Sony announces its Vaio Z laptop and Power Media Dock - Inquirer

JAPANESE ELECTRONICS FIRM Sony has announced its Vaio Z laptop to rival Apple's Macbook Air and a Power Media Dock expansion unit.

The Z laptop is the latest in Sony's Vaio lineup and is both lighter and thinner than the Macbook Air. It is only 16.65mm thin and weighs just 1.2kg compared to the Macbook Air's 17mm and 1.32kg.

We spoke to James Sproston, product specialist at Sony who said, "It's almost a rival to the Macbook Pro too because of the power and it's aimed at the geeky technology enthusiast who will want to show off the specifications to their mates."

As well as being thin and light, the Vaio Z packs a punch in its specifications. It will have an Intel Sandy Bridge 2.7GHz Core i7 processor that can run at 3.4GHz with Turbo Boost.

It will also have 8GB of DDR3 SDRAM and a 256GB solid state drive. The laptop will have a 13.1in anti-reflective screen with 1600x900 resolution.

Graphics on the Vaio Z will be driven by an Intel HD Graphics 3000 GPU and the operating system pre-loaded will be 64-bit Windows 7 Professional.

Other features include WiFi, optional 3G, a 1.3MP webcam, HDMI, a backlit keyboard and a button-less touchpad.

Sony said, "All-new VAIO Z takes cutting-edge styling by Sony to new extremes, with a 'full flat' body and display lid that are crafted in tough, ultra-light carbon fibre. At just below 1.2kg and 16.65mm slim, the new VAIO Z is the perfect partner for business travellers who demand ultimate power with less to carry."

Sony touts a battery life of 7 hours that it claims can be extended to 14 hours by using a lithium polymer 'sheet battery' that we saw on the Vaio S series.

The sheet battery can be attached whilst the laptop is powered on and can be charged separately. Sony told us that the battery will cost around £200 and it weighs 680g.

The Power Media Dock connects to the Vaio Z laptop with an optical cable and has a useful optical drive. Sony said, "Featuring high-speed I/O data transfer based on the architecture codenamed 'Light Peak', Power Media Dock boosts graphics performance while adding numerous extra connectivity options."

It has an AMD Radeon HD 6650M graphics card with 1GB of VRAM that is capable of supporting up to 4 monitors, including the laptop screen. It can output 1920x1080 resolution via HDMI and VGA outputs and has USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports.

Sony said the Vaio Z will be available at the end of July. We popped down to Sony's briefing for the laptop today and found out that it will cost around £2,000 for the laptop and dock. µ