Sony VAIO Z

Full review of Sony VAIO Z

We haven't reviewed the Sony VAIO Z laptop yet - the following is a summary based on the hardware in the VAIO Z series.

Summary and Information

The VAIO Z series is one of Sony's premium ultraportable series, and is priced accordingly. Like most VAIOs it comes with a little extra, such as a high-resolution 'X-BRITE' LED-lit screen, a Blu-Ray player and dedicated graphics.

It's neither the thinnest or lightest laptop, like for instance the MacBook Air or the Lenovo X301, but makes up for it by using more powerful hardware. For example, the VAIO Z is equipped with the regular, higher clocked Core 2 Duo's, whereas its thinner competition use low-voltage CPUs. It even has a dedicated graphics card to help with the HD media playback and provide some light gaming capability, which is unusual in this weight category.

An optional upgrade that should make this laptop incredibly fast is the dual-SSD RAID configuration. This gives it almost double the performance of the already fast and completely silent Solid State Drive technology. Coincidentally, it also doubles the price tag - but hey, if you want the fastest laptop on the planet, I'm sure you don't expect it to be cheap.

Sony VAIO Z Technical Specifications

• Processor 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile P9500
• Memory 3GB DDR3
• Harddrive 2x64GB SSD
• OS Windows Vista Business
• Weight 3.31 lbs
• Screen 13.1
• Screen resolution 1366 x 768 (WXGA)
• Graphic Card NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS

Pros

• Dedicated 9300M Graphics
• Optional Dual SSD Configuration

Cons

• Expensive

Apple MacBook

Full review of Apple MacBook

For starters, a fair share of the new MacBook's circuitry comes from Nvidia instead of Intel. Most notably the 9400M integrated graphics, which is a big step up from the Intel X3100 found in the white MacBook. Apple claims it has five times the performance over the Intel IGP, but in the real world the difference is actually even more significant - the 9400M lets you to play some recent games whereas the old and tired Intel X3100 certainly does not.

Design

As far as the new design goes, this is arguably the best looking laptop since the Osborne 1. The no-doubt well paid broilers at Apple's design department have done an awesome job with the new "unibody" construction, allegedly made from a single piece of aluminum.

To get completely in line with an otherwise minimalistic design, they also decided to let go of the trackpad button altogether, opting for one built into the glass trackpad itself. Thanks to the multi-touch functionality, this works very well - actually there's no need to use the built-in button at all. The new four-finger gestures to bring down Expose and Spaces are also well implemented.

Connectivity

Unfortunately, they didn't bother to drill a lot of holes in that single piece of aluminum. There's not a single FireWire port to be found, which is bound to feel like a betrayal to many diehard Mac users with a room full of FireWire accessories. On top of that it only has a measly two USB ports and Apple's proprietary Mini DisplayPort, so forget about using your external monitor unless you fork over an additional $29 for a standard VGA or DVI adapter, or $99 (!) for the dual-link DVI adapter.

The new MacBook is available in two varieties (so far): one 2.0GHz version (our review sample) and a more expensive 2.4GHz model with a larger hard drive and backlit keyboard. Both models come with the same Nvidia chipset, a LED-backlit screen, and 2 gigs of top-of-the-line 1066MHz DDR3 RAM. It's worth mentioning that the hard drives that ship with the new MacBooks are very well isolated and silent. When the laptop is idle or doing light tasks like web browsing, it's almost inaudible.

Performance and Games

Thanks to the DDR3 memory, a 1066MHz front side bus, and the Nvidia chipset, the new MacBooks are faster than older models at the same CPU clock speed. Our 2.0GHz MacBook generated an Xbench score of 166.40. It is also perfectly capable of playing some games - WoW delivered fully playable framerates (50-60 fps) at high settings, which is to be expected from an aging game, but even Call of Duty 4 was playable with the settings tuned down a little. Apple promised five hours of battery life, which we found to be a little too optimistic, but the 4.5 hours we managed to squeeze out of it is still very good.

Overall, the aluminum MacBook is an excellent laptop. Although it's somewhat more expensive than we had hoped, you get a solid and great-looking laptop, and some features that you'll never find in a similar PC.

Apple MacBook Technical Specifications

• Processor 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile
• Memory 2GB DDR3
• Harddrive 160GB
• OS Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard
• Weight 5.0 lbs
• Screen 13.3
• Screen resolution 1280 x 800
• Graphic Card Nvidia 9400M
• Battery Life 4,5 hours

Pros

• Best-Looking Laptop on Planet
• 9400M Integrated Graphics
• Glass Trackpad
• Aluminum Enclusure
• Relatively Thin and Light

Cons

• Mini DisplayPort
• Only 2 USB
• No FireWire
• Somewhat Expensive

Acer Aspire One

Full review of Acer Aspire One

The Aspire One is an 8.9" netbook with an Intel Atom N270 processor and GMA950 integrated graphics just like every other netbook out there. With identical hardware, you would assume to get roughly the same performance out of it, and you would assume correctly.

Features

There is still a measure of variation between different netbooks and brands, most notably the appearance, but quality aspects are naturally also important, as well as connectivity, hard drive, RAM and battery size.

Regarding the last item in the list, we managed to find the desirable and elusive model with the 6-cell battery, which offered 5 hours and 40 minutes of battery life with wireless on and backlight set to 75%. It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that the 3-cell, which is more common, would yield about half of that.

Big for a Netbook

Of course, getting the larger battery also means sacrificing some portability. The Aspire One is actually a bit large already (as far as netbooks go), and the 6-cell battery increases the weight to roughly 2.5 pounds. Another minor annoyance with the Acer is the relatively wide and thick bezel that makes it even slightly larger than some 10-inch netbooks.

That annoyingly large LCD bezel is unfortunately not the only letdown as far as the screen is concerned. Its viewing angles are also very poor - colors start shifting as soon as you're not exactly in front of the screen.

Bottom Line

You also get varying amounts of RAM and hard drive (or SSD) space depending on which version you get. The Aspire One is available with both flash memory-based Solid State Drives in smaller sizes and regular notebook hard drives. Our review model had 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive - both quite generous for a netbook. In most aspects, you actually get a lot of "bang for the buck" with the Aspire One.

On the whole it's a reasonably well-rounded netbook that - like most netbooks - offer few surprises. Considering what you have to pay for it, it's hard not to recommend this netbook in spite of a few flaws.

Acer Aspire One Technical Specifications

• Processor Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz
• Memory 1GB
• Harddrive 160GB
• OS Windows XP Home
• Weight 2.2 lbs
• Screen 8.9
• Screen resolution 1024 x 600
• Graphic Card Intel Graphics Media Accelerator
• Battery Life 3 hours

Pros

• Looks Pretty
• Very Affordable
• Comfortable Keyboard

Cons

• Poor Viewing Angles
• Relatively Large for a Netbook