Vaio Flip: the Yoga hinge comes to Sony

I'm in the US and just got an email saying that they started building my flip. ��

 

I tried SpeedFan a couple times and it just crashed so I uninstalled it without giving it much effort.

Last night I took the 13A outside in the cold and let the core temp drop to 12C, and the fans where still running. It seems the default settings do not even look at the temps to regulate the fan.

 

That depends on the original's resolution. If you start with a digital photo with exactly 1920x1080 (2MP), you'd be able to see exactly all pixels on a FHD screen. If you use a higher res screen, you wouldn't see any difference, or rather, it would actually be worse, because the picture would be scaled to something else. The same reasoning goes for any picture with higher resolution which is zoomed beyond its resolution. I.e. when each pixel from the photo is larger than one pixel on screen. You reach that limit faster on a higher res screen.

Say you have a 8MP digital photo and view the whole photo on a 2MP FDH screen (and assuming the scaling is proportional). Each pixel on screen will then be calculated from 4 pixels from the photo. If you use a higher res screen, say a 4MP screen, then each pixel on screen will use 2 pixels from the photo, and this is of course better. But once you pass the zoom factor where each pixel on screen is calculated from less than one pixel from the photo, then you have no longer any use of the extra screen resolution.

The same reasoning is however not applicable when it comes to documents containing text or non rasterized drawings. In that case, the text (font) can always be rendered on the screen with the exact number of pixels that is required to get the wanted size of the text, or drawing. And on a higher res screen, you end up with more pixels, i.e. finer curves.

So, the short answer is, it doesn't really matter (much) when viewing rasterized material, but more when you view non rasterized material. And don't forget that the weakest link at the resolutions we're talking about might be the human eye.

 

Speed-Fan is running but only showing the temperatures. No possibility to control the fan itself.
Still i think the fan noise is not that bad when selecting "Silent" in the Vaio Settings. Its out most of the time. But if set to standard or you are running tasks, it may get a little fuzzy.
I think i fixed it by limiting the max. cpu clock in the energy options. I changed it to 50 % and the fan is out most of the time. Maybe Sony controls the fan by the cpu core usage?

 

Made a quick snapshot for you.

 

How did you do that? I can't find the setting to limit the max. cpu clock. (probably because I have a really hard time adjusting to Win 8...).

 

@Ally1234:
Go to the control panel / energy options / advanced energy options / and look for something like "processor energy management" / There you will find a minimum and a maximum cpu speed
Sorry if its not exactly the same since my laptop is running a germany Windows 8.

 

That's really funny, because I have a German Windows as well and was trying to translate your description into German. :-D

I think I found it now, changed it to 50%, but the fan is still constantly on, even though I'm in silent mode and not really doing anything except typing on this forum.

 

wow, that is embarrassing on Sony's part, temp is the only reason to have a fan... this makes me hopeful that they will issue a fix for this, if enough people complain (as they apparently did the same thing for the duo 13) then sony issued a fix for the fan

in the meantime that is putting a serious damper on my desire to purchase this one

 

I'm curious what the fan noise will be on the 15" model.

 

The green text where it said that the laptop is in production is now removed (On Sony's site). And i have not got any voucher as many here has, even though i ordered the laptop 8 october... I have to be the most unlucky guy in the world LOL

 

Xpred, take note. Much better answer than I could have given.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

Regarding the fan issue, one important clarification.
Is the fan producing a bad noise or the issue is only that it is always on?

If it is only that it is on but that it doesn't sound that bad, then it shall be a easy" fix to Sony in something like a bios update.
I don't think that they will leave it like that.

Also, that is a contributor for lower battery life. so if they fix it then for sure there will be quite some extra life time from the laptop in the "mostly idle" scenario.

