Sony Vaio Duo 13 review – a big step forward

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Specs Sheet
Design and exterior
Keyboard and trackpad
Screen
Hardware and performance
Noise, heat and speakers
Battery life
Price and availability
Final thoughts
Comments

By Andrei GirbeaSony Vaio Duo 13, last updated on April 2, 2021

Sony Vaio Duo 13

Summary: The Vaio Duo 13 is a convertible ultrabook built on top Intel's Haswell hardware, with a nice screen and a digitizer/pen combo. On top of that, it can easily go for 6-8 hours on a single charge, with everyday use. Long story short, it's a great machine, but because it's pricey and because it's a slider, might not be for everyone.

Our score: 4 / 5
Price when reviewed: $1399 - $2799

THE GOOD

sturdy and beautiful; comes with a touchscreen, digitizer and pen; powerful; huge battery life; decent keyboard and trackpad; good selection of ports; great connectivity options

THE BAD

the form factor (slider); the sharp edges and pointy corners

Table of Contents

Sony Vaio Duo 13 video review
The specs sheet for the Sony Vaio Duo 13 slider
Design and exterior
Screen, pen and digitizer
Keyboard and trackpad
Hardware and performances
Noise, Heat, Connectivity and others
Battery life
Prices and availability
Wrap-up

After having the Sony Vaio Pro 13 last week on my test bench, this week I got to play with the Sony Vaio Duo 13. Once again, this was a pre-release unit coming directly from Sony, but it’s identical to the unit in stores (except for a hardware detail, we’ll talk about that later).

I got to test the base configuration of the Pro 13, so if you’re after the top options with Core i7 processors, the things in the performances section or this review might not present big interest to you. Except for that though, you will find plenty of goodies in this post, as I’ve tried to get in depth and explained all the details that I liked on this device, and the few ones that I didn’t as well.

The Duo 13 is the second member of the Duo family, coming after the Duo 11 launched last year, which was an interesting product, but skewed by a couple of annoying issues. With the new model, Sony listened to our (the reviews and the buyers) complaints and addressed most of them, while adding a couple of extras on top of last’s year’s device.

That’s why the results are good, excellent i might say, as you will find out from this article.

Sony Vaio Duo 13 video review

But before we get to the actual review, the video below will tell you most of the things you should know about this Vaio.

The specs sheet for the Sony Vaio Duo 13 slider

	Sony Vaio Duo 13
Screen	13.3 inch, 1920 x 1080 px resolution, IPS, Triluminos, N-Trig digitizer
Processor	Intel Haswell Core i5-4200U CPU
Chipset	Intel HM87
Video	integrated Intel 4400 HD
Memory	4 GB DDR3
Storage	128 GB SSD
Connectivity	Wireless N, Gigabit Lan, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, cellular
Ports	2xUSB 3.0, SD card reader, HDMI
Baterry	50 Wh
Operating system	Windows 8
Size	330 x 210 x 19.5 mm (13.00″ x 8.27″ x 0.77″)
Weight	about 1.3 kg (2.93 pounds)
Extras	backlit keyboard, Ethernet to wireless dongle included, pen included

Design and exterior

Let’s start with the exterior. The 13 was completely redesigned. The edges are sharper, no longer chamfered, and that, plus the pointy corners, do make the new model somewhat more uncomfortable to grab and use in tablet mode.

Sony Vaio Duo 13 – a Windows 8 powered convertible ultrabook

Sony also moved the ports on the back of the laptop, which means they are now out of the way, but also more difficult to access. You’ll find here a large cooling grill, a card reader that can completely swallow an SD card, an HDMI and two USB ports, the headphone-microphone jack and the PSU.

The power button sits on the left edge, while on the right there’s a clip and a ring designed as pen holders, but more about them later. There’s no VGA, but Sony offers an HDMI to VGA extension in the pack. And there’s no Ethernet either, but you do get an Ethernet to WiFi dongle integrated within the power brick.

