How satisfied are you with your Sony Vaio S series?

I'm really on the edge of joining the Sony Vaio S Series (more specifically the S13A) owners' club for college and gaming purposes. I came across some threads stating that owners are dissatisfied with the display, this came as a shocker to me as I will being using this for film editing/color grading/photography/photoshop. And I'm just curious as to how satisfied the majority of the owners are here with their Sony Vaio S Series notebooks.

It'll be great if you guys can explain your level of satisfaction with some details.

 

I found a good deal on newegg here that I went ahead with and purcahsed.For the price, the specs were great for my purposes (good battery life, portability & dimensions, screen size and resolution, gaming ability on the go, general speed, all at a good price point for these specs). The only thing that held this model back was the 5400RPM hard drive, so I upgraded that a little later with a momentus hybrid drive (almost as fast as an SSD, a lot cheaper, and much more storage space).

As far as the orange reds issue, I noticed it only after hearing that it existed, and I could clearly see a difference between my HTC thunderbolt and my laptop's display of red when I did a Google image search of "red" just to bring up some red screens. I only notice it in real world applications when I use the same application on my desktop with more accurate reds very recently. So for what I use my laptop for, the perfect accuracy of red isn't going to really affect me, so it's a near non-issue. I only notice it when I'm actively looking for the orange issue. Otherwise, the screen quality on my s15 is quite pleasing. The s13's don't have the orange issue, from what I understand. Hope that helps.

 

My S15 arrived yesterday. I put in a 256 SSD and another 8 gig of ram. I'm really happy I got this machine. I guess this isn't technically ultrabook weight, but coming from the desktop replacement world, it works for me. My problem with some of the other ultrabooks was that that they either had crappy displays, not enough ram capacity, or bad GPUs.

I go the free PS3 (which I sold for $200), a free sleeve, and they even express shipped it, which I didn't know until yesterday.

I'm very happy with my decision. This is going to make a nice little gaming and development system.

 

The S13 Premium display disappointed me (low quality), but overall it is a nice laptop.

 

Oh... go for the Z series (if you can afford it). The display for me is too much of a drawback. Although if you want, you can always get the laptop I have, the Sager NP9130 w/ a 92% gamut display (same as the 1080p Vaio Z one, but 2.5" larger). It's up to you, but IMHO, I don't use my laptop for taking notes much anyways and for my comp sci courses, it's nice to have a larger screen for coding for projects since I'm away from my 27" Achieva

 

Same for me, a disappointing display in the S13A by modern standards - lousy black levels, a 'dirty' look to areas of solid colour, and 'shimmering', very noticable in the top right corner (yes, this is the 1600x900)

The speakers are poor, too - even by slim+light laptop standards. but I was aware of that on purchasing it.

Everything else is great. Very happy with the touchpad and keyboard, along with the performance (after installing an SSD and clean Win7 install). The cooling system seems to be doing the job without getting too noisy, too.

Optimus graphics switching is a bit flaky - you seem to have to force some games to run with the real GPU to get good performance, but that's probably nothing specific to this machine.

Should have went for the S15, really - but I was downsizing from an underperforming/overheating/bulky Dell XPS15...

 

I'm very happy with my purchase. I gave the vita to my son and the computer is better than some other ones I’ve had in the past dell/HP. With that said don’t expect to get something truly amazing, although the s15 has far exceeded my exceptions!

 

Low black level on the screen of my S13A is pretty much the only major flaw - everything else can be worked around or is negligible.

While I wouldn't recommend it for professional colour/display intensive work, it's a brilliant programming/webdev/multimedia/gaming laptop.

 

My platinum silver S15 should be here in two days! Think I made the right choice going for the 15, but it wasn't easy resisting the premium S13A gunmetal/gold finish. I wish sony made a premium S15, and instead of improving on the screen they could focus on a better gfx card, better speakers, two SODIMM slots, and a premium finish. Now that would be a nice laptop.

 

What are some example of the games you guys are running smoothly on this machine?
The free PS3/PSVita is keeping me on this notebook since my PS3 died (Yellow Light of Death) and favorable all-around adeptness of the S13 is just very convincing.

 

Hi,

Could you explain what you mean by "low black level"? ( I am also interested in purchasing the S13A) I am not very educated in terms of monitor and their displays.

Thanks for helping clarifying!

 

I'm thinking of picking up the S15 so can anybody tell me hows the sound on the laptop(is it loud and when max does music still come out clear and not distorted)?

