The Vaio Z is Sony’s sculpted little reminder that companies besides Apple can make exciting laptops too.
Why It Matters
This is the dream machine. It weighs 2.6 pounds. It’s 0.66 inches thick. But this 2.7GHz Core i7 notebook also has a gorgeous, super-pixel-dense 1920×1080 13-inch display. An auxiliary dock houses a discrete AMG Radeon 6650m video card for extra graphics juice, along with a BD-ROM drive, HDMI, Light Peak, ethernet and VGA ports. No compromises here.Using It
The first thing you notice upon picking up the Z is how light this thing really is. A toddler could wave this thing around their crib, one handed. It almost feels like there’s nothing under the keyboard. And because the body is made of a polycarbonate material, it’s seemingly frail, but in truth the shell is rigid and durable.You’ll also notice the speed. Apps fire up with little to no delay. Google’s Chrome browser rarely lags, even with a healthy number of tabs open. Thanks to the SSD, it starts up in just under 25 seconds and powers down in just over 7 seconds. The battery, like most other “all-day” batteries, gets you through most of a day of work (give or take depending on what you’re doing), but not the entire day. Nearly all of the average person’s more intensive tasks can be handled by the Z. Flash video, high-res photos, light editing work and 3D gaming, etc. And if you need some more horsepower, you’re not totally left hung out to dry. More
