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).
Warranty | |
---|---|
Warranty | 2yr collect and return |
Physical specifications | |
Dimensions | 278 x 186 x 12.2mm (WDH) |
Weight | 766g |
Travelling weight | 1.1kg |
Processor and memory | |
Processor | Intel Atom Z540 |
Motherboard chipset | Intel US15W |
RAM capacity | 2.00GB |
Memory type | DDR3 |
SODIMM sockets free | 0 |
SODIMM sockets total | 1 |
Screen and video | |
Screen size | 11.1in |
Resolution screen horizontal | 1,366 |
Resolution screen vertical | 768 |
Resolution | 1366 x 768 |
Graphics chipset | Intel GMA 500 |
Graphics card RAM | N/A |
VGA (D-SUB) outputs | 1 |
HDMI outputs | 0 |
S-Video outputs | 0 |
DVI-I outputs | 0 |
DVI-D outputs | 0 |
DisplayPort outputs | 0 |
Drives | |
Capacity | 128GB |
Hard disk usable capacity | 112GB |
Spindle speed | N/A |
Internal disk interface | SATA |
Hard disk | Samsung MMCRE28GFMXP-MVB solid state disk |
Optical disc technology | None |
Optical drive | N/A |
Battery capacity | 4,100mAh |
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 |
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 | Touchpad |
Audio chipset | Realtek HD Audio |
Speaker location | Bottom |
Hardware volume control? | no |
Integrated microphone? | yes |
Integrated webcam? | yes |
Fingerprint reader | no |
Smartcard reader | no |
Carry case | yes |
Battery and performance tests | |
Battery life, light use | 7hr 9min |
Battery life, heavy use | 3hr 11min |
Overall application benchmark score | 0.36 |
Office application benchmark score | 0.38 |
2D graphics application benchmark score | 0.38 |
Encoding application benchmark score | 0.33 |
Multitasking application benchmark score | 0.34 |
3D performance (crysis) low settings | N/A |
3D performance setting | N/A |
Operating system and software | |
Operating system | Windows 7 Professional 32-bit |
OS family | Windows 7 |
Recovery method | Recovery partition |
Software supplied | VAIO Video & Photo Suite |
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