VGPPRS35
2.8
5
5
5
Poorly Engineered
First and possibly most important, the HDMI and VGA ports can't be used at the same time. Even the HDMI and VGA ports on the laptop are blocked by the docking stocking station itself while docked. Unfortunately, the only way to have multiple monitors with this docking station is to purchase an additional USB DisplayLink adapter (~$60). Fujitsu and Lenovo docking stations have supported this functionality for at least six years.
Another issue is that there are no audio ports on the dock. However, you can plug speakers or headphones directly into the laptop though (unlike the HDMI and VGA ports).
The last thing thaht should be mentioned is that the docking station only has three USB 2.0 ports. So, plugging in a keyboard and mouse leaves only one port for anything else (webcam, headset, phone, etc...) Excluding the two network ports, there are no other ports on the docking station (including any USB 3.0 ports).
June 4, 2013
Love it in theory....but in practice...
I finally just received mine in the mail today, and right out of the box it has an issue. I got this with the hope of making it easier to attach all the stuff at my desk to my Vaio without having to remove my external monitor and other stuff whenever I moved around the house or went to college.
Despite it's nice form factor on my desk, as I was honestly expecting something a little bigger which I was worried was gonna be a problem, but wasn't, it has a major issue with my external monitor.
When it was attached to just the laptop itself, my monitor worked perfectly. Now as I type this with the monitor and laptop attached to the docking station, the monitor is flickering at a pretty regular basis, with random bars flashing on the screen every few seconds. I checked the ports themselves, which are clean, and the monitor itself, which is practically new, and all of that is great, so it should be working fine. And for the life of me I cannot find any troubleshooting on the internet that can help me with this issue.
So basically, I WOULD love this thing, if it did what I got it for. If I could get help on this issue, that would be wonderful and all would be well. But for now, it gets this low rating from me. I hold Sony products to the very highest of standards, and am rarely disappointed.
If I could get suggestions on a fix for my external monitor issue, that would be nice. It is connected via the VGA port if that helps.
April 2, 2013
Good, but...
I picked a new "S" because it had a decent size screen and an additional battery pack. It also had to have a dock, which it does, but my biggest beef and reason for only 3 stars is that the dock will not work with the extra battery pack on the laptop. And no audio connections but has HDMI? Seems to have been designed by someone who does not ever use a dock.
November 28, 2012
Glitch in loggin in
I just got the docking station, hooked it all up and it worked. Then when I restarted my computer, it kept telling me that my login password was not correct. I know it was. My workaround was to remove the Sony Vaio laptop from the docking station, login to windows, then reattach the docking stations.
October 9, 2012
