Sony VAIO S Series (2011) review

The VAIO S Series always struck an attractive balance between business and pleasure. Now, after a ground-up redesign for Sandy Bridge, Sony has made it more appealing than ever.

All vestiges of the previous model’s thick, curvy plastic casing have been left behind. With a keyboard surround milled from a single sheet of aluminium, and a magnesium-reinforced 13in chassis, the new model evokes more than a hint of Sony’s money-no-object VAIO Z Series.

At just 1.69kg, it’s easily light enough to carry around on a day-to-day basis, but it doesn’t feel as sturdy as its metal-framed construction might suggest. Pick up the VAIO S Series by a corner and there’s noticeable give in the chassis, while more heavy-handed grappling causes an audible creak. Gorgeous though it is, the build quality is no match for Apple’s MacBook Pro 13.

Spend a little time using the Sony, though, and you’ll soon forget any qualms about its build. The keyboard is superb. The Scrabble-tile keys have a positive, responsive feel, and the spacious layout is almost as comfortable as a full-sized keyboard. The touchpad is great too: the wide, smooth surface makes for accurate cursor control, and a fingerprint reader nestles between the two buttons, both of which respond with a lovely muffled click.

Thanks to Sandy Bridge, the Sony can match most 13in laptops when it comes to performance: it’s possible to configure the VAIO S Series with a range of Core i3, i5 and i7 CPUs on Sony’s website. Our retail model came with a mid-range Intel 2.3GHz Core i5-2410M processor, but was still blazingly quick, surging through our benchmarks to an overall score of 0.74. For a sub-2kg laptop, that’s seriously fast.

Graphics switching also makes its VAIO S Series debut. Flip the switch above the keyboard from Stamina to Speed mode, or vice versa, and the screen flickers momentarily as the Intel and AMD chipsets switch over. It’s a feature which allows the Sony to flit nimbly between the roles of long-lasting portable and high-powered workstation.

With AMD’s Radeon HD 6470M chipset activated, the Sony has enough power to run Crysis at modest settings: at the native 1,366 x 768 resolution and Medium detail, the Sony managed a playable 29fps. For serious gaming, Sony’s website offers an upgrade to the Radeon HD 6630M for a £60 premium.