 

I have to say that I agree with all of the above. I have a Z13 that has been a joy but in looking to modernize - now two generations of tech later - my early 2011 Z is still a standout compared to the ultrabooks because it has a standard voltage i7 and a d-gpu that is a shade better than the Intel HD4000. That said, I want the benefits of standard voltage Ivy Bridge, better battery life, SATA 3 SSDs, etc. I was really hoping they would improve the screen on the SVS13 model enough to make it acceptable because otherwise it actually has more power (dGPU) and features than the SVZ at a much lower price point fully maxxed with an aftermarket SATA 3 SSD. (I am also one of those few people who still value an optical drive.) I would jump at the S15 but I'm looking to go down from the size/weight of the Z13, not way up.

Well, in the end the SVS13 is a fail for me. The screen is a bit better than last year's but unusable after two years of 1080p high end laptop displays. With the uncertainty of the S's SATA 3 capacity - some report equivalent speeds but apparently Intel RST says it's SATA 2) the S requires too many compromises and not enough benefit.

It looks like I'm going to get either an SVZ13 or pick up a good deal on a Z2. But that's me. Depending upon what your needs/wants are and what you are coming from, either the S13 or the S15 may be the best bang for the buck and more than sufficient improvement given what you have been using. If you buy an S with limited options (min. RAM, small, slow HDD) you can get either for under $1,000 and put in RAM and a 256GB SSD - eg, Samsung 830 - you have a fast, versatile, near-destop-replacement laptop for around $1,100. Nothing I know of comes close at the price point - especially if weight is also a key factor for you.

Thanks for starting this thread and putting up the poll; they're developing into a great resource for evaluating Sony options.

 

My thoughts exactly. My only complaint is the fairly low quality display on the S13 (especially with it being marketed as premium), otherwise the more I use it the more I'm starting to enjoy it. The battery life is good (even better with the sheet battery) and I can't wait until school starts and I can start carrying this thing around. Speakers are awful but I never use them anyway, so that's not a problem for me.

 

Blacks are more of a dark grey compared to good desktop monitors even at low brightness, but the contrast is still a good 3-4x better than older laptop displays according to my tests.

Basically dark scenes in live action movies are below average, everything else (gaming, programming, text, anime, etc.) is more than fine.

 

Oh okay, I see! Thanks again for the clarification!

 

Diablo 3 and Civ 5 are playable on max settings at 1920x1080. Other, more graphically intensive games like Deus Ex: HR and LA Noire are playable at more medium range settings (still at 1920x1080) but are still great looking games at those settings.

The speakers get loud enough, but not THAT loud. It stays clear at any loudness but bass is almost non-existent. Mids and highs sound good though.

 

I voted as very satisfied. I knew exactly what I was getting into. I needed 15" (I have Z1 for travel, this is not a replacement for it) with Full HD for 3D and music. So I picked quad-core upgrade. I needed Nvidia (SE series had AMD) because 3D applications work better with it. I can do programming, 3D modeling, and playing music on the go. I can paint colors by numbers or on attached external display. Numeric keypad is plus since applications I use rely on it for some commands. I could go with some ASUS 15" but that would be worse in portability or (ultrabook) inadequate for my computing needs.

Yes, laptop could be better. But name at least one laptop that could not benefit from improvements.

 

Just curious, but it sounds like other than the orange display issue, your S15 exceeds our beloved Z1 in every other respect, would you say so, or do you still consider the Z1 the "uber" laptop?

 

Z1 is smaller an lighter. Definitely better for travel when you want the least weight and space occupied by equipment. Z1 is still superior in connectivity: better positioned USB ports plus ExpressCard. Note, Z2 connectivity is no better than SVS, IMO. So, yeah, SVS15 feels like "sidegrade" at least.

I now think of Z1 as a perfect netbook

 

I echo what the other Sv13a owners have said. I'm downsizing from a 15" Dell XPS (original) - great screen. The screen on this is what the others said, nothing to write home about and will take some time to get used to. With that said, I want a 13" and not a 15". I want light, portable, powerful for gaming, expandable battery. And the sony fits the bill...too bad about the screen. Why did Sony have to short change everybody in this way?

 

+1 hehehe!

