Sony VAIO P Series (2nd gen) review

We found it difficult to find anything positive to say in our review of the first Sony P Series. It seemed Sony had taken the idea of miniaturisation too far, with its quest to shrink a laptop to the size of a keyboard forcing excessive sacrifices. The company, oddly, appears to have ignored us. It decided instead that the P Series just needed a few more tweaks and it would have a winner on its hands.

Certainly, it hasn’t been afraid to ring the changes, with the most immediately obvious being its styling. No longer subdued and professional, the new VAIO P Series shouts “look at me!” in its three most colourful incarnations: vivid green, pink and orange. If you’re a little more self-effacing, white and black versions are also on offer.

Sony bravely sent us the orange version for review, and to say it received a mixed reaction would be to lie. We struggled to find anyone who didn’t have some insult to hurl in the P Series’ direction. Most of the comments are unprintable, so let’s just say that people will notice what’s in your hands if you opt for orange.

Whichever colour you choose, there are some nice design touches to appreciate. Most manufacturers stick with a non-descript grey or black keyboard no matter what bright colours surround it, but Sony matches the keys’ colour to that of the casing – and it certainly adds to the design’s impact. We also like the way the trim curves around the side of the chassis when the P Series is closed.

A more subtle change can be seen to either side of the screen. Sony’s designers realised that people often used their P Series to view documents or websites, and would hold the laptop with their thumbs resting on the screen edge. To make navigation easier, they’ve added a tiny touchpad (measuring 16mm x 16mm) to the right of the screen, with left- and right-click buttons to the left.

It’s a strange idea, and when sitting at a desk it seems pointless. To move the cursor from one side of the screen to the other takes three good swipes and quickly frustrates. When you’re out and about with the P Series it does work, however, particularly when you’re using the built-in GPS and trying to navigate the streets using Sony’s Location Search software (powered by Google Maps). That said, you’ll have to be patient while you wait for the GPS radio to get a fix, and walking along the street with a laptop open is a whole lot less discreet than with a smartphone.

Sony also includes a Digital Compass, so you should always know which way you’re facing when gazing at a map, but even more interesting is the accelerometer. This flips the P Series into portrait mode when you put it into a vertical position, which can be useful if you’re reading a web article with only a limited width. Sony appears to also think you can read books and digital magazines this way, but without a touchscreen – and at just 768 pixels wide – it isn’t a pleasurable experience.

Usability

We have mixed feelings about the screen itself too. As with the first P Series, squeezing 1,600 x 768 pixels into an 8in diagonal makes system text look tiny, and it isn’t helped by a slightly mottled display: Word documents, for example, look fuzzy. One big help, however, is the new Change Resolution button that sits to the right of the mouse buttons. Press this and within a second the resolution switches to 1,280 x 600.
The anti-aliasing is pretty good, too, which means the P Series is actually usable in this setting. If you want to head back to the default resolution then simply press the Change Resolution button again; for example if you want to admire a high-res photo.

Power

Editing such a photo won’t be such a joy, and that’s because an Atom processor sits inside. The 1.86GHz Z540 is near the top of Intel’s low-wattage CPU range, but even with 2GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD to help boost performance there’s no getting away from this machine’s limited performance. (The higher spec P Series includes a 2.13GHz Intel Atom Z560 and a 128GB SSD, but costs £1,020 exc VAT.)

On first loading up, the word “limited” may seem too kind. Sluggish, sloth-like and glacial are more likely to spring to mind. Which is why the first thing anyone should do is strip away some of the bloatware Sony installs. There’s an irritating floating launch bar, for instance, along with over 20 other VAIO-branded utilities of dubious use (although if you own a PlayStation 3 you might delight in using the P Series as a remote keyboard). Removing them almost cuts boot times in half: from 2mins 5secs to 1min 7secs.

Even in this streamlined form, though, it’s hardly a world-beater. Browsing media-rich websites, playing back video in BBC iPlayer and editing a handful of photos all push the limit of the P Series’ abilities. It also takes several seconds to resume from standby. But it isn’t unusable. When you’re working in Word, for example (and note that Office Starter will be included), it’s as fast and responsive as you need it to be.

We also found the keyboard to be reasonable most of the time. The only real annoyance is the trimmed full-stop key, which is 11mm wide compared to over 13mm for the character keys. This led to quite a few mistakes at first, although we did get used to it – begrudgingly – after a few hours. Arguably more annoying is the loud click the mouse buttons make, which will draw yet more attention to your endeavours in public places.

