Sony Vaio Duo 13 Owners Thread

thank you. a bit over the top...3 options for screen brightness

edit: see below

 

I ordered mine 9 August.

Got confirmation of order12 or 13 August (made a wire transfer)

Haven't received email about completing the custom Duo 13

Estimated time of shipping 27 August - 2 September

So I don't know what to expect as they still haven't finished my order which was made from Finland sony online store.

Hope to receive it next week, otherwise I'll be a bit pissed.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

 

Mine is similar.
Ordered 8/13
Estimated shipping 8/27
Estimated shipping change to 8/29
"Being Built" email 8/21
Actual shipping 8/26
Estimated delivery 8/30
HOWEVER it's at the sorting facility just a little over an hour away, as is the case I ordered that is scheduled to deliver this afternoon. Could be today?!

 

Yeah, tracking for mine already says it's in Newark, NJ today, which is a short truck drive to NYC. Maybe it'll get here on Thursday. Here's hoping it will.

EDIT: Delivered this morning, 2 days ahead of schedule

 

I would give them a call.

 

No it's not working. I think it's a bug.

Can please someone confirm, that the screen keeps changing (maybe 2-3 times within 2 hours) its brightness, although auto brightness and Dim screen after x minutes (power options) are disabled?
The screen is changing the brightness in 2-3 steps without any reason. I can hold my hand over the light sensor, it's definitively not the auto brightness.
BTW I bought mine in Asia, it's a i5 with no SIM-slot!

I hope that Sony is watching this thread sinced it's the biggest community/ressource from the internet. btw, did someone made a tear up already. looks very "unfriendly" to ppl who like to modify hardware

 

Mine was delivered this morning, 2 days ahead of the Fedex estimated delivery.

 

Has anyone been using NFC,How does the NFC work? I've tried tapping my galaxy s3 on the NFC logo to transfer a photo on the back but nothing happens

 

i7-4650U Option + Win8 Pro + Fresh Start

Ordered - Aug. 23rd 4PM MST
Est.Shipping - Sep. 2nd
Being Built - Aug. 26th 3AM MST (6PM Tokyo time)
Payment Processed - Aug. 29th (No Email yet)
Shipped - Aug. 29th 9PM MST
Est. Arrival - Sept. 5th

 

Hi. I gave them a call.

Weird thing is that it still hasn't been build. The assembling should be finished tomorrow, and then despatched forward.

They told me that I should receive it next week.

Hope so....

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

Edit:
Could they be suffering from shortage of some part, (just a thought) assembling some new chip instead of badly behaving broadcom or doing some testing before sending the unit?

Mine is i7 4500u, 8 Gb ram, 256 SSD SATA, 4G WWAN which is good as it costs only 20e for 10 Gb, or 13e for unlimited 3G up to 21 Mbyte and 20 e for unlimited 4g up to 150Mbyte.

Man can dream ^_^

 

x
i have a problem With my shining New Vaio pro 13 super expensive Laptop. I cannot stand when the display decides for itself when to dim the screen, and when to turn the light up....so I deactivated the function that does just that.

Still now everytime I watch a Movie on it the light keeps dimming and increasing the light constantly. Every time the scene changes it will change the lighting. I HATE IT ! I am not a novice With computers, and have tried every setting I could find to change it, but nothing seems to work. But admittedly I don`t know what a lot of the fancy settings really do.

I want to Return this Laptop if I can`t find a way to stop the Automatic display function. Can it be the light sensor that is malfunctioning?

I would have bought the sony vaio duo if it had`nt been so BLOODY EXPENSIVE !

 

Have you disabled the Intel power saving technology regarding screen dimming along with vaio control center settings. I resolved the problem by disabling both.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

 

At least for Sony USA, I think there was a shortage for a while. I ordered mine on 8/13 and the initial estimated shipping was 8/27 that was changed to 8/29 after a few days. And for a week after, every custom Vaio Duo 13 I would configure said 8/29 as the estimated shipping. So I believe they were waiting for a new batch of Duo 13s.

Perhaps your 4G WWAN delayed your order more. My custom configuration was i7-4650, 8 GB, 256 SSD, Windows 8 Pro, Fresh Start, and factory installed screen protector.

After just a night with it, I'm really enjoying it so far. The keyboard seems very comfortable to type on. I've not had any WIFI issues, but I have only tested the machine in my small one bedroom apartment so my router isn't too far away. I will bring it to work where I know my work WIFI signal is spotty and weak and see how the WIFI performs there.

