Sony Vaio X 11.1” ultra-portable reviewed

For those amongst you who can afford the astronomical £1,299 asking (base) price for the Sony Vaio X, then you’ll be interested to hear that T3 has published its review of the ultraportable. All of the marketing that I’ve seen from Sony UK has this device targeted to business users and it seems that they will value its tiny dimensions and featherweight chassis.

T3 felt it was an amazing bit of engineering married with a graceful design. It wasn’t all roses though as the thin frame is subject to flex and the keys on the keyboard have very little travel, along with the mouse buttons. The 2GHz Z550 Atom processor is good enough for most Office tasks. However, with an excellent 11.1-inch display and a premium carbon fibre shell you’d certainly have bragging rights by carrying this under your arm. Check out the key review points after the jump.

Key review points of the Sony Vaio X:

• To keep the Vaio X thin, all of the components are soldered to the motherboard on one side only. The netbook has a thickness of just 16mm.
• The front half of the device is taken up by a thin & flat battery, this means the components have to be crammed into the back.
• The rear of the machine has drop-down legs (like you find on keyboards) that allow you to connect an Ethernet port and is also used for the optional extended battery.
• The keyboard has decent spacing and is large enough to use accurately. There is very little travel in the keys though.
• The mouse pad is responsive but very small. The mouse buttons also have little travel, although they are large.
• The 11.1-inch (1366 x 768) screen offers excellent colour reproduction and is one of the best on the market.
• The 2.0GHz Z550 is only good for most office tasks. The 256GB SSD helps the performance.
• The carbon fibre shell is not that solid and flexes “alarmingly under light pressure”. Despite this it keeps the weight down at 775g and makes it feel every bit like a premium product.