Customer Ratings & Reviews

This laptop is light weight and reasonable value as a refurbished item with one year warranty. Performance is OK and in line with other similar systems. Screen produces very accurate color but it's brightness is too low! The adaptive brightness feature does not work well at all. Very noisy fan and it's always working hard! Gets hot after watching Netflix for a couple of hours. The worst part is keyboard. It feels like it is broken! Very unpleasant feel and sound while typing!!

Well I needed a laptop for school and I saw this refurbished Sony vaio, and I'm a big fan of Sony's products tv's, PlayStation,etc so I would have thought this laptop hybrid would have exceeded my expectations but in reality for what I was paying it just wasn't worth it, it was pretty capable just not what I was expecting, I guess that's why Sony exited out the pc market .

With the Vaio Fit 13A, Sony presents a convertible that offers a well-rounded performance in many disciplines. The display's foldaway principle completely convinced me. Still, the chassis' lightweight and the folding mechanism have their disadvantages in terms of stability. This would be bearable, but we were displeased by the keyboard's significant give. The IPS panel is of good quality (low DeltaE deviation), although the contrast is only average. Thanks to the fast Samsung SSD, the application performance is at the level of much more expensive competitors. The heat discharge is relatively low, but under load or in performance mode, the fan still makes more noise than seems necessary. The battery life of about five hours is definitely satisfying.

This things works as advertised. 13.3 inch hybrid, mechanically strong, bright screen, good battery life. Wifi is really bad. I've tried 3 different drivers for the WIFI card (Intel dual band). Performance is completely unreliable. Also, I'm not crazy about the keyboard. The key travel is shallow and the keys are slippery. I could live with this though.

I have been a Vaio user for many years, both in the desktop and laptop world. I have always love the quality and reliability. As soon as I found out Sony had sold off their laptop division, I immediately went to look for a flip 13 as I have been wanting one. Luckily I found a refurbished one at Best Buy that is Geek Squad Certified and it is amazing. I love it. Plain and simple. It is a laptop, it is a tablet and a display. I felt comfortable buying a refurbished one since it was from Best Buy and Geek Squad Certified. You can not tell. It fires up quickly. The SSD is amazing. The touch screen is flawless, and the back lit keyboard is great. I also bought the active pen and it takes notes on the screen beautifully and without mistakes. To sum it all up... I love it so much I went out and bought a second one but the 15 inch flip just so I can have a second one. if you can still find them, go out and buy one.

It is light with good color, but it has a big noisy sound and feelings very hot after use a while.

I love the Viao but the refurb. model was still in need of refurb. I suspect the same problems that caused it to be returned originally were still a problem..the charging cord would not stay in connection and the screen would dim and not return to original brightness.

good first converter tablet/pc...very nice price and deal

Hello, I'm VERY disappointed by this product. Everything is fine except the FAN ! The fan is so NOISY that I can't even skype (people heard the FAN). It would be acceptable if the fan was not ALWAYS activated. After 5-10 minutes of web, the FAN start and never stop. It is really a major issue. There are many discussion about that on internet. Sony is missing the target with this product, many users are returning the product, or trying to sell it for cheap on eBay. That too bad, cause it is a very nice computer, good specification. But the noise... !!! :#$%##$ !!! Don't buy it. Binabik.

Sony went out of business, but you still get the same support. For the price it is the best choice, why pay more? You would ideally pay at least $1,000.00 for the same or less equipped 2 in 1. It's not Ultra HD, but the resolution is still good at 1080 HD.

I liked the form factor of this laptop. It was light and did what I needed in the sense of hardware, but in the software area it was very buggy. From the get go it was slow and took forever to update.

I like the design and how easily you can turn a laptop in to a tablet. Touch screen works really great!

