Manufacturer: Sony
Sony VAIO Duo 13 Review
What is the Sony VAIO Duo 13?
Sony’s VAIO range presents a broad selection of laptops with a somewhat confusing selection of names. The latest - the VAIO Duo 13 - muddies the waters further with the Duo part. The Duo signifies that it's a hybrid tablet and Windows 8 laptop, much like the recently reviewed Lenovo Ideapad Yoga 11S.Aimed as those who want the benefits of a tablet without losing the non-touch interface of the keyboard and trackpad, the VAIO Duo we were sent has pretty impressive specifications on paper, including a dual core i7 processor, 4GB RAM and 128GB Solid State Drive, but how does it perform in practice, and does it justify its £1,492 pricetag?
Sony VAIO Duo 13 - Design & Build Quality
Sony certainly knows how to design an eye-catching computer, and the Sony VAIO Duo has a distinct design aesthetic of its own. When closed, it looks like a fairly chunky tablet, which makes sense with its 13.3-inch screen, and a thick bezel around the sides dwarfing most 10 and 7 inch dedicated tablets. When open, the screen props up on hooks about a third of a way into the base, pushing the keyboard and touchpad down considerably, but leaving room for a couple of airvents out of sight. In this configuration it’s slightly reminiscent of the short lived ‘Pocket Surfer’, but fortunately it behaves a lot more pleasantly.
It’s very angular, deviating from the current design fad of curves everywhere, and the result is a stylish device. Our review version was in ‘Carbon Black’, but Sony also sells a dazzling white version.
Every one of its inputs is behind the keyboard, or along its longer side when in tablet mode. There’s not much connectivity to speak of either: two USB ports, an SD card slot, an HDMI port, a headphone jack and the charger point. Along the right hand side, there’s also a ‘car coffee holder’ style rest for the stylus pen that can be pulled out, though there’s no holder for when the laptop isn’t in use.
Sony VAIO Duo 13 - Screen Quality
The first thing to say about the screen is no reflection on its quality, but a note to its limitations: because of the way the laptop portion has been designed, it can only ever be at one angle. It’s perfectly workable when sat at a desk, but try some lazy writing when lying in bed, and you’ll find it nigh-on impossible to view.
Fortunately, this inflexibility is mainly neutralised by the viewing angles of the screen, which are very good. In short, you have to move to well beyond an impractical angle before you can’t see everything sharply. Elsewhere, the screen fared well in our tests as well: the temperature recorded a score of 6,537 (where 6,500 is ideal), it’s nice and bright, and the contrast was extremely sharp, measuring 1122:1. The only let-down was its colour accuracy, with our DeltaE test recording a score of 4.71, leaving a slightly washed out, pale feel to photos.
Its 10-point touch-screen credentials are fine, although with a 13.3-inch screen displaying a high resolution of 1920x1080, being precise in Windows 8’s desktop mode can be a little tricky. The stylus provides additional accuracy, but more on that later.
Sony VAIO Duo 13 - Performance
Performance on the Sony VAIO Duo 13 is excellent in its day to day usage, and in our PCMark tests, it scored 4,748, beating the VAIO PRO 13 (4,566) and Microsoft Surface Pro (4,740). Impressive for an Ultrabook, and our Geekbench 3 tests backed it up with a good score of 4,524. The solid state drive also leads to impressive boot-up and restart speeds: 13 for the latter, and just six for the former.With an Intel HD 4400 graphics card, the VAIO Duo 13 isn’t designed as a gaming rig. Despite this, the 3DMark scores were actually pretty impressive on the higher settings. Though the 14,874 on Ice Storm was low, and the 16,013 on Ice Storm Extreme was average, on the Cloud Gate test (aimed at mid-range gaming PCs), it scored 4,869, which not only beats out the Sony VAIO Pro 13 (2,761) but also the Samsung Series 7 Ultrabook with its dedicated ATI graphics card (3,470).
To settle these confusing scores, we booted up some taxing games to try and see what the VAIO could do. Burnout Paradise ran perfectly smoothly in 1920x1080 on high detail, but it was too big an ask to get Crysis 2 or Battlefield 3 running at the same resolution playably. Still, some 3D gaming is definitely on the table here, just perhaps not the very latest releases or highest settings.
