Sony Vaio X, A New Notebook Series

Its chassis is crafted out of carbon fiber and is designed to not only be incredibly light but also sturdy enough to withstand 150kg of force.

Like other Sony notebooks, the keyboard on the VAIO X is island-style, but at 88 percent of full size, it’s a bit smaller than most netbooks with 10- to 12-inch screens. Measuring 9.5 x 3.5 inches, the keyboard is about half an inch smaller in both directions than the Toshiba mini NB205, even though the VAIO X has a larger keyboard deck. This is because there’s about half an inch of space on either side of the keyboard.

The display itself again split opinion, though. It has a notable red bias, which affects skin tones, and its horizontal and vertical viewing angles are a little limited. You could also argue that its 1,366 x 768 resolution is too high for an 11.1in screen, although if you’re finding it a struggle to read system text you can enlarge it easily via Windows 7. In terms of features, the X-Series includes pretty much everything you could ask for. There’s Bluetooth, 802.11bgn WLAN, an integrated 3G modem that supports up to 7.2Mbits/sec, and a 0.3-megapixel camera.

With a single core Atom processor
, the Vaio X Series was never going to be a great performer. Even though the 2GHz Z550 chip supports hyper-threading, this is no substitute for the performance of the dual core processors used in most other laptops, and the Vaio felt a little sluggish at times. Our review unit was rated at just 2.5 under the Windows Experience Index built into Windows, but this score was held back by the low performance of the Intel GMA 500 graphics function in the chipset, while the memory and disk scores were quite respectable. However, like netbooks (which also use Atom processors) the Vaio has ample performance for productivity tasks such as word processing, email and delivering presentations.

Performance was also possibly affected by the presence of various pre-installed applications, such as 60-day trial versions of Norton Online Backup and McAfee Security Center, which run every time the computer starts regardless of whether you accept the 60-day trial conditions or not.

The netbook’s 128GB Samsung SSD booted to Windows 7 Home Premium in 50 seconds (while the average is 55 seconds), and was able to copy a 4.97GB folder of mixed media files at a rate of 27.2 MBps—close to twice the netbook average of 15.2 MBps. When converting a 114MB MPEG-4 to AVI using HandBrake, the VAIO X took 26 minutes and 45 seconds; that’s just under 3 minutes faster than the netbook average, but the average ultraportable laptop takes 14:06. The Acer Aspire Timeline 1810T, for example, took 11:24.

Despite its low weight, the X Series still provides a decent range of connectivity options, consisting of 802.11b/g/Draft n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a built-in Everywair HSDPA modem for wireless broadband, enabling buyers to stay connected virtually anywhere. It also has two USB ports, VGA output, Ethernet connector, headphone jack socket and two slots along its front edge for SD Card and Sony’s own Memory Stick Pro Duo Flash storage cards. As a measure of just how thin the Vaio X series is, a hinged cover forms one half of the Ethernet connector, because the laptop’s chassis is too thin to accommodate a standard size Ethernet jack.

The laptop’s 11.1 inch screen and 6.5 hours of battery life is also respectable. Snap on an optional larger battery and your battery life jumps to 14 hours. This is of course also thanks to the Windows 7 OS and solid state hard disk under the hood which is optimized to greatly improve battery life compared to past laptops.

Sony’s Vaio X Series is incredibly thin and light and, with a better battery life than we expected, seems an ideal machine for those who need to carry a laptop around with them. However, this model is pricey even by Sony Vaio standards, and buyers would be advised to treat it with care as we have doubts about the system’s robustness.