Vaio Duo 11 Owners Thread

Not an owner yet, but I will be soonish! I'll try to maintain the first post the thread for the current owners.

 

Continuing the conversation here:

The 128gb to 256gb upgrade on Sony costs $170 on the USA site, so not sure how you'd be saving any money since most 256gb msata drives cost north of $200. Of course, a better reason to replace it would be for performance reasons. Someone here should run some benchmarks on the drive and see what you're getting. Compare it to a mainstream drive like the msata M4 and see if it would be worth while. Toshiba drives are not sought after for performance reasons....... but they have gotten better as of late compared to their earlier drives.

CT256M4SSD3 - 256GB, mSATA Solid State Drive , from Crucial.com

Crucial m4 mSATA 256GB SSD Review > Benchmarks: CrystalDiskMark 3.0 - TechSpot Reviews
Crucial m4 256GB mSATA SSD: Performance

 

What program/benchmark do you want me to run on it? Ill do it.

 

While not the best, the most commonly used are CrystalDiskMark and AS SSD. You can easily find benchmarks of those two with most any SSD out there so you can see how the Toshiba drive compares to Crucial/Intel/Samsung's msata drives. I'm going to guess it won't be to Toshiba's favor based on prior history, but don't get me wrong, ever modern SSD is stupidly fast compared to HDD's so nothing to worry about in that respect, just know that things could be better! Sony has used Toshiba drives in the past with the Z series, but they also heavily used Samsung as well depending on the revision of Z, I personally wish they would have gone with Samsung again in the Duo 11.

I wonder how easy it would be to replace it. Anyone brave enough to crack their baby open and see how accessible the drive is?

 

Just ran crystal mark.

Sequential Read: 441mbs
Sequential Write: 243mbs
Random 512k Read: 300mbs
Random 512k Write: 249mbs
Random 4k Read: 18.9mbs
Random 4k Write: 40.2mbs
Random 4k QD32 Read: 130mbs
Random 4k QD32 Write: 228.7mbs


On an unrelated note - don't try to recalibrate the touchscreen. I tried doing that with the hopes that the random freezes would disappear, and I think I inadvertently made it so that the charms bar wouldn't appear. Everything else worked, top bar, recent apps bar, bottom bar, and the entire screen recognized touch input at the time, including near where the charms bar was supposed to be. Every time I tried to actually load the charms bar, it wouldn't recognize the swipe. Windows Key + C still brought it up, so the bar itself wasn't disabled, just the swiping mechanism for it. I ended up doing a system restore to an earlier point and it fixed it.

It feels awful and kind of neat to be with this product in its infancy. Windows 8, touchpad displays, and this slider specifically are very new, so its natural that there will be some issues. I wish it was easier to find individual drivers and such for it though. Seems like every time I try and enter the model number into sony online support, it tells me device not found.

 

I'm seriously temped by this convertible.

If the Ram upgradeable and is the SSD either a slim 7mm SSD or a mSATA (not a propriety one)

Even better if you can take pictures of the underside with the case off.


Having tried one out, it seems the num is pretty much pointless and it seems the swiping titles has been over dampened, possible to confirm? Both won't make much difference, I'd just like to know before I go all out.

Also, if possible to double check the memory inside (if upgradeable) is DDR3L (Low Voltage) and the model number inside

 

I stand corrected, those are great numbers for a msata, Toshiba seems to have improved their controllers! Performance won't be a reason to swap the drive. Maybe in the future when 512gb msata drives are out and priced sanely.

 

What do you mean about num and titles? Can you reclarify please?

 

Gah, stupid autocorrect.

The nub as a replacement as a trackpad, and the titles are the windows live tiles.

 

Yeah the nub is pretty bad. I havnt really found a use for it outside of when the screen freezes, but I tried it out and its just too meh, takes too many swipes to get the cursor across. I don't have much experience using them in general to comment on how it compares to other manufacturers.

Im not sure what you mean by tiles being dampened. Granted its a different mechanical control, but the tiles don't seem to move any differently than on my desktop non touch.

