Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Sony VAIO Duo 13 review: a much-improved take on the Windows 8 slider

When Sony's VAIO Duo 11 slider debuted late last year, its strong performance and crisp HD display weren't enough for us to overlook a flawed design and unimpressive battery life. The Duo 13, just announced at Computex, looks to be a formidable second attempt. A lot has changed here, from a revamped hinge and a beefier power pack to a higher price: $1,400 up from $1,200.
Oh, and it offers a more spacious keyboard and a proper touchpad, too. Is Sony's second try a success, especially considering the $200 premium? Skip past the break to find out.



We can't give ourselves too much credit here, but it certainly seems like Sony took our and other reviewers' critique of the Duo 11 to heart. The device looks and feels sleeker this time around, and indeed, despite a larger 13.3-inch display, the 2.93-pound machine is only a hair heavier than its predecessor (2.87 pounds). This is thanks to a carbon fiber construction, which is lighter than the magnesium alloy used on the older model. We still have painful memories of the Duo 11's jagged edges, so we're happy to report that Sony opted for a more rounded frame this time around. The company also ensured that the display and keyboard base line up perfectly in tablet mode, further reducing the chance that you'll impale your wrists while completing a Bing search.

This is pretty huge: Sony completely revamped its hinge design. The so-called Surf Slider mechanism on the Duo 13 is much easier to activate; we could even pull up the screen with just one hand. The slider mechanism feels much sturdier this time around, too; collapsing the device back into slate mode feels steady and secure rather than wobbly. The hinge also looks a lot better, as the cabling is now tucked behind the hinge rather than exposed (huzzah!).

On the front of the slider, you'll find the expected Windows 8 Start button along with a 2-megapixel front camera and Sony branding. Pulling up the display reveals the VAIO logo on the keyboard (a larger version of this is etched on the hinge itself). All the ports are located on the back edge of the Duo 13, while the left and right sides are completely bare. Sony says this new arrangement allows for a better grip when you're using the device in tablet mode, and it's also a nod to graphic designers, who prefer to keep cables in the back for a cleaner workspace. All told, you get an SD card slot, HDMI, two USB 3.0 ports, a headphone jack and the power connector. High-end configurations that include Windows 8 Pro will also ship with a VGA adapter. Flip the machine over, and you'll find a speaker grille as well as Assist and Volume buttons. Finally, there's an 8MP camera, which sits off to the left rather than dead-center.

By design, sliders have limited keyboard space it's how they accommodate the pull-out display. Sony did its best to minimize this inconvenience by moving the screen a bit back on this model. As a result, you get a roomier set of island-style chiclets. The backlit layout definitely feels less cramped than the Duo 11's, and there's more pitch here too, which is greatly appreciated. We wouldn't call the keyboard spacious, per se, but the keys are well-spaced enough to net us a surprisingly low error rate on typing tests.

Tiny though it may be, the touchpad is a welcome addition to the VAIO Duo slider. Sony replaced the optical pointing stick and left- and right-click buttons with a full-fledged Synaptics clicker, which makes scrolling, pinch-to-zoom and other gestures much more fluid. Don't for a second think this is a top-notch tracker, though; its small size makes actions such as copy-and-pasting an ordeal, since it requires a bit of strategy to negotiate the limited space. One note: Sony says its final-production trackpad will offer a slightly firmer button press, though we didn't have any issues with the one on our review unit.

The bundled N-Trig digitizer is a bit heftier this time around, and that's a good thing. It feels better in the hand, and the pressure-sensitive stylus still works well for doodling and transcribing with both included pen tips. And whereas the Duo 11 offered no slot for storing the pen, this model gives you two options: a clip that attaches the stylus to the right side of the device, and a slide-out hook that lets you stand the scribbler at an angle, similar to an ink well. To use the clip, you insert it into a slot on the back of the Duo 13, and then slide in the pen's handle to attach it. Now you just have to make sure you don't lose this small piece of plastic.

Sony also added "pen wake" functionality to work with this clever storage idea. An MR sensor built into the system will detect when you remove the stylus and will automatically wake the system from sleep. You can configure the feature to launch a particular program when the pen is removed, such as Note Anytime. It's quite similar to what we've seen on the Galaxy Note 10.1, but it's a handy trick nonetheless, and it seems to work pretty well.

The VAIO Duo 13 takes the Duo 11's 1080p IPS touchscreen and improves it with Sony's Triluminos tech, which first debuted in Bravia TVs and is also on its just-announced VAIO Pro lineup. The panel is every bit as bright as you'd expect, and viewing angles are generous. Though you can't adjust the slider display's position, you shouldn't have a problem making out images on-screen when viewing it from the left or right of center. The capacitive touchscreen also recognized all our input flawlessly, which is especially important for using the device in tablet mode. While we clearly like this display, it's worth mentioning that the newest crop of Windows 8 devices includes products with much higher 2,560 x 1,440-pixel resolutions.