 

I use the NFC with my Nokia speaker. It works, but is finicky. Have you tried going to wireless settings and checking if your NFC is on? Sometimes, I have to go into airplane mode and come back out for it to work.

 

I got a decked out Vaio Duo 13:
i7-4650U
Intel® HD Graphics 5000
512GB solid state drive
8GB LPDDR3-1600MHz
AT&T 4G LTE
Screen protector
Carbon Black

I was concerned about the same things everyone else was: does the WiFi work? Fixed angle for the screen in laptop mode? No pressure sensitivity in Photoshop? Can I type on the thin keyboard? HOW LONG is it going to take to get this thing?

My WiFi works just fine. I get the same connectivity as my other devises.

I was really doubtful about the fixed angle for the screen. However, now that I'm using it, I think it's a genius design. The angle is fine on my desk or in my lap, and being locked in position helps stabilize it very well when using the touch screen. My HP TX2 bounces when using touch. The location of the screen makes using the touch screen more natural in touch mode also -- I don't have to reach as far.

The lack of pressure sensitivity in Photoshop gave me pause -- I use Photoshop a lot for photo editing. But I don't use it for fine art, and decided I could live without this feature. Hopefully N-Trig will deliver and produce a Wintab driver. They've done it before for other computers.

The screen looks great. Colors are very accurate, and viewing angle is good. Those are the most important things. Some laptops can brag of higher resolutions, but I think this has the perfect resolution for the size. Any higher I would probably have difficulty using most of my software.

I love the keyboard. I'm not a super-fast typist, so maybe that makes a difference. The keyboard is reasonably responsive, and while it will take a little adjustment, it's among the better laptop keyboards I've used.

From the day I place my customized order until the day I had the computer in-hand it took 15 days. Of course this will vary for everyone. I actually received it 6 days earlier than I had anticipated from the projected shipping date.

Other impressions:
I'm not a benchmark guy. I don't care what the "windows experience index" says, or what any benchmarks say for that matter. I got this to primarily run Adobe Creative products, and to run some software from work. This opens large InDesign documents is seconds. Photoshop is a breeze. For what I need, this thing is at least as fast as my desktop i7, and seems to be even a little faster. Probably partly because of the huge SSD drive. My desktop only has SSD for the OS and programs.

I've heard critics say it's "too big to be a tablet"; it's "not good enough for serious gaming" etc. Granted, the VAIO Duo 13 is not the best at any one thing. It's not an iPad. It's not a gaming laptop for anyone but the most casual of gamers. But it's the best I've seen at doing so many things so very well. It makes a very usable tablet. If I hold the Duo 13 in my lap, it makes an excellent ereader. It's so light, I have no problem keeping with me most of the time. And on a computer like this that's designed for it, Windows 8 is actually pretty good. Another criticism I've heard of the Duo 13 is it's expensive. I can't argue there, but the efficiency and flexibility it provides for me will pay for itself in no time.

So for me, the Vaio Duo 13 meets all my needs very well, all in one device. I highly recommend it.

 

Hi thanks for the info. Unfortunately, mine didn't come with a vodafone micro sim card. By the way, do you know if the device locked to vodafone network? Cheers.

 

So I also just received my duo 13 i7 4650 with hd 5000 graphics. My question is with the windows experience index. Mine scores a 5.5 with "desktop graphics" being the 5.5 score. My friend has the i7 4500u with hd 4400 and his score is a 5.9 with the 5.9 coming from the "desktop graphics". My question is why the lower score with the better processor and better graphics? Is this a lemon unit?

thanks

 

I have the HD4000 on my Duo 11 and i get 5.7 for desktop graphics on Win 8 x64, but i use to get 5.5 till i updated to the latest graphic drivers on the Intel website.

John.

 

I don't have my Vaio yet, so I cannot test what I have, but...
It is likely a driver issue.

Check to see if yours is default 15.31.9.64.3165 (3165)
or OEM version of 15.31.9.64.3168 (3168)
or Sony version of 9.18.10.3131. (3131)

You should have 5.9 score (most likely).
Install 3165, since it is most stable.

Also, HD5000 dynamically scales the Video RAM, if you were running few applications before the experience index, try using the experience index after a fresh reboot.
May be some applications were significantly taking those memory space.