 

Spoke with sony customer support as this touchscreen issue was getting crazy. The service woman said they have receieved quite a few calls last week about this issue. Seems to randomly effect some duo 11s but not others. Currently there is no driver update or any status on this bug/malfunction. She recommended for me to go back to the sony store and return it for the same model.

Now time to decide if I want to continue down the duo 11 path or deal with the ty screen on the t series, or the good screen on the 15 s series but 4.5hours battery life and less portability x(

 

Is there any duo owner that isn't having the touchscreen issue? I'm tempted to exchange mine.

I had a Lenovo Yoga for a couple days and it seemed to have the same problem.

 

Today I can join the highly exclusive Vaio Duo owners club I had received a call from the company I bought the computer from to respond to an issue I had raised about their delivery system, they apologised for the error and said the machine was on track for delivery on Monday so I was rather pleased to find rather than the jacket I was expecting at the delivery office it was the laptop.

First impressions are that the screen is incredible, the colour is s vibrant and the resolution superb. The little optical nub is a little bit odd but it seems ok although I'm used to this type of system as my work machine is an X200, I'm finding the middle button a bit stiff for scrolling though and tapping it is a little inaccurate as it tends to move slightly when tapped. The keyboard feels ok although I'm finding typing a bit inaccurate so far as I seem to keep missing keys, I'm hoping that will get better when I'm more used to it. The tilting screen seems clever as it makes it easier to access compared to a design where the screen is in a normal laptop position.

I uninstalled McAfee and it wrecked the system, fragments seemed to be all over the place so browsers wouldn't work nor could I access network shares. There's a tool on McAfee's site called MCPR which will tidy up a machine and that seems to have done the trick although I still have a McAfee Parental Control entry in programs and features I can't remove and there's a tile as well that needs to go. Someone in the original thread mentioned wireless problems and I'm having the same, it's dropped several times today and on one occasion refused to reconnect until I restarted. I have a very good Draytek router which has been rock solid with all my wireless devices so far so I don't think it is responsible.

John

 

In the last general thread some people were reporting that they havnt had any issues with theirs. So far I have been the vocal minority, so keep in mind most of the posts are coming from me.

 

Interesting that yours came with McCafee. Mine came with Kapersky.

Also I havnt been having dropped signals or anything, but sometimes on reboot it takes a while for it to connect and I have to manually select my home wifi to connect.

Let us know if you have any screen issues. For me it starts getting more and more apparent the more things I have running. Just start watching a hulu show, then open some tabs in ie, and just keep scrolling. See if it all of a sudden stops responding to touch input.

 

Mine appeared to have a UK image as it defaulted to UK keyboard and language whereas normally it defaults to US as it's usually the same image.

With the wifi usually I can reconnect just by tapping connect and it's fine but once it wouldn't connect at all so will see how it goes. The touch screen has been behaving ok for me but I haven't been doing much for it, I've kept it open most of the time and has been responding fine but will need more time to see if it's ok or not.

The other issue I'm having is the Modern UI apps won't seem to update, I just get dots going across the screen and nothing seems to happen no matter how long I leave it. Annoyingly that interface doesn't give you any information about what it is doing so I can't see if it is starting a download or what.

John

 

I think the app thing is more of a windows 8 or store thing. Happens to my desktop too. I end up just doing something else or relogging to fix it.

 

Yes, I appreciate it's not a fault of the Vaio but it's one part that really annoys me about Windows 8 as I don't like having it all hidden from me. On a more positive note I thought the Windows 8 preview was surprisingly fast on the old Dell XPS M1330 I was testing it with which had a 320GB hard drive, the speed of it on the Vaio with the SSD is ridiculous - the hybrid shutdown systems works extremely well.

I had a good look at cases and covers but none of them would fit as the Duo 11 is a strange shape, it's very wide and not very tall so it doesn't fit in my usual slip as it's wider than my Lenovo X200 (12in widescreen) but cases wide enough for it have too much height so the machine doesn't feel very secure. Anyone found any suitable non-Sony bags?

John

 

Can anyone tell me how the scaling is on this computer? I know that with full HD on an 11-inch, there's probably a good amount of scaling...does it work out well?

 

No touchscreen issues for me.

I had Kaspersky, not McAfee, and removing it was painless.

