Sony’s stunning VAIO Z Series has long been the standard by which all high-end ultraportable laptops should be compared.
Packing style, usability and high-performance into a sleek and sturdy sub-2kg chassis, the VAIO Z Series has frequently and vastly bettered such high-quality rival laptops as the Toshiba Portégé R600 and Apple MacBook Air.
It was with some trepidation, therefore, that we received the news that Sony batetry was fitting its latest flagship model – the Sony VAIO VPCZ11Z9E/B – with a high-powered processor from Intel’s cutting-edge Core i7 range, a discrete Nvidia graphics card and a staggering 6GB of DDR3 memory – components far more at home in the largest high-end desktop replacement.
Is it really possible to pack such powerful components into such a slim and lightweight ultraportable laptop? And if so, wouldn’t it massively overheat the chassis and reduce battery life to almost zero?
In short, we felt that Sony had set itself a challenge to break the laws of physics. Believe it or not, Sony has managed the impossible.
As soon as you pick up the Sony VAIO VPCZ11Z9E/B, you’re immediately struck by the high quality of the build.
Designed using hybrid carbon fibre and milled aluminium, the 1.4kg chassis is lightweight and highly resilient, making it ideal for a busy life on the move. Only the base of the chassis flexes very slightly under pressure, but not enough to be a concern.
The gunmetal grey colour scheme and metallic finish makes the Sony VAIO VPCZ11Z9E/B something of a high-end executive status symbol, and it looks fantastic.
With the chassis slanting from 33mm at its rear when closed to just 22mm at the front, it can comfortably be carried in the hand when walking and slips easily into and out of a carry case when travelling.
Despite its slim dimensions, the chassis provides ample connectivity.
On the left-hand side you’ll find a Gigabit Ethernet port for high-speed wired network access, two USB 2.0 ports for connecting external peripherals, a compact 34mm ExpressCard slot and an HDMI-out port for digitally connecting to a high-definition TV.
The right-hand side of the VAIO VPCZ11Z9E/B’s chassis is sparser, with just a single USB port and a VGA-out for connecting the VAIO to older analogue monitors and projectors.
An integrated DVD/CD rewriter occupies the remaining space – this is still a surprisingly rare feature for such a slim machine, so it’s to Sony’s credit that it’s been included here.
Rather than an eject button on the drive itself, a small button above the keyboard is used instead. This sits alongside two other buttons seen on many new VAIO laptops.
The ‘VAIO’ button launches Sony’s Media Gallery multimedia software, for browsing your photos and music, while ‘Assist’ launches Sony’s handy troubleshooting and system maintenance tool.
Essential for a mobile business tool such as this, the spacious keyboard is a pleasure to use. Built using the popular isolated-key – or ‘chiclet’ – style, each key is cut through a hole in the VAIO Z Series’ top panel.
Not only does this provide ample space between each key, but it also prevents dust and debris from falling beneath and affecting responsiveness of the keys.
We found the keys to be firmly fixed and responsive, moving with a quiet motion. The raised palm-rest adds to the keyboard’s comfort, making it easy to work for long periods of time with the VAIO VPCZ11Z9E/B.
While there is no dedicated numeric keypad, a Num Lock key transforms sixteen of the alphabet keys into a numeric keypad for entering data.
The keyboard is also backlit, with an ambient light sensor detecting how bright your location is and adjusting the backlighting accordingly – dimming when not in use, to preserve battery life.
Unfortunately, we found the keyboard to lack the brightness of rival machines such as the Apple MacBook Pro and it was not as easy to view in low-light conditions as we’d have liked.
More pleasing is the 13.1-inch screen. Featuring a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio, it is ideal for watching movies and viewing documents side-by-side.
While it’s not as bright as laptops in Sony’s 18.4-inch VAIO AW Series, for example, the LED backlighting ensures adequate brightness and the non-reflective screen coating offers great visibility in bright conditions.
While the screen is very thin – measuring just 5mm – it is not nearly as flexible as other screens we’ve seen, such as the panel of Toshiba’s fantastic Portégé R600 range.
With its resilient rear panel, the screen is well protected when the laptop is in a carry case, and with a minor amount of flexibility on offer it bends slightly under pressure, reducing the risk of cracking.
As the flagship model of Sony’s Z Series, the VAIO VPCZ11Z9E/B screen features a Full HD 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution. This is extremely rare on a screen of this size and makes for one of the sharpest displays we’ve seen on an ultraportable laptop.
Of course, it also makes on-screen text extremely small, which can strain the eyes when working for extended periods, but you can tailor Windows 7’s DPI settings to make text and icons appear larger.
Sony claims that the screen has been calibrated using up to 96 per cent Adobe RGB colours, making it well-suited to use by professional photographers.
