£1100 ultrabook, priority: battery life - sony vaio pro or wait for better?

nish81

nish81

nish81

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so i tried to summarise the question in the title :D

i'm out to buy a new laptop/ultrabook, budget £1100. my emphasis is on battery life (9hrs+) so haswell would be great. right now i can order the sony vaio pro 13 with a touch screen, 8gb ram, 128gb ssd, and the battery addon for 'up to 18hrs battery life' for £1050 or so.

do you fine gentlemen think that's good enough, or should i wait for other options to be released? specifically thinking of the samsung ativ book 9 and the lenovo u430/u330. im not sure whether they'd meet my budget and emphasis on battery life so i was wondering what you guys think

the one worry i have with the sony vaio pro 13 is that I've read a review that it's not a very durable laptop. so i dont know if i could just stuff it in my backpak and walk around (well, stuff it in a laptop bag and then put that in my backpack).
 
bump? sony have a free upgrade to 8gb RAM running until tomorrow - tempted to pull the trigger on this. im sure there'll be better haswells coming out but I don't know if they'll be in my price range as much
 
I've no idea :(

It really sucks the state of the Ultrabook market. Demand is so high but the choice of machines is so poor. I myself am looking for a sub 13inch Ultrabook with dual digital display outputs. Not much to ask for considering the Intel HD graphics has been capable of tri-displays for years!
 
I assume that, as you haven't mentioned it, the Macbook Air is out of the question? The battery life on the new one is meant to be exceptional.
 
manic111 said:
I assume that, as you haven't mentioned it, the Macbook Air is out of the question? The battery life on the new one is meant to be exceptional.
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Yeah, I'd rather the vaio 13 than the MBA. right now I'm using a MBP that I've wiped and installed windows over - just too many little bugs for me to want to go down that road again. I know it's probably user error but I'd rather still go down a 'made for windows' route
 
nish81 said:
Yeah, I'd rather the vaio 13 than the MBA. right now I'm using a MBP that I've wiped and installed windows over - just too many little bugs for me to want to go down that road again. I know it's probably user error but I'd rather still go down a 'made for windows' route
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Fair enough :)
 
Ordered the vaio yesterday - £1179 for the 256gb ssd, 8gb ram, black touchscreen, extended battery, and the wifi/ethernet dongle.

it'll arrive 17 july-24 july, and i can return it unopened for 30 days after that so if there's something much better definitively announced by then i'll just do that :)
 
nish81 said:
Ordered the vaio yesterday - £1179 for the 256gb ssd, 8gb ram, black touchscreen, extended battery, and the wifi/ethernet dongle.

it'll arrive 17 july-24 july, and i can return it unopened for 30 days after that so if there's something much better definitively announced by then i'll just do that :)
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What's the wifi/ethernet dongle?
 
rotor said:
What's the wifi/ethernet dongle?
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it's a £60 add-on that creates a wireless network out of an ethernet cable. it draws power from an extra socket on the sony vaio's power adapter. (iirc)

im aware there are cheaper usb-ethernet adapters, but this looked like a decent way to save a USB slot on the laptop when I'm using ethernet, and i didnt mind the cost
 
nish81 said:
it's a £60 add-on that creates a wireless network out of an ethernet cable. it draws power from an extra socket on the sony vaio's power adapter. (iirc)

im aware there are cheaper usb-ethernet adapters, but this looked like a decent way to save a USB slot on the laptop when I'm using ethernet, and i didnt mind the cost
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Still not sure I understand. So the dongle plugs into an ethernet connection that is on your home network, and the laptop connects to the dongle via wifi?

Send us a link if you have one, I'm curious now...
 
so i got this laptop on friday - ive moved to a new house where i dont have internet set up yet so i havent had a chance to play around with it too much since i'm tethering to my desktop only via USB. but first impressions are fairly good. the trackpad is just average but the touchscreen is pretty good imo

i really dont like windows 8. there are two main interfaces right - the 'normal' desktop one, and the 'modern' tablet-like one. i hate the tablet-like one. and they just dont mesh well together imo. but that should be better when the update brings back the start menu

the dongle is just a small box thing. this is how it works:
- slots into the power adapter of the vaio to draw power from it
- has a socket that the ethernet cable plugs into

thats all ive seen so far. i dont have internet set up here yet so i havent had a chance to test it

happy to answer any other questions :)
 
GodAtum said:
whats the touchscreen like on the vaio pro? can i use a digitizer pen to write and draw stuff?
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as i said i like the touchscreen, but i havent used a pen or anything. whats a digitizer pen? is there any way i can test this without buying one?

note that the screen doesnt go all the way back so it's a bit awkward sometimes but the laptop's small enough that you can just bring it a bit closer to you
 
It's a pen that can write and its sensitive to pressure. the Surface Pro has one.

I was thinking if I had the Viao i'll always be tempted to rip the screen off from the base as it's crying out for it!
 
Hey,

Apologies for the bump - just wondering how you are getting along with your machine nish81? I've just ordered the Vaio Pro 13 with the same spec as you, but I'm planning to slap Windows 7 on it as soon as I get it (I assume this is possible via a USB DVD drive?!).

Cheers,

Su
 
Sumanji said:
Hey,

Apologies for the bump - just wondering how you are getting along with your machine nish81? I've just ordered the Vaio Pro 13 with the same spec as you, but I'm planning to slap Windows 7 on it as soon as I get it (I assume this is possible via a USB DVD drive?!).

Cheers,

Su
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Yes, or you can make a bootable USB drive using the tool from Microsoft. I haven't checked but i'm sure there will be drivers for the Vaio Pro 13 for windows 7.

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool
 
Cool, thanks for the link Gammawolf.

I'm assuming most of the drivers will just be bog standard (i.e. Intel, Realtek, Synaptics...).

Cheers,

Su
 
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