Go here and check out what you have.
http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect/graphics

 

i went and updated and it went to 5.6....i was getting way better score of 5.9 with hd 4400?? what gives

 

thanks for the reply...i have 3131 when i run the intel tool. it says the following "A customized computer manufacturer driver is installed on your computer. The Intel Driver Update Utility is not able to update the driver. Installing a generic Intel driver instead of the customized computer manufacturer driver may cause technical issues. Contact your computer manufacturer for the latest driver for your computer."

I went to sony's site and downloaded the most recent version and am still at 5.6??

 

Could you upload a screenshot of CPU-Z ?
CPU-Z CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting

CPU, MEMORY, and GRAPHICS

 

Sony's site has the latest version at 3131.
Do you still have 3131?

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/De...D+Graphics+5000&DownloadType=Drivers&lang=eng

This is what you need.

 

yes i still have 3131 and i did download 3165 i just have not installed yet b/c i was just hesitant to install because of the warning intel put when when they detected my driver...that since this is a custom pc it could harm my computer
"A customized computer manufacturer driver is installed on your computer. The Intel Driver Update Utility is not able to update the driver. Installing a generic Intel driver instead of the customized computer manufacturer driver may cause technical issues. Contact your computer manufacturer for the latest driver for your computer."

 

It's entirely your choice. I'll be updating to 3165.
Worst case if everything breaks (99.99% unlikely), I'll have to go to SafeMode and Remove Intel Driver 3165 then Reboot and reinstall 3131.

 

I ordered my Vaio the other week, and it's scheduled to be delivered between the 1st-7th. I've been reading this thread for ages now but I've got one question no one has covered: How is the Duo 13's sound card? Would it be suitable for music production in Ableton Live (Using vst instruments, so the lowest latency possible really) and high quality music playback? For information, I've ordered the i7, 8gb, 256Gb UK version (so i7-4500U).

Thanks guys!

 

An update on my Duo 13... My WIFI seems fine. With my work WIFI signal, which I know is really weak, my Duo 13 picks up the signal and holds the connection just as well as my other devices. So far, no complaints on the WIFI on my end.

 

does this device still have wifi connectivity issues? Thats the one thing that is holding me back.

 

so i tried to update to 3165....i received an error saying that my computer does not meet the minimum requirements for this update???? starting to wonder if i should just return the unit

 

You want to return the computer just because a benchmark tells you that your integrated graphics card is a few points lower than it should be?

 

well considering i paid $1900 for a top of the line computer....YES I feel that i should be getting what i paid for? don't you? or are you always satisfied with "good enough'

 

INTEGRATED GRAPHICS. If you want good enough graphics, then the Duo will work for you. If you want fast graphics, I'm afraid you need to get a model that offers a discrete graphics chip.

 

I appreciate the responses.....please see my original posts.....I understand that what i am getting is integrated graphics...i understand that this is not a dedicated gpu capable of running top end games...it's not about the games...i have friend who purchased the duo 13 with i7 4500u with hd 4400 and he has a score of 5.9...i purchased the upgraded version of the cpu and gpu i7 4650 hd 5000 my score is 5.6. In that context and that context alone i am contemplating returning the unit since i paid more for a more powerful unit and am getting lower scores...hence my comment on not settling for "good enough". yes my computer is fast and i can probably not visualize the differences but that is not the point.

 

Who cares about WEI? Run a benchmark like 3DMark11 then decide. Also test in similar conditions, like battery vs battery or plugged in vs plugged in.

Even the HD 4400 performs well on the Duo 13 because thermals are really well managed, and actually uses 25W cTDPup when plugged in. The Duo 13's HD 4400 can go toe to toe with Macbook Air's HD 5000 because of that. Now you are talking about HD 5000 in the Duo 13. It should be even better. You won't see many non-Iris graphics systems perform as well as this.

 

I guess I look at the whole package and if that's settling for "good enough" then I will accept that. Listen, it's your money. You should do whatever makes you feel satisfied.

I'm curious on the thought process. Are you going to get the one with HD4400, or just avoid the Duo 13? What if next month Sony updates the display drivers? Will you get the HD5000 again? I wouldn't bet on it since Sony is terrible at updating drivers.

 

I just received my Vaio 13 with i7-4650. I installed iTunes and it keeps cashing iTunes on start. Anyone else experiencing this issue ?

