Windows 8 is designed to work well on
tablet as well as on a laptop or desktop, so it's perfect for the hybrid tablet
- new ultraportable Vaio Duo 11 of Sony.
In the closed form, Duo is a 21mm thick
tablet. IPS 11in glossy and sensitive touch screen attracts fingerprints too
easily, but the color reproduction is excellent and the 1920x1080 screen can
play HD video. Move one tab to on one side of the tablet, the rotate screen on
a plastic material reveals narrow keyboard with small keys that wide apart.
Sony
Vaio Duo 11
Whether in tablet or laptop configuration,
the screen rotates its content freely. It uses a combination of accelerometers
and gyro sensors to find the right direction for the screen in any time.
Sometimes this means the screen is switched to portrait mode when we use it
with the keyboard open. Fortunately, Sony has predicted this problem and
included one small button in the back of Duo help to enable and disable the
automatic rotation. You can also disable the ability to manually rotate in
Screen Resolution settings.
Though the keyboard is small, we are
pleased to find it comfortable to use and it allows us to type without looking
at the keyboard quickly and exactly. The keys are flat but the spaces between
them help you to type exactly. There is no number keypad but the machine has
pointing keys in the bottom right corner and the functional keys. The keyboard
has been illuminated the background for easy use in dark environments.
More sophisticated details
There is no trackpad, but there are many
other options to control your cursor. Capacitive touch screen reacts quickly to
multi-gesture of your fingers, but Sony also offers a pen comes with the keys.
The pen is better to control on the small size, high resolution screen, helping
you easy to accomplish delicate tasks such as selecting and dragging the
folders in the directory tree
.
The
pen is better to control on the small size, high resolution screen.
If you are not comfortable with the touch
controls or you do not like to take your hands out from the keyboard while
typing, you can use the touch-stick controller, which is located between the
keys B, G and H, along with three mouse buttons below the space bar. You can
use them for right click, left click and between click like you do with one
traditional input device. At the back of Duo, there are two control volume
buttons, which is located next to one of the appropriate integrated stereo
speakers. They sound is better than what you expect from the size but it is
still quite small.
If you require more sound than what these
speakers can provide, you can use the stereo line output to connect headphones
or speakers. Duo does not have many ports, but these ports are all useful.
There is 1 memory card slot that can handle SDXC card and high-capacity Memory
Stick HG Duo as well as 1 Gigabit Ethernet port. HDMI and VGA video output help
you be easy to connect to a projector, TV or second monitor, 2 USB3 ports for
high-speed external storage devices.
It is particularly convenient because Duo
SSDs provides less space than your expect from the hard drive in a quite
expensive laptop, but it is faster and more powerful. Once you count the space
occupied by the partition to restore the operating system, the machine has
208GB disk space. That is enough for a lot of programs and data. Because it is
an SSD, it starts very fast.
The rest of the specification is also quite
impressive, as you would expect from this price. The processor is dual-core
mobile Core i7-3517U running at 1.9GHz. It is capable for handling Intel HD
Graphics 4000 integrated graphics, which means it can play most 3D games if you
reduce the quality setting. It reached a speed of 30 fps in Dirt 3 at a
resolution of 720p and High Quality with anti-aliasing was disabled, but we
just could get 20fps from Crysis 2 in high quality.
Consuming machine
Total points of 59 turn it into one of the
most powerful Ultrabook you can find. Despite the big power (we're familiar
with the modest Core i5 processor in ultraportable laptops), Duo runs about 7
hours in the battery test, and it's pretty quiet, with one fan that you can
only hear if you put the ear nest to the bottom of the chassis. It also does
not get very hot, even after hours of continuous use.
Hands
on with the Sony Vaio Duo 11
As a tablet, Duo is not as lightweight,
stylish or comfortable to hold such as Apple iPad, but it's much more powerful,
has bigger screen and runs the appropriate desktop operating system. It is
quite comfortable to hold while you read newspaper, watch movies or move it
around at the meeting, but the tablet feature is not as important as its
ability to be a laptop. The switch from tablet to the laptop is very
inconvenient and the base turns out to support the screen, which is in a flimsy
vertical position. Duo gets benefit from touch screen applications and features
in Windows 8, which makes it is less inconvenient than the previous Windows
tablet.
Dual-band Wi-Fi, integrated GPS and
Bluetooth add more to the mobile-friendly aspect of the specification. Just
look at its excellence as a powerful ultraportable laptop, Vaio Duo 11 can
compare to Zenbook Prime Asus winning UX31A. However, the 11in screen,
inconvenient opening and a bit bulky feeling in tablet mean that although it is
a good tool for savvy users who are "moving", it is not good enough
to win the prize.
|
Info
·
Price: $21,442
·
Supplier: www.sony.co.uk
·
Processor: Intel Core i7-3517U 1.9GHz
·
RAM: 8GB
·
Repository: 256GB SSD drive
·
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000
·
Optical drive: no
·
Display: 11.6in wide angle LCD touch screen
(1920x1080)
·
OS: Windows 8
·
Size: 21x322x200mm, 1.3kg
·
The energy consumption: 1W standby, 12W idle,
42W active
·
Warranty: 1 year
·
Total points: 59
·
Multitasking: 53
·
Dirt 3: 30fps
·
Battery: 7 hours 7 minutes
Verdict
·
This laptop-tablet hybrid product is very
strong, but the transition between the two seems a little inconvenient.
·
Ratings: 4/5
|