Portability

One area Sony couldn’t really improve on was the original P Series’ portability. This is the only fully fledged laptop we’ve seen that can slip into a jacket pocket – quite a feat. In reality, people are far more likely to chuck their P Series into a bag, and with the bright new colours Sony no doubt has handbags in mind too. At 624g it won’t weigh you down.

The tiny chassis means there’s only room for a two-cell battery, but Sony has done some clever tweaking to ensure you get as much life out of the P Series as possible. The end result is 5hrs 17mins of usage under light use, compared to 3hrs 11mins from the original. Even under intense use it kept going for 2hrs 41mins.

With so many wireless radios inside the new P Series – GPS, 802.11bgn WLAN, Bluetooth plus a 7.2Mbits/sec 3G modem – you’ll be well-advised to switch off wireless using the single hardware switch on the left-hand side of the chassis. If you want to keep 3G running, and note an Orange SIM will be provided with 15 days of free access, then you can switch off individual radios using the VAIO Control software.

Elsewhere, connections are limited. There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack, two USB 2 ports, an SD card slot and a Memory Stick slot. If you want to connect to an external monitor you’ll need to use either a display adapter or a port replicator, both of which plug into the proprietary connector on the right-hand side and neither of which are bundled. The replicator is also necessary if you want to connect the P Series on a wired Ethernet connection.

Conclusion

The VAIO P Series is unique in the UK: if, for some reason, you’re looking for a tiny, stripped-down laptop of exactly this size then you have very little choice (NEC produces a similar machine, but it’s only available in Japan). Once you remove the Sony bloatware, it also becomes nippy enough to handle basic tasks without making you want to bang your head against a nearby wall in frustration.

Even in this leaner form, however, we can’t recommend the P Series. At £680 exc VAT it’s simply too expensive, and we remain unconvinced that the gains – low weight and the jacket/handbag-friendly size – are worth the loss in usability compared to either a netbook, low-cost ultraportable or even (heaven forbid) the Apple iPad.

Warranty
Warranty	1 yr return to base
Physical specifications
Dimensions	245 x 120 x 19.8mm (WDH)
Weight	624g
Travelling weight	836g
Processor and memory
Processor	Intel Atom Z540
RAM capacity	2.00GB
Memory type	DDR2
SODIMM sockets free	0
SODIMM sockets total	1
Screen and video
Screen size	8.0in
Resolution screen horizontal	1,600
Resolution screen vertical	768
Resolution	1600 x 768
Graphics chipset	Intel GMA 500
VGA (D-SUB) outputs	0
HDMI outputs	0
S-Video outputs	0
DVI-I outputs	0
DVI-D outputs	0
DisplayPort outputs	0
Drives
Capacity	64GB
Hard disk usable capacity	53GB
Spindle speed	N/A
Internal disk interface	Parallel ATA
Hard disk	SanDisk pSSD-P2
Optical disc technology	None
Optical drive	N/A
Battery capacity	2,500mAh
Replacement battery price inc VAT	£0
Networking
Wired adapter speed	1,000Mbits/sec
802.11a support	no
802.11b support	yes
802.11g support	yes
802.11 draft-n support	yes
Integrated 3G adapter	yes
Bluetooth support	yes
Other Features
Wireless hardware on/off switch	yes
Wireless key-combination switch	no
Modem	no
ExpressCard34 slots	0
ExpressCard54 slots	0
PC Card slots	0
USB ports (downstream)	2
FireWire ports	0
PS/2 mouse port	no
9-pin serial ports	0
Parallel ports	0
Optical S/PDIF audio output ports	0
Electrical S/PDIF audio ports	0
3.5mm audio jacks	1
SD card reader	yes
Memory Stick reader	yes
MMC (multimedia card) reader	yes
Smart Media reader	no
Compact Flash reader	no
xD-card reader	no
Pointing device type	Trackpoint
Audio chipset	Realtek 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	5hr 17min
Battery life, heavy use	2hr 41min
Overall application benchmark score	0.31
Office application benchmark score	0.31
2D graphics application benchmark score	0.33
Encoding application benchmark score	0.31
Multitasking application benchmark score	0.28
3D performance (crysis) low settings	N/A
3D performance setting	N/A
Operating system and software
Operating system	Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit
OS family	Windows 7
Recovery method	Recovery partition
Software supplied	Microsoft Office Starter 2010