 

OK, folks---I'm disappointed to read about the screen quality. Could anyone with a 2010 VAIO Z chime in on how the 1600x900 screen on the S compares with the VPCZ11/Z12 series of the same resolution? Are the black levels and color richness the same? (It sounds like they're not)

Is there anything out there (even non-Sony) that gives you the best of both worlds---1600x900 screen at the same quality as the 2010 VAIO Z, but updated GPU and CPU? They robbed us by creating the new VAIO Z, which has no discrete GPU onboard.

 

You can't compare the Sony Vaio S13's display to any other laptop. This may be blunt, but the S13 Premium with the 1600x900 display has the worst display on a laptop I have ever seen in my entire life. The display is exremely grainy, to the point where you notice it even when you are gaming or browsing the web. Colors are very bland as well. A relative recently bought a laptop for $300 with an AMD E350 and a 1366x768 display on a 15" laptop and it blows the Sony Vaio S13A's display away. Even my Lenovo Z370 with a 768p display destroys the S13A in terms of display quality.

Even though the display is garbage, I ordered an S13A. It has many things I need that other laptops don't have.

 

I have now sat for 2 full days using this screen. Being driven crazy by it at times, but liking the bright bold colors that come out during games and videos.

One thing I have noticed though, is that the longer i stare at this screen the more accustom I am getting to it and the grainy has diminished greatly. I just don't see it as much. The part that drives me the most crazy is the glimmering in the top right corner of the screen. But even that is going away.

Yesterday I realized that if I spent all my time trying to analyze the screen vs. just use it, then i will always be driven crazy. But now I am adjusting and my eyes seem to focus away from the poor features and I am now able to much better enjoy the machine for the OTHER reasons I bought it.

 

OK. So let me get this straight. There is NO 13" laptop out there with Kepler built in and a good screen. Am I correct?

 

There is the ASUS ultrabook with the 1080p IPS display but it costs like $1400. And it only has a 620m.

There is the HP DV4T as well (but it is 14"). For $1000 you get a 3612QM and a 650m. However, it is both bulky and heavy, and the screen is just as bad as the S13A.

 

Hey Komikon94, not sure if anybody answered your question:
With my sp13a it can run everything i throw at it.

Diablo 3 i'm running at 1366x900 (because 1600 is too small) at around on high around 50-60fps

Just Cause 2 - 1600x900 most settings on High from 30-50fps.

I quickly ran bf3 at 1366 and was pretty satisfied with it. No benchmark on it, but i can tell you the HD4000 was around 13fps at this resolution - not to fun.

Hope that helps!

 

So 1080p is overkill on a 13" and 620m is Fermi core, not Kepler. HP DV4T sounds like garbage.

It is a real shame what happened to the old VAIO Z. Why, why did they have to mess with something that was so good? It seems like there will be nothing like it again.

I am willing to pay serious money for an update of the VPCZ1.

 

Bought this on early June. Very happy with it without any complain. The only thing I regret is the laptop color, should've pick the white one, black is a bit too... boring.

 

I'm really satisfied with my S13P, but of course it could always get better. The keyboard keys rattle slightly and the same trackpad is not as solid as on my Macbook Air.

The screen is really not as bad as some people say it is. I am not trying to do any graphics work on it though. Watching some 1080p content on it shows nice contrast and blacks (of course not as good as my Dell U2412M desktop monitor, but slightly better than my MBA and other similar laptops).

2 annoying things with the display though, at full brightness the backlight makes the blacks in the corners not as good. And is high ambient light with brightness at low with displaying black, the screen does show some reflections. Not nearly as much as the glossy screens of course, but there is a slight reflection.

The computer is not as silent as my Macbook Air, the fan seems to always be audiable even when changing the settings for as silent as possible. I am very sensitive to things like this though, I dislike hearing the fans even if I put my ear next to the computer, wouldn't be a problem for most other people.

And of course I have to mention the speakers. Although I get really high volume on them (can't use max as it is too high for my ears), the quality is terrible. It got a little better by disabling the Dolby settings, but still lower quality than any laptop I ever heard. Will work for watching series in bed or a movie while abroad, but not much more. If I didn't have a sound system in every room of my apartment this would bother me.

To me the gunmetal is a bit too purple, did not show in the pictures so I was a bit let down, I was thinking it would be more dark steely grey like the top of the lid is. And I would have loved if they could have made the power connector with some magnet construction like the Macs do, I love to trip over my cords.