 

The flips do have SD slots right? I was thinking, in case i run out of my 60GB of SSD it wuold be possible to usa a 64GB SD and put it in the pc and install in it legacy apps? Or it can be used only for multimedia such as videos ecc? Thanks

 

Excellent answer. Yes, I was thinking about this if the original resolution was well within the 1920x1080 parameters. Given today's programs, I wasn't sure if I would see much use of anything above 1920x1080. As I mentioned, if we had two programs (say OneNote) that was inking the same thing, or if we were both playing a video game set at 1920x1080 resolution (even with the high resolution display), would we see anything drastically? You mentioned that documents containing text would see possibly see an improvement. My main use is mostly text/inking/OneNote/Office/PowerPoint/Excel/etc, but I also wanted to have the BEST display. And when I meant best, I mean being able to see the text with no blurring/jagged edges at the same resolution. So if I went with the higher res, I would probably either do 2 things: 1) Set the res back down (this would probably defeat the purpose of having a higher res screen eh?) since I don't like things that small, but I do want the finer ability, or 2) keep at the high res and just zoom in to compensate for the smaller text but ultimately having better curves/smoother edges. (Right?) What would you recommend?

And anyone here who has the higher resolution screen (over full HD) chime on if the text is too small or too fine, and whether reverting back to lower res/zooming in = no problem?

 

Damn it, I forgot to do this today, sorry been really busy. Okay, I need to ask though, at what setting do you want this test to be done?
For forum sanity I'll hide the descriptions of the choices, but you will need to read them to give me an idea of what you want me to select to do the test, with that said here goes...

For power setting, choices are..
A: Balanced, B: Power Saver, C: High Performance

Spoiler

A: Balanced (automatically balances performance with energy consumption on capable hardware) This is the one I have it on currently.
B: Power Saver (Saves energy by reducing your computer's performance where possible)
C: High performance (Favors performance, but may use more energy)

For CPU and Fan, choices are
A: Silence, B: Standard, C: Performance

Spoiler

A: Silence (reduces fan noise by restricting performance) This is the one I have it on currently.
B: Standard (suitable for ordinary tasks, recommended for a wide range of tasks, from document creation to photo editing. This setting enables high performance for tasks that temporarily place a heavy load on the system by providing a balance between performance and silence.
C: Performance (this setting optimizes performance for a continuous heavy load, fan noise becomes loud depending on the operating conditions because the fan rotates at high speeds.

Battery Care Function
This limits the charging capacity when plugged in to maximize the battery lifespan (I have it set to "Not Set"

Spoiler

What is the Battery Care Function?
The battery pack is consumable. The capacity gradually declines through repeated cycles of recharging and discharging. As a result, the battery life becomes short even if it is fully charged and eventually the battery pack reaches the end of its life.
Enable the BAttery Care Function to maximize the battery lifespan. With this function, you can reduce battery degradation by limiting the maximum charging capacity. There are two ways Battery Care Function can be set, depending on whether you use your VAIO for long periods of time, when plugged in or not plugged in for mobile use.

Choice A: 80%/50% Charging
Operating time will be 80% or 50% that of when the battery is fully charged, but limiting the charge capacity when plugged in will delay degradation of battery health and give the battery a longer life. This is recommended when using VAIO plugged in for long periods of time.

Choice B: Overnight Charging
This allows you to set times that you do not use your VAIO much, such as at night. Charge capacity will be limited to 50% when plugged in at the set time, but the battery will fully charge when nearing the end time for Overnight Charging. The battery will fully charge to 100% capacity other than at the time set for Overnight Charging. To maximize the battery lifespan, set Overnight Charging to 3 hours or longer. This is recommended if your VAIO is often used for long periods without plugging in (mobile use).

Action when battery Power Low
Off or On (set whether to enter hibernation automatically whenb battery power becomes low in sleep mode.

keyboard backlight
A: On, B: When key is pressed, C: off

Display Color Mode
A: No color mode, B: Vivid color tones, C: natural color tones, D: Text for easier reading

Brightness
Since there isn't a slider with a number, it looks like 60% on battery and 100% when plugged in.

There you have it, let me know the setting you want and I'll do the test.

Although I said that I wouldn't do this since I can't find proof where this came from, I went ahead and installed it and tried Photoshop before and after and I do not see a difference. (Unless I'm not testing it right).

TS

 

I got my first shipping date! Between the 11-16 of November.

Germany - configured 21. Oct, payed 28. Oct. - producing 08. Nov.

