Sony’s latest Vaio laptop is for those who want uncompromising power and performance at any price. Unlike other notebooks it blends extreme power with a stylish portable design, making it suitable for business, games and multimedia.
Very few laptops unite the Holy Trinity of power, portability and usability – but the Sony VAIO VPCZ11Z9E does this with its eyes closed. The latest version of the laptop is an absolute power house and boasts not only Intel’s Core i7-620M processor, but also 6GB of DDR3 RAM (the latest, fastest and most resource light memory technology). There’s also a high-end nVidia GeForce GT 330M graphics card with a 1GB of dedicated video memory, making it more powerful than the Apple MacBook Pro.
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All this power means you can run pretty much run any application you want – from word-processing software right through to editing suites and multimedia applications – with ease. This includes the latest gaming titles for those who use their laptop for work and play.
This is all the more remarkable because of its tiny form factor – this isn’t a lumbering desktop replacement system destined for a life chained to your desk. At 1.3kg it’s exceptionally light and with dimensions of 314x210x24mm, this is one of the most portable laptops around.
Battery performance
Graphics cards are famously resource hungry on a laptop battery, even when you’re not running 3D heavy applications, so alongside the nVidia chip Sony has included an integrated Intel GMA chip. You can switch between the two at the touch of a button. When running the Intel chip we got an impressive 285 minutes from the laptop. Ok, it’s not going to last you all day and is no match for the Asus UL30 but considering how powerful the laptop is it’s a remarkable score.
Sony’s taken care with the appearance, which you’d expect at this price. The mock brushed aluminium looks and feels great. The full HD 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution screen is amazingly detailed and fantastic for games and DVDs (there’s no Blu-ray drive though), with excellent colour reproduction. LED backlighting not only saves battery power, but ensures blacks are especially impressive. There’s a shiny super-TFT screen coating, but it represses reflections well, so you can use it outdoors or in bright light.
Connection options
A 256GB Solid State Drive is in place, providing very fast access to your content and because there are no moving parts, it’s more secure than a mechanical hard drive. Connectivity includes WIFI N, 3x USBs, HDMI out, an SD/MS card slot and a 3G broadband module for email and internet access.
The Vaio Z Series is a laptop for those who take their business seriously, it’s easily the most powerful ultra portable laptop currently on the market. But that comes at a high price, which just loses it that elusive final star.
