1366 x 768????
Fuggedaboutit!
It’s only natural that manufacturers want to show off their biggest (or in this case, smallest) and best but Sony has spotted the flaw in this plan. By thrusting their fabulously lean but powerful sexy bits in your face all the time, Ultrabooks have gained a reputation for being the Page 3 girls of computing: naughty, vigorous …
There is, but at 1600 euros for a reasonable model (ie i7, 256GB and Full HD) and 400+ for the Power Media Dock I don't think that it is in the same category as this ultrabook.
Plus of course the Z is a real DTR (I can play CS: GO at full HD with most of the options turned up).
The Z is a wonderful machine (personally I think it's the best laptop at the moment) but if you are thinking of spending 700 pounds it's not going to be on your radar.
not very noisy, but the frequency is kinda high and unpleasant.
They have no bass, of course, and at max volume they distort slightly, but at 80%, they are clear and voices are easy to understand.
it stays very cool, one of the better units to take if you're traveling to countries with hot climate
The hard drive is very easy to replace, it takes one with max 7.5 mm height. Its equally as easy to add 4GB of ram in the single free slot. The hard drive is not a 'hybrid drive' its a separate Samsung 32 GB SSD and a normal HDD. Like with Asus, it may be possible to hack the system to use the SSD directly, but from the Factory, its used as a Cache only and has no drive letter.
Finally: to correct some wrong info from the review: "The 13.3in screen is small but, at WXGA resolution, perfectly usable and clear. Viewing angles are wider than I have experienced on other ultrabooks"
I don't know what Ultrabooks this guy has tested, but while the horizontal viewing angles on this are ok, the vertical viewing angles are so bad, that the top and bottom already shift colors from what they look like in the center. And that's not all. Black value, contrast is poor, the whole screen looks washed out. To make it worse, the screen is reflective (consumer model) and dark, less than 200 cd/m2, so outdoors, you can forget about seeing anything. Don't take my word for it, you can find reviews that actually do proper screen measurements.
But this review's statements on the display are as wrong as they come... In other respects, I'd let it stand as the usual bish-bash-bosh reviews you get on The Reg. Its a pretty good Ultrabook, except the display being even worse than Acer's S3 / M3 / M5. And those displays are already stinkers...
"stupidly priced SSD upgrades"
Indeed. Don't single out Sony though, most of them try to take twice the open market price for their SSD upgrades.
At least Sony is fair when it comes to RAM upgrades. Both are extremely easy to upgrade yourself, it takes 3 screws only to get to both Drive and RAM.
While the display is sad not only in resolution but more so in quality, you have to remember that this is the cheapest Intel certified "Ultrabook". It would be on my short list, if they offered a better display as an option for another 100 bucks. But I think they're not doing it, cause they don't want this to intrude on sales for the S13A and the Z series. The S13A is the single most feature rich 13" notebook on the market, which weights hardly any more than this one at 1.64 Kg. Its got a GT 640M GPU, an optical drive (can be used for extra HDD instead), a 3G/UMTS module, a much better quality display that also sports 1600x900 res. and backlit keyboard. I think they did away with the fingerprint reader for the 2012 model though, which is too bad...
Yes, but I don't think that's the point. The extra keystroke slows you down, especially when zipping around in editors. My cheapo Acer Aspire One has real page up and down keys in the spaces around the cursor up key. My HP Pavilion DM1 and this Sony don't, although at least the Sony looks like they weren't intended - on the DM1 it almost looks as if they've been replaced with blanking plates like Wallace's Techno-Trousers - "What have you done with the controls, Gromit?" It does slow you down and cause confusion when you also use a desktop keyboard, especially when you're having to use other modifiers (ctrl/shift/alt). Style over substance - but then that's the forte of an ultrabook I suppose!
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If you need or want to run virtual machines it's a very good point. I have just brought a Vaio Z and according to CPU-Z it is enabled - but I don;'t know if it is reporting if it's enabled, or just if the CPU supports it...
I do remember being annoyed that my TZ21 wouldn't! (as it is not something I need anymore I didn't bother worrying about it this time)
"The Vaio T13’s result in the PCMark 7 benchmark confirms what we should expect from an entry-level Ivy Bridge processor: it beats just about every pre-Ivy Bridge Ultrabook Register Hardware has tested to date, although the HP Spectre XT reviewed recently, puts in a surprisingly high score from the same chippery."
Anyone know why there's such a vast difference between the benchmark scores? I noticed the same was said in the recent MacBook Air review when it was compared against the Intel Ivy Bridge Whitebook.
It makes comparisons between machines with similar spec quite difficult, unless you have the raw test results.
"I really don’t see the point of the T13 being fitted with one USB 2.0 port and one USB 3.0 port. Why not both USB 3.0?"
Um, maybe because having 2 USN 3 devices plugged in will kill the battery in no time? Just a thought. And it plugged into power it may put too much drain on the transformer (not sure what it's rated at). In reality, I would think most people (ie target audience) would not need 2 USB 3 devices plugged in simultaneously.