Spoiler

Intel® Core™ i7-4500U 1,8 GHz
8 GB 1600 MT/s DDR3L-SDRAM
128 GB SATA Flash SSD
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 735M 2 GB
39,5cm LED, 2880x1620
Stylus
Black
+ free 4 years warranty
1400€

 

Same date for me, only probably later since they apparently ship it from their European warehouse to England. Does make me a little peeved we have the same date even though I ordered on the 12th. Sony is lucky that the other laptops out there just don't appeal to me.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

that means the high res displays had a huge delay

 

If you (with a 2880x1620 screen) and a friend (with 1920x1080 FHD) plays the same game set at 1920x1080, your friends display will look better!

Why?

Because every frame the game renders can be considered the original digital photo, and those are rendered at 1920x1080. Your friend's screen can display each pixel exactly as it is, whereas yours must scale it up (upsample) by a factor of 1.5. This means that every pixel from the original will "cover" 1.5 pixel horizontally and 1.5 pixel vertically. If we start from the top left corner, that would make the top left pixel easy to make, just make it the same color as the original. But the next to the right will get half of it value from the top left original and half of its value from the next original pixel to the right. This half/half calculation is of course done by hw, but still needs to be done so the scaling is bound to cost more in terms of power drain. But it also means that your image will get blurry. Perhaps not a problem in a hi-res game where there are normally smooth transitions between nearby pixels, but if you see a straight line drawn in an angle, the jagged edges will be smeared out because of the anti-aliasing. (See Spatial anti-aliasing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

That's also the reason why you should *never* ever downscale a high res screen to a lower res just because you can't see the text. What you're saying to the computer is. Draw all graphics, both rasterized and vectorized using the lower resolution, then let the graphics card upsample this rasterized picture to the higher res, and that will add all that blurry anti-aliasing that we don't want. It's *much* better to be honest with the OS and say to it. You have 2880x1620 pixels. Draw the text and graphics as fine as you possibly can using that many pixels. It may use some small amount of anti-aliasing if you have setup the text drawing to do that (which you can do in some OS:es), but it will not incur that extra layer of anti-aliasing which is added just to upsample one rasterized picture to a larger one. Try it! I bet you'll see the problem if you select the lowest resolution you can select, just make sure it's not an even multiple of the native resolution. And you might need a magnifier glass too.

So, the answer to your 1 or 2 question is number 2 every day of the year. (Ok, some old programs are not able to adapt to a higher resolution than it was written for. So if you see a window with an input form with lots of text boxes, checkboxes and text to explain their purpose, the text can sometimes overwrite, or be hidden by, the boxes. In that case you need to scale back the font drawing to 100% and try to read what it says, or you can use alt 1 for a while until that program get its act together and releases a new version. I actually have one of those programs installed, a tax income form for the Swedish tax authority. Official authorities are always last to adapt new technology, but I mean, this makes me embarrassed to be Swedish. )

Hope I didn't confuse your choice of screen too much. And actually, there's one other pro with that hi-res screen, the digitizer. All your drawings you do with the digitizer will have a higher native resolution (assuming the digitizer has the same res as the screen).

 

I've got the same date having ordered on the 8th and I don't have the high res display, maybe it was the graphics card?
Intel® CoreTM i5-4200U 1.6 GHz
Windows 8 Pro
256 GB SATA Flash SSD
12 GB 1600 MT/s DDR3L-SDRAM
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 735M 2 GB
39.5cm LED, 1920x1080

 

Hey man, thanks a lot. So I assume Photoshop (and other WinTab only program) still do not have pressure sen?

 

thank you so much, it actually doesn't look bad - expected worse.
I rarely push the screen that back...so looks like I will place my order soon (just waiting for them to sort out the productions issue as I really don't want to deal with delays)

 

My laptop is being delivered now but i have not received any tracking number, did you guys get a tracking number?

 

Maybe it's the 8gb RAM sticks. That would tie in with that factory fire that produces them in China.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

Hej Falconary

My green text about "in production" is also gone, but no info about delivery. How did you get that? An email? I ordered a week later than you, but perhaps the delays have compressed the manufacturing, and it also seems they are working weekends to catch up.

