Vaio Duo 11 Owners Thread

Kaspersky is a good antivirus client so I doubt you'll have any issues with it either running or uninstalling unlike McAfee which is a very poor piece of software. Just make sure if you uninstall the antivirus software that you re-enable Windows Defender (which is basically Microsoft Security Essentials) as this didn't happen automatically on my machine.

I've mailed Sony.co.uk to see if they know when they will be shipping accessories for this machine, really wish I could get a case for it.

John

 

Thanks.

The best thing is to order for the case and extra stylus from the US. Also the screen protector a huge plus. Seems like sony did not stock much of this item, because the US online store says out of stuck for the high end version.

Has anyone tried upgrading the system to pro and did you lose the sony pre installed apps?

 

Seems like the Wifi issue might be actually a Windows 8 issue. I watched a recent youtube clip of Chris Pirillo comparing the iPad vs Windows Surface RT and was having similar network issues. Surface vs iPad - YouTube The issue comes up around the 2:15 mark.

 

Good to know.

 

Unfortunately Sony don't ship outside the states and I can't find any companies who have Vaio Duo accessories and offer international shipping.

I haven't had any wifi drops since the first day but I'll try powering up the Z5 beside it again and see what happens.

John

 

I am having the same issues with W8 and the Z3. Reboot required. Seems like its W8.

 

If it's a W8-wide problem, I'm sure a patch will be out in a couple weeks. If it was just one model from one OEM, the problem would likely persist much longer.

 

Is anyone actually using a screen protector for their Duo? I bought the official sony case and keep the laptop when im not using it at home, and also place it in my messenger bag when im out and about. Has anyone managed to scratch gorilla glass before? My experience with screen protectors has been crap since it seems they usually distort colors (though to be a hypocrite my playstation vita has a screen protector on). Every cellphone ive owned I havnt used a screen protector on and have never scratched their screens, but I always keep them in a pocket by themselves and keys never go near. It a little bit different with this though.

Having said that, one of my old iPads had its screen scratched while being at home on a table. Im not quite sure how it happened, but it was during a time that the smart cover was off. I feel like it might have been one of the cats and their claws, but on the other hand that doesn't really make sense - as while the cat claws are sharp, its probably not enough to scratch a gorilla glass screen. As far as I have heard, only sand can scratch it with ease.

Thoughts/experiences from those wiser?

 

Hi All,
I've just placed my order for a duo 11 i5/128/6gig. My machine won't be arriving for at least another week, and I'm trying to decide whether to buy the sheet battery.

The specs for the duo 11 promise 4-5 hours of battery life under standard useage, which is fine with me almost all of the time except on, say, transcontinental flights. I want to find out if anyone has tested battery usage under the least battery consumptive condietions, IE: backlit keyboard turned off, wifi and bluetooth turned off (offline mode), screen set to the lowest brightness, machine placed on a hard surface where it can vent heat effectively.

Also, earlier in the thread someone mentioned GPS visible in the device manager, so GPS would have to be turned off too. Same goes for NFC.
Does anyone know whether the keyboard can have it's backlighting turned off?

On a plane, I would be watching an hd movie, playing metro games, or drafting documents. Does the machine know not to turn the screen off when you're watching a movie?

 

The other accessory I'm thinking about buying is the Duo 11 screen protector. My own predisposition is not to put screen protectors on my devices. My reasoning is that I paid good money to have a shiny sleek device and having raw edges of screen protectors that can pull up and get grime under the corners does not add to the sleek look of my machine. I mean, what's the point of having gorilla glass if you're just going to put some cheap film over the top of it?. Also, I'm kind of a road warrior, so a few dings and scratches are just a way of life that I've learned to accept with equanimity.

However, I've noticed on video reviews of writing with the digitizer pen that there's a tapping sound associated with placing the pen on the screen. I can't tell if the sound seems so perceptibly stoccato because the cameras recording the reviews are so close to the screen that the tapping seems loud due to the proximity of the microphone, or if it's just a fact of using nylon to write on glass. Has anyone noticed this?