I've had two or three wifi hiccups in the past week, including a LOT of streaming video, so I'd notice if there was an issue. So far, it's only happened when playing Xbox Video or Xbox Music (both apps are still a bit buggy and could use another update or two), doesn't always happen, and isn't reproducible. Seems like a minor driver issue that should be easy to patch. If it was a hardware issue, I think it'd happen more frequently and with more regularity. A reboot fixes it.

EDIT: I'm now wondering if being too close to another wifi device is causing interference--placing my Duo 11 directly adjacent to my F2 is causing the Duo's wifi to stutter a little, andmoving it to the next room caused wifi problems to cease (maybe coincidence, maybe not). I wonder if other people are having problems when it's right next to their phone or another laptop or something?

EDIT 2: YES, I think that's it with the wifi. I reproduced it at least twice. Being directly adjacent to my Vaio F2 makes its wifi disconnect, and it can't reconnect until it's moved a bit further away and rebooted. Some sort of interference.

Works out GREAT. I can think of one and only one time when it's an issue, and it's an absolute nit-pick. In MS Word, when you collapse the ribbon, you get a down-arrow on the toolbar to re-expand it. That arrow doesn't scale well. That's the ONLY issue I've noticed scaling-wise in a week of use, including extensive desktop use in addition to start screen app use. Otherwise, scaling is flawless at either 125% or 150%.

 

Thanks for the info. Just having kind of a hard time deciding between the Duo and the XPS 12. Similar price, similar specs, etc. The main thing that I like about the duo is that 11 inches is in between a tablet and the smallest regular laptop size--it seems like it would be better for the tablet function (which is honestly what I'm planning on mostly using) than the XPS 12 would. I saw the Duo at the Sony Store today and I was very impressed with the screen quality, the weight, and the look of it

 

It's a premium-feeling piece of kit, no doubt.

I wouldn't want mine any larger than it is...but I have small hands so the miniature keyboard isn't an issue. The XPS 12 has the advantage of a full-size keyboard and a trackpad for those who care. And personal preference, but I prefer the Vaio's screen solution. Between rotating back and spinning the screen, the XPS seems like it's screen wouldn't be as stable for touch input when the keyboard is open.

 

I am impressed how well the scaling works as it's something that has never worked very well on Windows, I haven't changed the default display setting as I'm finding the machine easily usable with no noticeable problems. I am sure there will be some graphics that don't work properly particularly older software but its worth the trade-off for the beautiful screen.

John

 

You could be onto something as come to think of it the problem I had when it wouldn't reconnect occurred when I brought the Z5 through to resolve the McAfee issue as the Duo couldn't go online at all due to the broken McAfee install. Once it was working again I powered down the Z5 and the Duo has been fine since then.

John

 

1. Well, after getting the duo replaced at the sony store, so far this replacement hasn't had any touch screen issue at all. That's after around 18 hours of use so far, no freezes, no hickups. Not having any wifi issues either. So far so good!

2. Out of curiosity, I think this is a windows8/ie10 issue, but does anyone have issues when posting on this forum with the cursor not staying in the reply box? I have to pull out the normal keyboard, and as soon as I click to make the cursor go into the text box I need to hit some kind of key within 1 second or it leaves the text box and I can no longer reply. This is happening only on this forum.

3. Anyone find any cool apps?

4. I cant stress enough how awesome I think this screen is. In typical web browsing in the living room, I end up setting the display on the lowest brightness setting and still end up feeling that its bright enough. The reviews did stress that both the duo 11 and the xps 12 are in the 400+ lux range, and just how much of a brightness increase that is over some laptops and tablets, but in experience its much more apparent. My previous S had awful viewing angles and brightness. This ips screen honestly spoils me. I don't think I could ever go back to a non ips display and plan on upgrading my girlfriend and I's desktops to ips displays. Felt this same way after getting the galaxy s3 and seeing the amoled screen.

 

I agree. I have never loved large resolution and wanted anything more than 1280x800 or 1366x768, but 1920x1080 is great on the Duo. And it even looks good at 1600x900 and 1366x768, but I have left it at 1920x1080.

 

Yes, that exact problem. I have it on NBR and its sister sites (Brighthand and TabletPCReview) but nowhere else).