Flipping the machine upside down, you’ll find here an oddly placed main camera, that you can very easily cover with your fingers when using the tablet. On the front, there’s a larger grill covering some speakers, two of them from what i can tell, one on each side, plus some buttons, which are stiff and quite difficult to press, so I doubt you’ll use them much.

Those aside, I’m glad to tell you that the Vaio Duo 13 feels very sturdy. The body is made from carbon fiber, so it’s durable and offers good grip, and that helps the Duo weigh a little under 3 pounds (2.93 lbs, to be exact), despite packing plenty of features, as you’ll find out from this video. Our version comes in white and silver, but there’s also a Carbon black one available in stores.

The Duo is sturdy and beautiful

Alright, you might have noticed by now that the entire front face is a massive screen, covered by a sheet of Gorilla Glass 3. And that makes the Vaio Duo 13 a tablet, albeit it’s a massive 13 inch device and not the ideal couch buddy, but having the large screen gives you more landscape when browsing and working with documents.

The Duo is however more than just a tablet. You can lift the screen and it will slide up, unveiling a keyboard and a trackpad. The interior offers the same premium feel, as it’s made from fiber carbon as well. The palm-rest is very narrow, but the keyboard is larger than the one on the Duo 11, because the screen now slides more towards the back.

Many buyers complained about the stiff sliding mechanism on last year’s model and Sony worked on that. The Duo 13 comes with a new hinge, much more compact than before and a lot easier to operate. In fact, you can now effortlessly lift the screen with only one hand. On top of that, the new hinge feels just as sturdy as the larger one used before and the screen is mostly going to stay fixed in place as long as you make sure it perfectly attaches to the tiny hooks placed on each side of the laptop.

Sony improved the slider mechanism

The cords connecting the screen with the lower body are now integrated within the sliding mechanism so are less exposed to potential damage, again, something Duo 11 users complained about.

Screen, pen and digitizer

But how about the screen? As I mentioned already, it sits sturdily in place and the Duo’s overall balance in laptop mode is great, as long as you keep it on a desk or with the base parallel to the ground.

We have a 13.3 inch display on this Duo, a touchscreen of course, with a Full HD IPS panel that bundles Sony’s Triluminos technology. I don’t have the proper tools to test the color accuracy, but I can say that this screen feels more vibrant than the one on last year’s Duo 11. It’s also bright enough for everyday use as long as you don’t have it in very strong light, and offers good contrast and viewing angles.

Speaking of those … the slider concept has one massive issue: you can’t adjust the screen’s vertical inclination, it’s fixed. And that means that most of the time, you’re not going to look at it straight on. And while the viewing angles are very good on the Duo 13, there’s still a noticeable difference when watching it from any angle, especially when displaying whites and bright content. The video review will show you more exactly what I’m talking about.

One more thing, I’m not always using my laptops on a flat surface, sometimes I like to work while lying on the couch, with the laptop leaning on my legs. With the Duo 13, that’s not really possible, as the screen doesn’t stay in place and comes over the top of the keyboard. You might not care much about that, but it’s something to be aware of nonetheless.

The Sony Vaio Duo 13 can be more than the regular laptop/tablet

Of course, having a touchscreen has its benefits. And the Duo doesn’t offer just an ordinary touchscreen, but one that embeds an N-Trig digitizer and comes with a matching pen. So you can use this machine to draw, sketch things, takes notes, select various parts of the screen, etc. I found that using the pen on the Duo 13 is overall quite comfortable. Yes, the device is a bit tall and has those sharp edges, but I wasn’t bothered much by these.

Sony does offer a clip on the right side of the device, which can hold the pen when in tablet mode, and a retractable ring that holds it when you’re in laptop mode. This ring is specifically designed to always bring the pen towards your hand, but when trying to access the Charms menu on Windows 8, you’ll find the placement somewhat annoying, as the pen is exactly in your way. Besides that, the system knows when you’re grabbing the pen from these holders and can automatically launch an app of your choice, if you want to. Neat.

