Vaio Duo 11 Owners Thread

Hi everyone,

Thanks again for keeping this thread rolling. I admit I've been under a rock, so I figured I'd check if anyone has updates with Citrix Receiver and how well it works with Windows 8 on your Vaio Duo. I added a bunch of applications in my Citrix and Juniper directories as 'exceptions' in both Windows Firewall and Windows Defender -- so far, I've only had Citrix Receiver lose my network connection twice this weekend, and both times, I was idle for over 10 minutes. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

My other issue is a weird one with Outlook 2013. It takes about 25-30 seconds to connect to Exchange at my work after I type in my password. During this time, Outlook 2013 has an icon with an exclamation mark in my taskbar, and it becomes unresponsive if I try to click too many menus. Once it finally connects everything becomes responsive again. I also tried the Mac version at a friends' place, and Exchange instantly connected. Maybe I'll have to remove all traces of Office (including Outlook setttings) and try again. Of note, I assigned my Vaio Duo's workgroup to my work's server -- I needed to do this in order for Outlook 2013 to actually connect to my Exchange e-mail in the first place. I'm still using Win 8 standard on my Vaio.

Edit: My apologies -- I forgot to mention my battery life. A little over 5 hours for me with WiFi on, but that's when my tasks are relatively light (Remote work access, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Sketching, Dreamweaver, etc.) With heavy Photoshop use, video editing or number crunching, it's 4 hours or less for me.

Another edit: Spoke too soon. After shutting down for the night and trying again the next day, there are tons of network disconnects, just like before allowing everything through Windows Firewall. Still a major ouch for me and Windows 8.

Thanks again!

 

My W8 machines still get lost connection with RDP server including my Duo with Windows is up to date.

I have O2013 but I don't use its Outlook, sorry.
Sent from my Sony Tablet S using Tapatalk HD

 

Hi,

i've made the same a couple of weeks ago. Cant tell concerning performance because my Duo is i7 & 8gb ram and my Z2 was only 2nd i5 but CAD and CAM software run very smoothly. I use Autocad's Inventor and Mech and ArtCAM 9 for making milling and lathing processing for parts. Dont know how its called properly on English.
And my Gta IV is running now on minimums. Z2 did not manage it.

Yes, do not laugh, i often use Duo for making cad and cam works.

 

^
Thank you for your information! So the Duo should more or less match the Z2 with Sandybridge.

I saw lots of unclear info regarding the speed of the DDR3 RAM in the Duo.

In Asia and Europe, Sony lists the DUO with DDR3-1600 RAM and on the US site, Sony lists the DUO with DDR3-1333 RAM.

Could anyone with the US model please check what DDR3 RAM is installed?

Also, everywhere but the US, the DUO is supplied with NC earphones...has anyone tried the NC earphones with the US model? (The NC earphones is the one that comes with the Z2)

TIA!

 

Anyone managed to find accessories for this machine in Europe yet? Incredibly the Sony store is still not showing any sign of having the bag or battery available.

John

 

You can hold on for new battery with IR to be released.
I have screen protector, case and battery.

Sent from my LT30at using Tapatalk 2

 

I have tried, and the noise cancelling feature does not work unfortunately... On the positive side, since the Z Noise cancelling earbuds were some of the best headphones I owned, but I let go of them when I sold my old Z prompting me to make the decision to actually buy good quality earbuds. The built-in noise isolation of ~$100 earbuds combined with the higher level sound quality makes the idea of using Sony's supplied noise cancelling headphones silly.

The only thing I do miss was the surprise bonus of using the Sony Z noise cancelling headphones with a Sony phone and getting to use those dual mics for phone conversations.

 

^
Thank you for your reply.
That's unfortunate with the NC earphones. I don't understand why this feature was dumped in the US Duo. Not that I ever used the NC on the Z (I use the XBA4) but it would have been nice to have it included in the Duo.

Could you please check what DDR3 RAM you have? Yours is a US model...correct?

Thanks!

 

HI, I'm in US.

