Sony VAIO SB Series: Thin, Light, Expensive, and Terribly Fast

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

Excellent functioning
Long battery life

Cons

Resourceless vertical viewing angles
Expensive

Our Verdict

We'Ra non sure how Sony crammed thus often hardware into such a thin and light laptop computer. If you have the money, this is one of the fastest ultraportables we've ever tested.

Sony's VAIO Antimony series, A designed in our follow-up unit (model VPCSB1BGX), offers the best overall performance of any ultraportable laptop we've yet tested. It's lighting-up, capillary, and a pleasure to use despite a few minor annoyances. Pity, so, that this shape costs $2500. The establish model starts at only $900 (as of August 12, 2011), simply that configuration wouldn't rule our benchmarks as our recapitulation simulate does.

The VAIO Antimony is a 13.3-edge in ultraportable that weighs a retiring 3.7 pounds, perhaps a trace less for lower-terminate configurations. The heights-end poser we tested may cost $2500, but you set about some pretty impressive hardware for that price. Start with a Core i7-2620M processor, a dual-heart and soul CPU with hyperthreading that runs at a base time speed of 2.7GHz. In addition to that very capable processor, toss in 8GB of RAM, switchable graphics (an Intel unsegregated chip positive a Radeon HD 6630M with 1GB of graphics RAM), and a riotous 256GB solid drive. Non enough? How about dual-stria 802.11n networking, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, a combination BD-ROM and DVD burner, and put up for Intel's WiDi wireless presentation technology? How Sony crammed all that good thrust into a submarine-4-pound, 1-column inch-stupid 13-inch laptop is beyond me.

All that hardware was adequate to give birth a WorldBench 6 scotch of 144, higher than any pock we've seen from other laptops of this size and weight. Does all that power destruct the battery life? Far from information technology. In our summation test the VAIO BS's battery lasted an impressive 7 hours, 19 minutes. A physical switch above the F3 key allows you to alter between 'staying power' (integrated graphics) and 'fastness' (separate graphics). We ran our battery-life tests with the switch on the 'stamina' place setting; enabling the Radeon discrete graphics will cut battery time in half or worsened. We as wel tested the optional slice battery that fits neatly across the bottom of the laptop and makes the machine a fractional of an inch thicker and almost a pound heavier. This optional accessory adds nigh 5 hours of maximum stamp battery life.

There's much to like about the design of the VAIO SB series. The matte showing has a result of only 1366 by 768, simply that's typic for a 13.3-inch covert. Color, contrast, and brightness are pretty good, and flat viewing angles are better than on near laptops I've seen. Vertical viewing angles are predictably poor, though: The projection screen will either get clean out or too dark if you open the hat too utmost, Oregon non enough. The island Chiclet-style keyboard is quite good. Fundamental travel is a bit connected the squabby side, but spacing is respectable and the keys have a groovy, tactile, clicky tone. The touchpad is similarly good. It tracks smoothly and accurately, with two distinct buttons connected which it's hard to by chance cash register clicks. It supports a fair wide potpourri of multitouch gestures, though two-finger scrolling is not on the menu.

The left side of the system is sparse, featuring only the BD-ROM and DVD-burning combination optical take. All the action is along the right edge, which has a Retention Stick slot, an SD Card slot, VGA and HDMI outputs, one USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports, gigabit ethernet, and the power jack. Those who like having a physical switch to invalid Wi-Fi will be happy to know that the VAIO SB series offers one at the front edge.

As usual, Sony loads down its system with a little too a great deal software for my tastes. I'm not a fan of the pop-come out dock at the top of the screen, or of the way Norton Internet Security constantly nags Pine Tree State to ante up erst the 30-day trial is over. IT's great that Sony bundles Photoshop Elements 8, Premiere Elements 8, and PowerDVD, though. Also included are ArcSoft webcam software, Sony's media gallery, and Microsoft Office Starter 2010. If you're like me and you prefer your laptop a little more lean and mean, IT's easy enough to remove just about of this stuff.

Information technology's a bit disappointing that the VAIO SB's fit and finish aren't quite busy the standards we'd expect from a $2500 laptop. It just doesn't have the perfectly clean lines and premium human body materials we usually find in systems this expensive. In this cause, it's because our test building block is at the very upper end of a line that is meant to start at $900–and at that price, the boilers suit project is about ordinary. Put differently, I'm really impressed past the outstanding performance and usability of this very expensive ultraportable laptop computer, but oddly enough I'm a little underwhelmed away Sony's sense of style.