So my questions are, if the tapping is as loud as it seems, does having the screen protector on dampen the noise at all? Does the nib still glide over the screen protector comfortably, or does the nib ever catch on the surface of the protector? And does the screen protector actually reduce glare? Finally, I don't like the orange-peel texture on a lot of screen protectors, so is the screen protector textured or smooth?

 

Reading the specs for the duo 11 on the sony store website for the UK, i saw the GPS listed.
It isn't listed on the US site though. Are there any US duo 11 owners out there who can check the device manager to see if there's GPS device installed?

 

Checked the UK sony store site --UK Duo 11 comes preinstalled with McAffee trial -- for more money you can have the full version installed.

 

I have a UK Vaio Duo 11 prebuilt (i5/4GB/128GB), it lists the GPS sensor under sensors in Device Manager - it's a 'SONY GPS Module CXD5400 HID' so that's where the US owners need to look see what their ones show.

John

 

The keyboard backlight is fully configurable, you can set it for on, auto and off separately for both mains power and battery as well as how long it takes to switch off the backlight when it's idle. I can't see a setting to turn off the GPS sensor in the Vaio Control centre, it may be it's only powered up when an application requests it or it could be disabled in device manager. I haven't tried to use it.

You can customise the Windows power plans to set how long it takes before the screen is switched off, you can set it to never switch the screen off.

I'm not using a screen protector, I don't really have the choice as Sony aren't shipping Vaio accessories here but probably not going to go for one as the screen is supposed to be toughened.

John

 

I'm very close to pulling the trigger on buying one of these beauties!

Does anyone have information about what HDMI version the Duo uses? Newer HDMI specs do, in theory, support up to 4k resolution with high speed cables, but laptops rarely make use of this. I want to know if I can get the Duo to work with a Dell U2713 (at 2560*1440).

Does anyone have the possibility to test if the laptop runs a WQHD or WQXGA (2560*1600) screen at native resolutions with a high speed HDMI cable?

There's woefully little information available in the spec sheets on Sony's website .

Edit,
Ah, finally found this, a proper spec sheet: http://www.sony.co.uk/product/vn-duo/svd1121q2e

Says maximum external display is 1920*1200 :/... would still be happy if someone could test this

 

Great explanation of the backlight and power configurations.
It's beginning to seem pretty clear that UK models ship with GPS, I'm concerned that for whatever reasons, perhaps US versions may not.
Have you tried to watch any films yet? I was more wondering if the machine is smart enough to be able to tell when you're watching a film and when you've just walked away from your computer in order to shut the screen off in the latter instance but not the former.

Also, do you notice loud tapping when you use the digitizer pen on the screen?

 

Had my first incident where I lost touchscreen response and had to reboot. Or more precisely, it started recognizing my finger as the N-Trig stylus instead of a finger. Rebooted and it was fine.

Most of the times when I've had issues (wifi issues or now the touchscreen issues), it's when I've had Xbox Music open and I've put the device to sleep and woken it up repeatedly. I think Xbox Music may still have some instabilities in it, though it's not nearly as unstable as it was with launch (it's had one or two updates since then).

 

Hey guys,

Thought I'd register to actually be able to put a bit of input in this thread.

I bought a Sony Vaio Duo 11 from PC World back on October 26th (May I add if anyone was still on the fence, I got it for £899 instead of £999 because of a 10% off discount code. Which actually seems to expired but worth looking around if they're doing a similar voucher code anywhere else).

Anyway, after buying it, more a less instantly out of the box I started getting the touchscreen issue. Where it would just randomly stop working until you put it in standby and turn it back on again. Annoying really, I put up with it for a few weeks until other stuff started going wrong. One thing that was infuriating was, well I never truly worked out what it was but in the end I think it was an issue with the little "nipple" mouse trackpad thing, it just started going insane and randomly clicking everywhere. Which was particularly annoying when you was trying to watch a full screen film and it would sort of double click it off. I never worked out if it was that mouse thing, or the keyboard. The keyboard would also random start going insane when typing in URLs and stuff for sites. Never worked out that issue either.

