Photo: Sony

Sony is clearly all in with regards to 3D displays. So much so that the company not only manufactures 3D TVs, and has introduced a Playstation-branded 3D monitor, but it’s now added a device that’s part 3D TV and part desktop PC.

Let’s just call it what it is, yeah?

Sony itself is unashamed about admitting what this device is. The press release for the Sony Vaio L all-in-one reads: ‘With so many integrated features, including a 3D display, the L Series delivers the ultimate one-stop shop for your every productivity and entertainment need. The VAIO L Series All-in-One desktop is a contemporary high-definition PC/TV with a stunning 24-inch (diag.)’

That’s one way of saying ‘Hey, we just went down the middle, and satisfied everybody in the team!’ In all seriousness, though, this is certainly an interesting offering. The Sony 3D display come PC features 1080p HD playback, an HDMI port for plugging in other 3D devices, and a USB 3.0 port.

The ‘computing’ is powered by a Quad Core Intel Core i7 processor, ensuring that it won’t be a slouch if you use this to actually do work on.

The price hurts my eyes

The Sony Vaio L all-in-one sounds all good and well up to this point, yes? Where the wheels come off a little bit is in its price tag. With a 13 July release date, and a proposed retail price of $1,420 (about £865), it’s safe to say this isn’t intended for the masses. In its defense, that price includes a wireless mouse and keyboard, but that price tag is still princely for a desktop device.

Still, though, watching the multi-varied approach the Japanese consumer electronics giant is taking with 3D is very interesting. Perhaps the Sony Vaio L all-in-one will convince consumers that 3D PCs are worth having.

Photo: Sony

The Sony Vaio laptop range is notable for its once trail-blazing aesthetic sensibilities, early adoption of new technology, impressive performance and equally impressive price tag. Much like Macs – but maybe not to the same extent – they sell well because you either love them or hate them. Below are some of the more notable entries in the Sony Vaio laptop range, ranging from the unbelievably powerfully priced combination to the moderately capable (by Vaio standards) entries, after which we’ll recommend whether they’re for you or not.

The Vaio F Series

When price isn’t a concern, go big or go home right? Well, you can go absolutely colossal with the latest Sony Vaio F series laptop: the Sony Vaio VPCF12MOE/B. Tread lightly: it will cost you more than a £1,000, but every cent is well spent. You get an Intel Core i7 740QM processor with a clock speed of 2,930MHz. Add to that 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive out the box, a 16.4-inch Full HD (1920×1080) screen, and you soon notice that Sony really didn’t spare any expenses when they made this – and they’re gladly passing over the costs to you, friend.

The Vaio E Series

At a slightly more agreeable price tag is the Sony Vaio E series. The current range generally ships with Intel Core i5 or Intel Core i3 processors, with clock speeds at 2,130MHz. For most people this is plenty performance, while shaving off the price premium for the top of the range Sony Vaio F series.

Worth the plunge?

Even with these recommendations, it’s worth thinking carefully about whether these laptops are worth the plunge. And to be fair, we’re undecided. In terms of build quality and aesthetics, these laptops are undoubtedly top notch. Without question. There have been one or two occasions Sony has missed a beat slightly with its reflective glossy displays, but this is an extreme rarity.

This leaves two key considerations for laptop buyers – aesthetics and pricing. While the Sony Vaio laptop range still looks good, for the most part it’s almost as if the zany industrial designers they had in the early days have left the nest. The design is much much safer without being boring, and they’re still among the best looking laptops in the world, bested only by the Macs, perhaps.

The last thing to consider is price. And the truth is you should always pay for valuable product. These laptops certainly fit the billing, particularly the Sony Vaio F series, however, the Vaio E series are no joke, either.

So, in short, if you can afford the Sony Vaio laptop range go for it! Just remember, there was once a time Sony’s laptops were even more awesome looking than they are now.

Photo: Sony

The Sony Vaio F Series of laptops is Sony’s flagship range. These are commendably well engineered, exceptionally powerful and eye-wateringly expensive. Are they good enough to justify the usually painful sticker price? Let’s find out.

The price of beauty

Starting at $999 (about £650), the Sony Vaio F Series scales all the way up to a mind-boggling $2299 (£1,430). Ouch. But the core guts are undeniable.