The form factor is not ideal for couch use

Keyboard and trackpad

Alright, let’s talk about the keyboard. Knowing how I didn’t like the one on the Duo 13, I didn’t have high expectations here either, but Sony actually improved it. It’s taller now, which means that you get larger, square keys. The travel is still quite shallow and you’ll need some time to get used to the feedback, but the keys feel a lot firmer, which means that they will register taps even when hitting them on the sides or on the corners. On the Duo 11, you had to always hit them in the middle, and that caused plenty of missed hits.

Overall, the typing experience is good, but the small palm-rest and the sharp edge make it worse than it could have been. Still, because of that palm-rest Sony had room to squeeze a clickpad on this Duo and it’s actually quite good, especially if you like to tap on your touchpads, and not click on them.

Decent keyboard and trackpad

The touchpad is of course tiny, but it’s accurate, responsive and works with gestures like two finger scrolling and zooming. There’s no support for Windows 8 gestures, but I don’t care much about that anyway. Still, you’ll ask me if this solution is better than the one on the Duo 11, and I’ll say… yes. Although I’m a big fan of independent click buttons myself, the trackpoint on the Duo was rubbish, which made the overall combo almost unusable for me.

Hardware and performances

We have the base version of the Sony Vaio Duo 13 here, with an Intel Core i5-4200U processor, Intel HD 4600 graphics, 4 GB of memory and a 128 GB SSD, although I noticed that on Sony’s website it does come with Intel 4400 graphics. This is after all an engineering sample and that’s why it came with this 4600 chip, but in practice there’s not a huge gap between this and the 4400, as both are part of the Intel GT2 family.

My unit also came with 4 GB of memory, and while I couldn’t open the unit to have a peak inside, I’m pretty sure the memory is soldered onto the motherboard and there’s no extra expandable slot available. So you should get the 8 GB option from starters if you need a large amount of memory, you won’t be able to upgrade it afterwards.

You should notice that HWInfo shows that the memory works in dual-channel, but I’ don’t think we can trust such software just yet, with these configs so fresh, because at the same time, the program and Sony’s website claim there’s only one memory module.

The SSD was pretty snappy on the Duo 13 as well, as you can see from one of the pictures below. It’s a Toshiba drive and according to Sony, it’s a NGFF drive as well, so it doesn’t use any proprietary mSATA connector. Can’t say if it’s user replaceable though, since I wasn’t allowed to peak under the hood.

As for the graphics, I do got some great results here. The 3Dmark scores were a bit unexpected (Ice storm is a lot under the Vaio Pro 13 tested last week, with a similar configuration, while the other two are way better). On top of that, when running a couple of games, the Duo 13 got way better fps numbers than the other Sony.

So I’m starting to believe the results on the Pro 13 we’re a bit skewed by some faulty graphics… This unfortunately happens with engineering samples… Still, I can’t confirm which results are skewed, these or those in the Pro 13 review, until i get to test a third Core i5-4200U config, and hopefully this is going to happen soon. BTW, in both cases I got the devices on highest performances settings, of course.

Anyway, here are some benchmark results for the Duo 13:

3DMark 13: Ice Storm – 16581, Cloud Gate – 4196, Fire Strike – 652 ;
PCMark 07: 4243;
Windows Rating: 5.7;
CineBench 11.5: OpenGL 14.78 fps, CPU 2.38 pts.

And here’s what I got with some games (a clip showing you how the Duo managed to run these games will be added in a few days):

Fifa 13, 720p, low details – 62 fps;
Need for Speed: Most Wanted, 720p, low details – 27fps (runs in window mode)
Dirt 3, 720p, ultra low details – 65 fps (run in windows mode)
Dirt 3, 1080p, ultra low details – 52 fps ;
Skyrim, 720p, low details – 36 fps;
Starcraft 2, 720p, low details – 63 fps .

Besides that, the Duo 13 is going to easily handle all your daily tasks, whether we’re talking about browsing, editing documents, listening to music or chatting with your friends. It can also play well all sorts of multimedia content and the sound system, while not impressive, it’s overall pretty good for an ultrabook.