Sony VAIO Duo 13 - Heat & Noise
In day to day use, the VAIO is pretty much silent, but when the fans do kick into life you certainly know about it - and it’s not always when you’d expect. Heat isn’t so much of a problem though, especially in laptop mode, with the extra airvents behind the screen exposed.During gaming use though, the fans get pretty noisy. Nothing you can’t drown out with a good loud soundtrack of course, but you definitely will always know it’s there.
Sony VAIO Duo 13 - Battery Life
When a company promises a battery life in the double-figure hours range, we usually take it with a massive pinch of salt, so colour us surprised when Sony’s claims of ‘up to 15 hours battery’ didn’t seem too wide of the mark. Our battery tests, at 40% screen brightness, clocked in an incredible 10 hours and 38 minutes of regular usage before a charge was required. With a lower screen brightness, and wi-fi off, a 15 hour battery life is possible. This eclipses even the 2013 Macbook Air’s 10 hours, 15 minutes to go straight to the top of our battery table: very impressive.Charging it back up again was a fairly standard speed, with the VAIO Duo 13 regaining 27% of its battery life from a half hour charge. Of course 27% of a battery-beast like this still equates to nearly three hours of usage, so it remains a strong selling point.
Sony VAIO Duo 13 - Keyboard
Despite the limited space available, the VAIO 13 manages to squeeze in a full sized backlit keyboard, minus the number pad. Comparing it side by side with an 11-inch Macbook Air shows that the keys are slightly smaller, but only be a couple of millimetres, and it’s unlikely to slow your typing down at all.
Indeed, we found touch typing on the VAIO 13 to be pretty easy, and despite the thin base of the unit, typing quickly and firmly never made the unit feel fragile.
Sony VAIO Duo 13 - Touchpad
The trouble with the stylish design of the VAIO 13 when its in laptop mode is that the screen hooks in to cover around a third of the base, meaning that everything gets pushed down, leaving only a tiny amount of space once all 85 keys have been squeezed in. That means the touchpad is just one inch tall, or roughly twice the height of a space bar.
As you might guess, this gets fiddly fast, and we’d gladly sacrifice the stylish design for an easier to use touchpad. The tight space means gestures are inconsistent to pull off, and you may find yourself wanting to plug in an external mouse quickly - or at least do everything you possibly can on the touchscreen. On the bright side, actual clicking is responsive and satisfying, with a clear area difference between left and right click functionality.
Anything else to consider?
Like the Samsung Galaxy Note family of smartphones and tablets, the VAIO 13 Duo comes with pressure sensitive stylus pen for note taking, drawing and just navigating around Windows 8. It works well for this, although unlike the Note, the lack of ability to tuck it into the VAIO itself is a bit of an oversight.
It’s also worth mentioning that the VAIO Duo 13 comes in a variety of customisable flavours on the Sony website, starting at £1,352. You can increase the memory to 8GB, up the SSD to 512GB and reduce the processor to a 1.6GHZ i5-4200U should you wish. The review model came to £1,492 using their builder (including the £40 surcharge for Windows 8 Pro).
Should I buy the Sony VAIO Duo 13?
If you’re more interested in a tablet than a laptop, then certainly not: the VAIO Duo starts at around £900 more than the iPad, and Windows tablets don’t have the support that Android or Apple ones do.
On the other hand, if you’re interested in a hybrid, then the VAIO Duo is hard to fault in its performance, if you can learn to live with the tiny touchpad - and if you’re into touchscreens to the point that you want a hybrid tablet, then presumably you can. It is expensive though, and although the performance is a little weaker the Lenovo Ideapad Yoga 11S is a cheaper, lighter alternative if you’re not wedded to a 13-inch screen. The Yoga also offers a lot more flexibility with the screen, allowing you to work it from any angle while the VAIO Duo has one angle only.
If performance is all important, and you like the idea of a stylus and the aesthetics of this unique Sony offering though, you won’t be disappointed in your purchase.
Verdict
A stylish hybrid laptop with excellent performance and incredible battery life. If you can cope with its incredibly small touchpad, and money is no object, then the VAIO Duo comes with a solid recommendation.Source : http://www.trustedreviews.com/sony-vaio-duo-13-hybrid_Laptop_review
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