What Vaio can rally against a Mac Air

Gibbs-UK · 23 May 2010 at 16:19

I broken my Macbook Air and thinking to get something similar, which Vaio can give its money worth against the Mac Air?

MagicBoy · 23 May 2010 at 16:25

I don't know. Try not asking in the Apple forum!

QwaF · 23 May 2010 at 16:35

Vaio z - not as thin, but just as light. Much more powerful machine.

bigredshark · 23 May 2010 at 16:37

Most obviously a Z11 is the direct alternative I would say, 13" ultralight. Makes the Macbook Air look cheap by comparison but is a fair bit quicker too (i5 2.4, 4GB, 128GB SSD for ~£1700...)

Gibbs-UK · 23 May 2010 at 16:47

How old is the Z11 and is there any other brands just as thin and light as these both

territt · 23 May 2010 at 16:55

I have a z51 i5 at work, its really fast, as light at a air, comes with blueray, a great allround machine,

spec your own online and then phone them as they can lower the price.

cokecan · 23 May 2010 at 17:33

the Z series has been going for quite some time now but Sony do refresh the range quite often, most recently was the refresh with the i5 spec and SSD etc

Gibbs-UK · 23 May 2010 at 18:03

I've had this Macbook Air for some time and to be honest I find it difficult to use.

In my job I use a Windows Machine and at home my PC is Windows, I just got one of these because of how ultra thin it is.

I haven't really seen any laptop as thin as this and I doubt that Apple will come any more thinner than this.

Amp34 · 23 May 2010 at 18:09

The Z series is more a top of the range 15" macbook pro in a 13" shell rather than a substitute for a MBA. Have you looked at the Dell Adamo? Pretty much identical but maybe a mm thinner and apparently very good.

EDIT: http://www.adamobydell.com/

Raikiri · 24 May 2010 at 00:27

Gibbs-UK said:
I've had this Macbook Air for some time and to be honest I find it difficult to use.

In my job I use a Windows Machine and at home my PC is Windows, I just got one of these because of how ultra thin it is.

I haven't really seen any laptop as thin as this and I doubt that Apple will come any more thinner than this.

Dell Adamo XPS, 9.9mm at its thickest point. Still, it's a showpiece more than anything. Can't you just stick W7 on the Air if it's the OS you don't like?

bigredshark · 24 May 2010 at 09:50

I've never understood any of them really, it's not the thickness, it's the size that makes a difference to me. Any reasonably light 13" is going to be much the same as any other, there's no way I'd shell out for a Macbook Air or Sony Z series over a standard 13" Macbook pro - the display means the foot print is the same so you're paying substantially more for a slight weight saving. It's going in a bag anyway so the difference between 1.4KG and 2KG isn't that huge surely?

If you want ultraportable then the 12.1" and smaller machines still rule (though for most home users that comes close to netbook territory). Still, if I wanted a genuine ultraportable today I'd take the Dell E4200 over just about anything else I think...

Gibbs-UK · 24 May 2010 at 19:44

Raikiri said:
Dell Adamo XPS, 9.9mm at its thickest point. Still, it's a showpiece more than anything. Can't you just stick W7 on the Air if it's the OS you don't like?

I was thinking of doing that, but would W7 have the drivers for it.

Someone was telling me about virtual W7 or something along those lines, anyone done that?

For some reason my speakers on my Mac Air is no longer working

Gibbs-UK · 24 May 2010 at 19:48

bigredshark said:
I've never understood any of them really, it's not the thickness, it's the size that makes a difference to me. Any reasonably light 13" is going to be much the same as any other, there's no way I'd shell out for a Macbook Air or Sony Z series over a standard 13" Macbook pro - the display means the foot print is the same so you're paying substantially more for a slight weight saving. It's going in a bag anyway so the difference between 1.4KG and 2KG isn't that huge surely?

If you want ultraportable then the 12.1" and smaller machines still rule (though for most home users that comes close to netbook territory). Still, if I wanted a genuine ultraportable today I'd take the Dell E4200 over just about anything else I think...

Macbook Air has to be the most stylish I have ever seen, I don't know if you have seen one close up but it is the most sexiest laptop I have ever seen.

Looking at the Z series, I couldn't see the sleekness of it compared to the Air.

MagicBoy · 24 May 2010 at 19:55

Gibbs-UK said:
I was thinking of doing that, but would W7 have the drivers for it.

Someone was telling me about virtual W7 or something along those lines, anyone done that?

For some reason my speakers on my Mac Air is no longer working

The drivers for Windows installed via Boot Camp are included on the OS X CD that shipped with your MacBook. Depends how old it it as to the windows versions supported. The Windows 7 drivers can be downloaded from Apple if you have an old OS X disc.

You can install Windows under a virtualised environment in OS X using either Parallels or VMWare. I'd recommend Parallels. Performance is slower than on bare metal and it won't run games well. You'd need 4GB of RAM with 2GB devoted to the Parallels VM to get 7 running nicely.

As to the speakers - if it's under warranty then get it fixed!

bigredshark · 25 May 2010 at 10:09

Gibbs-UK said:
Macbook Air has to be the most stylish I have ever seen, I don't know if you have seen one close up but it is the most sexiest laptop I have ever seen.

Looking at the Z series, I couldn't see the sleekness of it compared to the Air.

Well taste is a personal thing I guess, I've used one quite a bit but I've never been overly taken with it design wise (it's nice enough, but it's just a thinner Macbook pro now and I think the Pro's are better design wise) and it's not a terribly practical machine either.

I don't think the Z series is terribly sleek but I wouldn't touch one myself, it's a hell of a lot of money for which you get a weight reduction compared to other 13" machines. That's it. If you want ultra-portable and are prepared to pay stupid money a <12.1" makes more sense for portability and if you want the larger screen then a slightly heavier, far faster, more reasonably priced machine makes more sense. I've never understood the point behind the 13" super light machines like the Macbook Air and Z series...

But hey...

cokecan · 26 May 2010 at 12:43

I think the point of the Z series is that you get a hell of a lot of performance and high end kit all crammed into a 13" form factor that weighs as much as a shoe! a lot of super light/ultra portables are no where near the spec of the Z as they tend to lean more towards the ULV cpu's and not the newer i series of intel chips.

though you are right, they are far too expensive unless you've got deep pockets! lol

Amp34 · 27 May 2010 at 02:12

Exactly, it's a carbon fibre 13" version of the top spec 15" macbook pro (essentially). When you look at it that way (instead of comparing it to the macbook air) it's a very good machine. It also has a screen that is apparently second to none in the laptop world.