I started a thread about cool windows 8 apps in the windows subforum. So far my favorites are The Big Picture (Boston Globe's photojournalism app) and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. ABC's media player and Netflix's app are both excellently-executed media players too...far better than their web interfaces.

Yeah, the screen is GREAT.

 

Has anyone installed windows 8 pro pack to update the Vaio Duo 11 to Windows 8 Professional? Are you able to install any Vaio apps from the MS Store? Microsoft says you will lose the Vaio apps if you install the Pro Pack...

 

Hi
I've tested one of these in the sony centre. I really like it and hope to buy one in the next couple of weeks, but I will say that the touch response is definitely altered. The inertia on scrolling seems much less than it should be as though there's a "friction" meaning scrolling stops sooner than it should after you have released your finger from the screen.
I've been using the microsoft (samsung built) developer slate for a year (developing a win8 app) so that's my comparison.

Anyway, great device. I struggled to find the space bar when testing the keyboard but generally it's cool and the hinge seems as well built as you could reasonably expect. Cool thing.

 

Hi guys. Can you post the screenshots with index performance windows 8?
Interesting difference is the middle and the top model.

 

I've been looking at the Duo 11 and the Samsung XE700T1C for a full fledged Windows tablet. How is the fan noise on this guy? My last Sony was the CW series and that wasn't the most ideal experience I've had.

 

Quietest fan I've ever experienced. You won't even hear it unless you're in a totally silent environment, and even then it's barely audible. When shutting it down to put it in my bag, I have to bring it up to my ear to tell if the fan has stopped yet. Sony has had some loud fans recently (my Vaio F2 included, at least when it's working hard), but this is NOT one of them. Quietest fan I've ever heard, full stop.

 

I wouldn't judge the performance on WEI scores but here's mine from my mid-spec Vaio Duo (i5/128GB SSD/4GB):



John

 

does anyone know if Duo has Kensington lock support? I can't seem to find the hole..

 

I just bought the Duo 11 today. It started off great but then I noticed the WiFi having issues and not connecting to the internet at all after about 20-30 mins. Then I would get messages from windows saying the memory is very low even though I had no programs running. I opened the task manager and it showed me Sony by default had way too many programs/apps running in the background. I chose the i5 model with 4GB of RAM. Damn McAPEE is also using up a huge amount of memory. Why does Sony have to shove this damn virus down our throats? Have you guys noticed any performance issues with this ultrabook as well and have you uninstalled any programs?

 

None of those issues. I only removed Kaspersky.

 

I'm really confused how some people have McAfee and some people have Kaspersky. It seems like the McAfee folks have problems and the Kaspersky folks don't. Regardless, I uninstalled Kaspersky and just use Windows Defender instead. Microsoft Security Essentials (same program, different name) had worked fine for me with Win7, so why not stick with the same?

 

Ok Im really getting frustrated with this ultrabook. Downloaded tune in radio app and while listening to the radio the screen would go black and the whole thing would become unresponsive. Another issue as I mentioned about the low memory warning, if I uninstalled the damn McAfee, the internet will not work. It's like they just shipped these things without even testing them. Beautiful machine but so far extremely buggy. I think I will just have to take it for a refund. It's a shame cause I really love it when it works even though it's just for an hour at best.

 

Sony's page only mentions Kaspersky, not McAfee. For the people with McAfee-equipped devices (which seem far more problem-ridden than the Kaspersky-equipped models)...did you buy it from a big box store or third-party retailer? I'm wondering if a third-party retailer installed extra software that screwed stuff up.

VAIO Duo 11 Ultrabook Laptop | Windows 8 Touchscreen Ultrabook Computer | Sony Store USA

 

I purchased mine from PC World/Currys which is a big box retailer like BestBuy. Finally some good news, after doing two recovery installs, seems like the culprit was the damn McaPEE virus! Hate this piece of garbage software so much. Not only was it hogging all the ram but also screwing up my Wifi. So once I completely uninstalled it with the McAfee removal tool, my Duo 11 seems to be at peace and is behaving very nicely i.e no wifi issues, no low memory warnings and no unresponsive behavior. Seriously those who are interested in the ultrabook should make sure theres no McAfee installed on it, otherwise ask for a HUGE discount!!!

