Sony VGN-TZ11XN/B laptop
Gimme, gimme. Wait... is that the price or my phone number?
Review Sony has certainly pushed the limits with the TZ11 and the result is generally extreme in every department. Extremely thin, extremely light, extremely long battery life...and an extremely high price tag.
Nice lines: the Sony VGN-TZ11XN/B
The photos of the Vaio VGN-TZ11XN/B show a classic, smart Sony laptop, but they don’t give any sense of just how tiny it is. The TZ11 is 27.7cm wide (that’s under 11 inches) 19.8cm deep (less than eight inches) and it’s 3cm thick at the back of the chassis where the battery clips on. Move to the front and the chassis measures an anorexic 2.55cm thick.
The most startling figure from the specification is the 1.19kg weight, which is thanks in part to the small chassis and also to the judicious use of carbon fibre in the base and lid. Add in a mere 400g for the power brick and mains cord and you should have no trouble finding room in your hand luggage for the TX11.
By definition a small chassis has a small screen so the TX11 gets an 11.1in X-black screen with 1366 x 768 resolution and LED illumination. The image is sharp, bright, and clear. The screen coating does a good job of enhancing image quality, but when the picture is very dark you can practically use the thing as a mirror.
COMMENTS
what's new
Isn't this one fairly similar in size, specs (and price) to last year's TX3, now replaced by the TX5?
Herbert
Great for portability but frustatingly slow.
I got one recently. It is disappointingly slow but a great toy otherwise. Dr. Haq
Also worth considering, the Flybook V5 HSDPA
Cheaper, faster, tablet and laptop form factor, and built in HSDPA 3G comms. Just as cool and classy looking too...
Just got the model up
Don't know if it's any cheaper for you UK-fellows, but in Australia I ordered the Sony VGN-TZ90 from Japan. It's the model up; and the performance is notably better for simple processing tasks;
Main Changes:
- 2GB ram standard
- 32GB SSD HDD
- Wireless a/b/g/n
And with the extended battery (quoted 18hr, haven't had time to test that yet); it's quite an amazing thing to use. As for people above comparing to the TX- core 2 duo isn't a faster clock speed, but does result in faster performance for myself (running linux tho; kernel-level stuff on one core, user apps on the other...)
Also just got one
Very impressed with the look, feel and battery life. Didn't think there was much point going back to XP so I just removed most of the installed apps. Why they don't allow you to start off with just a clean install of Vista I don't know. Once most of these are stripped out performance is more impressive, with Vista welcoming you to sign in before it's time to take the teabag out.
Performance generally is not very impressive, but it was never going to be. I bought this specifically to take on travels with a digital camera - and with a 100gb HDD and built in SD reader it's perfect for that.
The fingerprint reader is also pretty neat, allowing you to log on/lock Windows with a swipe, and also to save website username/password combinations to replay later with another swipe. And I can't believe the review didn't mention the Webcam?! Possibly because it's so unobtrusive they may not have noticed it was there.