The Sony Duo 13 comes with Windows 8 and besides the classic preinstalled apps, there’s also a fair amount of Sony proprietary software onboard. Mostly crapware, with few exceptions, so if I were you, I would get rid of it!

Noise, Heat, Connectivity and others

In terms of connectivity, this machine offers pretty much everything you might want, from Wireless and Bluetooth, to NFC, WiDi, GNSS and an embedded cellular modem (4G/LTE and backwards compatible, made by Huawei). The SIM tray is placed behind the screen, near the hinge.

I did notice something odd on the wireless module, a Broadcom 801.11abgn Wireless SDIO adapter : it didn’t rise to the performances of my daily driver (which comes with an Intel N6300 module) when it came to download speeds, and the gap got a lot bigger the further I was from my router (23mbps vs 13 mbps at 20 feet with 2 walls, 22 mbps vs 9 mbps at 25 feet with 3 walls). Not sure if this was an isolated problem with my unit here, but it’s definitely something worth investigating.

There might be some issues with the wireless chip

That aside, the Vaio Duo 13 runs quiet and cool. Air is sucked in from the sides and from behind the screen and then vented out through the grill on the back. In fact, the fan only kicks ON when dealing with more intensive tasks, like watching Full HD movies or playing games, and even so, it’s not very loud. It can get quite warm in these situations, on the upper-left bottom side, but it’s never too hot and this happens mainly when pushing the machine, in which case I doubt you’ll have it on your lap anyway.

Sony also bundled two cameras on the Duo. The front shooter is alright for chatting and video calls, but it could have been sharper.

The one on the back has an 8 MPx sensor and takes decent shots and Full HD clips. It lacks Flash, so it doesn’t do well in poor-light. And on top of that, the cameras in oddly placed and can be easily covered with your hand when grabbing the device. Still, I doubt any of you would actually use this for taking pics unless really really needed…

Below you’ll find a bunch of pictures taken with the Duo 13, some indoors and some outside, resized to 1000 px.

Battery life

But while I don’t care much about the camera, I do care a lot about battery life. The Vaio Duo 13 comes with a 50Wh battery and that, bundled with that Haswell hardware, means that it will last from anywhere between 6 to 10 hours of everyday use.

I didn’t have time to conduct too many battery tests, but, i got around 8 hours of continuously looping a 1080p clip in Power Saver with the screen at 50% and Wi-Fi Off, I got around 7 hours with everyday use that included, browsing, editing texts, listening to some music, watching some Youtube clips, etc. And last but not least, while writing this review during the night, with the screen at 30%, Wi-Fi ON and the keyboard’s illumination ON, I depleted about 33% of the battery in nearly 3 hours of use.

Bottom point: this is GREAT.

On the other hand, the battery takes quite a while to fully charge itself (close to 3 hours) and Sony no longer offers a compatible slice battery for the 13, like it did on the Vaio. But to be frank, that’s OK, it’s not needed anymore.

Prices and availability

The Duo 13 starts at $1400 dollars and can quickly get over 2 grand and even close to 3000 dollars for the beefiest configurations.

However, some webstores list the Duo 13 discounted, as you’ll see from this post.

The base version comes with an Intel Core i5-4200U CPU with 4400 Intel graphics, 4 GB of RAM and a 128 GB SSD.

A better specced version with an Intel Core i7-4650U processor and Intel 5000 graphics, plus 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD sells for just under $2000, and it looks like this will only start shipping in a couple of weeks. And you can add extras, like the LTE module for $150, Windows 8 Pro for $50 and so on.

Besides that, it’s worth mentioning that these are the configs available on Sony’s US website. If you’re living somewhere else, you might not get the same options.

Wrap-up

Wrapping it up, the Sony Vaio Duo 13 is an awesome machine.

Sony gathered all the complains on their 11 inch version and addressed in some way or another pretty much all of them, without screwing up anything else in return. See my video comparison between the two Duo lines for more details.

The new Intel platform offers a nice performance boost and an even greater battery life increase, combined with the larger battery bundled on this machine. On top of that, the Duo 13 is only marginally larger and heavier than last year’s model, despite packing a bigger screen.