BTW, do you have the same problem with logging in on sony.se? It often takes >2 min to login but more often it fails after those 2 minutes. Not sure if it's only the Swedish site that is so slow? Or just my account? I wrote a mail about it the other day and also complained about the late delivery, and they replied it was due to the unexpected demand for the Flip 13 that had caused them to be placed in a pre-order state (whatever that is). And they had to restock components to continue manufacturing. No mention of any fire though.

 

Anybody guys?


EDIT: http://youtu.be/bgncVuMwGB8 in this video the fan is incredibly loud, i didn't expect this

 

I think there will be a fix for the fan noise. If you only need some ressources for Office, silent mode should be fine.

Can't help you about the SD question but you have to keep in mind that it will be drain a bit of your battery life if you have your SD Card constantly plugged in.

 

^^Yes, it has an SD card slot. At least the Flip 13 shown in the MobileTechReview video. ~6.50 in Sony VAIO Flip 13 Review - YouTube

I put a 128GB SD card into my SVZ about a year ago and I never thought of it draining power. Have to check that.

 

No i didnt get any email, just logged in yesterday in sony's site an noticed that the green text was gone, i logged in today and it said that my order is under delivery and that i could track my order from sony's delivery partner, but no info on how
I assume that you will have delivery on monday maybe because it seems like as when the green text "in prodcution" is removed, then the computer has moved to next phase, even though its not delivered yet. Yea, the sony.se is really slow, takes me about 35 seconds to logg in, and im constanly logging in to check my status

 

If Flip supports SDXC UHS cards, then its possible to use cards with speed similar to typical hard drive or ssd drives (uhs 2).
Welcome to the Transcend Info Website - What is UHS-1? Fastest type of SD cards!

 

Did anybody check out the BIOS settings for the fan problem? A solution might be found there. Looking at the temperatures Lisa registered in her test, I presume that the default setting is way too much on the safe side.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

 

There are no fan control settings in BIOS. It's an incredibly minimal BIOS in terms of user settings, honestly.

 

Funnily enough, I couldn't really hear the fan noise in the video, because of the fan on my current laptop xD
Seems to be that I pick Sony laptops with fan issues xD

 

Guys,

I think I am going to let go of legacy program like Photoshop and CorelDraw. This is because there are alternative program other there that use Clip Studio Paint, that have great art-usability and can export to photoshop format. I will probably stuck with no pressure for flash though, or plug in a wacom board... sigh.
Even with Adobe getting Ink API support for CC, I heard it is only for photoshop and AI. I doubt flash is part of it. And then there is OTHER non-Adobe programs like Corel

My question is, I use CorelDraw quite a bit for design, I am wondering if anyone can suggest an alternative for CorelDraw (because of Vector graphic) that uses Ink API? that can also export to AI or to Flash?

 

I've been looking at new laptops for a while. I LOVE the Flip 15 with the 1TB drive & 2 gb dedicated graphics. the thing is, I really don't know what to get in my laptop. My current situation

- all my files total 95 gb
- I don't play computer games, but I may start.
- I don't have a tablet, but if I got one, I wouldn't use it for classes or at work, so I wouldn't need an extremely long battery life
- I want a cd drive, but only use my current cd drive to rip cd's from

I've been looking at a nearly identically equipped Toshiba standard laptop. it's got the cd drive & 10 key numeric keypad that I want, but don't necessarily HAVE to have.

Any suggestions people? Any good/bad experiences with Sony or Toshiba? I know a lot of people say that a 15" tablet is too big, but I'd mainly be using the tablet to web surf & run a home building program from Punch software.

thanks for any guidance. The Flip 15 has features I don't really require, but it's just so awesome looking, I want to get one!

 

Thanks for the response. What about non-video games? Should I just stick with the original resolution if it's just for text/graphics/inking (zooming) since they're not even going to use up the super high res anyway? And it sounds like I wouldn't be able to scale the res back to normal anyways. I can tell you that I prefer 1920x1080 res on the desktop but just attracted to the "high res" nature in that it may improve, but it sounds like it's not worth it because I wouldn't see a difference... in fact, probably worse if I try to scale back the res (because I know it's so small looking on the desktop).

