Sony VAIO X-Series review

The Sony VAIO X-Series is a laptop that divides opinion almost like no other. “Who,” cry some on seeing it, “would buy that? It’s just a glorified, overpriced netbook.” Others pick it up and swoon. “It’s so light! It’s so gorgeous! I want one.”

No-one can argue about the VAIO X-Series’ design credentials. At 12.2mm, it’s precisely as thick as an iPhone, and its matte-black finish is reminiscent of a sheet of graphite (the only design oddity is its brown bottom). Even the screen drew admiring gasps: it’s wafer-thin, measuring 4.4mm when we clamped our callipers around it.

The main chassis is similarly slight. It’s so skinny the D-SUB port on the right-hand side looks oversized. There isn’t even room for a conventional network port, but rather than force people to lug around an adapter, Sony has cleverly created a hinged port: when you want to use it, the idea is to raise two tiny feet and this gives the hinge room to expand enough for you to slot in your cable. (See the gallery for a close-up.)

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.

Power struggles
But what’s most controversial about this laptop, and the reason so many people fall instantly out-of-love with it, is the processor. It’s a 1.86GHz Intel Atom Z540, which may be the second fastest Atom around, and support Hyper-Threading, but the fact remains: it’s an Atom. These have become so synonymous with netbooks that they almost define them, but we tried to be broad-minded: was an Atom fast enough to power anyone’s main PC?

So we tried. We used the X-Series as a workaday machine for office tasks for a week. It had to power two screens and cope with Word, Excel, Outlook, Firefox, Internet Explorer and numerous other utilities – all using Windows 7 Professional rather than XP.

First impressions weren’t fantastic. With all Aero’s fripperies switched on, the X-Series felt sluggish, and even dragging windows around the desktop proved a chore. Once we optimised Windows for best performance, though, things improved markedly. Without Aero’s overhead, menus snapped to attention, there was no lag and it became perfectly usable. It just looked a little bit like Windows 98. We were also impressed once inside a program. Despite using testing formulae in Excel, the X-Series never felt slow, and likewise in Outlook responding to emails was effortless.

Another point in favour of the Atom is a lack of fan noise: during an average working day, we didn’t hear a single drone. It was only when we pushed this laptop to its maximum in our benchmarks that the fan came on (though note that it’s loud).