VGPPRS35
3
5
4
4
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
Good and useful docking station
This (VGPPRS35) is one of very few full docking stations for non-business laptops. I use it with my Sony 15.5" S Series SVS1511BFXB laptop. It provides a simple, single connection for my laptop to my HDMI monitor, wireless keyboard and mouse, USB speakers, and wired gigabit network, while powering my laptop and charging the battery. I just put my laptop down on this docking station #to engage the connector# when using the laptop at my desk, and just lift it up to take it with me to a different place, absolutely no wires or separate connections to deal with. Other, USB-type port replicators that almost all other laptop brands have to rely on #except for business laptops/workstations# do not power your laptop or charge your battery and do not reliably support high quality peripherals #hi-resolution monitor, speakers, etc.#. That's why this VAIO docking station and the matching VAIO laptop were big factors for me when deciding to buy my laptop. The external HDMI display link is very good and works well in the 1920x1200 resolution on my HP 24" HDMI professional monitor. I use the built-in hard disk drive #HDD# for extra HDD space and for backing up my laptop. This docking station work well also when using the matching Sony laptop with the extra/external sheet battery.
This docking station has worked well with my Sony laptop since I bought them about two months ago. All connections work well, including my high-end USB speakers with subwoofer #with their own DAC and power supply# when playing high bit rate #lossless# music and using the high resolution monitor, gigabit internet, keyboard and mouse at the same time #all connected to the docking station#. I had to go with USB speakers, which I don?t regret, because the docking station does not have an analogue audio output for speakers.
The only complaint I have about this docking station is that I feel I need to be extra careful when setting my laptop on it. The connector itself is not very big, although enough for its functions, and the two guiding pins on the docking station are spring loaded, and I don?t always easily align them with the matching holes on my laptop as I am setting the laptop down to engage the docking station connector. I carefully align the laptop with the docking station and hear the spring loaded pins snap into the laptop matching holes as I lower the laptop on the docking station and as the connector engages. You can easily push the spring loaded pins all the way down until they are flat with the docking station, so you could set the laptop without properly aligning/engaging the pins and possibly put extra load on the docking station connector and possibly damage it. The pins are there also to support/prevent the laptop from lateral moment while in the docking station and to reduce the lateral load on the connector. I would prefer stronger guiding and support pins #and/or connector#. I am used to my Dell workstation laptop docking station at work that feels much more solid.
Being one of very few true docking station for consumer laptops #that I know of# and having the overall good features and performance, I recommend this docking station as a good addition to the matching Sony laptops, if you need to use your laptop with external devices. Keep in mind that this docking station works only with the few matching Sony laptops, so make sure you get the right one.
September 9, 2012
