Vaio Flip: the Yoga hinge comes to Sony

That video was in Thai and the guy is actually a sony representative, so he pretty talked about all the good bits about the flip. It is not actually a review video. With the fan, I couldn't really hear it or maybe it is something else in the background . Sony has been doing great with fan in both vaio pro and duo 13 (especially duo 13!) so I do not think they will screw it up this time. Calm down people ;p.

The real issue here is a wifi problem as the pro is notorious with the wifi issue, that probably my main concern. I will spend most of my time at uni so wifi is the most important for me.

 

one more thing. I have been using apple for many year and now planning to get a new laptop for university. As I am studying engineering, high end laptop is the must.

Still, I am still not sure if I should get a macbook pro 15 retina or a high end 15' flip. Apart from that Macbook is reliable and have quad-cores, can anyone convince me otherwise?

 

VAIO Fit13A - First use : Music, VDO, VAIO Paper with Pen - YouTube
Dear god, that latency when using the pen... My Duo 13, which had pretty much the same specs, never lagged that bad.

You can also hear the fan roaring after a single full-screen video sample (To me, i consider the Ativ Book 9, and Duo 13 silent).
I sincerely hope it's just running updates in the background...

 

Hopefully all will be better as the drivers are getting better.. Could be that the current state of the drivers is not at its top yet as all is 'new' hardware?! Just a wild guess but looking at the vids I am not that happy as the pen input on other vids (from september) was much better with almost no lagging ?! and I never heard anybody complain in the vids of noisy fans or lagging input!?! So perhaps in real life it all is better than it looks from the vids!

 

If there is any fan noise in simple tasks or battery life below 6h, i'll send mine back immediately. This is just not acceptable in a current gen haswell notebook. You'll definitly gonna get an objective review on this from me as soon as i get mine (22/23.10)

 

I do so agree with you! Thank you for sharing your experiences on this matter with your review when you have got the chance to check it out (after 22/23 Oct.)!!!

BTW, I don't really think it can be reasonable to attribute a possible fan noise problem and/or a bad WiFi-connection any longer to the possible fact that drivers have not been good enough yet, etc., because Haswell has been out here for about half a year now.

 

Flip series is now listed on Sony USA:
VAIO Flip PCs - VAIO Laptops Sony Store - Sony US

Good news ....it has PCIe ssd as an option.

 

In all honesty the MBA is silent because they run the cooling in a way that cooks the thing when it's doing anything half useful, and it works for Apple because of their user demographic. This goes for all Apple hardware - my remaining late '12 27-inch iMac for example hits almost 90C Tcase(!) in the 80F's at waaaaay under 40% (and minimal GPU) load. And again like any Mac, when I do wind the fans up to a level that they're dumping useful heat, they're the noisiest things I have running there. (The Retina MBP is improved - within an Apple context - among the notebooks, but still pretty mediocre overall)

Practically all the VAIO's I've had which people have mentioned noise issues for, I've run in the appropriate power-saving modes and I've not experienced a problem (and I am pretty sensitive to noise) - or the noise level has been tolerable as a compromise. It's actually the structural engineering and occasionally build quality that's concerned me to late, not particularly noise issues.

Which is I guess why I've been asking at what CPU temps and loads the fans come on at on the Pro's. No answers to date - I'm curious whether Sony have really got it wrong or it's just a matter of settings, but not curious enough to buy a Pro to find out.

 

This guy replied in comments about fan and said it was set to High Performance, with normal usage it should be silent.
But lag with pen use is awful, yesterday I ordered mine yesterday and I hope it wont be worse than my Samsung 500t which was 2x cheaper

 

Well, I guess my hearing hasn't failed me yet.
I suppose some noise is acceptable for high performance, despite it being somewhat annoyingly pitched. Then again, it is a fairly small fan pushing out a lot of air, so i guess it is to be expected. Contrary to expectations, the Pro 13's fan wasn't this annoying when i put it under prime95.

Now, what to think of that pen input lag, despite being set to High Performance.
When i had my Duo 13, the only time i experienced lag was rapid strokes with smoothing enabled. Note has no pressure sensitivity iirc.

 

Ok seems like the fan is noise cause its set on high performance mode. If you set it to balanced it should be silent. Hope its true.
And yes, the lag is really bad, hope it isnt like that in OneNote.