All the F Series laptop configurations ship with a 16.4-inch full HD LCD screen. Minimum RAM out of the box is 4GB, scalable up to 8GB and the hard drive capacity starts at 500GB. All of the Sony Vaio F Series laptops ship with Intel Core i7 chipsets (740Q and 840QM variations) which means from a processing perspective, you won’t be left wanting and the graphics are provided by the very capable nVidia GeForce GT330M. An added bonus is that for media lovers, especially those who still carry physical discs, all the Vaio F Series laptops ship with a Blu-ray player/writer for high def viewing.

In short, work-wise, this laptop puts in the hours and the legs. What about how it looks?

Aesthetics

Photo: Sony

What’s odd about the Sony Vaio F Series – and all of Sony’s recent Vaio laptops, to be honest – is it lacks the design flair (or is that eccentricity?) Sony once had when it came to their laptops. The clean lines make for an aesthetically attractive laptop, but it doesn’t stand out the way Sony laptops from yesteryear did. The lid is matte – which is an awesome change from the gloss we’ve become accustomed to – with a bold Vaio logo on it. The fact that they ship in almost militaristic all-black further cements the seriousness with which Sony treats this range, and not being a fan of the two-tone designs in contemporary laptops, I appreciate that.

Verdict

In short, the same conundrum that’s always existed with Sony’s laptops exists now. They look great – even if not as out there as they used to – and they work hard, but they’re not cheap. If price is not a concern, jump in.

Photo: Sony

With Sony’s insistence on making many of its Sony Vaio laptops with completely unique form factors, one-size-fits-all bags are often not the best solution for carrying your computer around with you. We’ve rounded up some of our favourite laptop bags for Sony Vaios.

Clever business – make your own bags

Photo: Sony

What is humorous is that nigh-on all the best bags for Vaios are Sony laptop bags.  Ranging from slick, leather carry bags to synthetic fibre sling bags, the options are surprisingly well varied and, unusually, usually better than those made by companies that retail bags full time.

Sony laptop rucksacks

For rucksack fiends (self-admitted, right here), the Sony backpacks are interesting beasts. The Sony VGPE-MB05 backpack is probably our favourite for having a super simple, understated design, something ahead of its years when the first version came out back in 2007. Sony’s insistence on naming its laptop bags using the same naming system as that used for its laptops is bizarre to us, but what do we know, right?

Sony laptop carry bags

As interesting as the Sony backpacks are, their laptop carry bags have a design superiority to them that refuses to be ignored. The manliest of men with even a hint of fashion taste will have a very hard time ignoring the liberally pink-splattered Sony VGP-CKC1. It. Just. Looks. So. Good. Yep, even if salmon isn’t your thing.

Photo: Sony

Other notable entrants in the Sony laptop carry bags range are almost every other full leather laptop in the range. Each of them are simply too good to ignore and have an understated aesthetic that complements the often flamboyant Vaio laptops they’re meant to carry.

There’s argument Sony should play nicely with other carry case manufacturers by adhering to more traditional form factors – which they have been doing lately – but when you can have Sony backpacks and Sony carry bags this good made in-house, why bother?

Photo: Apple

You get laptops and then you get laptops, where the former do the basics and the latter do, well, almost anything a powerful desktop is capable of. Below is a look at some of the top of the range laptops available on the market today.

17-inch MacBook Pro

Where the MacBook has always had a power and functionality advantage, it’s also always had a price advantage – and not in the good old thrifty way. Even then, though, those who love them swear by them. The top-of-the-range 17-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro have a resolution of 1920×1200 (definitely a full HD laptop, then) and have a 2.66GHz Intel Core i7 processor with 4GB of RAM shipped in the box. Suffice it to say, these can definitely do the heavy lifting.

Asus G73JH

When we reviewed the Asus G73JH we warned users to ‘tread lightly’ for it ‘is not cheap’ and ‘not so by a long mile’. But when looking at the pure laptop prowess and power, you’re going to pay for what you get. In that case, how does an Intel Core i7 – 720QM processor sound to you? How about pairing that with 8GB of RAM right out the box and a 1,000GB (yes, 1 terabyte) hard drive in the box? Oh, and if that’s not enough, this is designed to be a pure gaming machine, with an unreasonable ATI Mobility Radeon HD5870 sound? Thought you’d like that. And, of course, with specs like this 1920×1080 as the minimum resolution you would expect, yes? Well, you’re in luck then, because this is an out-and-out 17-inch full HD laptop, too.

