"Extremely limited" Sony Vaio Red Edition Duo 13 slider and Pro ultrabook announced

12 comments

• Hey Sony, how about a special edition that friggin’ works with Photoshop? Maybe with Wacom instead of that crappy N-Trig crap. Yeah, I said crap twice.

  • Maybe they would when more than 10 people in the world give a s***.

    Or when a Wacom digitizer’s cost is comparable to N-Trig, but when people already complain about the price of this thing…adding additional features that a very limited amount of people care about that would raise the cost another grand, would be stupid.

    If anything they should be taking the pen support out entirely except for a special edition…I’ve had a Vaio Duo 11 and ordered a 13, have never, and probably won’t ever use the pen except to show people its capabilities.

    Not to mention, it’s not that Photoshop can’t work well with N-Trig, but rather they don’t have drivers or software support for it (and that may be on Adobe)…so again, not necessarily a fault of Sony’s.

    • Samsung didn’t wait for Adobe or Wacom, they reworked Wintab themselves. I agree Sony should drop it if they don’t care to make it truly useful. About digitizer cost… there are a number of lower cost tablets using Wacom… do you know how much more the Wacom digitizer costs than the N-Trig?

      • I don’t know exactly how much more it would cost, but looking at other devices that include the support, I’d assume it’s likely a few hundred to the manufacturer.

        And there are lower cost tablets using Wacom, but they are either older, have pretty crappy specs, have low res displays, or have other trade-offs.

        Examples would be the Samsung 700T and Asus Vivotab TF810C.

        Not to mention, the N-Trig is capable of doing mainly what the Wacom does (maybe not quite as much pressure sensitivity, but otherwise it’s pretty comparable)…it just needs support for additional software really.

        • I can’t believe the pricing would be that drastic… the Surface Pro, the ATIV 700 both have Wacom and hi res screens and are priced about the same or lower than the Sony–of course, Sony could just be banking a nice profit on the difference.

          Since I wrote my orig post (in extreme frustration) I have come to mellow on the N-Trig because I found a fantastic alternative to Photoshop for artwork; Manga Studio 5. The N-Trig works beautifully with it, and it also is perfectly adequate for all of the Microsoft Office programs, esp OneNote, which is one of the reasons I got a penabled machine in the first place.

          In summation on this N-Trig/Wintab story… my thinking now is that for those artistically minded folks who aren’t already fully committed to a particular application that *does* need Wintab (PS, Painter, Illustrator, Maya etc etc), then the Duo 11/13 is a viable choice because Manga is such an amazingly good product.

        • Forgot… although the Duo 13 looks pretty sweet, the upcoming Samsung ATIV Q looks like the slayer of all competitors. I currently have an ad in Craigslist to sell my Duo 11 in order to bank some money for that beast.

        • Glad to see you figured out an alternative. Honestly, I’ve heard nothing but good things for N-Trig’s outside of support for software, and have had good experience myself. So I’d assume the Wacom hype is largely due to name and maybe a few select options they might add in, plus support.

          Though, I’m not sure what the pricing difference would really be. I’m just going off of a past Vaio Duo topic discussion about it and a lot of people suggested it was simply a cost thing to Wacom, but I personally don’t know for sure.

          At launch the Sony with similar specs did cost the same as the Samsung and only $200 more than the Surface Pro without the type cover. So comparing the options and build of the Duo 11, I think the cost difference likely came into build/design, it’s spec and storage options, the “premium” Sony name (everything Sony seems to cost just a little more than the competition), attached/backlit keyboard, additional outputs (VGA), ethernet, and high quality display (though the resolutions are the same, the Sony seemed to get better brightness and color reviews, though not a huge difference).

          With that said, outside of the ATIV Q being able to run Android apps and the resolution, I’m not impressed. And my wife’s iPad 4 has a higher display than my Vaio Duo 11 yet the display on the 11 is brighter, more vivid and natural color, with far clearer text and image rendering…and overall everyone I’ve shown them both to for various stuff that was the same content couldn’t believe the resolutions were really that different. So I’m not going to get too hyped about resolution unless it’s really drastic display quality and size.

          If the ATIV had a better build quality, better design, higher specs options, and didn’t use the optical nub like the Duo 11 (which didn’t bother me but wasn’t my choice for an input method), I’d like it more and may pick it up if priced comparably…will have 30 days to return my Duo 13, and was able to sell my Duo 11 for a great amount the other day. So I’ll have to check my options.

          If the 13 gets as good of battery life as reviews claim, along with the HD 5000 graphics i7 I ordered, I’ll keep to it.

• Hey Sony, how about a special edition that friggin' works with Photoshop? Maybe with Wacom instead of that crappy N-Trig crap. Yeah, I said crap twice.

  • Maybe they would when more than 10 people in the world give a s***.

    Or when a Wacom digitizer's cost is comparable to N-Trig, but when people already complain about the price of this thing…adding additional features that a very limited amount of people care about that would raise the cost another grand, would be stupid.

    If anything they should be taking the pen support out entirely except for a special edition…I've had a Vaio Duo 11 and ordered a 13, have never, and probably won't ever use the pen except to show people it's capabilities.

    Not to mention, it's not that Photoshop can't work well with N-Trig, but rather they don't have drivers or software support for it (and that may be on Adobe)…so again, not necessarily a fault of Sony's.

    • Samsung didn't wait for Adobe or Wacom, they reworked Wintab themselves. I agree Sony should drop it if they don't care to make it truly useful. About digitizer cost… there are a number of lower cost tablets using Wacom… do you know how much more the Wacom digitizer costs than the N-Trig?

      • I don't know exactly how much more it would cost, but looking at other devices that include the support, I'd assume it's likely a few hundred to the manufacturer.

        And there are lower cost tablets using Wacom, but they are either older, have pretty crappy specs, have low res displays, or have other trade-offs.

        Examples would be the Samsung 700T and Asus Vivotab TF810C.

        Not to mention, the N-Trig is capable of doing mainly what the Wacom does (maybe not quite as much pressure sensitivity, but otherwise it's pretty comparable)…it just needs support for additional software really.

        • I can't believe the pricing would be that drastic… the Surface Pro, the ATIV 700 both have Wacom and hi res screens and are priced about the same or lower than the Sony–of course, Sony could just be banking a nice profit on the difference.

          Since I wrote my orig post (in extreme frustration) I have come to mellow on the N-Trig because I found a fantastic alternative to Photoshop for artwork; Manga Studio 5. The N-Trig works beautifully with it, and it also is perfectly adequate for all of the Microsoft Office programs, esp OneNote, which is one of the reasons I got a penabled machine in the first place.

          In summation on this N-Trig/Wintab story… my thinking now is that for those artistically minded folks who aren't already fully committed to a particular application that *does* need Wintab (PS, Painter, Illustrator, Maya etc etc), then the Duo 11/13 is a viable choice because Manga is such an amazingly good product.

Comments are closed.