Then, when I was at University, I noticed I just couldn't load any webpages, even though my android was connecting to the WI-FI fine, and every other person's laptop etc was all fine. I tried to do a speedtest, but the wi-fi was going so slow that I couldn't even load the speedtest webpage. All In all, the ultrabook just well, was becoming unusable, I googled the issues and stumbled across this thread, early on I noticed someone had the same touchscreen issue as me. I decided I would replace the Duo 11 and see if I still got the issues.

The other day I went into PC World. "I've got a few issues with this ultrabook.", "Okay sir, what seems to be the problem?". I literally fired off one after the other problem at him, his face becoming more blank every different problem I had. In the end he didn't even dispute it and said "Ok, we'll replace that". So I ended up going to Currys to get it (PC World was out of stock) Once I got it home, no touchscreen issues, full speed wireless on my home network and as of yet, not spazzing out mouse and keyboard.

I'm assuming the touchscreen will simply never do that BS again, as it hasn't yet. I did go to uni on Friday, and the Wi-Fi was still having problems in certain places, where other people were not having problems. So I still am not sure what is up with the wireless. Considering I need to get on the Uni's site to download power points and work in the lectures, it's abit well, defeats the purpose of buying it, if I'm at the back of the class swearing to the ultrabook wanting to just smash my head off the desk.

If you have any questions about the duo 11, or even if you wanted me to skype call you and show you it live so you can ask questions or see specific stuff. Just drop me a PM and we can work something out. Even after all the issues I had, I couldn't recommend this enough, If you're on the fence about it just do it, just buy it!

Sorry for the monster post, to any of you who this helped, thanks for reading!

--Edit-- Just a quick addition, I'm quite new to these touchscreen tablets and stuff with a stylus, to answer your question Stefalopod. It isn't extremely loud tapping, but when you're trying to do something fast, if you're like double tapping with haste you will definitely hear it. But i was using it in a silent lecture without anyone saying anything if that sums it up well enough. Also! For any of you that weren't aware, or was hesitating on using handwriting or drawing on the tablet. (I didn't actually know this when I bought it) It has some sort of palm detection, where you can sort of rest your hand on the screen and write onto it, as if it was a piece of paper (in terms of resting your hand on the paper).

I've actually been writing lecture notes directly into the tablet because of this, as it makes it so much more comfortable, than trying to hover your hand over the screen incase you start touching everything with your hand. (Sorry if that is obvious for most of you, like I said I wasn't aware of this palm detection thing when I bought it)

 

hi,

today I use one macbook and one ipad and Bored to move around with 2 tools.
I want to buy this laptop but want to know before if you use your duo 11 for not taking with the stylus ?

Does it work well ?

B.R
Napaj

 

Hey Napaj,

I actually forgot my stylus one day when I was going to Uni. I managed to survive the day without it, and as much as I missed it, it was usable. The fact there is nowhere to store the stylus is a real bummer with this ultrabook, I want to buy that battery sheet just for a place to store the stylus. I can vouch that it is usable without the stylus, but i found it much more comfortable with it. I'm not sure if it's just my fat finger tips or the finger touch for smaller things (the font is small on the tablet aswell) are hard to hit. For instance trying to hit the small text hyperlinks in a forum such as this, or on you tube trying to get on the channel control panel from the bit on the left is kinda difficult.

So to sum up, I could use it without the stylus, but I'd miss the stylus quite a bit to be honest. I'd actually be more inclined to say that I wouldn't be as happy with the entire ultrabook as a whole, if it wasn't for the stylus. What I did do that day I forgot the stylus, I always have an emergency mouse in my bag just incase I forget it, or if I'm getting in a sneaky game of LoL in between lectures. So I just used the mouse instead

Hope this helps abit.

 

Full screen video playback automatically disables the power saving modes, at least with the Windows media players and I'd assume for others as well.

I haven't used the stylus yet so I can't comment on the noise with it.

John

 

How is it to take notes with the Sony Duo 11 ?
Is someone using notetaking with evernote ?
Any good notetaking apps with the Sony Duo ?

Thanks in advance.

B.R
Napaj

 

Hey again Napaj,

I'm finding it really nice writing notes with my Duo, I obviously used to write with pen/paper in Uni. Since I've got this I haven't touched pen/paper. I write directly into one note (Which I see has some sort of free app in the windows store at the moment aswell) I'm using the Microsoft Office 2013 preview at the moment so using it from there. I like the fact I can also write directly onto power point slides(for easier review later on).