For some of you, the Sony Vaio Duo 13 might be the perfect hybrid

However, the Duo 13 is still a slider. If you’re planning in using it a lot in tablet mode and put that pen to good use, you’ll love that. Otherwise, in laptop mode, you have to get by with a cramped clickpad and arm-rest, plus the fixed angle screen, which I for one find very annoying.

Those being said, the Vaio Duo 13 is not for everyone. In fact, it addresses a rather limited segment of potential buyers. If you’re among them, you’ll be glad to know that this machine is a much improved take on last year’s Duo 11 and one of the best hybrids available out there. Otherwise, there are and there will be plenty of other options for you too. See my list of recommended convertibles, my post on the best ultrabooks of the moment, and if you’re a Sony fan, this comparison between the Duo 13 and the Pro 13, the other premium Vaio available these days.

Alright, that’s about it for now. Thanks for tagging along, this has been a long article, but if you found this useful, go ahead and share it wherever you can (facebook, twitter, forums – this greatly helps me and this site), maybe others will as well. And of course, if you have any questions, things to add, etc, leave your comments below, I’ll be around to reply.

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Review by: Andrei Girbea
Andrei Girbea is a Writer and Editor-in-Chief here at Ultrabookreview.com. I write about mobile technology, laptops and computers in general. I've been doing it for more than 15 years now. I'm a techie with a Bachelor's in Computer Engineering. I mostly write reviews and thorough guides here on the site, with some occasional columns and first-impression articles.

38 Comments

Mike

June 18, 2013 at 12:49 am

Awesome review, i’ve been looking at picking up this devices for awhile now, any leads on a est shipping date? or perhaps you might have a guesstimation on when it will be available here in the US?

thnx

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 18, 2013 at 8:41 am
  
  not sure, the best i can do is offer the estimates on Sony’s webstore. But you can check them out yourself as well
  
  Reply
shingo

June 18, 2013 at 5:06 am

Great review!
I also care a lot about the battery life. It seems like it will meet all my needs!

Reply
Elliot Ma

June 18, 2013 at 8:58 am

I love your Review of the sony pro 13 and duo 13, It is really awesome. Your reports are the best, I havn’t see a Review as good as you In my country. Thanks A lot.

Reply
hello man

June 18, 2013 at 10:58 am

hi
its really too bad that sony didnt include 2x slots for ram. this will effect gaming performance

Reply
Joe

June 18, 2013 at 5:02 pm

Thanx for Good Review ! Just one question: Are all versions of DUO-13 come with Sim Card slot for 3G connectivity or it is ONLY an extra option for additional 150USD which “cheaper” models don’t have?? In the review do you mean that actually all models (even for 1399$) come with 3G connectivity which is upgradable till LTE one?? Sorry, I’m a bit confused because when I two times called to SONY CUSTOMER SERVICE CENTER in USA and then corresponded with them for 2days they confirmed that a sim card version of DUO-13 comes as an extra option ONLY which 1399 and 1899$ ready to ship models DON’T HAVE.. And I hope that 3/4G connectivity in this model is not for United States ONLY, because I’m going to use it worldwide ;) THANKS !

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 19, 2013 at 8:48 am
  
  From what I know, the base version does not offer the 3G/4G modem, but you can buy it as an extra option, for $149 . That’s how things are over here, can’t confirm if that’s so in the US though. The modem worked fine over here (Romania, Europe), but on 3G, I don’t have a 4G plan yet
  
  Reply
  - ehab
    
    July 6, 2013 at 6:16 am
    
    So if I ordered from the US with AT&T 4G LTE wireless mobile broadband option, Can I replace the sim card with any other operater abroad or is it locked for AT&T only
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    July 6, 2013 at 3:09 pm
    
    Hmmm, not sure what to say about that. You’d better ask Sony
  - ehab
    
    July 7, 2013 at 6:12 am
    
    Thanks for your reply. Both Sony and AT&T don’t know or pretend not to know whether it is locked or not
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    July 7, 2013 at 8:29 am
    
    then head over to the Duo 13 owner’s lounge on notebookreview.com and see if someone bought this model and can share some light…
DavidC1

June 19, 2013 at 9:43 am

The HD 4600 designation is wrong. It’s HD 4400. There will be significant differences between the two. Early benchmarks put it at nearly 2x.