 

Bad news... The sony store says that the 13 in will only have 6 hours of battery life.

 

The 13A SVF13N17PXB with:

• 4th gen Intel® Core™ i7-4500U (1.80GHz / 3.00GHz)
• Windows 8 Pro 64-bit
• 13.3" Full HD IPS touch display (1920 x 1080)
• 8GB RAM
• 256GB (256GB x1) SSD
• Intel® HD Graphics 4400
  Is showing with:
• Battery Type : Internal Lithium Polymer Battery (VGP-BPS41 3140mAh)
• Battery Life : Up to 6 hours

The 13A SVF13N190X with:

• 4th gen Intel® Core™ i3-4005U (1.70GHz)
• Windows 8 64-bit
• 13.3" Full HD IPS touch display (1920 x 1080)
• 4GB RAM,
• 128GB (128GB x1) SSD
• Intel® HD Graphics 4400
• HDMI® out, USB 3.0, NFC
  Is showing with:
• Battery Type : Internal battery (3800mAh, included)
• Battery Life : Up to 10 hours

The 14A SVF14N190X with:

• Intel® Pentium® 3556U (1.70GHz)
• Windows 8 64-bit
• 14" Full HD IPS touch display (1920 x 1080)
• 4GB RAM
• 500GB (5400rpm) HDD
• Intel® HD Graphics
• HDMI® out, USB 3.0, NFC
  Is showing with:
• Battery Type : Internal lithium polymer battery (3170mAh)
• Battery Life : Up to 10 hours

The 15A SVF15N17CXB with

• 4th gen Intel® Core™ i7-4500U (1.80GHz / 3.00GHz)
• Windows 8 64-bit
• 15.5" Full HD IPS touch display (1920 x 1080)
• 8GB RAM
• 1TB (5400rpm) + 16GB NAND flash HHD
• NVIDIA ® GeForce® GT 735M w/ Optimus™ graphics (2GB)
• HDMI® out, USB 3.0, NFC
  Is showing with:
• Battery Type : Internal Lithium Polymer Battery (VGP-BPS40 3170mAh)
• Battery Life : Up to 6 hours and 45 minutes

How accurate these estimates are is anyone's guess, but it would appear that the CPU selection on the 13A may have an impact on estimated battery life.

 

Yea but I would expect at least 8 hours from a high end, expensive laptop.

 

That doesn't make any sense, you get a weaker battery with a faster processor? (3140 vs 3800) i wonder which battery the EU models have, for sonys sake i hope it's the 3800 mAh

 

Just preordered a surface pro 2 256gb system yesterday. Really interested in the Flip also becasue of it's larger screen. I'm not crazy over the non-flat tablet mode though. Will be really interested in reading user first hand reports on it. The pen lag in the video is hopefully not typical and maybe related to the program that was being used. The estimated battery life is disappointing also, especially since the mfgs usually over-estimate so real world could likely be much less. I guess all will be known in the next few weeks.

 

I agree makes no sense, and how can it list the 13A SVF13N17PXB with 6 hours and the 14A SVF14N190X with up to 10 hours when they have virtually the same battery 3140mAh vs 3170mAh.

 

Why don't they list the weight either? What is the official weight of each model?

 

Vaio Flip 15 review:
Sony VAIO Flip 15 review: Sony's new convertible is cheaper, bigger than most

 

As of this morning, US models are now available for order. Fully loaded customized 13" ship date is Nov 18, 2013

 

more reviews of the 15A:
Sony VAIO Flip 15 (SVF15N190X) Review & Rating | PCMag.com
Sony Vaio Flip 15 Review - Watch CNET's Video & Read Our Review

 

I read Engadget's review for the Flip 15 and am extremely disappointed as this was the one I was thinking of buying... keyboard flex is a serious issue, fan noise is a concern, some weird glitchy software bugs with the touchscreen and worst of all, the dreaded WiFi issues again that has plagued the Pro 13 and Duo 13. Battery life is abysmal although we may chalk that up to their review machine being equipped with an HDD instead of an SSD.

Overall though those problems are concerning and that review has effectively swayed me away from the Flip 15. Hopefully the Flip 13 reviews come in much better (not expecting it though), guess I'm hopping back on the Thinkpad Yoga boat lol.

