Sony VAIO Z Series (2011) review

The VAIO Z Series was born of Sony’s desire to build the ultimate notebook. Feather-light yet immensely powerful, it fused ultraportable dimensions to desktop performance and made precious few compromises along the way. Now, Sony’s all-new VAIO Z has arrived, and it’s ready to rewrite the ultraportable rules once again.

Physically, the VAIO Z bears little resemblance to its former self. Sharp, boxy lines are formed from slices of carbon fibre, to create a chassis which measures a mere 17mm thick. It looks positively delicate, and its 1.15kg weight means it feels just as barely-there in the hand. There certainly isn’t the unflinching tautness of the Apple Macbook Air, and the obvious seams and slight give in the carbon sheets don’t exude the tough, go-anywhere air of Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1.

Achieving such slenderness has required more than just bold aesthetic changes, however. Sony has also done away with two of the VAIO Z’s most notable features, namely the internal optical drive and dedicated graphics.

This is where the novel Power Media Dock steps in. Resembling a simple external optical drive, it crams in an AMD Radeon HD 6650 graphics chipset, and acts as a docking station too. Look to the rear and there’s one USB 2 port, one USB 3 port, a Gigabit Ethernet socket plus D-SUB and HDMI video outputs. Unhook a flap on the dock’s top edge, and you’ll find another USB 2 port for quick attachment of a USB flash drive or similar.

It’s an elegant solution. A power supply feeds the Power Media Dock from the mains, but a single connector provides both a data and a power connection to the laptop itself. Sony’s proprietary implementation of Intel’s Light Peak technology (the very same used in the ThunderBolt ports on Apple’s recent MacBook Pro) then jets all the graphical, USB and network data via the VAIO Z’s single USB 3 port. Plug it in, and the laptop’s screen flickers off and on as the AMD chipset takes over from the integrated GPU.

Performance and Battery life

Even without the aid of the Power Media Dock, the VAIO Z is highly competent. Our review unit – the lower specified of Sony’s two VAIO Z models – came with a mid-range Core i5-2410M processor, and the overall result of 0.66 in our benchmarks proves there’s more than enough oomph for any application. The 128GB SSD helps create a wonderful feel of responsiveness too: with Sony’s Fast BIOS boot enabled, a cold boot to the Windows desktop takes just 20 seconds.

Push the Z flat-out for any length of time, and you’ll soon hear the whine of the cooling fan as it ramps up to full speed. But even after several hours of looping our benchmarks, the Sony kept its cool: the hottest point on the keyboard, on its left-hand edge above the main cooling vent, measured 46c.

While the disappearance of switchable graphics will cause some consternation, it’s not the critical loss it might look at first glance. Where the older VAIO Z models needed to partner Intel’s first generation Core processors with an Nvidia GPU to boost performance, the GPU built-in to the second generation of Intel Core processors is much more capable. Where the original Nvidia-equipped model, the Sony VAIO Z13, averaged 55fps in our old Low quality Crysis test – run at 1,024 x 768 resolution – the new model running on integrated graphics managed 39fps at the same settings (in our new tests, run at 1,366 x 768 it achieved 32fps). There isn’t much in it.

The loss of dedicated graphics also allows the VAIO Z to survive impressive stretches away from the mains. Sony claim seven hours of battery life with the internal 4,000mAh battery, and our testing bore this out. It achieved 7hrs 48mins in our light use battery test, with the screen brightness set to 75cd/m2, wireless off, scrolling through a selection of offline web pages. Add the optional battery slice, and those figures should double.

Get back within reach of the Power Media Dock, however, and there are multiple benefits. The first is gaming performance, which improves quite considerably. Using the integrated Intel GPU the Z managed 13fps at 1,600 x 900 and Medium quality; connected to the dock it breezed to a playable 28fps. It doesn’t quite transform the VAIO Z into a desk-bound gaming monster, but it’s good enough for all but the most demanding of games enthusiasts. The second benefit is that it’s possible to power four displays simultaneously: two connected to the laptop, and two more to the Power Media Dock.

Ergonomics

Even so, you’ll find it hard to tear your eyes away from the VAIO Z’s 13.1in display. Our model came with the 1,600 x 900 resolution display, and it delivers stunning image quality across the board. With a huge 860:1 contrast ratio, a measured maximum brightness of 353cd/m2 and a stunningly low average Delta E of 4.3, this is as good as laptop displays get. The semi-gloss finish is the perfect compromise, too, blending the glare-reducing benefits of a matte display with the deep black level of a gloss screen. Rival manufacturers, take note.

Photographic professionals will also appreciate the fact that it’s a wide-gamut panel. Our measurements saw it covering around 90% of the Adobe RGB colour space.

