony pen tip and can tell me how much noise the writing makes?
Is the DUO 13 silent if you are in a silent area or can you still hear something (charging?).

 

Mmm, viewing angles seeems to vary depending on reviewer and commenters. Again what of the cons of the pcmag.com review was narrow viewing angle! This is really weird, unless Sony has a panel lottery and has 2 differents types out there. Can't wait to see mine!

 

I too was hesitant for between the ATIV Q's impressive gadgetry and the Vaio Duo 13. But after watching two in-depth video review, it is clear that the Vaio Duo 13 is the superior machine.
It performs better and faster, has a better display than the ATIV Q despite the higher resolution of the latter. Also, the higher than norm resolute creates a number of scaling problems with applications.
The pen is much better on the Vaio Duo than that of the ATIV Q toothpick size stylus.
It's pretty much a no brainer.
See for yourself by watching the ATIV Q video review and the Sony Vaio Duo 13 video review.

NF

 

no luck unlocking locked japan lte huawei mobile broadband.
any suggestion?

 

I doubt there was a panel lottery seeing as how Triluminos is Sony's tech and they haven't licensed it, as far as I know. Also, I'm not sure the demand for this machine would justify a lottery. It's a great piece of kit, but I doubt that it is selling faster than Sony can make those panels. I guess I could be wrong, seeing as how Sony likes to use JDI to source panels (since they own a stake). Or, perhaps they sourced different panel components from different manufacturers.

I've found viewing angles to be generally good, at least compared to my Nexus 4, which also has IPS. Colors stay true at almost any usable angle. The only discoloration I've observed is at EXTREME angles, you have to almost view the device in profile to see it, though. If you do, you'll see a slightly yellow tinge from angles far above or below the display, and a slight blue tinge from angles to the extreme right or left. I have noticed that luminance (brightness) tends to drop slightly as you view the display from greater angles in any direction. The effect, while noticeable, is by no means dramatic.

 

triluminos is a marketing bull, it is only a display with a "high" colour depth when in fact it is no so high colour display as cannot even get the full srgb or adobe ranges.

But, it looks fine for people who doesn't understand it.

- Hey, I have a triluminos display woooooooooah
- What does it mean?
- I don't know but sure is good man

Don't fall in the marketing bull. The display is a bad overall display, maybe a good one in the laptop segment, but a really bad one globally.

 

I have heard no noise from my machine ever (in the two days I have had it). There are pin tipping sounds but I have not switched to the softer tip.

 

Can you try it and say if it reduces the noise?

 

I'm curious about something.
Has anyone installed Adobe products on this machine?
Particularly interested on After Effects and Photoshop.
I know that this is not exactly the best option for those softwares, but I'm looking for an ultrabook that can be used for some After Effects work not as my main machine (i.e. freelance work comes up when I'm on vacation).

So if they do run even if slow in comparison to other systems, I will be fine. Thanks!

 

Honestly, I don't find the stylus too noisy unless I tap it deliberately on the screen.

I use photoshop and lightroom on my Duo and it's fine.

The viewing angles are good IMHO, as good as the Duo 11 and way better than the Z2 and SVZ. However, as Blasphemy58 said, the brightness decreases a bit at extreme angles

 

Does Photoshop recognize the pen?
Is it pressure sensitive? I read somewhere that n-trig pens were not playing nice with Corel Painter and Photoshop.

I think I'm going to buy the 8GB version in a month or so...

 

First of all, I should point out that laptop displays are rarely the best "overall". You shouldn't expect a laptop display to match the picture quality of a large HDTV because because laptop displays have to be much thinner and lower cost.

Secondly, it only sounds like YOU don't know what Triluminos is and didn't bother to gain an understanding of it. In our commercialized culture, we're conditioned to be skeptical of gimmicky marketing buzzwords, and it's easy to see why one would assume that "Triluminos" is nothing more than that. But it is a legitimate display technology.