 

Yeah I am a bit disappointed too,...am hoping the 13A comes out with much better reviews.

Found a review of the 14A:
Sony VAIO Flip 14 Review | Laptop Reviews

 

The japanese site says battery performance is 12h. So we all have a different battery? 6h sounds bad for a 13" ultrabook :/

 

looks like the 14A review from laptopmag posted above is more positive than the 15A reviews so far.
fingers crossed that the 13A will be excellent.

 

Hope that, too. Really concerned about the battery life.
Waiting for a review.

 

- 3,170-mAh Lithium Polymer battery
So this one has a battery similar to 13A, uses HDD (5400rpm) instead of SSD, bigger screen and yet lasts longer than the 13A. I assumed the benchmarks should have been similar to that of Vaio Pro or Duo except for the disk but it seems much worse than the Ativ 9 Plus and S7

 

I'm going to wait for notebookcheck for a more definitive review in regards to heat and fan noise, they take very good measurements instead of just quantifying it as "loud" or "not loud". I'm definitely concerned about the WiFi, Engadget's review of the Flip 15 indicated they had problems maintaining a stable WiFi connection even though their Vaio Tap 11 had no such problems. The Flip 13 has an optional 802.11ac module so hopefully that will fix Sony's WiFi issues /crosses-fingers

I haven't seen any mention about latency with the digitizer pen function (although I may have missed it as I'm just skimming through them) but you it's quite noticeable in that Flip 13 first impressions video.

 

So Sony lists 15A as around 6 hours and 45 minutes, and the Engadget review lists it as 4 hours and 31 minutes, which is a reduction of about 33%. Based on the same assumption if the 13A is stating 6 hours on the Sony site, real-world battery life would be around 4 hours.

 

I honestly do feel that the sony site made a mistake cause Sony Japan has the battery life listed on the 13A as 12 hours:
VAIO Fit 13A „ ƒp[ƒ\ƒiƒ‹ƒRƒ“ƒsƒ…[ƒ^[ gVAIOh - ƒ\ƒj[ƒXƒgƒA

I hope I am right...

 

That number is based on JEITA (?) test which doesn't seem to reflects real-world usage. I really don't like the way Engadget test batterylife, they state 65% or birghtness but not nits as different panels has different brightness when set at 65% and playing video but not codec or video source (youtube, netflix, resolution?).

 

For the Flip 14 Sony Japan has the battery life listed as 6-7.5 hrs http://www.sony.jp/vaio/pre_include/html/fa1/spec_vom1.html

Laptopmag tests came in 7hr 17min [Brightness at 40% and continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi until the battery is completely drained.]

There is still some hope..

Here are the specs for the 13 on Sony Japan which lists battery life as 10-12 hours http://www.sony.jp/vaio/pre_include/html/f13a1/spec_vom1.html

The Flip 15 battery life is listed as about 5-7.5 hours: http://www.sony.jp/vaio/pre_include/html/fa1/spec_vom2.html

 

funny, the Laptop review did not notice the flex in the keyboard (but they had the black one): "On the positive side, we noticed virtually no keyboard flex as we wrote this review, "

 

Engadget just posted their view of the Flip 15 (in base configuration). http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/15/sony-vaio-flip-15-review/

Upsides:

Great screen
Very aggressive starting price of $800
Attractive case materials

Downsides

Keyboard flex
Fan noise
Wifi dropping
Very poor battery life for a Haswell device (4:30)

Overall, the price makes the faults bearable (except for maybe the wifi issues, which are godawfully inconvenient if you're working on the web or via SkyDrive), but it does have some real issues.

 

One of the reasons why I hate working on Cloud saving, especially at school, if wifi cuts out, essentially you can't access your files which may be a pain or downright a tragedy. My school's wifi crapped itself and I couldn't access any notes because it was on Google Drive, it was a terrible class for the class was 3 hours long. Despite the reviews, the flip seems like a great replacement to me so far.

 

Vaio Flip Teardown: Sony VAIO® | Flip PC gets the teardown treatment - YouTube

 

Flip-PC teardown made by Sony: Sony VAIO® | Flip PC gets the teardown treatment - YouTube

I think it's the 15" model due to the ventilation conduits on the back.

edit: lol 2 mins too late

 

I think its the 14" model due to the number of USB ports (1 on each side) the 13" has 2 on one side and I believe the 15" has 2 on one side and 1 on the other.