There’s no doubt the screen is brilliant, but rest of the ergonomics are not quite as clear cut. Take the keyboard: it may look innocuous enough, but the slimline construction of the Z has left each key with a mere 1mm of travel. It feels strange at first, but after typing out the whole of this review, we warmed to it. We prefer the keyboards of previous Zs, and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1’s, too, but we soon found ourselves typing rapidly and accurately. There’s a slight resistance at the top of each stroke, and the wide key spacing helps keep typos to a minimum. The automatic backlighting, which fades in as the lights go down is a nice touch too.

As seems to be the fashion these days, the Z’s lightly textured touchpad acts like one giant button, depressing with a muffled click. There are also left and right buttons beneath, both of which are finished with a grippier finish, and a fingerprint reader nestled between the two.

In use, it’s underwhelming. Its surface area is too small, and we can’t help wishing for a traditional touchpad and a pair of discrete buttons. At least the buttons aren’t touch sensitive, so resting a finger on the buttons never interferes with cursor movement, as it does on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1.

Connectivity

Given the mere millimetres of chassis Sony has had to work with, the VAIO Z manages to squeeze in a surprising helping of ports and connectors – just enough to keep us happy. Most of these are found on the right-hand edge: two USB ports (one USB 2, one USB 3), a Gigabit Ethernet socket, an HDMI 1.4 port and a single 3.5mm audio jack to handle input and output duties. A pair of front-facing card readers accept SD and Memory Stick formats, while the D-SUB socket is pushed to the left-hand corner near the hinge. In fact, our only moan is the decision to put the two USB ports quite so close together: all it takes is a chunky USB flash drive to end up blocking the one next door.

Wireless connectivity is very good too, with Intel’s top-end Advanced-N 6230 chipset offering dual-band 802.11n wireless, and an unlocked 3G modem providing on-the-road connection. The only slight disappointment is that Bluetooth is stuck at 2.1 rather than 3.0; we’d expect absolutely everything to be up to the minute on a premium machine such as this.

The price

This, the lesser of Sony’s two VAIO Z bundles, clocks in at a hefty £2,039. Considering that you get a Power Media Dock equipped with a mere DVD writer, and a laptop with a mid-range Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD, that’s one hell of an asking price.

The burning question is whether you need the Power Media Dock at all. Head on over to Sony’s UK site, specify the base model without the Power Media Dock, and in addition to being able to choose from a range of Black, Blue, Gold or Premium Carbon finishes, you’ll find the price drops to a much more palatable £1,569.

On the flip side, if money is no object, it’s also possible to tax the most obscene of budgets. Some of the upgrades are entirely affordable: a 1080p display costs an extra £40; the battery slice, £60; and the backlit keyboard is an extra £15. Opt for a Power Media Dock with a Blu-ray writer instead of the standard DVD, however, and it’ll cost an extra £525. Upgrading the SSD’s capacity from 128GB to 512GB will make an even larger hole in your poor old wallet – to the tune of £1,150.

Verdict

So, it isn’t a completely faultless performance, and at these sorts of prices that’s a pretty damning assessment. But it’s hard not to admire Sony’s chutzpah in taking a successful notebook and giving it such a major ground-up reworking.

Gram for gram, however, there’s simply nothing that can match the all-round performance of the Sony VAIO Z series. Yes, the ergonomics have suffered a little, and yes it’s brutally expensive, but as a notebook that takes the concept of a full-sized, high-powered ultraportable and pushes to its outer extremities, it’s untouchable; a laptop everyone should aspire to own.

Warranty
Warranty	2yr collect and return
Physical specifications
Dimensions	330 x 210 x 17mm (WDH)
Weight	1.150kg
Travelling weight	1.5kg
Processor and memory
Processor	Intel Core i5-2410M
Motherboard chipset	Intel HM67 Express
RAM capacity	4.00GB
Memory type	DDR3
SODIMM sockets free	0
SODIMM sockets total	2
Screen and video
Screen size	13.1in
Resolution screen horizontal	1,600
Resolution screen vertical	900
Resolution	1600 x 900
Graphics chipset	Intel HD Graphics 3000 / AMD Radeon HD 6650M
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	128GB
Hard disk usable capacity	119GB
Spindle speed	N/A
Internal disk interface	SATA/300
Optical disc technology	External DVD writer
Battery capacity	4,000mAh
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	0
ExpressCard54 slots	0
PC Card slots	0
USB ports (downstream)	1
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	no
Smart Media reader	no
Compact Flash reader	no
xD-card reader	no
Pointing device type	Touchpad
Audio chipset	Realtek HD Audio
Speaker location	Underside
Hardware volume control?	no
Integrated microphone?	yes
Integrated webcam?	yes
Camera megapixel rating	1.3mp
TPM	yes
Fingerprint reader	yes
Smartcard reader	no
Carry case	no
Battery and performance tests
Battery life, light use	7hr 48min
3D performance (crysis) low settings	32fps
3D performance setting	Low
Overall Real World Benchmark score	0.66
Responsiveness score	0.82
Media score	0.67
Multitasking score	0.50
Operating system and software
Operating system	Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
OS family	Windows 7
Recovery method	Recovery partition
Software supplied	N/A