I've never actually used Evernote, sorry. I've just used Microsoft One Note and that seems fine for what I need it for so far.

Like I said before, the fact I can rest my hand on the screen makes it so much more comfortable and easy to write into the Duo. I really have replaced my pen and paper with it so far.

 

Thanks for all the info Jamibi. Real bummer that your first machine was so glitchy -- I'm glad that you didn't have any trouble exchanging/returning it.
These things are not available in stores here, so it's pretty awesome you didn't have any trouble getting your hands on another one in a hurry.

Thanks for answering about this. I think I might drive myself crazy with the clicking digitizer pen, so I'm considering getting the $20 screen protector to see if I end up with more of tapping sound. The protector basically just looks like a sheet of vinyl, so who knows, it may just work.

Really well spotted! What you're describing is one of the major features of the duo 11. The live stylus (digitizer pen) interacts with technology in the screen -- a Wacom layer under the glass. The battery in the stylus causes small amounts of electromagnetic energy to be passed to the screen, which has sort of like a mesh in it that can locate where on the screen the pen is hovering or touching. Since your hand doesn't have the same electromagnetic energy, the screen can tell the difference between the pen and your hand and exclude your hand as an input device. This, as you noticed, means that you can rest your hand on the screen to write with the digitizer pen, same as you would in a paper notebook. The digitizer pen is also pressure sensitive, so in art programs you can get a wider line thickness by pressing harder, same as you would with a paint brush.

Not all windows 8 tablets have this technology (see lenovo yoga), and for whatever reason, many of the manufacturers aren't educating consumers about this super awesome feature. It is too bad that it can't be stored on the Duo 11 itself -- a self recharging port for the digitizer pen would have been a massive feature.

~~You'll notice that you don't ever see people using a stylus on the ipad? That's because even though the stylus is for sale, the ipad can't exclude the hand as an input device so you would have to hover your wrist over the screen to use the stylus to write or tap. ~~​

 

I had this problem on a tablet I was running the RP on. In web browsers you can pinch to zoom on the screen to make links and check-boxes tappable with your fingers. Also a useful tip for web browsing on smart phones

 

Ahh, I did try doing this. I'm been using a HTC EVO 3D for awhile, and well I guess like any phone you need to use the whole pinch to zoom thing in web browsers alot. But In google chrome on the desktop it doesn't seem to let you do that.. I just tried it in internet explorer though, after what you said, and it does work! Which I didn't know, hah. Well I think i'll still be using chrome but going to search around to see if there is some option I haven't got ticked for touchscreens or something, or is it something google might have in the works.

Just to clarify about the stylus tapping, I don't think you'd go that crazy over it, unless you really try to notice it. I never really thought twice about the tapping but i just used the stylus then and was like, wow that is kind of loud actually. Not sure if you're aware, of added info for anyone else who is interested the stylus has two buttons on it. The big one honestly seems to do nothing but could of swore on my first tablet it was being used as a left click near the end. Not on this one though, whether or not I had an option ticked I don't know. Also there is a little button which opens the snipping tool so you can easily grab screen caps to put into one note or word or something.

One major thing that actually annoys me with the stylus is there is nowhere for the lid to go. So basically you take the lid off and you have to either leave it on the desk or put it in your pocket. I can tell I'm going to lose that one day. I wish it would sit on the back of the stylus. There is also an interchangeable tip, so you can have a really fine point, I'm just using the normal one atm, more the fact that I have no idea how to take the one that's in now out and just can;t be bothered to look through the manual haha.

Cheers for the reply anyway,
hope they're available soon!

 

Can anyone confirm if the US version has gps and has anyone faced that much of a problem like the person who bought his/hers from PC world, specifically those that bought theirs in the US

 

Why is it taking Sony US so long to ship the high end version, also they don't have them in stores in the Houston areas. Also how many people who bought theirs in the US have faced issues with their ultra book

 

Hi,

Keyboard on duo looks small so I wonder how it is to write on it and how many use an external keyboard and/or mouse when working with the Viao ?

