Sony VAIO Y detailed, hands-on
updated 04:20 pm EST, Mon January 11, 2010
VAIO Y light, reasonably fast, but not premium
Sony's only completely unique notebook launched at CES was the VAIO Y, and accordingly we took time at CES to both get added details as well as to try it ourselves. It's the Japanese giant's first system using Intel's CULV (Consumer Ultra Low Voltage) processors and is designed to be reasonably light (4 pounds) and thin (1.2 inches) while still including a 13.3-inch screen and a long-lived battery at a reasonable price. At the show, we checked to see if this mix is likely to bear fruit.
As a design, our view is somewhat mixed. It's actually a fairly attractive, simple notebook, but it seems unusually "fat" for a notebook that lacks an optical drive and uses a low-power processor. The construction appears sturdy and is likely to hold up to the abuse an ultraportable tends to take; despite the magnesium shell, though, the material on the palm rest and elsewhere seems to be plastic instead of the much more reassuring metal of the (admittedly much more expensive) VAIO Z. Sony's recent keyboards have generally been solid since moving to the chiclet design, and that remains true here.
Performance thankfully makes up for it. The Y isn't a full-size notebook and so won't handle 1080p or recent games elegantly, but it's fast compared to most CULV systems. Sony has opted for the high road and used a 1.3GHz Core 2 Duo instead of the Core 2 Solo and Celeron processors that dominate the category. Battery life wasn't something we could verify on the show floor, but at 7 hours even with brightness at full, it should at least last longer than most full-size notebooks.
Pricing may be the one real point of contention for most buyers: while it's well-outfitted for a CULV system, at $800 the stock VAIO Y (4GB of RAM, 320GB hard drive) is priced at the same level as some much faster if heavier notebooks with optical drives. We'll find out when the system ships in the near future. In the meantime, buyers may also want to look at a $1,000 high-end model that carries a 500GB drive, Windows 7 Pro and a second, extended battery.