The HWINFO is just not displaying it right, and categorizing all GT2 graphics as HD 4600.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 19, 2013 at 11:17 am
  
  Hmmm, what’s your source for that?
  
  Reply
  - DavidC1
    
    June 19, 2013 at 1:03 pm
    
    http://ark.intel.com/products/75459/Intel-Core-i5-4200U-Processor-3M-Cache-up-to-2_60-GHz
    
    http://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Intel-Haswell-HD-Graphics.png
    
    This misreporting is true with all GPU reporting programs for the Intel ones. For example, GPU-Z reports HD 4600 has 2 ROPs and 4 TMUs, when it has double that.
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    June 19, 2013 at 3:16 pm
    
    Hmm, I’ll look deeper into that and I’ll address the texts. Thanks for the input, really helps
3rain3ug

June 19, 2013 at 8:30 pm

What you think… when it get’s cheaper ?
( the duo 11 is still on its start price point or ? )
Any Chance to get the i7-4650U in it in europe ?

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 19, 2013 at 9:02 pm
  
  i do think the duo 11 will get cheaper. and hopefully we will have the 4650U in Europe, I’ll try to confirm this with sony
  
  Reply
  - Sebb
    
    August 18, 2013 at 1:04 pm
    
    Did you ever get any more information regarding the Intel 4650U for this machine?
    Looking to place a order for one of these tho been hearing more and more that they might add the 4650U Q4 this year.
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    August 18, 2013 at 3:15 pm
    
    No, I don’t know anything else about this config. My contacts at Sony said they will let me know if they have any updates on this configuration. I’ll shoot them another email, but I doubt I’ll find anything new
  - Phil
    
    October 10, 2013 at 3:56 pm
    
    Did you find out about the 4650u being available in Europe?
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    October 10, 2013 at 5:08 pm
    
    No, i had no word about that…
AlexZh

June 23, 2013 at 4:22 pm

Thanks for the great review once again. Could you please tell me – how sturdier Duo 13 feels? Looks like the screen is still wobbling if touched in open position – is it annoying? How it feels in comparison with other touch screen laptops?

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 23, 2013 at 4:36 pm
  
  it’s pretty solid, sturdier than many of the other laptops I’ve tested.
  
  Reply
Mark 55

June 26, 2013 at 8:09 pm

Hi, thanks for the review. Do you know what the vertical angle is in degrees? It looks about 70. I want to test the angle on an old laptop to see if I can get on with it.

Also, do you have any news on the n-trig stylus? I have heard that there are meant to be new drivers coming soon, that will allow pressure sensitivity in programs like Photoshop, but I have not heard anything definitive. Thanks.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 27, 2013 at 8:49 am
  
  No, nothing new on the stylus. And I can’t say exactly what’s the inclination of the screen, I had to send the unit back… 60-70 sounds about right
  
  Reply
John

June 28, 2013 at 6:07 am

Excellent review and excellent product. Do you know if the device supports 802.11ac?

Thanks for the reviews. Keep up the good work.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 28, 2013 at 1:17 pm
  
  it doesn’t
  
  Reply
Peter

June 29, 2013 at 6:33 am

Hi Andrei,

Great review. I’m very close to pulling the trigger on the Duo 13. I think it’s probably the best hybrid laptop available at this time which is what I’m looking for. The question is: Should I get the i7-4500 processor now or wait a month for the i7-4650 CPU? How significant is the difference between these two processors?

I’m expecting alot from this computer as I plan to use it as my “desktop”, laptop, and tablet. The most CPU intensive tasks would be for photo editing and trading stocks/options (for which I plan to add a monitor and use charting/trading software).

