Hands on with Sony's VAIO X MacBook Air-killer

Posted on 15 Sep 2009 at 16:40

We've just had a first hands-on look at Sony's incredibly-light VAIO X laptop. Weighing just 640g and only a maximum of 14mm thick it's an incredible bit of work and makes the MacBook Air look big. It's so thin that the built-in Gigabit Ethernet port has been specially designed to fold out of the case.

Made of carbon fibre, the VAIO X feels very tough. The lid seems to offer plenty of protection to the screen; something that hasn't always been true of Sony's small and light laptops.

As with its other recent computers, the keyboard is made up of keys with large gaps between them. It felt comfortable to type on and there was no flex in the model that we tried.

The 11.1in screen's a decent size and it's 1,366x768 resolution is pretty good for web browsing or working on documents.

We've been told that battery life should be around six hours with the supplied battery; an optional eight-cell battery will also be available. This will add 300g in weight, but makes the laptop 17mm thicker.

The only disappointing thing at the moment is that the test model had an Atom Z550 single-core processor. Sony hasn't decided on the final specification yet, so we hope that this will be upgraded to an Intel dual-core CULV processor.

You can see Sony's official video for the product below.