Conventional LCD displays use Indium Gallium Nitride blue LED backlighting coated with a phosphor called Cerium(III)-doped Yttrium Aluminum Garnet that, when stimulated by the blue light, emits yellow light that combines with the residual blue light to create a white light. That white light is passed through red, green, and blue color filters to produce the composite color of the pixel. The first problem with this process is that the "white" light that is produced by the backlighting is far from perfect, especially as it is used to create higher temperature colors. The second problem is that the materials they use to filter the light into the RGB components are imperfect as well. Red filters are notorious for letting some of the orange spectrum through, for example. The addition of unwanted components leads to the appearance of "washed out" colors which deviate from the "ideal" color which the display is attempting to reproduce.

Triluminos uses a different backlighting and filtering system to eliminate the presence of unwanted colors and reproduce purer colors. The blue LED backlighting is left uncoated. The filter contains 2 quantum dots of different size and one "empty space". Quantum dots can become excited when exposed to photons, and can consistently emit very specific wavelengths of light depending on their size. Larger quantum dots will have emissions of lower energy and longer wavelength (closer to the red side of the visible spectrum) than small ones. So, for each pixel, the filter has one dot which is relatively large in size and one that is somewhat smaller, and these, when excited, emit pure red and green light, respectively. The "empty spot" is left to allow the pure blue light from the backlight to pass through as the blue component.

This process results in superior color accuracy and a wider gamut because it eliminates two sources of undesirable additional color components.

 

Ok blasphemy I'm scared because I actually understood what you said and it now makes sense to me too...lol.

 

I'll answer fast.

- I don't care the tech before triluminos
- I care about the color accuracy and the gamut available
- Triluminos doesn't even cover full srgb or adobe as good displays do
- Most of the hdtvs even the expensive ones are crappy displays
- A good display covers over 100% of NTSC, about 100% of adobe rgb and 100% of srgb

As triluminos doesn't do anything of this it is a "bad" overall display that only uses markerting to sell people who doesn't know anything about of what good displays can offer. Answering explaining the technology doesn't change anything about what the triluminos offer the user, and it is a mediocre display. People doesn't want to know the tech behind the things, it is a black box, people need a tech that works and offer the best, and triluminos doesn't do that as with that technology can't even compete with CCFLs.

As I said before, could be a decent display in the laptop segment, but no more. And if you read people and press releases sony only advertises "TRILUMINOS OMG SUPERB" instead of the percentage of gamut that the display cover.

 

Great post, Blasphemy. Excellent technical information like this makes reading this forum worthwhile. I wonder if the mixed reviews on the display have to do mainly with the brightness. For example, is the display normally less bright if you are running on the battery instead of the battery charger.

 

Brightness would indeed be one of the less impressive aspects of the Duo 13's display. Most reviews place it in the ballpark of 300 nits, which is rather mediocre. I've found that keeping screen brightness in the neighborhood of 60%-70% is good for most lighted conditions. As far as I can tell, you can crank it up to full brightness whether it is on battery or AC power. Brightness levels can be set to automatically trigger in different states via the VAIO Control Center. There is an ambient light sensor that allows you to set automatic brightness adjustment, but I've found this to be occasionally finicky. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a Windows issue.

 

Hi there!
I tried to install the Windows 8.1 Preview (from ISO) and failed. Now I installed Windows 8 again but I'm missing a driver.
The device is connected to the "Intel(R) 8 Series LPC Controller (Premium SKU) - 9C43" and has the hardware ID "ACPI\VEN_SNY&DEV_5001" / "*SNY5001".
So if someone could identify this device or even extract the driver out of his Windows driver directory that would be immense helpful.

@SwanG
At least Photoshop CS5 does not recognize the pen pressure/tilt on my Duo.

 

You might as well give up on notebooks, then. But I suspect you already know this and are just venting about the limits of consumer tech. You simply won't find a consumer laptop that covers 100% of all three gamuts. As you noted even most HDTVs won't live up to your expectations. Nor will most high end external monitors costing less that $2,000. True 10 bit Dreamcolor or Eizo, sure, but even Dell's more affordable high gamut external monitors actually exceed aRGB resulting in inaccurate colors unless you can calibrate them down. I think most of us would agree that the display on the 13" Duo and Vaio Pro subjectively look better than most notebook panels on the market and when tested show a wider color gamut than most.

 

Has anyone been able to change the speed/frequency of the laptop within the bios? So that can reduce it speed and get even more battery life and reduce noise of fans.