The biggest thing for me was that I could not get all the drivers working on a clean windows install, others seem to get the same problem. I was forced to use the bloatware kind, but after a few hours I had gotten rid of all the bloatware.

All these problems I listed are just minor things though, it is just me looking for the perfect computer while in reality there will always be things you have to sacrifice. All in all I like this computer way more than my Macbook Air I had previous, although I do prefer OS X over Windows on a laptop. All in all this is most likely the best laptop I owned even though there are minor faults.

 

I love my S15 but it would be nice if Sony started using the fixed IPS screens (HP already has on the Envy 15) and if they did something about the terribly quiet speakers. I don't mind the Orangegate because the screen still beats the living hell out of any TN screen, and I can get around the crummy speakers by plugging in headphones. Fortunately Sony didn't skimp on the DAC (apparently it's Realtek ALC275) and it has clean headphone output. There's already a BIOS hack to unlock the GPU clocks, now we just need a hack to unlock SATA 3 and Advanced Menu.

 

Just got my S15 today from Fedex.
Super satisfied with my purchase, though I might find more faults later on. I'm trying not to focus on the faults so much since I'd rather be happy with my laptop

 

How about a non-updated VPCZ1? I am not a gamer (does anyone do that seriously on a 13" laptop?) but in all other respects I find my Z1 still hits all the high notes and it's only 3.0 lbs and has the best screen ever (xcept maybe the new Asus UX series IPS), Also, the Arrandale Core i7-640 (same Cinebench score as ULV IB i7) , 2X128GB SATA II SSDs, (30 second boot time - could optimize to 25secs.) and my FOUR USB ports, (4th one usb3 via Express Card), superb keyboard with perfect backlighting and full travel, optical drive (still find use for it about once/month; later it will add 256GB SSD), and I'm getting 7 hrs. with my extended battery with wifi, many browser windows, good bit of video and screen at 50%. All of these make it hard to beat

I got this one new in Dec 2011 but there's always good used ones on eBay, now selling for $800 - 1,100. I'm dying for a sleeker design, but nothing out there doesn't force me to make compromises I don't want to make and for my uses the greater power of IB is useless and the d-gpu is as fast as the HD4000.

I'm dying for a new toy! Someone do it right!

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/other-manufacturers/681789-gigabyte-u2442n-review.html

This is a 14", but I believe the weight and dimensions are even smaller/lower than the Vaio.

 

Gigabyte U2442N is more or less has the same weight and dimensions than Sony VAIO SVS13A. I dislike silver though.

I got my SVS13A today, I don't notice anything bad with the display. Maybe because I have been working with 5 years old Fujitsu E8420.

 

Satisfied overall, but
1. Sound could be louder
2. Orangegate shouldn't be an issue

 

Yeah, Gigabyte model might have been a better choice for my needs (potentially better cooling, bigger screen for roughly the same size) if the screen was better (maybe the one which is used on the Lenovo X1 Carbon which is not great - I guess there are no good 14" screens ATM - but seems to be solid enough) and if it was at least available in black or dark gray.

The chosen color IMHO makes it look ugly, plain and cheap IMHO from the photos so I had to go for a Sony S13P. And I bet I'll regret it (screen, fan noise..). I was hoping for some LG P330 refresh, but so far no words on that..

While we're at it, I didn't see any attempts on the screen replacement; e.g. would it be possible to install a Samsung Series 9 screen or maybe the old Sony Z IPS 1600x900?

 

The Z serie never had IPS panel. But it would be definitely the best 13" laptop out here if we could install a Z screen on the S13P...

 

Oh, sorry, I remember the screens were praised videly so I thought they must have been IPS screens.

The new Z has a 13,1" supposedly, but from the old reviews, it seems that the old Z's had a much better 1600x900 screens regarding brightness and grainyness than the S does now.

So, they seem to be 13,3" and if the cable connectors haven't been changed, it just might be possible to upgrade it?

EDIT: Or it seems that some reviews were wrong and they were all 13,1"? That's a shame.. Maybe a Samsung one X3B/C then, but not sure if the connectors are compatible..

 

The only real downside of the S13P is the so-so display but it's still one of the most impressive laptops on the market. In terms of "power-per-pound" it's amazing.

 

Have any of you S owners calibrated your screens with a calibration puck? While the vertical viewing angle is still poor on my screen, calibrating mine certainly made a big difference.

I agree with the 'power-per-pound' comment. Primarily, it's what made me decide to purchase my F.