Sony Vaio VPCF120ME/B

Photo: Sony

Sony, never one to be left behind in the ‘mine’s better than yours’ comparisons, throws a top-of-the-range HD laptop of its own in the mix. Say hello to the Sony Vaio VPCF120ME/B. This 16.4-inch full HD laptop has an Intel Core i7 – 740QM processor with an unreasonable clock speed of 2,930MHz (yes, 2,93GHz). RAM starts out at 4GB but is expandable up to 8GB, naturally, and it ships with a 500GB hard drive. And if top-notch pixel-pushing is important to you, it ships with an nVidia GeForce GT330M. Will that do?

The options are multi-varied

If all you’re looking for is a well-sized, capable full HD laptop, then your options are manifold. Manufacturers have realized we want high-resolution screens and they’ve given us that. But, of course, not all laptops are built the same, and if you’re looking for a top of the range laptop capable of giving many a run for their money, the three laptops above are solid candidates for that job.

Photo: Sony

In what must go down as the umpteenth engineering mistake by a major corporation in the last 12 months, Sony has recalled over 530,000 Vaios due to a defect that may cause them to overheat.

This could burn

Not only can Sony ill afford another misstep that will burn an even deeper hole in their already depleted pocket, the Vaios concerned may overheat so badly that they burn their users. Sony announced the laptops concerned are the Sony Vaio F series and Sony Vaio C series of laptops (released in January 2010), which have what they believe to be a defective heat monitoring chip. This defection would then cause the laptops to not only overheat, but to actually physically warp! Yep, this is not good.

Like it too much to give it back?

This was brought to Sony’s attention after around 40 user complaints, sparking a recall by simply returning the computer to the retailer purchased from. If that solution is too extreme for you, or if you’re too fond of your Sony Vaio F and Sony Vaio C series of laptops, you’ll be glad to know a software update will be released to fix this problem.

Dell should learn

Photo: Sony

In Sony’s defense, recalling the laptops is far more admirable than hoping the problem goes away, as Dell did between 2003 and 2005. Unfortunately for Dell, it seems they may recently have been found out.

Sony’s growing pains

Sony has had a rough few years, with this Sony Vaio F series and Sony Vaio C series mishap disrupting the company’s financial recovery. Prior to this year and the latter parts of 2009, the bulk of Sony’s woes were attributable to its Playstation 3 console, which wasn’t performing as well as the company thought it would, thanks in no small part to the recession. Hopefully this problem doesn’t affect the bottom line (or, more importantly, innovation) at the company.

Photo: Sony

With high definition video finally beginning to push SD out, both in terms of adoption and retail space, the promise of a 1920×1080p full HD monitors has finally reached the laptop, with a myriad of manufacturers who punt their machines as either media centres or gaming machines including them in their setups.

What’s the benefit?

Before delving into the options available to those looking for a full HD laptop, we need to question whether it isn’t overkill to have full HD on such small screens. On a massive LCD screen the benefit is immediately noticeable, but on a tiny 15.6-inch to 17-inch laptop screen, with pixels being so densely packed as is, the difference is noticeable, but slight.

So, in this respect, opting for a 1080p laptop in lieu of a very capable laptop is unwise we believe, but looking at 1080p as a value-added feature is smart. Still, the analogy that says going from SD to full HD is like looking outside but with the window pane now removed is as accurate a description of what higher definition brings to even the laptop.

Sony Vaio leads the charge

The Sony Vaio was one of the first full HD laptop ranges available on the market with various mid to high-end options available. We’re partial toward the slightly pricey, but very capable, Sony Vaio VPCF11M1E/H 1080p laptop running an Intel Core i5 520M.

Hewlett Packard options

The ever ubiquitous HP also has a host of full HD laptop options available, with any of them being sufficient. The only thing working against the 1080p laptops by HP is that price-wise, they aren’t too friendly on the pocket, starting out at £950 and peaking at an eye watering £2200!

Acer and Asus have also had a stab at the 1080p laptop market, with other laptop manufacturers slowly making the transition, too. Again, how beneficial this transition will be (to the eye) initially is barely noticeable but over time, with the volume of laptops that are sold each year, 1080p laptops will become standard.

Photo: Sony

The new Sony Vaio E laptops are a strange beast. Historically, Sony’s laptops are almost all aesthetically amazing, rivaled by very few. Sony just makes good looking computers. The problem, however, is what’s under the pretty contours and finish has been a decidedly average computing experience for years.

Now with E laptop series, Sony has flipped that script, by making a competent to impressively powerful laptop and, in turn, sacrificing what made the company’s laptops aesthetically amazing.

