Sony has debuted its ultra-thin VAIO X notebook line. The X series - which is housed in a lightweight carbon-fiber chassis - weighs 1.6 pounds and is just over a half-inch thin.
If you are a fan of the small Sony laptops,
you will have to look at the new range of Sony VAIO X series of notebooks. It weighs just 655 gram and measures just 13.9mm from all angles. Running on an Intel Atom TM chip that is normally seen in a netbook, the latest Intel Atom Processor Z550 has the latest Windows 7 OS and a solid state drive. Out to target business users on the go, the higher range Sony VAIO is 3G enabled for fast online surfing.
So how was Sony able to achieve such a thin and light netbook? The VAIO X’s chassis is made of a magnesium alloy, and the lid is built from carbon fiber. This material allows the screen to flex, which can be a bit unnerving, but Sony said that it’s designed to bend somewhat. Also, by using an Intel Atom Z-series processor, which uses less power (and creates less heat) than the N-series Atom chips in most netbooks, the company was able to make the netbook incredibly slim without requiring a fan. The lid of our review unit was matte black, as was the inside, with a bronze underside that felt slightly rough to the touch. Sony also offers the netbook with a Champagne Gold lid, but only for the model with a 128GB SSD (more on that later).
With a single-core Atom processor, the VAIO X Series is never going to be a great performer. Even though the 2GHz Z550 chip supports hyper-threading, this is no substitute for the performance of the dual-core processors used in most other laptops, and the VAIO felt a little sluggish at times. Our review unit was rated at just 2.5 under the Windows Experience Index built into Windows, but this score was held back by the low performance of the Intel GMA 500 graphics function in the chipset, while the memory and disk scores were quite respectable. However, like netbooks (which also use Atom processors) the VAIO has ample performance for productivity tasks such as word processing, email and delivering presentations.
Performance was also possibly affected by the presence of various pre-installed applications, such as 60-day trial versions of Norton Online Backup and McAfee Security Center, which run every time the computer starts regardless of whether you accept the 60-day trial conditions or not.
I think that when you purchase a PC like this it will find most of its use in ultraportable situations. A business person would love to have something like this for a myriad of situations – plane, office, meeting, lunch. A college student could pull this off. The nice thing is that it doesn’t have an explosive price like the VAIO TT did. I think Sony will do well with the X Series because it’s $1,300 – not $2,000 – 3,000 like the TT. This is a direct competitor to the Macbook Air in my eyes and wins in several segments. Don’t try and tell me Snow Leopard is better than Windows 7, either. I’ve used both and they are both excellent operating systems.
There are two USB ports on the left-hand side of the chassis, plus a headphone socket, while slots for Memory Stick media and SD cards occupy the front. And that's your lot. The rest of the design carries on this minimalist feel. Aside from a wireless switch, the only buttons to press are the two for the simple touchpad and the keyboard itself.
The VAIO X’s touchpad was a decently sized 2.1 x 1.6 inches and offered little friction. However, like the keyboard, it could have been a smidgen larger especially considering it’s capable of recognizing multitouch gestures, such as pinch and zoom. Two mouse buttons below are also small but responsive.
The laptop's 11.1 inch screen and 6.5 hours of battery life is also respectable. Snap on an optional larger battery and your battery life jumps to 14 hours. This is of course also thanks to the Windows 7 OS and solid state hard disk under the hood which is optimized to greatly improve battery life compared to past laptops.