 

It's really hard to specifically answer your question without the notebookreview questionnaire filled out ----> , What Laptop Should I Buy?. Also the general "What Notebook Should I Buy?" topic is probably better to ask a question like that

Generally speaking, if you aren't looking for a computer with support for active digitizer, you will definitely save some money looking elsewhere. Optical drives are hard to find in the thin form factor. If you can live without an internal optical drive, and don't need an active digitizer, the lenovo Yoga Pro 2 is kind of the 'convertable' to beat. The flip 15 is currently the only 'thin and light' convertible with discrete graphics at the moment.

There are too many variables regarding the flip 15 at the moment, with far too little hands on info for me to really recommend it 100%. Nobody really knows how the discrete GPU will perform, additionally, battery life info for that config is non-existant. I did have a Flip 15 on preorder, but cancelled it due the the ridiculous situation regarding pre-orders, as well as nonexistant hands on reviews for the discrete GPU with the high res screen.

 

Ok, do this:

Switch your laptop screen to a non native resolution. Make sure it's not an even multiple of the native one. Do you see how fuzzy the characters are? How fuzzy straight window edges are? Normally high contrast borders becomes fuzzy. Switch back and forth a few times and look carefully at those high contrast lines as they become crisp in native resolution and fuzzy in the lower.

That's what I'm talking about.

Whatever screen you decide to buy, make sure to use it in that native resolution, otherwise that fuzziness will be there.

 

12GB vs 8GB. If I went with 12GB for:

95% multiple office applications (like opening 4 memory-intensive programs, including OneNote, at once)
5% audio recording (although this is rare)

Would 12GB be too much? I also read that too much UNUSED RAM could also be bad for my HD (256GB SSD is what I am choosing) b/c they're constantly being unused? Or is this not accurate?

Can too much RAM ever hurt, or only help?

 

if you have more ram windows 8 is gonna use it, instead of the hdd/ssd

 

Don't worry for the timing, I'm not in a hurry

You're right, tough. I totally forgot about the power settings. I'll derive them from my case usage: taking notes with occasional mail, news and forum checking, and in some lessons coding in C with CodeBlocks (a light IDE).

Let's see, there's a lot of options!


- Power setting: A: Balanced (I think it's better to have some power so the stylus doesn't lag)

- CPU and Fan: A: Silence (I don't mind fan noise (the notebook I'm using has its fan always on), but in the classroom it'd be better not to disturb other people)

- Battery Care Function: Not set (maybe I'll try the overnight charging, but this doesn't seem to change the situation while mobile)

- Action when battery Power Low: On

- keyboard backlight: When key is pressed

- Display Color Mode: Text for easier reading (...I guess? Or is it one of those modes that make the screen yellowish? If it's like that then I choose Natural color tones)

- Brightness: I think about 30% should be enough for comfortable reading and note taking.

Thank you again for your help!

 

Is anyone else with a Sony Flip 14 having intermittent touch screen problems?

I picked up the Sony Flip 14 (i5/8GB/500GB) Thursday night at Best Buy. Touch screen would work for 2 minutes, then stop for 2 minutes or so, then start working again. Spent hours applying the Sony and Microsoft updates and then upgraded to Windows 8.1. Touch screen was still intermittent. Didn't matter if in laptop mode, tablet mode, or stand mode. Under device manager I checked for an update to the HID touch screen driver and none was available.

I returned this machine Saturday but I really liked the form factor and wouldn't mind trying another one but I want to make sure this problem is not common.

 

I do not have an answer to your question, but you're the only one I've seen on here with the 14. Any feedback on fan noise or battery life? Thanks.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 4

 

Sorry but I only ran on battery power for a few minutes. I didn't notice any abnormal fan noise but I can't say I was really listening for it. Once the touch screen problems started, that is the only thing I was worried about.

 

What an amazing design! Sony's back in the game!

 

Could anyone say, whether there is any backlight bleeding on the 13a model and how severe it is?

 

Depends on what you call "bleeding" ? I feel it is very comfortable for typing even when its completely dark. You may notice a bleeding if you look from the sides, which you usually wont if you are typing

 

OK. What about watching dark movies in the dark? Does the the screen have any annoyingly bright edges?

 

You will definitely notice the lightning at the edges of the display.(about 1 cm)