I ran Crucial's scan and the results are:

Memory Type: DDR3 PC3-12800, DDR3 PC3-10600, DDR3 (non-ECC)

I also ran Speccy and it shows:
Type DDR3
Size 8072 MBytes
Channels # Dual
DRAM Frequency 799.0 MHz
CAS# Latency (CL) 11 clocks
RAS# to CAS# Delay (tRCD) 11 clocks
RAS# Precharge (tRP) 11 clocks
Cycle Time (tRAS) 28 clocks
Command Rate (CR) 2T


Hope that helps.

 

I assume you didn't buy any of those in Europe though? None of the Vaio Duo 11 accessories have been available for sale here at all, I was told they would be stocked in January but still nothing, it's a complete joke particularly given the non-standard design means it won't fit any standard case I can find.

John

 

I bought the slice battery in France. It seems to be available in Europe, just not from sony direct. What's the battery with IR? Also note that UK Duos do not come with NC headphones. That might be something that's specific to Asia.

 

I just checked the MSCONFIG panel to know wich process ll start on a fresh install and immediatly notice that the "Selective startup" is set by default.
Anyone can confirm that other DUO are running in selective startup from original fresh installation?
Thanks

 

Hi All,

Has anyone enabled the battery preserve plan in the Vaio control center? You can either limit the battery charge to 80% or 50% which will extend your battery life...

Wonder if we should enable this as the internal battery is not easily accessible.

On that note, could the battery be swapped out if ever it died?

Thanks

 

Which store did you get it from? There's a few sites listing Vaio Duo 11 accessories in the UK but none seem to have any stock.

John

 

the german Vaio duo doesn't come with nc headphone either. They do offer it for a discounted Price if you order your duo. Still around 100€ though.
I got a i3 8gb Ram 256 SSD self configured device. So far i'm loving it. Also wanna buy the sheet battery, but it's hard to find and also out of stock on the sony online shop. I could pre-order it. But i don't wanna pay first and wait forever ....it took my Vaio duo 3 weeks to get here though it was in Stock. Wonder how Long stuff NOT n stock takes...

I hope you guys can give me an answer to this:

is it possible to upgrade the cpu in the future?

the i3 is still alot faster than my old Vaio cpu and for my Need it is sufficiant. But there might come a time when it won't be able to Keep up with my Needs.

 

I got it from pc21.fr for 125€ inc. delivery which didn't seem too bad given how expensive things are in Europe. It's true - they're out of stock now. They had quite a few when I bought it - I guess it's an indication of how popular the duo is.

 

I set it at 80% for both the internal and the slice. I did this for my Z and after 2 years of usage (which included draining & charging practically on a daily basis), the wear is at 20%. It's a shame they don't use Li-Polymer batteries as I understand they're not meant to wear as quickly.

What's a little bit confusing is that I've read that you should never run a Li-Ion battery down to zero, as it wears the battery out more quickly. However, the Duo always runs the slice down to zero before it starts draining the internal battery. I can't imagine that Sony would design something that causes the slice battery to wear out more quickly (so perhaps 0% is not entirely representative of what's remaining), but it just seems a little odd.

 

I don't believe this is the case, li-polymer batteries used to have a lower number of total charge cycles and less durability (due to the casing design) although they seem to be on par now. Li-polymer batteries are more expensive than standard li-ion so if you can use a standard shape, it's costly to add li-polymer for little benefit.

Deep discharges will damage a li-ion battery but they are fitted with protective circuitry so they can't reach that state.

John

 

Hallo everyone.

Am using an Asus EP 121 (i5 U470 1.33 ghz, 4 gb ram, 64gb SSD, 3.2 Windows Experience) mostly for editing/reviewing Office docs (Powerpoint, Excel and Word). Do bit of handwriting/notetaking on both Office Docs and Pdf's (use Pdf Annotator).
Do take notes/ideas/sketches (with screenshots/pictures included) mostly for creative ideas / business planning. OneNote is the perfect app but is a bit slow on the Asus.
Overall, nice machine but, again, bit slow.