 

I installed Intel's 3165 graphics driver because I'm having trouble with a game that is supposedly fixed with the latest driver update. I was worried that Sony's version of the driver might have some additional functionality over the Intel version and that I might lose features. I installed Intel's version and my computer ran fine, but the game wasn't fixed, so I went back to the Sony.

Does anyone know if Sony added anything to the driver, or is having its own version of the driver just a way for Sony to control/test the updates for compatibility before its customers' computers are updated?

 

You have to uninstall the Sony driver first, reboot, then install the Intel version.

 

I used the have-disk method google it, to install the Intel driver, i just overwrote the Sony one, every thing seems to work fine, though i have the Duo 11 not 13

John.

 

Hi,

I've just received my duo13, I've experinced it several times, after waking up the duo13 from sleep, touchscreen and trackpad were not working and i had to reboot. Anyone experienced this? I've also experienced twice when the duo13 auto rebooted all of a sudden.

Other than that I'm loving it. WiFi seems to work fine, I've applied the 2 steps I mentioned previously, not sure if it was really that steps that improved it, but seems working fine with reasonable wifi signals in comparison of my smartphones etc.

 

Hi,

I've just received my duo13, I've experienced it several times, after waking up the duo13 from sleep, touchscreen and trackpad were not working and i had to reboot. Anyone experienced this? I've also experienced twice when the duo13 auto rebooted all of a sudden.

Other than that I'm loving it. WiFi seems to work fine, I've applied the 2 steps I mentioned previously, not sure if it was really that steps that improved it, but seems working fine with reasonable wifi signals in comparison of my smartphones etc.

 

I've experienced both of these things. I was kinda writing it off as a Windows 8 issue... but maybe it's not.

- DH

 

Anyone know why my Vaio Control Center takes 90 seconds to load up? Anyone else experience this? Clicking on Vaio Control Center takes me to the desktop, but it takes 90 seconds for the window to pop up. This happened after I updated Windows 8 and did all the Vaio updates.

 

Are Iris graphics chips available now? Any chance they'll come to the duo at some point?

 

Does anyone having this issues:
-taskbar icons: battery, wifi and volume keeps disappearing after some hours even if you set it to "show icon and notifications".

Somehow I feel that all this Sony bloatware are making battery life worse. There are so many autostart and background software that I disabled. Mcafee is the worst, even if you uninstall it and run the Mcafee consumer uninstaller, it"s somehow still on your PC. I'm really thinking about installng a fresh windows 8 sinced it"s unacceptable, that you have only 70gb free storage of your 128gb SSD (system recovery is disabled and deleted) In case you want to do so either...here are all the backup software and drivers Support for SVD13211CG : VAIO® Duo 13 : VAIO&reg Notebook & Computer : Sony Asia Pacific

I'm happy that my uncle gifted me this convertible PC, but I would have never bought this. The quality is quite satisfying (not perfect) and the cooling management is very professional, but you pay a lot for the brand. I have a 2 years old Notebook with better hardware (8GB RAM, i7, decent GT540M+256GB SSD built in by myself) and I have a Galaxy Note 10.1 with 3G which I'm using since one year in university, I didn't touch any paper during university since then. What I want to say is that I'm the type of guy, that wants best value for the money. I appreciate companies like Apple and Sony for making beautiful and unconvetional devices, but I would never buy this stuff, if I can have the same effect for less money.
I payed 700Euro for the Laptop 2 years ago, 170Euro for the SSD 1 year ago and 350Euro for the Tablet 1 year ago. Now it's even cheaper.

My uncle payed 1250 Euro for my Vaio Duo 13. For this price tag you should expect more. I dont't have 3G, 128GB SSD is a joke, even worst you only have 70GB free storage. You cannot adjust the screen angle like over notebooks and convertibles. At the beginning the edges where much brighter than the rest of the display. It's better know for some reason, I love this screen to be honest. Audio speakers are quite nice for a Tablet/Notebook. The 2 USB Ports are ok for this type of device, you can buy an active USB HUB to solve this shortage.
Back2bashing:
If I ever pay more than 800 Euro for a PC/Tablet/Notebook/Convertible, I expect at least a Quadcore nowadays and of course a graphic card. But to be honest the integrated HD4400 does its job very well. I'm playing Counter Strike GO with medium Settings @45-50fps (but with some lags sometimes) and most old roms will work on emulators. The keyboard lights are very unevenly bright. Touch is sometimes very unprecise but this could be also be a fault by chrome, dunno.
The RAM and SSD and Battery is solded...so bad. I could have put 8GB RAM and my old SSD into this convertible, so it could have a little boost. 4GB RAM are not enough with all this crapware and chrome. Just 15 tabs and your RAM will be full. BTW I just put me old SSD into an external cage with USB 3.0. It's my D:/ drive which will be used for games and music . This Vaio SSD can't be loaded with a lot of stuff since a SSD will slow down if it's getting full.

