Vaio Z Review (2021): carbon tax

Vaio Z is, pragmatically speaking, a proof of concept.

There are two things that are innovative – at least on paper. The first is that it is made entirely of carbon fiber. While many high-end laptops, including the Dell XPS 13, have carbon fiber sheets on their handrests and other materials on the sides, the Vaio Z includes bypassed carbon fiber, which means that the material is shaped around the edges, and the whole thing is carbon fiber. (Vaio says the Z is the first laptop to use contoured carbon fiber, although the 2012 Gigabyte X11 also claims an all-carbon fiber construction.)

The second is, at 2.11 pounds, the Vaio Z is the lightest laptop to include an Intel H-Series chip. (This refers to the lightest possible configuration. I received a slightly heavier one, at 2.32 pounds.) H-series processors are high-performance chips most commonly found in gaming laptops and workstations. It is highly unusual to see one on a thin and light laptop, especially one that weighs just over a pound; machines of this size usually include the low-powered U-series.

This model includes the quad-core Core i7-11375H, the current flagship of Intel’s new “Tiger Lake H” series. In announcing the chip at CES, Intel said it would offer the fastest single-thread performance on the market, with clock speeds of up to 5GHz. That’s an impressive prospect, especially on a 2.3-pound chassis.

But the third thing to understand about the Vaio Z is that it is not cheap. The basic model is – I’m not kidding – $ 3,579 for a Core i7-11375H, a 14-inch 4K screen, 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. You can come up with a $ 4,179 system with 32 GB of RAM and 2 TB of storage. I received a model in the middle, with 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage.

A laptop of this price is not a realistic purchase for most people, even if it is spectacular. Instead, I will use this analysis to explore two questions that pertain to the future of the luxury laptop market – questions that the Vaio Z is preparing to answer: one, is contoured carbon fiber the future? And two, can a 2.32-pound laptop with an H-Series processor work?

Unfortunately, at the time of writing, the answer to both questions is “not yet”.

We’ll start with construction. Vaio’s high point is that the contoured carbon fiber is stronger than other common materials (such as magnesium alloy and aluminum alloy) from which other premium laptops are made, and ideal for combining rigidity with a lightweight construction. Carbon fiber also allows manufacturers to customize the stiffness and flexibility for specific regions of the laptop (using the number of layers and the direction of the lamination). Vaio claims, therefore, that the Vaio Z is more robust and feels better than other laptops close to its weight.

Robustness and rigidity are statements that are difficult to verify with a review unit for obvious reasons. Vaio says the Z passed MIL-STD 10H torture tests, including drop tests, pressure tests and body torsion tests, among others. There aren’t a ton of 2.3 pound laptops out there, and I have no doubt that the Vaio Z can be objectively better built than the rest of that class.

But it feels robust? In truth. There is a significant amount of flexibility on the keyboard and on the screen. Although I usually need to push hard enough for the keyboards to bend, the area under the Shift key was pressed down firmly by the thumb. The screen is so flexible that I took care when twisting it because I was afraid of breaking it in half. I know that most people are not actively trying to fold their laptops, but I fear that putting too much weight on this unit could damage the screen and keyboard over time. Vaio told me that this product is still in the pre-sale stage and the quality of the chassis may improve near the date of shipment.

The texture of the carbon fiber is certainly unique. I like the feel of the palm rest. But the lid and the bottom have a plastic texture. I wouldn’t think the Z was a $ 3,500 laptop just by holding it, especially right after holding a MacBook or XPS 13. The other thing to note is that the entire chassis is a fingerprint magnet – the cover, the sides, the palm rest, the keyboard. I could clean the prints easily, but they always came back in abundance after a few hours of use.

Carbon fiber contributes a significant benefit: the Vaio Z is incredibly light. It is so light that catching it messes your mind; it is hard to believe that there is something inside. This would certainly be the best laptop to buy if you are looking for the lightest of light. But if you are looking for a robust and rigid format, I have doubts.

