There’s a nice continuity to much of Sony’s VAIO line-up, with the same grey styling applied to ultraportables and desktop replacements alike. The VAIO F11 is ostensibly an entertainment laptop, but its 16.4in Full HD screen and Core i7 processor make it just as capable of workstation duties.
The wide chassis allows for an excellent Scrabble-tile keyboard, with light key travel and a rigid backing. There’s a useful number pad to the right; a minor complaint is that the touchpad sits skewed to the left half of the base – a design choice that’s more a matter of preference than a major flaw. Above the keyboard sit quick playback controls, and there’s a programmable function button too.
The entertainment focus is strengthened by a Blu-ray reader, and the 500GB hard disk is plenty for a video library. Should you need extra storage Sony has added a combined USB and eSATA port, along with two further USB ports, and there are HDMI and D-SUB outputs for hooking up external displays.
With a quad-core Core i7-720QM and 6GB of RAM inside this model (the VPCF11S1E/B), we expected great things from our benchmarks, but that’s one of the older 45nm processors. As a result, it proved slower than laptops we’ve seen with the newer 32nm dual-core Core i5. Nevertheless, a score of 1.52 shows its potential, and its four cores and eight threads will come into their own when editing video or rendering 3D.
The 16.4in Full HD display is vibrant enough to bring those videos to life, the backlight is even and bright, and the lid offers ample protection for slinging the F11 into a bag. The tones are a touch oversaturated for accurate colour work, but they’re perfect for Blu-ray movies or gaming.
The Nvidia GeForce GT 330M graphics drove our Crysis test at 1,280 x 1,024 and Medium settings with an average frame rate of 29fps. Whether that’s worth the trade-off depends on your usage – battery life was merely average, lasting 3hrs 39mins under light use.
The Sony isn’t cheap at £945 exc VAT, and doesn’t quite commit fully to either the role of workstation or entertainment monster. But if you want a laptop that can do a bit of both in a manageable 3.1kg chassis, the F11 is ideal.
Warranty | |
---|---|
Warranty | 1yr collect and return |
Physical specifications | |
Dimensions | 387 x 262 x 43mm (WDH) |
Weight | 3.050kg |
Travelling weight | 3.5kg |
Processor and memory | |
Processor | Intel Core i7-720QM |
Motherboard chipset | Intel PM55 Express |
RAM capacity | 6.00GB |
Memory type | DDR3 |
SODIMM sockets free | 0 |
SODIMM sockets total | 2 |
Screen and video | |
Screen size | 16.4in |
Resolution screen horizontal | 1,920 |
Resolution screen vertical | 1,080 |
Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
Graphics chipset | Nvidia GeForce GT 330M |
Graphics card RAM | 1.00GB |
VGA (D-SUB) outputs | 1 |
HDMI outputs | 1 |
S-Video outputs | 0 |
DVI-I outputs | 0 |
DVI-D outputs | 0 |
DisplayPort outputs | 0 |
Drives | |
Capacity | 500GB |
Hard disk usable capacity | 453GB |
Spindle speed | 5,400RPM |
Internal disk interface | SATA/300 |
Hard disk | Hitachi HTS545050B9SA00 |
Optical disc technology | Blu-ray reader |
Optical drive | Optiarc BC-5500H |
Battery capacity | 5,000mAh |
Replacement battery price inc VAT | £0 |
Networking | |
Wired adapter speed | 1,000Mbits/sec |
802.11a support | yes |
802.11b support | yes |
802.11g support | yes |
802.11 draft-n support | yes |
Integrated 3G adapter | no |
Bluetooth support | yes |
Other Features | |
Wireless hardware on/off switch | yes |
Wireless key-combination switch | no |
Modem | no |
ExpressCard34 slots | 1 |
ExpressCard54 slots | 0 |
PC Card slots | 0 |
USB ports (downstream) | 3 |
FireWire ports | 1 |
eSATA ports | 1 |
PS/2 mouse port | no |
9-pin serial ports | 0 |
Parallel ports | 0 |
Optical S/PDIF audio output ports | 1 |
Electrical S/PDIF audio ports | 0 |
3.5mm audio jacks | 2 |
SD card reader | yes |
Memory Stick reader | yes |
MMC (multimedia card) reader | no |
Smart Media reader | no |
Compact Flash reader | no |
xD-card reader | no |
Pointing device type | Multitouch touchpad |
Audio chipset | Nvidia HD Audio |
Speaker location | Above keyboard |
Hardware volume control? | no |
Integrated microphone? | yes |
Integrated webcam? | yes |
Camera megapixel rating | 0.3mp |
TPM | no |
Fingerprint reader | no |
Smartcard reader | no |
Carry case | no |
Battery and performance tests | |
Battery life, light use | 3hr 39min |
Battery life, heavy use | 1hr 31min |
Overall application benchmark score | 1.52 |
Office application benchmark score | 1.14 |
2D graphics application benchmark score | 1.83 |
Encoding application benchmark score | 1.45 |
Multitasking application benchmark score | 1.65 |
3D performance (crysis) low settings | 93fps |
3D performance setting | Low |
Operating system and software | |
Operating system | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit |
OS family | Windows 7 |
Recovery method | Recovery partition |
Software supplied | None |
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