Common Trends: laptop specs

Sony VAIO Z - ZDNet UK
<div readability="205.778512565">  Sony has a reputation for building excellent high-end notebooks (and even the company's less expensive models usually have a snazzy feel), but the VAIO Z is truly the top of the VAIO line, starting at £1,666 (ex. VAT) for a thin 13in. system with decent specs and a sharp design.  The latest version of the VAIO Z adds some very unusual new features. While the notebook itself looks and feels like a standard luxury 13in. (its competition would be the MacBook Air or Samsung Series 9), it includes a separate docking station about the size of an Amazon Kindle e-book reader. That docking station includes a few extra ports and connections, as well as an optical drive (upgradable to Blu-ray), but more importantly, it has an AMD Radeon 6630M GPU built in.  <img src="http://www.zdnet.co.uk/i/z5/rv/2011/07/vaio_z_1.jpg" title="Sony VAIO Z" height="350" width="620" />  The VAIO Z has an external dock with a discrete GPU (AMD Radeon 6630M), an optical drive and extra ports.   When connected (via a cable that uses both the AC and USB 3.0 ports and a version of Intel's Light Peak technology), the notebook can use the external GPU just as it would a built-in one. We've seen a few companies (such as Asus) try similar ideas in the past, but Sony is the first to built it into the kind of fashionable product you're likely to find on a retail shelf.  The setup works surprisingly well, although our package (which included the optional slice battery) had two separate AC adapters, only one of which fits the docking station. The stiff proprietary cable that connects the two components eats up the on-board USB 3.0 (but is replaced by another USB 3.0 port on the docking station).  We like the fact that the docking station is included by default with the VAIO Z and is not a separate add-on. But at the same time, it's hard to imagine too many potential VAIO Z buyers who are all that interested in adding gaming capabilities (especially via a deskbound docking station) to their high-fashion notebook. The VAIO Z is also crushingly expensive, which further limits the potential audience.  The slim, black carbon-fibre body of the Sony VAIO Z actually looks quite different from the last VAIO Z we reviewed. That model was thicker, with black keys against a silver finish and a two-tone base. Its main claim to fame was the inclusion of a whopping 256GB SSD storage system, which drove the price up to $2,300 (£1,425). In comparison, the new VAIO Z looks and feels like an entirely different machine. In fact, it reminds us of an older VAIO, the TZ150, which was one of the last pre-netbook $2,000-plus (£1,250+) ultraportables back in 2007.  The matte black finish and slate-like chassis look great (and ditch the common Sony rounded-screen hinge), but at the same time, all the various joints and seams reminds us of how much we like the minimalism of Apple's unibody construction.  The flat-topped keyboard will be familiar to anyone who has used a Sony VAIO in the past several years (or a MacBook, for that matter). There is one important difference, however. Because the body of the notebook is so thin, the actual keys are extremely shallow — more so than we've seen on any laptop in recent memory. That made typing an awkward experience, at least until we got used to the design. it will never become our favourite notebook for long-form writing.  The touchpad walks the line between the clickpad-style units found in some newer systems and traditional touchpads with separate left and right mouse buttons. The pad itself has a subtle patterned texture, with attached — but non-textured — mouse buttons separated by a fingerprint reader. That added tactile feedback from the touchpad texture is just right for accurate cursor control, and we were surprised to find multitouch gestures, such as the two-finger scroll, worked better on this system than nearly any Windows notebook we've seen.  One of the highlights of the VAIO Z is the 13in. display, which has a native resolution of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels — that's as high as notebook screens get, even massive 18in. desktop replacements. A less expensive 1,600-by-900 option is also available, and may even be a better idea. On the 1080p screen, text can be so small it's hard to read; and even with the external GPU, running newer games at the highest possible resolution would be a challenge. For Blu-ray or other HD video playback, however, it's great.  