Questions are really simple:
a) keep the Asus and upgrade SSD to 256gb + high capacity SD
b) go for a new vaio duo 11. i was offered a good deal for the top configuration (i7 + 256gb ssd + 8gb ram) at 1400!

Have forgotten to mention i sometimes (not often) find myself looking for a keyboard!

Thanks in advance for your help.
Emil

 

No. Everything in the Duo is non-user upgradeable (CPU, memory, SSD).

 

I'm Aware that the Duo is not meant to be user upgradable. But according to others here, it seems to be very possible to upgrade the mSata SSD.
Noone has mentioned the cpu yet. If I were to upgrade the cpu in the future, I would use the corresponding i7. But i'm not sure how accessable it is.
Also I fear that the current Bios will restrict me of the full power of the i7

 

Could you guys please vote this question up!? I put in a request to MS support to get our n-Trig stylus eraser working when marking up PDFs. Its pretty unacceptable that we can't effectively markup PDFs from our tablets... what's the point in buying one of these machines for school or work, if you can't get basic functionality that without buying an expensive desktop app when its readily available in Android.

MS PDF Reader App bug - it doesn't support nTrig stylus eraser - Microsoft Community

 

Thanks to everyone here, I was just going to pull the trigger on the top specced Duo but I was told to wait 2 weeks for the DUO refresh.
Anyone here have any info regarding the DUO refresh?

 

Duo refresh? I'd like to know it too, given my idea to change the Asus EP121.


Anyone to help me with the "keep and update Asus Ep121 vs buy Vaio Duo 11"?

Thanks a lot,
Emil

 

Is there going to be a significant change in specs other than color availability for the refresh? Prices have been cut on the current top level Duo to $1349. Can't decide if I should buy the current one on sale or wait.

 

according to that page there won't be changes.
some users mentioned that a 512GB SSD Option is now avaiable ...but that must be hella expensive

 

Since there is no concrete information on what the update will bring it's kinda hard to say for sure. The update could use the new 13W Y chips or new 17W ULV chips or both.

In the Y category Sony could go with:

i5-3439Y - CPU 1.5GHz Base - 2.3GHz Turbo | GPU 350MHz Base - 850MHz Max

i7-3689Y - CPU 1.5GHz Base - 2.6GHz Turbo | GPU 350MHz Base - 850MHz Max

In the ULV category:

i5-3437U - CPU 1.9GHz Base - 2.9GHz Turbo | GPU 650MHz Base - 1.2GHz Max

i7-3687U - CPU 2.1GHz Base - 3.3GHz Turbo | GPU 650MHz Base - 1.2GHz Max

There are more newly released chips available I only listed the ones that made sense. That being said I went ahead and placed an order with a site for the current i5 model. The site shows the Duo in stock and priced at $1068.39 plus shipping. They are not a Sony authorized retailer and they may not actually have any in stock. I'll update if I get a shipping confirmation. Sony VAIO SVD11213CXB 11.6" Ultrabook/Tablet - Wi-Fi - Intel Core i5 i5-3317U 1.70 GHz - LED Backlight - Black

 

Hi I am from uk
Really need some help as I have ordered my duo with i5 8gb and 256gb but dont know why I wanna get i7 instead of i5 so please kindly help me out of this what will I get if I will go with i7 I am gonna be using my duo for uni work gaming and youtube and some casual editing
Thanks in advance

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2

 

Always get i7 if you have the money, as it provides the best performance. At the end of the day treat this like any ultrabook. i7 is great, and so is an i5. If you are planning to do light gaming and also some casual editing of photos, then the i7 would be best. However, an i5 wouldn't let you down either. It comes down to how much you are willing to spend.