B.R
Napaj

 

Very dependent on hand size. I have smaller hands and it's no problem at all for me to type on the keyboard and use the touchscreen as my main touch input. I use neither a mouse nor an external keyboard. For women and smaller guys, it's an issue. But for average or above-average-sized guys, I think it'd be an issue. The keyboard is notably smaller than what I'm used to.

 

i got my Duo11 i7 config from Sony @ Galleria the day they came out. I could tell they were selling out quick. I was only wanting to check out the Sony 4K TV they had on display, but once i saw this- i was sold in 5 mins.

 

I bought my Vaio Duo 11 and haven't had any of the touch problems the other guy had who bought his from the same place so just sounds like a lemon, I think one of the US owners here had similar touch screen problems?

With regards to the keyboard I don't find the size an issue although I'm used to smaller keyboards however I'm not keen on the key action, you don't get a definite enough response from them so I find when typing at full speed I miss a lot of strokes. It feels similar in that way to the Asus Transformer EEE Pad keyboards, it's not bad but I find I need to type a bit slower to account for the typos while I can type very quickly on the similar sized Sony TX1 and Microsoft Arc keyboards. I've only been using it a week though and it does take time to adapt (the Arc keyboard is easily the best I've ever used, I love the short, definite travel on its keys) so speed may well pick up plus it's great to have the keyboard of course, one of the reasons I'm not keen on tablets is having to use the soft keyboard.

John

 

I was reading an article about how Sony's bond status has been dropped to just above junk and the author (rather stupidly in my opinion) had said when did anyone ever get excited about Sony anymore? I was reading the article on my Vaio Duo 11 which I've been very excited about and after having it for a week I think it's a very clever machine that works well as both laptop and tablet as well as keeping all the usual ports (VGA, LAN and HDMI) without adapters which is very useful to me and something few others (if any?) do, the rival Dell XPS 12 certainly doesn't. I've seen the Vaio Duo 11 used frequently as a poster boy for Windows 8 by various companies and used by places to demonstrate Windows 8 which all makes sense.

And there's so much more, their RX100 is a revolutionary camera packing in a relatively huge 1in sensor into a body no bigger than rival models with a sensor a quarter of the size. Their 24MP and 36MP sensors in the D600 and D800 (24MP sensor also in the Sony A99 and RX1) offer stunning high resolution without losing high iso over the previous sensors and having far more shadow detail as well. The Z series laptops are just incredible machines that seem to pack an impossible amount of technology into such a small space, I was amused that people were claiming that it wouldn't be possible for Apple to fit an i-series processor and dedicated graphics into that small a chassis while Sony weren't only doing just that but also packing in a ridiculous quad SSD array into a chassis smaller and lighter. The older Z5 is still one of my machines as it's such a practical all rounder with a high res display, blu-ray writer, dual SSDs, decent battery life and a compact chassis. Just annoys me that Sony seem to be far and away one of the most technologically innovative companies in so many different ways yet get little recognition for it.

John

 

The presence of the HDMI port alone confirms it will only support an external display of 1920 x 1200 maximum resolution. The HD 4000 IGP can drive that resolution, the problem is the single-link HDMI 1.4 port the Duo 11 uses can't provide enough bandwidth for that resolution. A dual-link DVI or DisplayPort interface would be necessary for WQXGA monitors.

 

Thanks.

Yap went to same galleria and is out of stock. Have you checked if yours has a gps?

 

Hey all,

Just got my Vaio Duo a few days ago - US i5/6GB model with Kaspersky from Galleria in Dallas.

Idk if anyone has already confirmed it but I do have GPS on mine.

I have not had any complaints so far, all of the issues that I have had have seemed Win 8 related, and not hardware.

I also picked up the sheet battery and the screen protector with mine. I will say that the battery life is great with the sheet battery although it does feel double the weight with it on. As far as the screen protector goes, it looks great and does not diminish my experience with the screen at all. It does not help with the audible taps with th digitizer pen, though, which can still be loud if you are tapping quickly.

I have only had the touch screen lock up on me a few times in the couple days that I have had it, it doesn't seem too bad. I was worried today, though, because when putting it to sleep with the power button I did notice that it would turn itself back on while I was carrying it. After a few times of fighting that to put the display back to sleep I noticed that it actually crashed and required a reboot - it gave me an error message to send the report....has anyone else experience this at all?