The 5.1 built-in speakers include a small subwoofer and the overall audio quality is excellent — if you bear in mind this is a small notebook with little room for air-pushing speaker cones. For personal use, it's fine, but immersive gaming or cinephile video watching would be better served with a set of high-end headphones.  As the docking station, called the Power Media Dock, is standard equipment for even the most basic VAIO Z configuration, its ports and connections have to be taken into account as well. The system itself includes the only-on-VAIO Memory Stick slot, in addition to the usual SD card slot. Both the system and dock have USB 3.0 ports, but connecting the dock uses up the USB 3.0 on the system itself, so you never have access to more than one. Both the dock and system have HDMI and VGA ports, and when connected you can use a total of three of the available ports, plus the internal screen, for a total of four video displays.  Our upgraded version of the VAIO Z had a 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-2620M CPU — a very powerful processor for a 13in. laptop. In our benchmark tests, it beat other recent high-end 13in. systems, such as the Lenovo ThinkPad X1, and even beat Dell's new XPS 15z in some tests, which had the same CPU but twice the RAM. Interestingly, this system was much faster than Samsung's high-end 13in. Series 9 notebook, which used an Intel Core i5-2537M. However, both are more than powerful enough for everyday use, streaming HD video, and even basic photo and video editing.  We tested the system's gaming chops both with the external GPU and without. Running only on the internal Intel HD 3000 graphics, Street Fighter IV ran at 11.7 frames per second (fps), at the native 1,920-by-1,080-pixel resolution. Connect the docking station and its AMD 6630M GPU, and we got 29fps on the same test. In the much more challenging game Metro 2033, we got 12.1fps with the external GPU, which is actually a pretty good score, considering we ran the game at 1,920-by-1,080 pixels in DirectX 11 mode with graphics set to high.  The battery in the Sony VAIO Z is impressive for such a small notebook, delivering 4 hours and 30 minutes on our video playback battery drain test. However, both the Samsung Series 9 and Toshiba Portégé R835 ran for significantly longer. The VAIO Z is also available with an optional slice battery that fits across the entire bottom surface of the system. The slice adds about 450g and 10mm to the VAIO Z, but running both batteries together yielded an astounding 10 hours and 34 minutes on our challenging battery test, which means it should run even longer for typical web surfing and email.  Make no mistake about it, this is an almost painfully expensive notebook, starting at £1,666 (ex. VAT) and only going up from there. The hardware looks and feels great, and the powerful GPU/optical dock is a great idea. But this isn't for everyone, and is more likely to be an executive toy (we sometimes call them CEO laptops) than something you'll see at a coffee shop or college campus. <h2 id="benchmarks">Benchmarks</h2> Samsung 9 Series Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 1.4GHz Intel Core i5-2537M; 4096MB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz; 64MB(Dedicated) Intel GMA HD; 128GB Samsung SSDLenovo ThinkPad X1 Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) w/ SP1; 2.5GHz Intel Core i5-2520M; 4096MB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz; 64MB (Dedicated) / 1696MB (Total) Intel HD 3000; 320GB Hitachi 7200rpmDell XPS 15Z Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-2620M; 8GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz; 2GB Nvidia GeForce GT 525M / 64MB (Shared) Intel HD 3000; 750GB Seagate 7200rpmToshiba Portege R835-P56X Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.3GHz Intel Core i5-2410M; 4096MB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz; 64MB (Dedicated)/1696MB (Total) Intel GMA HD; 640GB Hitachi 5400rpm <table id="specifications" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" readability="19.9308357349"><tr class="hide"><th colspan="2" class="head">Audio</th> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>Audio processor</th> <td>Dolby Home Theater v4</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>Microphone</th> <td>yes</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>Speakers</th> <td>stereo</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>Audio