I only use office and browse web and dont need so much power. My current desktop I have it speed reduce from 2.4GHz down to 1.2GHz and no noticable difference i. speed for what I do with it, however temperature the reduced speed means no fan noise and I dont scald my fingers if I touch the ram and more stable.

 

Thanks for making that point, Lisa. I was actually going to use some stats from your site to show that the Triluminos display does indeed have a wider color gamut than most.

It's pretty hard to get 100% Adobe RGB unless you have a display with individual LED RGB subpixels, and those are usually prohibitively expensive.

 

If anyone is using a Duo 13 right now, can you go to "Start + W" -> "Network and Sharing Center" -> Click on your Wi-Fi connection to bring up the "Wi-Fi Status" window and check the following information

1) How many Mbps do you see under "Speed"?
2) How many bars do you see under "Signal Quality"?
3) Are you connected to 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz wifi?

Do you see a speed of 6/9/12/18/24/36/48/54? This would indicate you're not connected using Wireless-N.

 

Wireless speed and signal quality not only depends on your laptop but also depends on AP settings and channel interference in neighbor.

Sent from my SGPT12 using Tapatalk 2

 

How is the overall wifi performance after updating?

 

I'm just looking for positive confirmation that somebody is able to connect to a Wireless-N access point using Wireless-N (i.e. not falling back to 802.11g or a).

The Broadcom BCM43241 or associated drivers don't seem to allow wireless-n connections. Vaio Duo 13 Wifi Problem - No Wireless-N, Low data... - Sony Community

 

Updating wireless drivers made no difference for me. I have no problem getting 5 bars and connections are reliable, but I get odd messages in the windows event log when connecting to a wireless-n access point.

Right now I'm connected at 24.0 Mbps 1 meter from the access point. I can get 150 and 300 Mbps from 10 meters with other devices so I suspect it's not an AP or interference problem--plus that wouldn't explain the event log messages.

 

My Duo 13 bounces between 300Mbps and 24Mbps 15 feet from an Airport Extreme N with 4 to 5 bars (5GHz). No drops or other problems.

 

That's very similar to what I see. I'm 15 feet away, connected to 5 GHz with 4 to 5 bars depending on how I hold the laptop. As soon as I transfer a substantial amount of data (a few MB) the speed for 5 GHz falls to 24 Mbps. No drops or other problems.

The odd thing is the only way to get 24 Mbps is through wireless-A. Wireless-N doesn't support that speed.

 

I personally just went to experience the Duo 13 for myself today and wow, what an improvement from the Duo 11. The touchscreen seems to be more sensitive, the keyboard is a lot easier to type (without making any mistakes) and the small track pad worked better than expected.

 

Notebookcheck review:
Test Sony Vaio Duo 13 SVD1321M2E Convertible Ultrabook - Notebookcheck.com Tests
they indicate that the screen brightness is almost as good as the Duo 11.

 

They got surprisingly good brightness results. 1151:1 is an excellent contrast ratio. Hoping that they release that review in English soon, there's only so much I could make out from the Google translation and I want to see their full analysis of the display.

The touch screen is such a delight. I want to use it more often, but I am disappointed by the lack of desirable Metro apps. Ah well, there will be more in due time.

 

The relevant Display Informations are:
1151:1 contrast, black level : 0,32 cd/m², average brightness is 362 cd/m², max brightness 399 cd/m², 93% sRGB, 64% AdopeRGB, DeltaE(2000) < 2,5, Avg. DeltaE ColorChecker = 3,
overall they're exited. Only thing they complain about are reflections glares of the sun

 

The screen is very good IMHO !!!

I calibrated with my spyder 4 Elite and there were not much corrections needed.... lovely colors...
The only negative I can say is the brighness could have been higher

Some persons are never satisfied... overall I'm very impressed with this machine... for tablet / hybrid ultrabook use this is a damn good device....

 

Did anyone notice a price drop for customized versions in US? It seems now customized Duo13 with Intel® Core™ i7-4650U + HD5000 is cheaper than rady to ship Intel® Core™ i7-4500U (1.80GHz / 3.00GHz) with HD4400..

Here is the link: Sony VAIO Duo 13 Configure-to-Order Laptops | Sony USA

Can anyone tell is there any difference in the packaging of ready to ship and customized notebooks of sony? The one looks premium and second simple or no difference?