After today I have considered exchanging my unit, but decided to give it another few days to see what happens.

 

I got mine yesterday and was really enjoying it, today I was trying to get into the bios and so started up a few times with F1/F2/F10/Esc/Del held down since I wasn't sure how to access it.

After doing this the keyboard now no longer works, at all. Nor does the windows button on the screen surround.

Absolutely no responce, no caps lock light, nothing.

Has anyone ever seen this happen before or has my unit just randomly failed?

Thanks

 

Do you have or have you made you recovery CD? if you have then just reload everything from the begining.

 

It doesn't have an optical drive...what good would a recovery CD be? I know there's a recovery partition, but I don't know how to force it to restore from that partition.

 

Tap and hold the VAIO Assist button when your Duo is off. It should boot up into the Vaio Recovery Tool screen. You would then be able to "Refresh" or "Restore" to factory default.

 

External DVD writers are not that much ($30-$50) and make excellent backups in case an internal drive fails. You can back up to a USB drive as well, but you will need a 32 GB stick.

I'm tempted to flatten this thing out and install an OEM Windows 8 image.

 

I might mangle this explanation a little bit, but my understanding is that Windows 8 has ditched bios for a more secure booting option -- it's supposed to prevent viruses somehow. There's an article about it here: Windows 8 ditches '80s BIOS boot for streamline UEFI -- Engadget

Here's a link about accessing startup options/advanced boot in windows 8: Advanced "Startup Settings" - Boot to in Windows 8

 

Before windows 8, I was an absolute die hard dedicated chrome user. Then I installed windows 8 cp and rp on an old windows 7 tablet (viliv s10) and discovered that IE10 is bar none, the best touch optimized pc internet browser there is -- and I tried every one I could get my hands on. ie10 for the desktop supports all the touch gestures and unlike the metro app, it also supports the full web. I never thought I'd find myself advocating for IE, but I guess times change.

From the pictures of the digitizer, it looks like there's a hole in the lid that'll fit a cel-phone lanyard. Video reviews made it look like the cap is very sturdy, so I was thinking of attaching the lid to a zipper or key-clip inside my bag and storing the digitizer attached to the lid in my bag when not in use. A dedicated slot to store the digitizer would have been better though.

Also, to get the nib out of the pen just grasp the white **edit: the *black* tip ** and tug it out. -- I'm a geek and I read the instructions for it online. My Duo 11 could arrive as early as Friday! Hurray!

 

Sony VAIO Duo 11 (D11213CX) Review & Rating | PCMag.com
This article says that "any Wacom digitizer stylus can be used" with the Vaio Duo 11.

I don't see any reason why this shouldn't be the case, but I notice on the Wacom store site that they've got digitizer pens with more than 1000 points of pressure. I wonder if the Duo 11 could tell that many?
I e-mail wacom sales to ask, but I haven't heard back yet.

 

The Duo 11's digitizer supports up to 256 sensitivity levels, so anything past that would be a waste.

 

I bet they're wrong; the Duo 11 uses N-Trig and I don't see why an N-Trig device would respond to a Wacom stylus. They're very different systems--after all, N-Trig styluses have internal batteries and Wacom styluses don't.

 

Is the battery how you tell them apart? i can't seem to find any specs that list n-trig on the duo 11 spec sheet, but there are a number of articles that claim it's running a wacom digitizer

I had seen a youtube video explaining about the wacom technology and how it powers itself through electromagnetic energy off the screen. I assumed the duo 11 digitizer was running on batteries to reduce the battery usage on the duo 11, but if it's completely different technology then that makes more sense.

 

Hello could anybody test if the duo supports hdmi cec ?
Thanks

 

Even in the Assist menu from boot the keyboard is totally dead. Arrow keys don't move between the boot menu options of anything. It's literally completely dead.

I was able to do a restore back to factory defaults using the touch screen and an external usb keyboard so will return it to the store for a replacement/refund today.

 

Bummer about the dead keyboard. Let us know what the replacement/refund experience is like