connectors</th> <td>microphone, headphone</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th colspan="2" class="head">Battery</th> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>Battery technology</th> <td>Lithium-polymer</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>Max batteries supported</th> <td>2</td> </tr><tr><th colspan="2" class="head">Cabinet (chassis)</th> </tr><tr readability="2"><th>Case form factor</th> <td>clamshell with external dock</td> </tr><tr><th>Dimensions (W x H x D)</th> <td>33x1.66x21 cm</td> </tr><tr><th>Weight</th> <td>1.18 kg</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>Colour</th> <td>carbon black</td> </tr><tr><th colspan="2" class="head">Display</th> </tr><tr class="hide" readability="2"><th>Display technology</th> <td>colour TFT (VAIO Display Premium)</td> </tr><tr><th>Display diagonal size</th> <td>13.1 in</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>Maximum resolution</th> <td>1600x900 pixels</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th colspan="2" class="head">Expansion slots</th> </tr><tr class="hide" readability="2"><th>Flash card</th> <td>SD-compatible and Memory Stick media</td> </tr><tr><th colspan="2" class="head">Hard drive storage</th> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>Hard drive interface type</th> <td>SATA</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>Hard drive type</th> <td>solid state</td> </tr><tr><th>Hard drive size</th> <td>256 GB</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th colspan="2" class="head">Input</th> </tr><tr class="hide" readability="2"><th>Pointing devices</th> <td>2-button multi-touch touchpad</td> </tr><tr class="hide" readability="3"><th>Keyboard</th> <td>backlit; 19mm pitch, 1mm stroke</td> </tr><tr><th colspan="2" class="head">Interfaces & networking</th> </tr><tr class="hide" readability="3"><th>USB</th> <td>1 x USB 3.0 on notebook, 1 x USB 3.0 on dock</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>Ethernet</th> <td>10/100/1000Mbps</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>VGA (analogue)</th> <td>1 on notebook, 1 on dock</td> </tr><tr class="hide" readability="2"><th>Video out</th> <td>HDMI on notebook and dock</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>Bluetooth</th> <td>3.0</td> </tr><tr><th>Wireless LAN</th> <td>802.11a/b/g/n</td> </tr><tr readability="3"><th>Wireless WAN</th> <td>HSPA (14.4Mbps down, 5.76Mbps up)</td> </tr><tr><th colspan="2" class="head">Memory</th> </tr><tr><th>RAM installed</th> <td>4096 MB</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>Number of memory slots</th> <td>2</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>RAM capacity</th> <td>8 GB</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th colspan="2" class="head">Miscellaneous</th> </tr><tr class="hide" readability="3"><th>Accessories</th> <td>AC adapter, docking station</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>Other</th> <td>1.3-megapixel webcam</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th colspan="2" class="head">Motherboard</th> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>Chipset</th> <td>Intel HM67 Express</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>Data bus speed</th> <td>1333 MHz</td> </tr><tr class="hide"><th colspan="2" class="head">Optical storage</th> </tr><tr class="hide"><th>CD / DVD type</th> <td>DVD±RW (±R DL)/DVD-RAM</td> </tr><tr><th colspan="2" class="head">OS & software</th> </tr><tr readability="2"><th>Operating system</th> <td>Windows 7 Professional 64-bit</td> </tr><tr class="hide" readability="14"><th>Software included</th> <td>VAIO Gate, VAIO Care, VAIO Transfer Support, VAIO Update, VAIO Smart Network, Microsoft Office Starter 2010, Windows Live Essentials 2011, Adobe Reader X, McAfee Internet Security (30-day sub), McAfee Online Backup (30-day sub), Internet Explorer 9</td> </tr><tr><th colspan="2" class="head">Processor</th> </tr><tr><th>Processor manufacturer</th> <td>Intel</td> </tr><tr><th>Processor model</th> <td>Core i7-2620M</td> </tr><tr><th>Clock speed</th> <td>2.7 GHz</td> </tr><tr><th colspan="2" class="head">Video</th> </tr><tr readability="2"><th>Graphics processor</th> <td>Intel HD Graphics 3000 (AMD Radeon 6630M on dock)</td> </tr><tr class="toggle expand"><th colspan="2">Expand</th> </tr></table> <h2 id="images" class="mb-20">Images</h2> <div class="slideshow-nav clearfix pb-20 center"> « Previous Photo 1 of 4 Next » </div>  </div>

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