As soon as I received it the Wi-Fi connection was not working. It would connect and say it's connected but received no data

I loved this laptop when I first got it because buying refurbished, it didn't have a lot of unnecessary software on it and it's fast, sleek and easy to use. I still like the laptop for those reasons, but there are too many problems that keep popping up that keep me from scoring it any better than a 3. The first problem started about a week or two after I had it when it wouldn't charge! Apparently that is normal from my research (what?!) and there were plenty of sites showing how to fix that problem by resetting the battery... seriously if you google search "sony vaio flip", it auto inserts "wont charge" on the end. That's not really okay in my opinion. Other problems I've had include the wifi stops working when it feels like it- from all I have read the only fix is restarting the computer. One minute it's working, the next the is an error with the wifi connection and it's not the wifi, it's the computer and it's ridiculous. And the newest problem is a major pain. Essentially when I wake my laptop up from sleeping, it gets stuck on this really weird screen - it's totally gray with a small picture of a camera at the bottom left hand corner. Whatever I do or press (even the assist button) will not get me out of this screen. I don't even know what the point of this screen is, which is mildly annoying, but what is more annoying is not being able to get out of it. I have to hold down the power button and force a shut down and then restart the computer losing anything I had open. I'm trying to get a response on the sony community page to see if there is a fix to this... But the pros are that it starts up almost instantly, so when I do have to force a restart, I don't have to wait too long. Google Chrome saves my recent tabs also, so it's not too bad. The backlight on the keyboard is really ice and it's a great size. Compact, but not too small. I use it mostly in the laptop form but the touchscreen hasn't given me any problems (yet... there are plenty of issues reported on the sony community page). Sound isn't super loud so we usually use my boyfriends Toshiba when watching anything. I'm always accidentally zooming in on webpages because of the touchpad shortcut, but I find it difficult to unzoom using the touchpad. Ahhh, the problems when technology gets too advanced. Overall, I probably wouldn't recommend this laptop because it's like a drama queen with all the issues it has.

I ordered the Refurbished Sony Vaio Fit 13A after reading extensive reviews (both expert and consumer) on all 2-in-1 Ultrabooks on the market. I was looking to spend less than $1K to replace my dying Macbook Pro, and wanted to switch back to Windows to fulfill personal and professional demands. Important elements to me were screen resolution, minimum i5 processor, 8 gigs ram, decent battery life, lightweight, windows 8.1 upgrade-ability, and premium build quality. When I came across the $700 deal for the Refurbished Fit 13A, I researched the Geek Squad Certified program and dug up every review of the Sony Flip line I could find online. Satisfied that I'd either love the unit or else return it within the 14 day window, I placed the order last week and received the computer via UPS three days later. So far, my high expectations have been exceeded by the Sony. The screen is beautiful and the aluminum construction is a luxurious bonus. Not only did the unit arrive in like-new condition, but the OS had already been upgraded to Windows 8.1. Given that every review I read mentioned the need to upgrade from Windows 8, I was overwhelmingly pleased that I wouldn't have to upgrade the system myself. The speed of the computer has been terrific with no hiccups in performance and the fast boot times are a welcome change from past laptops without SSD's. Wi-Fi Connectivity was somewhat spotty when I first started up the Fit, but after going through the Sony Vaio BIOS and Windows updates, I haven't had a single connection issue. The back rear of the computer runs a little hot when on battery, but I've also been playing music, games, and video incessantly. Battery life from what I can tell is right around 5 hour mark, perhaps a half hour +/-. I will mention that the system indicated 12% battery remaining last night, which was supposed to be good for an hour and ten minutes of life in Power Saving mode. I managed to kill the battery in about twenty minutes however, so the inaccurate projection was definitely an annoyance. Tablet/Display mode functionality is the tipping point between the Sony and all of its competitors in the Convertible category. I played with the Surface Pro 3, Dell XPS-12, Asus T300LA, and Sony Vaio Duo in stores, and I've found that the folding mechandism of the Sony Fit coupled with the sub 3-pound weight make it the ideal hybrid. I have held the computer in my lap for 45 minutes and not thought twice about its heft, and the system feels like it's actually meant to work in all 3 modes. I.e., I had friends over and we watched youtube videos with the computer in Display mode while streaming the audio to a Jawbone via BT, and the experience was seamlessly satisfying. App availability for Windows 8 is a challenge, but balancing between internet-based applications and Metro apps is an easy enough solution and I haven't minded the loss of Apple's vast library. I'll update this review after a month of use to detail my thoughts on Fan Noise, Battery Life, Durability, etc.