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  July 1, 2013 at 10:28 am
  
  Hey Peter. I haven’t tested either of the i7s til now so really can’t tell you much about them, other from what others wrote in their articles. Even so, the 4650 should be faster when it comes to graphics. So if you do care about that (games, maybe video editing), it could be a good idea to wait
  
  Reply
- Julius
  
  July 2, 2013 at 2:50 pm
  
  I have to make the same decision…the i7-4650U has a 300MHz higher clock-speed (3.3GHz vs 3GHz) than the i7-4500U while also having 100MHz lower minimal clock-speed (1.7GHz vs 1.8Ghz). In addition the i7-4650U sport a HD5000 which should be about 25-30% faster than the HD4000 (compared to about 10-15% faster HD4400 in relation to HD4000).
  You can see this benefits in reviews from the Macbook Air 2013 compared to other new Haswell 4500U/4200U devices.
  I’ve decided to wait and see, what comes up next. Maybe the Samsung ATIV Q will have the i7-4650U (but I doubt this), so I think one month isn’t realistic … the winter-line from SONY will come out somewhere around end of September-Octobre … not nice, but this is the information I’ve got from SONY…
  So if you can wait until fall, I’ll recommend you to do so
  
  Reply
T Harmon

July 1, 2013 at 5:05 pm

I didn’t hear what type of digitizer the stylus used. Could you please repeat that? I mainly want to know if the stylus is pressure sensitive, and if it can be used with industry standard programs such as Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop.

The previous version (Duo 11) used n-trig drivers, which do not work with Photoshop in terms of pressure sensitivity. I see that the n-trig no longer has Sony listed on their website, which is a good sign. It means that Sony may have decided to go with a competitor. Could you please provide the graphic artist community with a review of this product in conjunction with Photoshop?

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  July 1, 2013 at 5:16 pm
  
  It’s still an NTrig stylus from what I could tell. Didn’t have enough time to test it as much as I wanted as I had to send it back very fast. I’ll see if I could get my hand on it again and have a Photoshop video.
  
  Reply
Pennyfan

August 19, 2013 at 11:31 pm

The biggest disappointing part of this machine is the digitizer, it uses WinTab API instead of the more common WinTab API, that makes this digitizer incompatible with most graphic softwares including the Adobe series.
Up until know, there is no good news about either Sony or Adobe is working to get this fix, this is the only reason I am not buying the Sony Duo 13 and put my hope on the next Windows Surface Pro.

Reply
lorre

August 20, 2013 at 5:45 pm

hi i am a graphic designer and i am always using the adobe pack… sometimes 2 programs at ones, would this computer hold up to the many hours of work and the programs or will it crash.
cuz the gadgets are pretty amazing to work with the camera scanner and the pen for photoshop and so.
if you dont recommend me this one with of the ultrabook works for my field.
thanks
L

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  August 21, 2013 at 7:58 am
  
  lorre, as reported most Photoshop programs don’t work very well with the N-Trig digitizer on the Duo 13. Hopefully Adobe and Sony will work out some software updates in the future.
  
  Reply
Tunc

August 23, 2013 at 2:46 am

I have one question:
How well the front camera work in video calls when it is in laptop mode?
Considering that the hinge keep the screen at a fixed angle which is not looking straight to the user, doesn’t it show the ceiling?

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  August 26, 2013 at 10:13 am
  
  if you have it on a desk, then it’s ok. otherwise, framing might be difficult
  
  Reply
Elizabeth

August 27, 2014 at 5:30 am

I’m selling mine it’s just under a month old asking 1200 with box Its a great laptop I’m just not really not techie, not into the hole touch screen windows 8 thing. Happy with the old basic laptop. If anyone interested email me: [email protected]

Sony vaio duo13

svD13223cxb
Processor: Intel Core i5-4200u /1.60ghz
Graphics: intel hd graphics 4400
Display: 13.3/ 1920×1080
total memory: 4GB
storage: approx. 128 GB( solid state drive)
compatibility and performance in a 64bit environment varies

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Sony Vaio Duo 13 review – a big step forward

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