Sony VAIO VPCZ11Z9E/B review

Laptops

The trade-off

All this power comes at a chronic cost to battery life, too. Where the VGN-Z51WG/B managed just over ten hours of light use, the VPCZ11Z9E/B only just tops half that, at five and a half hours. Switch Windows 7 Professional 64-bit to High Performance mode, allow the Nvidia graphics to take the helm and push the display to full brightness and you'll get barely more than an hour.

Neatly, though, we found that dropping the display’s refresh rate to 40hz extended battery life to a more usable 6hrs 48mins – still not up with the best, but acceptable enough for most.

There’s precious little to moan about when it comes to connectivity. There's 802.11n wireless networking, and the Centrino 6200N chipset supports simultaneous 2.4GHz and 5GHz channel bonding for blindingly fast wireless speeds. WWAN support stretches up to 7.2Mbits/sec HSDPA speeds, so you can slot in a SIM and access the network of your choice, and there's a Gigabit Ethernet port as well. The mini-FireWire port has been replaced by a third USB port, and an ExpressCard/34 slot nestles alongside.We welcome the plentiful features, staggering performance and supreme ergonomics, but the chronic impact of all that power on this ultraportable's stamina is disappointing, if hardly surprising. There’s a Core i5 version for around £280 less that may have slightly better battery life, but probably not by much.

If that doesn't put you off, however – and bear in mind five and half hours of light use is far better than we've seen from similarly specified workstations and desktop replacements – the VAIO VPCZ11Z9E/B is a stunning, and genuinely portable, workstation laptop. It has its minor flaws, but if portable power is what you're after, you won't find anything better.

Price when reviewed: £1,921 (£2,257 inc VAT)
 

Laptops