4 weeks after buying the 14-in Toshiba Sateliite, I decided to return it and end up getting this Geek Squad Refurbished 13-in Sony VAIO, 2 in 1 Laptop. I've thought I found the gadget that I want to have. Fairly light and look modern. Price is reasonable considering the price of a brand new unit for $1,100. So far performance is OK and had no negative experiences about it compared with the Toshiba. Screen produces very accurate color. Brightness depends on how you set it up. Was easy enough to set up. Updated to Windows 8.1 with no much issues except that I had to update most of the Apps that came with it. Constantly buffers when I'm watching movies thru Netflix. The Toshiba actually works better in that aspect.

The Sony Vaio Flip 13 is a great laptop to carry around. It's also easy to flip the screen, and does everything well from software development, to light gaming (league of legends). I currently own a hp dm4 laptop, and I decided to get this refurbished Vaio Flip 13 because I want something lighter, faster performance with longer battery life for school and other stuff. And this thing gives me what I wanted. I have been using this laptop for 2 weeks and everything is working perfectly fine. This thing came with windows 8 out of the box, I updated to 8.1 and got 5GB more of free space. I have also installed BIOS and other updates from Sony so I did not get any issues that some people had before (like wi-fi, non-stop running fan). The laptop was clean, with a few small tiny scratches, which I am okay with that since they are hard to spot them. The performance of this laptop is great. The only thing I complain about is the SSD writing speed. Using CrystalDiskMark to benchmark the Samsung SSD that came with the laptop, the reading speed of this thing can go up to around 460MB/s. The writing speed is also pretty high, with about 130MB/s. Although the writing speed is a little lower than other SSDs in the market, I could hardly noticed the difference. The build quality is also great. The hinges are really strong and I have nothing to worry about when I flip the screen. The shell of this laptop is made of aluminum, with plastic covered on the bottom. Which is great since it won't get too cold on my laps (compared to metal bottom). The speakers also sound great, whatever they did (both hardware + software tuning) produces great stereo sound. Now the down side of this laptop is the fan noise. It gets kind of loud when I play games on this thing. But this is still acceptable for me because I am used to my other laptop, which has a 7200rpm spinning hard drive and it produces slightly louder noise with the fan. The other thing is the battery life. The 3-cell battery on board gives me an average of 5hours of battery life. Even though it gives way more than what I need since I usually use it for 3hours at school, the battery life is slightly shorter than other ultrabooks. Overall this is a great ultrabook with its price tag. Even though Sony is out of the laptop business I am still getting support and warranty from them.

I got this product thinking what a great deal... but I should have followed the advice never to buy a product if it is not factory refurbished. First about sony via flip: It has had lot of issues but then are satisfied customers. When they said "geek squad certified", I expected they have atleast rectified these issues. But nope. The product arrives and it is nightmare to begin with. Touchscreen is unstable, mouse pointer flickers, basically a whole plethora of device driver issues. I went through sony support forums and realized that most likely it is hardware problem (disabling device driver made atleast the keyboard work but touchscreen feature disappeared). Ofcouse these bunch of these so called "geek squad" folks know how to install/uninstall software but even a real hardcore techie would not be able to fix internal hardware problem without the product actually RMAed. So I don't understand: why did best buy decided to sell this piece of junk as "geek squad certified" refurbished product? Basically that certification means nothing and my advice would be to stay away from geek squad certified refurbished products.