For the second question: has Vaio been able to put the power of the H Series into a U Series form factor?

In a literal sense, yes. The laptop works. And the only thing I appreciate is the battery life. I had an average of six hours and 57 minutes of continuous multitasking in the office with the screen with 200 nits of brightness and the Battery Saver activated. This is less juice than I get from the M1 MacBook Pro, but it is good for Intel H-Series processors.

But in terms of brute strength, the results are mixed.

I ran several benchmarks to see how this new chip compares to some of the most powerful thin systems out there – in particular, Apple’s M1-based MacBook Pro and Razer Book 13, which is powered by one of Intel’s best Tiger Lake U -Series chips. Note that while both models are heavier than the Vaio Z, they also cost less than half. So, I expected it to outperform them solidly under the heavy loads for which you would like to have an H-Series processor.

OZ outperformed the Razer Book in our Adobe Premiere Pro export test by just under a minute – a victory, to be sure, but not a margin for comment. Most disappointingly, he lost to the MacBook Pro by a similar margin in that test. The Apple laptop also came out ahead in all the other tests I did besides Cinebench’s single-core benchmark. (This is to be expected; the performance of a single core is what Intel claims to be so good about this chip.) This is not a big argument for spending several thousand more on the Vaio Z, even with its impressive chassis.

One problem seems to be that the Vaio Z 65W charger is insufficient for the types of loads that most users would like an H series processor. During various exports from Adobe Premiere Pro and several runs of the multicore Cinebench, the laptop battery it’s over, even though he was connected. (Nothing else was working during these tests.) This can be a problem if you expect to run heavy loads for long periods of time, especially if you are not always starting with a full load. Most importantly, this means that the power supply may have limited the Vaio Z’s performance in these tasks. (Vaio told me that this was by design; he wanted to keep the charger small and portable.)

To Vaio’s credit, the Z has impressive cooling for such a small machine. Neither the chassis nor the CPU has reached a worrying temperature. But the double fans were mega-loud during heavy loads and, sometimes, under the lighter ones as well. My mom could hear the unit in the next room while she was performing an export from Premiere. She told me later that she “thought she was going to take off”.

For the benefit of people with deep pockets who are considering buying this laptop, I will examine the rest of the specs. The highlight is the backlit keyboard, which offers 1.5 mm of displacement. It is excellent – comfortable, smooth and not at all noisy. You also get a webcam with a convenient physical privacy shutter, which supports Windows Hello.

Audio is common for laptops: it is impressively loud without audible distortion, but percussion and bass are almost nonexistent. You can switch to “Movie Mode” and “Game Mode” in the Dolby Audio software that comes pre-loaded on the Vaio Z, and I would prefer to listen to my music on these profiles. They strengthen the background music under the vocals and give everything a stronger surround quality.

Connectivity includes two USB Type C ports (compatible with Thunderbolt 4, power supply and DisplayPort 1.4), a headphone connector, a security lock slot and an HDMI. I know that Vaio’s space is limited, but I wish there was a USB-A port there. You also get a beautiful 3840 x 2160 non-touch screen and a spacious touchpad (although it has physical clickers at the bottom, which I always consider to be a big pain).

I have two strong opinions about the Vaio Z: one, it is an impressive feat of engineering, and two, it is still very expensive.

The achievements of the contoured carbon fiber Vaio are commendable. It is unusual to see if Vaio is the first to do this. And the fact that there is a 2.32 pound laptop on the shelves, let alone one with a H series processor, makes me optimistic about the future of the market. It has been a very good device to use, I am grateful to have experienced it first hand.

But the increase in performance that the Core i7-11375H offers in this format is not a sufficient improvement to justify a multi-thousand dollar prize on all types of the most affordable models on the market today, whether they contain M1 chips, AMD chips or chips from Intel itself. Neither is the contoured carbon fiber – which, although it is cold, will not bring a concrete benefit to most customers. At half the price, Vaio Z would join the conversation; for $ 3,579, I’m happy to praise you from afar.

Monica Chin / The Verge photo