Sony VAIO Z11 review

Improving on excellence is never a simple task, but that was the lofty goal facing Sony’s engineers. The previous version of the VAIO Z Series combined classy, understated looks, supreme power and fine ergonomics with class-leading stamina, and it had the measure of every other ultraportable on the market

Rather than try to eke out a little more battery life, or trim a little weight, Sony has taken a radical approach to its baby and rebuilt it from the ground up. Gone is the stamina-focussed ultraportable of old; in its place comes a thin and light laptop that packs in an unprecedented level of raw power.

Design to die for

The VPCZ11Z9E/B is attractive, but it doesn’t go overboard to draw attention to itself. It cuts a professional, monochromatic dash: matte black contrasts with dark gunmetal grey and the brushed aluminium keyboard surround, while a handful of status lights glimmer along the front edge. It’s so understated for such a stratospherically expensive laptop we wondered how it could justify the expense. That, however, became clear very quickly.

The keyboard was already superb, and it’s even better here. The keys aren’t just backlit, with an ambient light sensor to fade them in and out, but they also have a slightly crisper action. This, along with the spacious, uncluttered layout, puts it right up with the best keyboards we’ve used. Other subtle improvements see the trackpad pushed a few millimetres further from the spacebar to prevent stray thumbs from jogging the cursor unintentionally; a minor but occasionally aggravating issue with the original.

Build quality has taken a giant leap forward too. Its predecessor was sturdy for a 1.49kg laptop, but it wasn’t perfect: the lid flexed noticeably under pressure, and the chassis wasn’t as rock-solid as Apple’s best efforts. This new Z Series is a different story entirely. Despite a weight drop to 1.41kg (1.83kg with charger), twisting the chassis with all our might revealed only the tiniest bit of give, and it took some vicious prodding on the lid to cause any showthrough on the display.

That 13.1in display finally gets a Full HD, 1,920 x 1,080 native resolution, and it offers eye-popping brightness and glorious colours. The only drawback is that you’ll need to take full advantage of Windows 7’s text-scaling abilities to avoid squinting at tiny fonts.

Awe-inspiring performance

What’s most impressive, however, is that despite its small size and light weight, the Sony VAIO Z Series raced ahead of even the fastest workstation laptops in our benchmarks. We’ve never seen a laptop tear through them quite so viciously, and it resulted in a marvellous 1.80 overall score.

Sony largely has Intel and Samsung to thank for that. The VPCZ11Z9E/B uses the very latest Intel Core i7-620M processor, along with 6GB of DDR3 RAM. Built on the 32nm process, it runs cooler, draws less power and is faster than the 45nm Core i7s that wowed us at the end of last year.

It’s a staggering achievement for such a light laptop to score so highly, especially when you consider the new generation drops the quad-core, eight-thread configuration of the 45nm parts for a more modest dual-core, four-thread architecture, and even manages to squeeze integrated graphics onto the chip.

Integrated graphics are fine for basic tasks, but the Sony uses a hybrid graphics system, meaning duties can be passed to a discrete Nvidia GT 330M chipset for more power-hungry applications. It’s possible to flip between the two at will, but the three-way switch above the keyboard also has an automatic setting, which makes its own decision based on Windows 7’s current power scheme and whether the laptop is running on mains power or battery.

Samsung’s contribution comes in the form of four 64GB SSDs which Sony has harnessed in a striped 256GB RAID0 array, and fast just doesn’t do it justice. We ran it through the AS SSD and ATTO Disk Benchmark suites and read performance peaked around 600MB/sec, with write speeds topping out at around 430MB/sec. In tandem with Intel’s Core i7-620M, it transforms the Sony into that rarest of beasts: a featherweight workstation.

The one glaring issue is that SSDs suffer from performance degradation over time and, crucially, the RAID controller prevents Windows 7 from activating the individual drives’ TRIM support to alleviate the issue. The only solution for power users intending to regularly thrash the array will be to wipe the drives, rebuild the RAID array and reinstall Windows once such degradation occurs.

The trade-off

All this power comes at a chronic cost to battery life, too. Where the VGN-Z51WG/B managed just over ten hours of light use, the VPCZ11Z9E/B only just tops half that, at five and a half hours. Switch Windows 7 Professional 64-bit to High Performance mode, allow the Nvidia graphics to take the helm and push the display to full brightness and you’ll get barely more than an hour.

Neatly, though, we found that dropping the display’s refresh rate to 40hz extended battery life to a more usable 6hrs 48mins – still not up with the best, but acceptable enough for most.

There’s precious little to moan about when it comes to connectivity. There’s 802.11n wireless networking, and the Centrino 6200N chipset supports simultaneous 2.4GHz and 5GHz channel bonding for blindingly fast wireless speeds. WWAN support stretches up to 7.2Mbits/sec HSDPA speeds, so you can slot in a SIM and access the network of your choice, and there’s a Gigabit Ethernet port as well. The mini-FireWire port has been replaced by a third USB port, and an ExpressCard/34 slot nestles alongside.

We welcome the plentiful features, staggering performance and supreme ergonomics, but the chronic impact of all that power on this ultraportable’s stamina is disappointing, if hardly surprising. There’s a Core i5 version for around £280 less that may have slightly better battery life, but probably not by much.

If that doesn’t put you off, however – and bear in mind five and half hours of light use is far better than we’ve seen from similarly specified workstations and desktop replacements – the VAIO VPCZ11Z9E/B is a stunning, and genuinely portable, workstation laptop. It has its minor flaws, but if portable power is what you’re after, you won’t find anything better.

Physical specifications
Dimensions	314 x 210 x 33mm (WDH)
Weight	1.410kg
Travelling weight	1.8kg
Processor and memory
Processor	Intel Core i7-620M
Motherboard chipset	Intel HM57
RAM capacity	6.00GB
Memory type	DDR3
SODIMM sockets free	0
SODIMM sockets total	2
Screen and video
Screen size	13.1in
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	256GB
Hard disk usable capacity	238GB
Spindle speed	N/A
Internal disk interface	SATA/300
Hard disk	4x Samsung MMCRE28GQDXP-MVB
Optical disc technology	DVD writer
Optical drive	Matshita DVD-RAM UJ892AS
Battery capacity	5,200mAh
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	yes
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
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	Touchpad
Audio chipset	Realtek HD Audio
Speaker location	Above keyboard
Integrated microphone?	yes
Integrated webcam?	yes
Camera megapixel rating	0.3mp
TPM	yes
Fingerprint reader	yes
Smartcard reader	no
Carry case	no
Battery and performance tests
Battery life, light use	5hr 26min
Battery life, heavy use	1hr 8min
Overall application benchmark score	1.80
Office application benchmark score	1.48
2D graphics application benchmark score	1.95
Encoding application benchmark score	1.71
Multitasking application benchmark score	2.09
3D performance (crysis) low settings	69fps
3D performance setting	Low
Operating system and software
Operating system	Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
OS family	Windows 7
Recovery method	Recovery partition, burn own recovery discs