Also: EIZO: Monitortest

 

Here it is!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/71949917/2 [...] -120cd.icc

Credit to gta007, from the french forum Hardware.com.

Calibration made with eye one + blue eye pro puck. Result Delta E < 2, wich is a pretty decent color reproduction for that kind of screen...

 

Overall very satisfied with my S15, very solid machine, good hardware, the materials \ build quality are very good (I still need to tear it apart to do some adjustments), weight and screen are awesome and the price was also good.

Voted the 2nd option as:

- Panel colors can be improved (not that the orange stuff actually bothers me, I don't really notice but in theory it should be better)

- Keyboard has some flex and a few keys squeak sometimes. The flex is easy to fix manually, the squeaks might be a consequence of it but I'll need to inspect better. It doesn't hinder me but could be improved.

- Bezel around the screen has a few loose spots, it may be a necessity due to the materials used and the decision of keeping the lid flexible (which I like btw, it's good against impact) but I'm pretty sure it could've been done better.

- Cooling system appears to be strangely decent, GPU hovers around 66ºC when playing GW2 for example, but there's plastic blocking the exit air vents nonetheless (a user in this forum already took it out).

- Battery life could possibly be better, it's a 52Wh battery so it's not bad for the hardware I guess

- I don't like NVidia or Optimus, it's buggy and I'd prefer having the option to turn the NVidia GPU totally off in the BIOS or whatever so I don't have to worry about it when trying to maximize battery life.

- The SATA-II thing is moronic, as it is it looks like some sort of shady marketing decision to inflate benchmark differences between Sony RAID SSDs and user-bought SSDs.

That said, it's a fantastic machine, I'd buy it again.

 

No regretting getting S15 and love it after putting in an SSD with clean windows. The default windows 7 image took 5 mins for to complete boot up before I can launch IE to surf! That's how bad it was...

I like the performance, sharp screen resolution (orangegate, don't bother me) and the sheer lightness! Other surprises include replacing ODD with a HDD and the GPU tweak On the downside, I am still getting used to the keyboard spacing and layout.. find the top right hardware buttons quite useless.. I do wish that they have a button to toggle wifi and give more function keys. The keyboard backlight option should be more flexible too.

The S15 is good lappy but my experience with Japanese brand laptop is that they have good quality but not always good in creating user-friendly product. This was the case with my last Fujitsu laptop. May be Jap company tends to design their product with Jap users in mind? I'm not sure.

 

Cooling is my main concern. The laptop gpu downclocks its gpu at 83c.

 

Had to go with option #3.

I have the S15, and luckily the screen can actually display reds... it's actually the main reason I got the laptop. It was the only one with a fullhd 15" IPS panel. But it's also the Win8 model, so UEFI+TPM and apparent problems with swapping the ODD for a hard drive. Also I was really surprised by the build quality of the device. This has got to be the most plastic feeling laptop I've ever owned, even compared to HP's and Lenovo's consumer line of products. And the speakers, oh boy :|

Also compared to reviews, my battery life won't even reach 4 hours, even when I leave the thing idling with minimum brightness. Oh, and the sata2 thing...

All in all, the hardware is ok, but the Sony wrapping around it is something I probably won't be getting again.

 

S13P - svs13a2c5e

Things i don't like.

The laptop would be The Perfect laptop if Sony didn't fk the following things up:

Sata 3 (currently LIMITED to Sata 2 )
Optical Drive Bay -> Hard Disk Drive Bay
Overclock GPU
Garbage fan control (spinning always)

 

I'm surprised this thread is still up here.
I bought my S15 back in June/July for use in school.
Last month, it developed this unbearable sound out of the fans. Even with priority to silence on stamina. Not to mention two little brightspots on my LCD that's been here since it arrived from Shenzhen, China. I'm starting to regret my purchase

Here is a link demonstrating how loud and unbearable it is.
Sony Vaio S15 Loud Fan - YouTube

 

I have the same issue: 2 brighter spots on the screen (are your spots in the middle right area?).

Also check out if the keyboard/touchpad is leaving marks on the lcd, mine does, the bezel also leaves marks on the main surface.

I can't even sell it due to these problems, can't even return it because I'm not in the USA or any other country with Sony support.

I definitely regret my purchase.

Note: Could anyone show me where I can buy a replacement screen for the S15?, If I could get my hands on one I could probably sell this thing and buy a more solid laptop.