Another question. I set my convertible to go into sleep mode after 10 minutes. If I'm listening to music with vlc and youtube via chrome or just browsing any site it will go into sleep. But I already woke up twice and saw that my Vaio display was still on playing radio (chrome). The sleep modus seems to working very strange.

 

No i would not get the 4400. My whole point is that why did I pay the extra $100 dollars for the upgraded processor if i was going to get less performance. Considering the large pricetag on these units i feel that I should be getting better performance. I may just return and wait a couple months. The wireless is HORRIBLE, although i purchased the $10 edimax from amazon and that performs well. It just seems like to many compromises for such an expensive machine that is all.

I love the design, I love the battery life, It just to me maybe feels like sony needs to spend some time fixing what is broke before it is ready for the masses.

 

Did anyone install the leaked Windows 8.1 RTM edition? I upgraded my Macbook running Windows 8 today and it seems to work just fine with my serial. Would be great if we could update it on the Duo 13 (should be possible)!

 

Hi,

I've noticed a major problem with this laptop that, while has been reported once or twice on random forum posts, is not well documented.

The Active Standby fails when Skype for Desktop is running. I returned my first Duo 13 because it was losing 3-6% battery per hour while sleeping. If you listen to the back left side, there was an unstable buzzing sound all the time. My replacement did not have this problem for a few days, but then started to also drop battery very quickly. It appears to be tied to whether I have Skype running. Certainly the associated sound is correlated. If you run Skype, be sure to quit it (not just minimize as Microsoft has made the usual 'quit' options do) before you let it sleep. I wouldn't really care except that:

- Microsoft has disabled Hibernate, and the fixes to bring it back I've seen on the web don't work. I bought this laptop at a Microsoft store, so don't know if this is always the case.
- Microsoft has made quitting Skype is a pain, because it will default almost everything to "minimize".
- This is an expensive machine compared to the comparable Macs.

I don't know yet whether I'm going to keep this or return it.


Other opinions and thoughts not related to this major problem are below, for whatever they're worth.

Drawbacks associated with this (very nice) laptop:
- The touchpad is pretty terrible. I've heard that this is because Windows touchpads use the old PS/2 interface, but don't know this for a fact. What makes this particularly annoying is that you can't use the touchpad and the keyboard at the same time, making Minecraft impossible without an external mouse.
- Windows 8 really is a dog. Others may disagree of course. Please don't flame me.
- The angle of the screen is not ideal for many use cases where the laptop is not actually near your lap, but rather higher such as on a table. The screen is very nice, but loses a lot of its performance when viewed from "below".
- I've found some software to not scroll correctly with touch. There is no pattern I've found to anticipate this though.
- The keyboard is not great.

Things I like:
- The touchscreen is excellent, and writing notes on OneNote is pretty awesome.
- Playing Civ5 on the touchscreen is good fun.

 

I dont get it. You have a cheap laptop with better hardware and a tablet? THe DUO 13 isnt a power machine, if you want to have a quadcore, you get less battery time. All upcomming quadcore have 35+W TPD if I remember correctly. DUO is a business convertible with a great battery time, imagine if they put a quadcore in it. You dont need quadcore power or excellent graphics for a business machine like the DUO
Oh and the DUO has 3g/4g.

When I get my DUO I will check the battery dropping, sounds kind of bad.

 

Hi All,
I have a Vaio Pro 13 Touchscreen, that I just had a failed Ubuntu install on. Long story short, I lost all of the partitions. (not a big deal as my data etc. is backed up). But it looks like I can't re-install Windows 8 etc. using the recovery disks unless I have the partitions on the disk. Can someone list the partitions and file systems and sizes they have on the Vaio Pro, so I can recreate them? Or if someone knows how to use the recovery disks to recreate the partitions let me know.

Thanks in advance,
Rob