For those who recently purchased XPS1340, why not Sony vaio SR?

I have been looking for a powerful, mobile, and good battery 13 inch laptop. Of course Dell's xps 13 studio is the first to come up in my mind. The battery is alright, but its powerful and looks great.

But then I found the Sony Vaio Sr. With a better battery life, Radeon 4570 video card, and lighter/thinner.

The price is about equal. The new SR does not get nearly as much press as the xps 13 studio.

Let me know why you guys purchased the studio xps 13.

 

I bought a Vaio last year when i started school and I can give some feed back on how it is so far. First of all I own the FW model and the battery on the website says 5.5 hours on standard power. I can tell you right now with my large capacity battery I only get 4 hours MAX on power saving mode on and wifi on (6 hours with wifi off but again thats with the larger battery).
The only issue I have had with the build quality of the vaio is the charing port, its very weak due to its location. I broke mine by putting it in my back pack and at one point i put it down too hard or something. The laptop still charges but the port is very loose.
one thing to note, when buying a 9 cell battery from dell you also get the original battery aswell (total of 2 batteries). But if you buy from sony they replace your standard battery with the larger batter (1 battery total).

and lastly vaio's have the most crap ware i have ever seen. So if you decide to go with a vaio go to the sony part of this forum and find a clean install guide that what i did.

But in the end I love my vaio the screen is the best i've ever used, the style is great, spaced keyboard is nice and the performance is good.

OH and if you buy sony they dont give you any diver CDs or install CDs so if you want to clean install you need your own disks.

 

Thanks for you input, I plan on installing windows 7 asap when I get my laptop anyways, removing all the bloatware.I look into the guide.

too bad the keyboard isnt backlit like the xps, but I've heard many good things on the island keyboard.

Again anyone else who chose xps 1340, please let me know what you think, before I pull the trigger.

 

I had the same problem as you. I need a 13 inch laptop. My choise was between the Studio XPS 13, Apple macbook pro 13, and Sony SR41 or SR49. Hear in the Netherlands you can only buy two configurations of the Sony SR.

I orderd the Studio XPS 13 because of the backlit keyboard, the processor and HDD.

The apple has mac OS, i need windows. The Sony SR41 has a T6400 processor and DDR2 ram and a 5400 HDD. The Sony SR49 has the faster processor but a worse videocard and the same DDR2 and HDD speed.

 

If i were you I would buy the XPS,
from what i've read the keyboard is nice, not too soft and not too hard. there are USB ports on both sides (my FW has all the ports on one side and its a pain) and the slot loader driver is less of a hassle then the pull out drive.

 

The Radeon 4570 HD gets 3dmarks 06 of around 3200 whereas with DOS's drivers I could get 3900 3dmarks 06 for my 9500M. That and I can simply click a single button on my taskbar and use only one video card which keeps the laptop quite cool.

The battery life is pretty poor though, the "Up to 6 hours with a standard or 9 hours with a larger capicity battery" for the Sony SR sounds good, but personally I would just carry an extra battery for my XPS 13 if I needed the extra battery life.

I think also the service the company provides is also important. For Dell I have had my motherboard changed twice in the last 3 weeks with their technician coming and replacing it on site without my laptop leaving my home. It took 40 mins for him to replace the motherboard. Compare this with Sony's Warranty (From their PDF):

That for me sums up why I bought from Dell. The Sony SR looks really good and lighter with better battery but until they provide warranty service like Dell do I would choose the XPS 13.

 

The main reason im going with sony is due to the video card, I thought the radeon 4570 is better than the nvideo 9500

 

It's not. Go check http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

 

Uhm, it is. The SXPS13 has (as far as I know) the GeForce 9500M GE (which is really a combination of a 9400M in SLI with a dedicated (less powerful) 9200M).
The GeForce 9500M GE shows up at place 104 wheras the 4570 shows up at place 70.

I'm in the exact same situation, deciding between a Sony SR, Dell Studio XPS13 and a Zepto G14b. The sony has a slower cpu (in Sweden) and my view on Sony as a Company is not too good because of the disabling of hardware virtualization in bios.

The SXPS13 on the other hand, has the DPC latency problems, which by the way seems to be getting fixed (big creds to Dell for that!). It also had heat problems, reportedly also fixed now but it will definitely run hotter than the SR. The SR is also lighter and thinner.

 

Actually no. Have you read any of the posts in this forum? The 9500 (yes it is a 9400M + 9200M) on boost mode achieves 3dmarks of over 3500+. My 3dmarks 06 is 3900 with my 2.66 processor. The 4570 reaches around 3200 and reading many who have overclocked it at the Sony forums it reaches 3300 maximum. So I suggest you do some research start here: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4974&p=2

 

I must say that I own neither of these two systems, so my info is based on what I've read. And yes, I've read these forums quite a lot lately, however, it seems that at the Dell forum, the 9500M is the best you can get in a 13", while at the sony forums, the 4570 is the best

Anyway, here are som links that supports my post:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4994248&postcount=450
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5143856&postcount=121
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5018426&postcount=2205
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5189135&postcount=2912
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5189733&postcount=2914

A nice remark is made in the first one, namely that the machine at Notebookcheck with the R4570 is not a Vaio SR, but rather a poor laptop that can't get more. I've heard many reports of 4k+ points in 3d marks 06.

Also I would like to point out that the 9500M solution needs SLI-support in the games to be able to use all it's power. Not all games has that. Finally, I'd guess that the R4570 runs a lot cooler than a dual-card solution. The R4570 seems to be a better/more allround card, IMHO.