Input interface

But before getting to what is generally disappointing about Sony’s Vaio E laptops, let’s talk about what works well. Outside of upped performance, the Vaio laptop series has always had great inputs and a fantastic interface.

The proprietary isolation-type keyboards, where numbers are seen separated from symbols and letters, are fantastic. Keys are well-spaced, feel good and are very tactile.
The same can be said for the slightly off-centre trackpad, which is well sized, has the perfect balance of resistance so that your fingers neither slips nor sticks to the trackpad, and the buttonis well sized and nicely positioned, too.

Performance

This is where Sony Vaio laptops have often come unstuck. With the Vaio E series, this has been rectified, thankfully, and media playback, basic usage and occasional heavy lifting are handled with very few problems now.

The Sony Vaio VPC-EB1JFX/W is a good example of this, with its Intel Core i3 overcoming its predecessor’s shortcomings. The Intel Core i5 e series laptops that have come since are an even greater improvement.

What disappoints

Though, as hinted earlier and in a move that’s as bizarre as it is humorous, this particular Vaio isn’t as aesthetically pleasing as the rest, being bulky, too box-like and in decidedly unimaginative colour schemes.

Furthermore, across the entire Sony Vaio e laptops range is sub-standard battery life, just topping 3 hours on video playback. This was acceptable years ago, but for a contemporary machine, is just not good enough. This, in turn, is quite a drawback for a laptop that’s such a pleasant experience to use otherwise, with its generous screen size and great input, meaning its users may want to put it through its paces more than its battery can cope with.

Back to front

It’s strange how Sony went from good design with poor performance to good performance with poor design (by Vaio standards). If the company could marry the two aspects at their best, the Vaio laptop range could legitimately go to a level reserved for very few computers.

The Vaio E series is not terrible. It’s just not quite everything it could be.

Photo: Sony

Sony has officially opened the gates to quality hell. Or they’re throwing in the towel. Or they know something we don’t. Either way, the Japanese company has announced a division two for its Vaio laptop, where other companies will design and manufacture the laptops.

Taste of Vaio

In an interview with PCPro, Ryosuke Akahane, deputy president of the Vaio group, claimed though other manufacturers will develop this new Sony Vaio range, the ‘taste of Vaio’ and the ‘style of Vaio’ will be retained.

Details

Photo: Sony

This new Sony Vaio laptop division will still have the Vaio branding and Sony would approve the manufacturers beforehand. This, Akahane claimed, would ensure that the division two Vaios will be of comparable design and manufacturing quality to the division one Vaios, with the only difference being the technology contained within.

Premier League and Championship football

Why this strategy has been adopted bemuses us. Unless Sony applies the screening and quality control of that found on, say, Apple’s App Store for example, it will be very difficult to keep sub-standard laptops out. And, even if the company did adopt the screening process Apple applies, to reject a laptop at prototype level or even late-stage design would be financially damaging to the potential partners, which would intern put great strain on Sony’s relationship with them.

How this new Sony Vaio range won’t be championship football to the core Vaio’s premier league is unclear. It appears scale is the primary driver behind this initiative. Sony has said that they plan to sell 10 million Vaios in its current financial year, which represents a nearly 50% increase over last year’s 6.8 million, else, argues Akahane, they won’t have the competitive market share they need.

Sony is one of the most prominent companies which come up with some of the most uniquely designed netbooks. For instance you can check out the all new Sony Vaio VGN-P31ZK/Q which has a unique rectangular shape which looks pretty cool. This netbook has a sleek design and is very compact as well. Only hi-end netbooks are equipped with Bluetooth and this is one of them. As it is equipped with Bluetooth you can connect it with various other Bluetooth enabled devices. The stylish black colour of this device gives it a very catchy look. This product will definitely make your friends feel jealous.

The Sony Vaio VGN-P31ZK/Q is installed with a 2048 MB of RAM which can be expanded up to 2 GB. This much RAM is more than enough if you don’t want to run any sort of professional software. The Intel Atom Z540 processor installed in the device offers swift functionality. The clock speed of Sony Vaio VGN-P31ZK/Q device is around 1860 MHz which is more than enough for a netbook. The hard disk memory is around 80 GB which is quite enough. The 8 inch display of the device offers crystal clear images. The resolution of the main display is around 1600 X 768.

It is also installed with an Intel GMA 500 graphics card which enables you run all high resolution programmes. The 3 in 1 card reader installed in the device will enable you to connect various formats of memory cards. The P series netbook is also fixed with a docking station that further enhances the functionality.