Did anyone try to unlock WAN with At&t on board?

Thanks

 

It looks like there were quite a few price cuts. Sony does have a price drop guarantee fortunately.

 

Here is some information on processor performance with the Duo 13:

There are two power limits on the Haswell-ULT series chips.

PL1 is 25 W in laptop mode (it's actually programmable from 0 to 25 W by 1/8 W increments) averaged over 28 seconds (actually programmable from 1/1024 to 28 seconds by 1/1024 s increments). In tablet mode it's 9 W. This is the traditional TDP mentioned in spec sheets. 15 W is the nominal/default for Haswell.

PL2 is averaged over 10 milliseconds and is typically 25% higher than PL1. It's 31.25 W in laptop mode on the Duo 13 (actually programmable from 0 to 31.25 W).

Sony's cooling solution has no trouble dissipating 25 W indefinitely in laptop mode, or 9 W indefinitely in tablet mode. I get about 80-82 degrees C with 25 W in laptop mode and <60 degrees C with the full 9 W in tablet mode.

In terms of performance then, the question is how fast can each CPU go before hitting the power caps.

The i7-4500U seems to hit the hard 25 W limit at 2.7 GHz mostly, with occasional 2.8 GHz bursts (4 threads, CPU only, no GPU work). The GT2 graphics alone (no CPU work) can draw 23 W.

The i7-4650U seems to hit the same limit at around 100 MHz higher (2.8 GHz with occasional 2.9 GHz bursts, again 4 threads). Obviously GT3 has no trouble using 25 W.

For <25 Watt workloads, TurboBoost typically adds no more than 100 MHz over what can be sustained in steady state--even for single threaded work loads.

In tablet mode it's very similar except the speeds hover around 1.2 to 1.3 GHz.

 

Also got some information on the tablet/pen.

1) The sampling rate is 133 PPS. I was surprised by this since there seems to be less stroke vectoring with the Duo 13 than the Duo 11.
2) The number of pressure levels is 256.
3) The resolution is about 5 times the pixel resolution. About 9,600 counts horizontally. The vertical axis is a little different but appears to be about 5 counts per pixel as well.

 

I've had my Duo 13 for almost 2 weeks now, and I still love it. I got the i7-4500 with 8GB of RAM and 512GB SDD.

My biggest concern going into the purchase was the viewing angle when in laptop mode. It is a non-issue for me -- the viewing angle on my lap or even propped up slightly on my legs is fine. The touchscreen and stylus work much better than I expected as well -- I prefer the smaller stylus nib. I'm getting 10-12 hours on a charge with intermittent use throughout the day, which is excellent. I haven't run into any tasks yet that require more processing power. The WiFi connection is ok, not great not awful, but would expect better. I understand it's a common complaint that Sony is working on.

I'm also thrilled that Sony does price matching the first 30 days -- they're much easier to deal with than Dell is.

 

Hi folks,

Anyone w a Duo 13 w 4650u ? Can u share what is the performance like for games ? Can it do Diablo 3 at 1080p 30fps at medium settings, low shadows?

Thanks in advance !

 

I have the same problem. The pencil doesn't show up at all unless I press really hard. Every brush/tip works at full pressure with my finger, and then at ~5% pressing normally, and ~25% when I press firmly. It should be full pressure when I press as hard as I can, but this isn't the case. I tried messing with options (including turning the pressure of the tool to 100%), I checked the ArtRage forums, but the only solution I could find was to turn off Real Time Stylus in the Input section of the preferences. This makes the pen draw at full pressure (ie no sensitivity) but requires a restart of the software, so isn't a good solution.

 

Thanks for the great info. Does it mean Vaio Duo 13 uses the cTDPup feature? The Core i7 version of the Duo 11 did so I'm wondering.

 

Damn. It looks so awesome from the review. Super quiet, runs very cool, the HD 4400 performs almost as good as the HD 5000 in the Macbook Air 2013(compare the two), the display looks awesome and the battery life is good. And it even has a Digitizer!

The only issues from making me pull the trigger. The price, and the fact that its not a wacom. I think if it had a wacom digitizer and was a bit ligher(2.7 pounds maybe?) the price would be justifiable. At this point, the i5 should be a $1099 one.