We’ve seen laptops capable of rendering 3D before, but Sony’s luxurious Vaio is the best so far. It’s a heavy brute at 3.1kg, with striking high-gloss black plastic on its lid and top deck. The latter is offset by a raised rubbery platform, which forms an extended wrist rest and incorporates the trackpad into its length. The pad has a patterned texture to help keep fingers on track.
The display is a great example of what a modern screen should be -irrespective of its high-refresh-rate 3D credentials. But by God, it’s thick. At 13mm deep, the lid alone is about as thick as a MacBook Air.
Yet it’s the image quality that stands out on the Sony Vaio’s lovely anti-glare panel. Colours are deep and richly hued. Off-axis viewing is respectable, too. The Vaio’s keyboard is of the classic Scrabble-tile-style pioneered by Sony with a number keypad to help fill the space on the stretched deck that’s inevitable with 16:9 widescreen panels.
To the left side are gigabit Ethernet, HDMI and VGA ports, plus two USB 3.O. On the right are one USB 2.0 port audio jacks and a Blu-ray/DVD combo drive. This drive can write to BD-R and BD-RE, too – a rare thing, seven long years after the format launched.
The Vaio is somewhat noisy, with its internal fans blowing out plenty of air even when the machine isn’t stressed. You can hear intelligent fans constantly changing speed as they adjust to internal heat.
A pair of 3D active-shutter glasses is supplied – these are reasonably lightweight, and powered by a calculator battery. A tiny button switches them on, and the power down after a brief period of inactivity – sensing when the frames aren’t synched to screen.
The 3D experience is compelling. To watch specially coded Blu-ray films in 3D you simply pop in the disc and fire up Corel WinDVD. We did notice some slight image wobbling, but that could be an issue with the only 3D film we tried, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs.
To test the gaming potential, we used our Fear benchmark. We were surprised to see that, without any twiddling, the game was rendered in 3D. We saw frame rates of 20fps at ‘Maximum’ detail settings in 3D, and 32fps at ‘High’ detail. [Article source: sexygadgets.net]
Price range : £1721.99
The display is a great example of what a modern screen should be -irrespective of its high-refresh-rate 3D credentials. But by God, it’s thick. At 13mm deep, the lid alone is about as thick as a MacBook Air.
Yet it’s the image quality that stands out on the Sony Vaio’s lovely anti-glare panel. Colours are deep and richly hued. Off-axis viewing is respectable, too. The Vaio’s keyboard is of the classic Scrabble-tile-style pioneered by Sony with a number keypad to help fill the space on the stretched deck that’s inevitable with 16:9 widescreen panels.
To the left side are gigabit Ethernet, HDMI and VGA ports, plus two USB 3.O. On the right are one USB 2.0 port audio jacks and a Blu-ray/DVD combo drive. This drive can write to BD-R and BD-RE, too – a rare thing, seven long years after the format launched.
The Vaio is somewhat noisy, with its internal fans blowing out plenty of air even when the machine isn’t stressed. You can hear intelligent fans constantly changing speed as they adjust to internal heat.
A pair of 3D active-shutter glasses is supplied – these are reasonably lightweight, and powered by a calculator battery. A tiny button switches them on, and the power down after a brief period of inactivity – sensing when the frames aren’t synched to screen.
The 3D experience is compelling. To watch specially coded Blu-ray films in 3D you simply pop in the disc and fire up Corel WinDVD. We did notice some slight image wobbling, but that could be an issue with the only 3D film we tried, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs.
To test the gaming potential, we used our Fear benchmark. We were surprised to see that, without any twiddling, the game was rendered in 3D. We saw frame rates of 20fps at ‘Maximum’ detail settings in 3D, and 32fps at ‘High’ detail. [Article source: sexygadgets.net]
Price range : £1721.99