 

The price difference in the u.k to get the i7 makes it not worth it unless money is no consideration. Paying 30% more for basically the same computer with about a 10% performance increase is just mad and we shouldn't reward rip off pricing. I got the 10% from a review of the duo 11 I read where they tested and said the gap between the two was really small.

i'm not sure what to do with mine (i5) as the screen flicker issue makes my eyes/head hurt when looking at the screen. If nothing can be done about it I think I'll have to sell on ebay and get something else. Really sad about it, I love the design. I even don't mind the trackpoint thing anymore, it does the job.

Not entirely convinced by the stylus performance though. Has anyone else experienced problems drawing diagonal lines? The line hops all over the place unless you draw it really quickly. Do Wacom styli have this issue too? Would be interested to hear back about this issue...

I'm now thinking of jumping ship to a surface pro, though don't want a smaller screen... The thinkpad helix looks alright but out of my budget and the whole thinkpad thing doesn't really float my boat.

 

I agree, I was going to go for the i7 as well but when you look at the performance figures the i7 name is misleading as it's just a slightly higher clocked processor with a bit more cache whereas the i3 is a fairly big step down from the i5 as it lacks hyperthreading and the turbo mode.

I find the flicker an annoyance at times but with the newer drivers and forced 60hz refresh rate it doesn't bother me that much thankfully but I can appreciate it being a serious issue for others. My main problems with the Vaio Duo 11 are the keyboard which I'm still finding frustrating as I can't type as quickly as I would like and Sony's total lack of support for this model in Europe. However each of the hybrid devices have their own downsides, I've looked at the Surface Pro but for me it has the fatal flaw that it can't really be used on a lap and the amount of space it needs with the keyboard folded out and the kick stand back is surprisingly large. This is of course an area where the Vaio Duo 11's design really excels as its footprint when folded out is minimal thanks to the slider design.

Edit - I haven't really used the stylus as I tried it briefly but it seemed very unresponsive which I suspect was because I was using it incorrectly.

John

 

Hi John,

which/what are the new drivers? I pressed a few buttons in the 'vaio update centre' but still very flickery, is there a particular driver to do with the flickering that I could download somewhere?

Regarding accessories, other than the extended battery I'd have thought you're better off making your own/ising things of similar size. Mine fits perfectly in a nice Moroccan leather satchel. Not sure I'd want to throw money at sony for a more specified bag.

 

I took the latest display drivers off the Intel site as I think the ones on the Vaio Duo 11 were a few revisions out of date. I still see flickering but I don't find it as annoying as it was before.

I spent a long, long time trying out pretty much every computer bag I could find and none of them had a suitable fit for the Duo 11 due t it being very wide for its screen size but not very high meaning it was too wide for smaller bags and not high enough for the bigger bags allowing it to move around inside. Few are designed for touch screen so they didn't have any protection for the exposed screen so I've been keen to get a proper case for it.

After moaning about the lack of accessories for months I see Sony UK are finally listing the case at £29 and the battery at £125 although with a 2-3 week dispatch. I've ordered the case but not sure about the battery, it's not something I need right now but could well be handy later on and may not be able to get a hold of it then.

John

 

I have a great news (probably) for anyone wants to upgrade your Duo 10 Windows 8 Pro for $15.
Go here https://windowsupgradeoffer.com/en-US
Make up that you bought any laptop with Windows 7 before June 2 and register it.
You will then receive an email with promo code.
Use any windows 7 or (earlier) laptop to open offer email to buy Windows 8 Pro with key.
Then use the key to add to your Duo.
IT WORKS.
I have done mine. I didn't want to pay $70 for Pro Pack.
Hurry up, program will be ended Jan 31 2013.

 

-----------------------------------------------

 

Thanks Very Much m8 for the info.....

 

Thanks Very Much m8 for the info.....
but i dont know y u r havin this flickering issue is it some kind of hardware issue or software?

 

Thanks m8 for the info i have decided to stick with i5 as i compared them on intels website and the only difference is 1.7 and 1.9 everything else is same

 

hi fahad65
& anyone else...

