Sony VAIO Z Series Notebook Review

It may just be one of the best looking notebooks on the market today, with it’s sleek carbon fiber and aluminum body, backlit keyboard, and high-resolution screen, but does all that justify the nearly $2,000 price tag? Find out if the VAIO Z series from Sony is the right notebook for you after the break.

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Product At-a-Glance

Pros

High-resolution 13-inch screen.
Discrete and integrated hybrid graphics.
Dual SSD option available.
Light weight.

Cons

Design is still lacking in some areas.
Expensive price may drive away potential buyers.

Summary

The Sony VAIO Z series packs power, portability, and decent battery life which makes the high price tag justifiable but it may still drive away some.

Full Review

The Sony VAIO Z series is a 13-inch notebook that falls into the thin and light category, weighing in at just three pounds and a svelte one inch thin. Sony didn’t sacrifice weight for features however, so you’re getting a built-in Blu-Ray drive, HDMI output, ExpressCard slot, SD and Memory Stick card reader, three USB ports, and a 4-pin FireWire jack plus the standard VGA output and headphone jack. The LED backlit 13.1-inch screen comes in two resolutions, 1600×900 or 1920×1080.

Models are available in either silver or premium carbon (we’ll get to this in a bit) and loaded with up to a 2.66GHz Intel Core i7 processor, the option of two 256GB solid state drives in RAID 0 (this option costs an additional $1300), up to 8GB of DDR3 memory, as well as the standard features we see on nearly every notebook: 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth, and Gigabit Ethernet. The Z series also has a backlit keyboard, biometric fingerprint sensor for security and webcam.

The model we reviewed (VPCZ116GX/S) had the following specs:

Intel Core i5-520M 2.40GHz processor
4GB of DDR3 1066 RAM
256GB Solid State Drive
1600×900 resolution 13.1-inch screen
Dynamic Hybrid Graphics System

We have to say, Sony hit it out of the park with the design of this notebook. It’s right up there with Apple’s amazing industrial design of the MacBook Pro. Both notebooks have some similarities, namely the chiclet-style backlit keyboard.

A unique feature of this model is the Hybrid Graphics System, which allows you to get the most out of your battery life when on the go, and the most out of your graphics card when playing a game or playing HD video. Sony calls these modes Stamina, Speed, and Auto. The auto mode uses the discrete NVIDIA GT330M graphics card while plugged in, and switches seamlessly to the integrated Intel GMA HD graphics card when unplugged.

When the notebook hit our doorstep, we immediately put it through a variety of benchmarks. In our standard PCMark Vantage tests, the unit performed exceptionally well scoring a whopping 9942. While testing it for battery life, we received around 4 hours of battery life, but your mileage may vary depending on the task.

While we’re certainly glad to see SSDs finally hit the mainstream and available as standard, the Sony VAIO Z series still looks like a PC. At a premium price, it simply needs more than a carbon fiber body. That doesn’t suggest you shouldn’t buy the Sony VAIO Z series however. If you’re looking for a thin and light notebook that packs performance and decent battery life, go for it.

The Sony VAIO Z series as we stated starts at $1,919.99 through the Sony Style store but you may be able to find it cheaper through other sites such as Amazon.com. It is available in a variety of finishes including black, silver, Metal Shield, Premium Carbon and Glossy Premium Carbon.