You'll enjoy relatively clear audio on the Duo 13, especially considering that the speakers are bottom-mounted. Of course, that doesn't mean music and dialogue sound extremely rich, but sound is sufficiently loud, and it's definitely adequate for watching movies or listening to music in a medium-sized room.

Sony Vaio Pro: Sony Is Finally Making Good Laptops Again

Sony will tell you a lot of things about the new Vaio Pro, which replaces the Vaio Z at the top of its laptop heap. It might say that it's exceedingly light, and made from carbon fiber. Or it might say that it's got new Intel Haswell guts. But what it should really say is just this: It doesn't suck. And that's the biggest change to Sony laptops in years.

The new Vaio Pro (11-inch and 13-inch models; $1150 and $1250 starting configs, respectively; out June 9 in black and silver) does away with almost all of the crap that made the Z so unusable. That too-shallow, too-small, too-awful keyboard is gone, replaced with a usable, typable island keyboard with nice spacing and travel distance. The cramped and tiny and also totally unusable trackpad is replaced with a big glass one that seemed to work reasonably well when we saw it a few months back, when its software was still in the early stages. The screen is a very nicely balanced 1080p. And it retains its lightness with the carbon fiber body, but adds an aluminum wrist plate to give the unit a more solid feel. (There was a good amount of flex in the keyboard as we used it, but Sony seemed to imply that it would be fixed for final production; we'll let you know when we get review units in.) The 11-inch weighs 1.92 pounds, and the 13-inch 2.34 pounds. They also have the Vaio's traditional optional and ugly sheet battery, which doubles battery life.

Sony Vaio Pro: Sony Is Finally Making Good Laptops Again
So basically, Sony made its best Vaio model good, and so that it does not look and feel incredibly cheap, like the Vaio Z did, and to an even greater extent, the Vaio T. Those were just flatly unacceptable. This might not be up to par with pristine ultrabooks like the Acer Aspire S7, but it's at least in the conversation for things that are good. And that's a nice start for Sony.

Elsewhere, Sony has a new convertible, the Duo 13. It's basically the Duo 11, but with a larger, 1080p screen, a tiny trackpad (instead of no trackpad), and a more effective hinge design. Sony says the Duos are designed for visual professionals, which makes a little bit of sense, somewhat, but the compromise of functionality for even this improved version still seems like a lot to give up for, effectively, a touchscreen easel. It's out in Black and White starting at $1400 June 9 as well.

Sony Vaio Pro: Sony Is Finally Making Good Laptops Again

This is a pretty good haul for Sony fans—enough that anyone buying Sony sight-unseen won't be getting totally screwed anymore—but hopefully the upward trend continues a few more cycles, since it's good, but not quite all the way there yet.

Sony upsizes the sliding PC with the Vaio Duo 13

 Of all the new laptop designs that attempted to break into the mainstream with the launch of Windows 8 at the end of 2012, none was bolder than the handful of slider-style PCs. These brave systems attempted to bridge the gap between laptop and tablet not by adding detachable screen, but by engineering a slide-out keyboard that snapped into place at (best-case scenario) a flick of the finger.

The main entries in this category were the Sony Vaio Duo 11 and the Toshiba U925t. Both reminded us more of old-fashioned slider phones than anything sleek and modern, and neither was particularly favorably reviewed.

I hadn't expected to see any new slider-style Windows 8 PCs, at least for a while, but Sony has surprised me with an updated and expanded version of the Duo. This new version bumps the screen size up to 13 inches from 11 inches, adds new CPUs from Intel's just-announced fourth-generation Core i-series, and is called the Vaio Duo 13.

While it's still not going to be a mainstream device, the new Duo 13 takes a stab at rebooting the slider and correcting some of the things that were so irksome about the original Duo 11. Most importantly, the sliding mechanism for exposing the keyboard is much-improved and actually opens and closes easily with a single finger. It's a much smoother experience, whereas the Duo 11 hinge confused some people.

 This is also a larger 13-inch screen in a fairly compact body. The Duo 11 felt like a chunky 11-inch ultraportable laptop/tablet, whereas the new 13-inch design is as thin and light as any ultrabook-style 13-inch PC (except for Sony's new Vaio Pro 13, which is amazingly light).

Also a big step forward is the touch pad. The previous Duo model couldn't fit one on, instead relying on a small pointing stick (actually a tiny optical sensor) in the middle of the keyboard. That style of cursor control still has its fans, mostly in the ThinkPad community, but it's not exactly mainstream-friendly. The touch pad here is far from perfect -- it's small, like a very short rectangle, but it's far better than not having a touch pad at all.

However, the single biggest problem with the Duo line remains, and that's the nonadjustable screen. It has two angles: flat, as in tablet mode, and up, with the screen angled well past 90 degrees. If you need to adjust the angle, or just like a more vertical display, you're out of luck.

