Sony's 'Secret Garden' press event drew a crowd of inquisitive eyes with the unveiling of their latest Vaio laptop, the Vaio X series - intended to be thinner, lighter and stronger than previous Vaio models.
The Vaio X is small netbook-size 11.1" machine. But it's not the size of this computer that had people clawing to get a closer look - it's the unit's impressivly thin 14mm chassis. That brings into line with competitors such as MSI's X340 (20mm) and Apple's Macbook Air (19.4mm). Indeed, the Vaio X is just as thin as it is light. At 700grams, it's also perfect for travel.
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| Mystery Vaio X: Ultra thin and ultra light |
Sony has a history of producing attractive, ultra-thin notebooks, at a price. Neither competing manufacturer has a model quite as thin as the Sony production sample we inspected.
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| Hands on with the Vaio X production sample - inside the unit |
Sony are tight-lipped on what specs we'll ultimately find inside the unit, though we imagine they'll need to use a low power processor to save on heat, keeping things cool under the skinny hood to prolong battery life. It will also likely be reliant on a decent sized SSD for storage. The laptop also has Sony's familiar chiclet style keyboard.
As a production sample, we were mightily impressed with the flex of the casing and it's relative strength - even when it was temporarily treated as a inconspicuous door mat - holding the strength of one person's weight.
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The keyboard contains plenty of flex
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Still, we've seen predecessors like Sony's Z series perform well before with thin design (33mm) and they were powered with higher spec Intel Core 2 Duo chips. With Sony's history in premium priced product, the X series to be priced somewhere in the stratosphere too. The release of further specs will should finally clear up doubts whether Sony's X Series is as exciting as it seems at first glance.
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| Will Sony underpower their latest creation, or keep things zooming along with a more powerful Intel spec? |