To reiterate the 'flickering issue' as described elsewhere in this thread, it is to do with how the duo 11 operates the brightness of the screen. When on full brightness (too bright for anything other than use outdoors) no flickering is discernible really, but once you start lowering the brightness, what actually happens is the screen is just 'on' less often, though at a very fast cycle, ie 50% brightness would be 'on-off-on-off-on-off-on-off' and ten percent would be 'on-off-off-off-off-off-off-off-off-off-on etc' (as I understand it).

The consequence being those sensitive to flickering (the people who didn't like low refresh rates on old monitors) find the screen hard to look at.
The effect is most obvious on a mid grey colour.

If interested in the vaio duo 11 do play with one first and try and spot this issue, I didn't when playing in the shop, but I also didn't change the brightness. Maybe hide your head under your jacket if the shop is too bright. These may sound like the ramblings of a mad man but for me and seemingly others it's enough of an issue that we're considering selling up and sadly moving on.

Otherwise no complaints about the duo other than some stylus issues which hopefully can be resolved.

 

I did this in ArtRage to try and show how the stylus on my duo 11 is determined to not draw a smooth diagonal line.
Obviously I might naturally wobble therefore I drew the lines from various orientations. You can see the cursor hop
around alarmingly along any line that is not horizontal or vertical. I presume the digitiser layer operate in pixels and
does a bad job interpolating the two, ergo perhaps a driver update could improve things?... Anyone else noticed this?

Quick strokes are better at getting a smooth line but then you're into the other issues to do with the feedback not refreshing fast enough.

(john I downloaded the intel driver but was told my computer did not meet the hardware requirements... any chance of a link to the one that
worked for you? many thanks if possible)

 

The i7 also has slightly more cache (4MB vs 3MB of the i5) and its top turbo speed is 3Ghz vs 2.6Ghz on the i5 but still the performance isn't that big, I think both should be named i5's really. I don't regret picking up the i5 and it's still a nippy processor and I suspect anything the i5 would struggle with, the i7 wouldn't manage much better,

John

 

Very well described but I didnt noticed these things but the price difference is £320 so its not worth nyways thx for ur help m8....

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2

 

I agree with the choice of i5, I thought it worth mentioning the other differences rather than you find out later in case it influenced your decision. I can see why people are recommending the i7 as I think in the US it's much cheaper in the US as when I was checking when I bought my machine I think the price of a fully loaded US Vaio Duo 11 with the extended warranty was the same as a mid-spec one here.

John

 

Yeah agreed even I checked it when I was buying
Price in USa for max specs available including i7 8gb and 256 ssd is £947 but we can only get i3 4gb and 128 ssd here lol a bit unfair .....

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2

 

I've just tried downloading this one (newer than the one I originalled installed):

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...rsion=Windows 8, 64-bit*&DownloadType=Drivers

It appears to have installed ok as it's wanting a reboot so will try that and see if it's worked, if I don't reply for a while it probably didn't

John

 

I think it's also because in the US there's no customisable model - so if you want 8GB RAM or a 256GB SSD, you have to choose the i7.

 

I can't believe so many people are noticing flickering issues. I haven't noticed anything at all in the month I've owned it

 

Hi John
& others...

I installed that intel driver you linked, many thanks. The flickering remains but in different ratios on the scale, as now when I set to lowest brightness the screen turns off completely. The screen is randomly going off and on occasionally though.
So definitely had some effect. Still some flicker sadly, to my eyes, however the setting two down from maximum is quite tolerable and is possibly better than before. I like my screens dim
(seemingly in a minority there) but am hopeful that this is something software can fix (along with the stylus) so it's encouraging that the hardware is good..

mwtzzz- if you haven't noticed it, then you either have a better vaio with better drivers or firmware or something, or you're lucky to just not notice. If you want to start torturing yourself get some mid to dark gradients happening and start playing with your brightness settings, though ignorance is bliss if you can get away with it..

(for reference I have a u.k i5 4gb model)

 

Hi m8 did you bought yours direct from Sony or some other retailer?

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bought it on ebay from someone who got it from pc world. I don't suppose it makes any difference where you get them from they're all from the same factory..