 Starting at $1,399 (and going all the way up to $2,700 if you max out the SSD, CPU, and other options), the Duo 13 is on the expensive side for an experimental laptop/tablet hybrid. Acer's Aspire R7 also plays with laptop and tablet design preconceptions, but only asks $999.

For a more traditional PC experience, Sony's other new systems, the Vaio Pro 11 and Pro 13, are fantastic no-compromise machines. The Duo 13 is ambitious, if less universally useful, but a definite improvement over the 11-inch original.

Folded flat, the Duo 13 looks at first glance like any other shut ultrabook -- it may take a moment to even tell that the glossy surface you're looking at is actually the front of the screen, rather than an overly glossy laptop lid.

At around 2.8 pounds it would make a great ultrabook, but at 0.77 inch thick, it's chunky for a tablet, and a bit heavy and unwieldy to hold in one hand. Like the original Duo 11, it's fingerprint prone, and outside of a rotating screen hybrid, I'm not sure anyone has come up with a way to efficiently carry a Windows 8 tablet without either a specially made sleeve or bag. (Special tablet-handling gloves? Might be a good Kickstarter idea.) A stylus clip hangs off of the right side for an included active stylus, but if you're not a stylus person (like me), the whole thing pops right off, giving you a sleeker silhouette.



Of all the new laptop designs that attempted to break into the mainstream with the launch of Windows 8 at the end of 2012, none was bolder than the handful of slider-style PCs. These brave systems attempted to bridge the gap between laptop and tablet not by adding detachable screen, but by engineering a slide-out keyboard that snapped into place at (best-case scenario) a flick of the finger.

The main entries in this category were the Sony Vaio Duo 11 and the Toshiba U925t. Both reminded us more of old-fashioned slider phones than anything sleek and modern, and neither was particularly favorably reviewed.

I hadn't expected to see any new slider-style Windows 8 PCs, at least for a while, but Sony has surprised me with an updated and expanded version of the Duo. This new version bumps the screen size up to 13 inches from 11 inches, adds new CPUs from Intel's just-announced fourth-generation Core i-series, and is called the Vaio Duo 13.

While it's still not going to be a mainstream device, the new Duo 13 takes a stab at rebooting the slider and correcting some of the things that were so irksome about the original Duo 11. Most importantly, the sliding mechanism for exposing the keyboard is much-improved and actually opens and closes easily with a single finger. It's a much smoother experience, whereas the Duo 11 hinge confused some people.

This is also a larger 13-inch screen in a fairly compact body. The Duo 11 felt like a chunky 11-inch ultraportable laptop/tablet, whereas the new 13-inch design is as thin and light as any ultrabook-style 13-inch PC (except for Sony's new Vaio Pro 13, which is amazingly light).

Also a big step forward is the touch pad. The previous Duo model couldn't fit one on, instead relying on a small pointing stick (actually a tiny optical sensor) in the middle of the keyboard. That style of cursor control still has its fans, mostly in the ThinkPad community, but it's not exactly mainstream-friendly. The touch pad here is far from perfect -- it's small, like a very short rectangle, but it's far better than not having a touch pad at all.

However, the single biggest problem with the Duo line remains, and that's the nonadjustable screen. It has two angles: flat, as in tablet mode, and up, with the screen angled well past 90 degrees. If you need to adjust the angle, or just like a more vertical display, you're out of luck.

Starting at $1,399 (and going all the way up to $2,700 if you max out the SSD, CPU, and other options), the Duo 13 is on the expensive side for an experimental laptop/tablet hybrid. Acer's Aspire R7 also plays with laptop and tablet design preconceptions, but only asks $999.

For a more traditional PC experience, Sony's other new systems, the Vaio Pro 11 and Pro 13, are fantastic no-compromise machines. The Duo 13 is ambitious, if less universally useful, but a definite improvement over the 11-inch original.

Folded flat, the Duo 13 looks at first glance like any other shut ultrabook -- it may take a moment to even tell that the glossy surface you're looking at is actually the front of the screen, rather than an overly glossy laptop lid.

At around 2.8 pounds it would make a great ultrabook, but at 0.77 inch thick, it's chunky for a tablet, and a bit heavy and unwieldy to hold in one hand. Like the original Duo 11, it's fingerprint prone, and outside of a rotating screen hybrid, I'm not sure anyone has come up with a way to efficiently carry a Windows 8 tablet without either a specially made sleeve or bag. (Special tablet-handling gloves? Might be a good Kickstarter idea.) A stylus clip hangs off of the right side for an included active stylus, but if you're not a stylus person (like me), the whole thing pops right off, giving you a sleeker silhouette.

To Sony's credit, the mechanism for opening the system and exposing the keyboard and touch pad is much improved in the new Duo. Lift up with a single finger right behind the center of the display's top edge, and the spring-loaded hinge goes into action, and two small metal hooks grab the bottom edges of the display and hold them in place. Pushing it back down into tablet mode is a little tougher to pull off quickly, but once you figure out the exact angle and amount of pressure to use, it's seamless.

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