If you want one of the most powerful laptops on the market you should check out the new Sony VAIO Z series, recently the VPCZ2190X CTO, VPCZ21AGX/B, VPCZ21TGX/X and VPCZ21SHX/X models showed up on Sony.com and as you would expect they are not cheap, in fact prices start at just shy off $2000, however the specs and battery life available are hard to ignore.
No matter which model and options you choose you get a laptop which measures in at 13.0 x 0.66 x 8.27 inches, as for weight this depends on specs, however we can confirm that the lightest model weighs 2.5 lbs. All models are available in a choice of three colors these are: Carbon Black, Carbon Indigo and Premium Carbon Black. In terms of ports you have VGA out, HDMI out, a 3.5mm headphone port, Gigabit Ethernet, 1 x USB 2.0 and a docking station port, this supports both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 devices, however also allows you to also connect the laptop to the Power Media Dock. You can see which ports the power media dock features below.
The most basic configuration consists of Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, an Intel Core i5-2410M (2.30GHz) processor, Intel HD 3000 graphics, 4GB DDR3-1333 RAM, 128GB of storage via 2 x 64GB SSDs (RAID 0), a 13.1-inch LED backlit display which supports a resolution of 1600 x 900, a 4000mAh and a Power Media Dock with AMD Radeon HD 6650M (1GB) graphics and a CD/DVD player / burner. As standard all models feature a memory card slot WiFi b/g/n, a backlit QWERTY keyboard, a built in webcam and mic, a touchpad which supports multitouch gestures and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR.
As for options there is plenty to upgrade, in terms of processors you can choose the Core i5-2540M for an additional $100 or the Core i7-2620M for an extra $250, there are also 6GB and 8GB RAM options available which cost an extra $100 and $200 respectively. There are also plenty of SSD configurations on offer, the most expensive being 512GB of storage via 2 x 256 GB SSDs configured via RAID 0.
The are three power media docks available, we mentioned the most basic in and earlier paragraph, the more expensive options either of a Blu-ray player of a Blu-ray reader / writer. When you have your VAIO Z plugged into the power media dock it allows output to 4 x full HD displays, we are sure that will impress some of you.
All of the above is great, however we were most impressed by the battery life offered by these new models. The standard 4000mAh battery allows for up to 7 hours of usage and there is also a sheet battery which is sold separately which bumps this up to 14 hours, if you don’t have the brightness cranked up to max and leave the laptop on its default settings you can expect 8 hours of usage from the standard battery and a whopping 16 hours with the sheet battery.
You can find out even more about the VAIO Z over at Sony.com, prices start at $1969, however if you choose the top-end model you can easily spend $5000.
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