 

As I suspected. Big-box retailer installed godawful antivirus free trial and screwed everything up. McAfee's trial sounds like poison. The Kaspersky trial that you get when you buy from Sony direct is relatively benign, even though I still prefer Windows Defender.

 

So, how's the heat on this hybrid? One thing I dislike about the MacBook Air is that whenever I watch YouTube videos, Netflix, or go on StreetView, the computer gets really hot and in some cases, starts to slow down. Do graphics intensive things cause any overheating in the Duo?

 

Anyone else find that switching from Dolby to xLOUD in the Vaio Control Center DRAMATICALLY improves audio quality?

No heat problems with streaming video or extended Netflix or Xbox Video playback. The fan remains nicely quiet and no performance problems. The vent is large and prominent compared to Apple designs...this may help keep cooling effective without a large fan. Haven't tried gaming on mine yet.

 

?? any answer would be appreciated. thanks

 

I don't see one on mine, and the Sony website doesn't mention one, so it probably doesn't have a Kensington lock hole.

 

Very true. So far the TabTop (seems appropriate) is running great. The only thing I wish it had was a much stronger Wifi chip as it keeps dropping wifi if Im in my room which is about 30-40 ft from the router and I have a very capable Netgear N900 router. The iPad that I had before I sold it rarely dropped signal in the same area, but still I would choose the Duo 11 over the iPad any day. This thing is absolutely beautiful to look at and gorgeous screen on which HD videos look simply amazing. Seriously it made me forget the iPad retina display!

Plus I can do so much more on this as compared to my iPad. The Duo 11 is much more comfortable to use while laying in bed as compared to the iPad which would get too awkward and heavy after a while and I would sorely miss having a physical keyboard. There are some quirks with Windows 8 like it keeps connecting me to a Home Group but still I am enjoying the live tiles and they look beautiful on the Sony 1080P display.

I have purchased Macbook Air and iPads before because sometimes I would want a laptop capability and then I would miss the touch features of the iPad, with the Duo 11 it just feels like it ticks all the boxes. If the Duo 11 keeps working the way it is now, I won't be going back to the iPad or a MacBook Air anymore. So far I have noticed no heat issues and the fan seems very quiet and most of the time it's silent. All in all I'm really enjoying this product even though I read the reviews and think they completely missed the point of this tabtop!

 

Perhaps the UK models come with McAfee ?

 

The Big box retailer have nothing to do with it (this particular one favours Symantec products so they would not have chosen McAfee), they simply sell the machine as is - this is either a Sony UK or Sony EU choice as the machines from Sony.co.uk use the same AV and give an option to extend the subscription when you configure the machine. I did post earlier about the problems with McAfee and how to sort them, it is a terrible piece of software and I don't know how they stay in business as their software is consistently terrible and has done more damage to my machines than any malware has. Two older Sony machines I had a while back were both essentially broken due to the Symantec AV Sony chose to install them with, they crippled the performance of the ULV machines and when uninstalled destroyed the network connectivity, I can easily see people returning machines not realising the hardware was decent it was just a terrible choice of AV.

For UK (and possibly EU) users with McAfee - before uninstalling McAfee, go to this link and download the removal tool because once you start the uninstall you may lose all network connectivity:

How to uninstall or reinstall supported McAfee products using the Consumer Products Removal tool (MCPR)

Uninstall the software then run the removal tool which should get the machine running properly, then go into the control panel and reactivate Windows Defender if you're not installing another AV product. Defender has been updated and is now basically the same as Security Essentials so if you try to install it you'll just get a warning telling you that.

John

 

Does anyone have experience with removing Kerparsky and has anyone used in on the vaio dou and is it slowing down the ultrabook?

 

Kaspersky was easy to remove from mine. Just did uninstall program from the control panel. I think I also had to remove a tile from the start screen (select it by swiping up and then choose uninstall from the bottom of the screen), though I don't remember for sure.

By the way, folks, I've had a couple more wifi drops where I needed to reboot to reconnect. Not constantly, but once every few days. So I'm not sure it's entirely related to either McAfee (which I never had) or getting it too close to another wifi device.