When viewing photos, movies and even web pages, we certainly found colour and contrast to excel, with images popping from the screen with dazzling vibrancy and deep black levels creating a striking display of contrast.
It is here that we come to the real selling point of the VAIO VPCZ11Z9E/B – its staggering performance.
With graphics delivered by a discrete Nvidia GeForce GT 330M graphics card – a chip more commonly seen in far larger laptops – this is by far the most graphically-capable sub-2kg machine we’ve seen to date, offering power ideal for any requirement.
Since most ultraportable laptops use integrated Intel graphics cards fitted as part of the base chipset, the discrete Nvidia chip of the VAIO VPCZ11Z9E/B more than quadruples the power of its rivals.
Whether you want to run high-performance photo and video editing tools, watch high-definition movies on the move, or even play the latest games, this VAIO does it all.
This level of power often comes at the price of battery life, so Sony has fitted the VAIO Z Series with a hybrid graphics switch.
This lets the user switch to ‘Speed’ mode to use the dedicated Nvidia card or ‘Stamina’ to use the lower-powered integrated Intel GPU when maximum battery life is needed.
A third option – labelled ‘Auto’ – automatically switches to the Nvidia GPU when the laptop is plugged into mains power and the Intel chip when running on battery power.
While the VAIO Z Series unfortunately doesn’t yet use Nvidia’s Optimus technology to automatically switch to the required graphics card, depending on whether the software you are currently running requires maximum graphics power, the effect – albeit via a manual process – is much the same.
While this system makes sense in theory, we found it less useful in practice, however.
Testing the battery performance of the VAIO VPCZ11Z9E/B using Bapco MobileMark 2007 software – an industry-standard laptop benchmarking tool – the Sony ran for 278 minutes when using the Nvidia chip and just 285 minutes when using the Intel chip.
With such a negligible difference in results, there’s no real need to ever switch to the Intel graphics card.
With many rival laptops and netbooks, such as the Asus UL30A and the MSI Wind U160 can run for between eight and 13 hours on battery power, the near five-hour battery life of the Sony VAIO Z Series may seem a little underwhelming, but when you bear in mind the stunning performance it offers, half a day’s mobility is a very reasonable trade-off.
This is particularly true when you consider that this tiny machine runs a full-powered chip from Intel’s flagship Core i7 processor range – Intel’s best CPUs yet.
While rival laptops such as the Fujitsu Lifebook P770 run ultra-low voltage Core i7 chips, the Sony VAIO VPCZ11Z9E/B runs a full-powered version for the best performance from any sub-2kg laptop to date.
While the dual-core 2.66GHz Intel Core i7 620M processor lacks the quad-core power of more expensive Core i7 chips, it can automatically ramp up to a staggering 3.33GHz when increased performance is required and is backed by an amazing 6GB of DDR3 SDRAM.
With the 64-bit Windows 7 operating system enabling all of this memory to be utilised, the sheer power of the VAIO VPCZ11Z9E/B is a wonder to behold, and far beyond anything we had expected.
Even when multi-tasking with several applications from Microsoft’s Office suite, while also working with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator software open, the VAIO Z-Series never noticeably slowed down and effortlessly sped through all tasks demanded of it.
If you’re seeking the world’s most powerful ultraportable laptop, the VAIO VPCZ11Z9E/B currently has no rivals.
In terms of storage, the VAIO VPCZ11Z9E/B uses four 64GB SSDs (Solid State Drives) set up in a RAID configuration, for a total of 256GB of storage space.
While SSDs are lighter and less prone to damage than a standard hard disk thanks to their flash-based design and lack of moving parts, some users may have preferred a more capacious 2.5-inch hard drive to have been used.
While the RAID configuration is ideal for maximising data storage, it’s an easy process to disable RAID in the BIOS and use each of the 64GB SSDs separately.
This can be useful for installing Windows 7 on one SSD, for example, while using the second for installing software and then encrypting the third and fourth for storing business and personal data, respectively.
Adding to the data security of the VAIO Z Series is the inclusion of a fingerprint scanner fitted between its mouse buttons.
Easy to configure, it allows you to restrict access to data or to the laptop itself, with only registered users allowed access with a swipe of their finger. Since passwords can be guessed or cracked, this is a great feature for professional users.
Finally, no high-powered ultraportable would be complete without comprehensive wireless connectivity, so thankfully the VAIO VPCZ11Z9E/B is fully equipped with 802.11n Wi-Fi for connecting to local wireless hotspots at maximum speed.
Bluetooth connectivity is also in place, for wirelessly connecting to compatible devices for quickly syncing and sharing data.
3G connectivity is present and, once signed up with a network provider, the SIM card slots neatly beneath the battery of the VAIO Z Series and lets you connect to the internet via mobile phone masts when out of reach of local wireless hotspots.
When used with the tiny camera above the VAIO’s screen, it can allow easy video-conferencing use wherever you go.
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