 

I think it is the 14A due to only 1 RAM slot and the HDD looks quite big if it is 15A.

 

If you look at the battery at 3:14 looks like European model battery VGP-BPS40 with 15v / 3170mAh / 48 Wh.

So disappointing considering the MBA 13" 2013 has a 7150mAh, Sony Duo 13" has 6320mAh and the Vaio Pro 13" has 4470mAh.

Hoping I'm wrong.

 

In the video, the battery is 15V/3170 = 47,55 Wh and with this list: Ultrabook battery life and performances - what to expect and comparisons
I guess 14A real battery-life is quite close to the Acer S7

 

Good find, although not sure I agree, as it would appear the S7 has a 47Wh with 6280mAh, the one in the Sony video teardown has a 48Wh with only 3170mAh. A lower Wh with a higher mAh factor would be much better. For example the Asus Vivobook S551 has 50Wh battery with 4470mAh and only 5.5 hours life.

 

To each their own. I frequently switch between three PCs (my desktop at work, my Vaio F23 in my living room at home, and my Duo 11 that follows me around), so when I'm working on a long document, I never have to worry about whether I've got the most recent version saved locally on that machine's hard drive. In this sort of situation, SkyDrive is fantastic. But my Duo 11's inconsistent wifi is a real fly in the ointment, and it's a bummer to hear that the Flip 15 has the same issue.

 

Engadget:

This is exactly what I was afraid of. No company should even be allowed to ship a product with wifi problems in 2013, let alone Sony. This was really the form-factor I was waiting for, but because of the blatantly bad execution I'll never buy it..

 

Truth to be said, I have no idea how mAh can be understood when we talk about laptop batteries. Still the Wh is the real capacity of the battery as of how much it can store energy, the formula is ( P (Wh) = Voltage (V) * Ampere (Ah)). The S551 has bigger screen (15.6" vs 14.1") and a discrete GPU which could affect the battery-life by some degree.

 

Me too...

Why would they do that? To save some weight? But when it comes to mobility, who cares about 100 or 200 grams more or less, when you can have double battery time? Or is the weight difference so big with bigger batteries? (it can't really be a battery size problem, seeing the Vaio Pro is really slim and has a better battery)

EDIT: I ordered a 13A in Germany btw which should be delivered Oct 22/23, so I will probably soon be able to say more...

 

I'd go Dell XPS 12 then. Very similar form factor and the Haswell refresh has gotten some extremely positive reviews.

Dell XPS 12 review (2013) | The Verge

 

Is the wifi problem for Vaios that bad ? The problem seems to exists in MBA also and make me wonder if this is similar to all ultrabooks out there with Haswell.

 

When I'm just using it around the house, the problem almost never comes up (unless I take my Duo 11 into the master bathroom; there's something about that room that makes the wifi freak out, disconnect, and not reconnect until I put the machine to sleep and wake it again). But when I take my machine from home to work and back, it often gets "confused" when it wakes up to a different wifi network than it went to sleep to, and I have to put it to sleep and wake it up once or twice to make the wifi connect properly. I don't recall having this issue with the two previous laptops I've taken to work, a Vaio F23 (2011) and a MacBook Pro (2008).

 

Newest MBA had wifi issues, but Apple apparently released a patch which addressed it. The Pro 13 and Duo 13 are both known to have very problematic wifi's, it's well documented on the Sony forums by numerous frustrated owners. Sony has released a few patches which they claim addresses the problem but most owners have found the patches don't do anything.

The spotty wifi is precisely why I held off buying a Duo 13, was hoping they would take steps to prevent a recurrence with the Flip but that doesn't seem to be the case sadly. Hopefully the Flip 13 will be better as it has a new 802.11ac module. I'm going to go ahead and assume the 802.11n module are the same on the 13, 14 and 15 so if the Flip 15 has Wifi problems then the 13 and 14 probably will too with the same module.

Unfortunately the lack of an active digitizer for the XPS 12 kills it for me, I really want that digitizer. I'm hoping the Flip 13 turns out to be good or I'm waiting for the Thinkpad Yoga (and hoping that one turns out good as well). As least we have more choices compared to before.