WINDOWS 8 Is actually designed to work equally well in tablets as in notebook or desktop Pcs, so it’s perfect for Sony’s new Vaio Duo 11 ultra- portable tablet hybrid. In its closed form, the Duo is just a 21mm-thick tablet. Its sensitive, glossy 11in IPS touchscreen picks fingerprints a little too easily, but it's color reproduction is brilliant and the 1920x1,080 display can easily play video in glorious HD. Move a tab on one side of the tablet and the screen hinges open on a plastic support to reveal a narrow keyboard with small widely spaced keys.
Either it’s in tablet or laptop configuration, the display rotates its details freely, using a combination of accelerometer and gyro sensors to work out the correct orientation for that screen at any point. This sometimes meant the screen switched to portrait mode when we were using it with the keyboard open. Fortunately, Sony has anticipated the problem and includes a small button on the back of the Duo that enables and disables autorotation. You can also turn off rotation manually in the Screen Resolution configurations.
There’s no track pad, however , you can get other options for controlling your pointer. The capacitive touchscreen responds readily to multitouch gestures using your fingers, but Sony has provided a double ended conductive stylus that included buttons. It's better for good control for the small, high-resolution display, making it simpler to complete delicate tasks like selecting and dragging folders within a directory tree.
If you’re not comfortable using touch controls or you’d rather not lift your hands {from the|of your} keyboard while typing, feel free to use the touchstick controller, that's nestled amid the B, G and H keys, along with three rudimentary mouse buttons beneath the space bar. Feel free to use those to right-, left- and middle-click just like you would with a more common input device. On the back of the Duo, behind the keyboard, is a pair of volume control buttons, that rest close to one of the integrated stereo speakers. These sound far richer than you’d have any right to expect off their size, however they’re still a little tinny.
If you need extra through your audio than such speakers can offer, feel free to use a stereo line output to connect earphones or a set of speakers. The Duo isn’t exactly overburdened with ports, but those it has are useful. There’s a memory card slot capable to handle high-capacity SDXC and Memory Stick HG Duo cards, and also a Gigabit Ethernet port. HDMI and VGA video outputs enable it to be simple to connect a projector, Television or a 2nd screen, and there are 2 USB3 ports for high-speed external storage devices.
The rest of the specification will be pretty impressive, as you’d expect at this price. The processor is a dual-core mobile Core i7-3517U that runs at 1.9GHz. It has integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 graphics processing capabilities, this means it can perform most 3D games if you reduce the level of quality settings enough. It handled around 3ofps in Dirt 3 at 720p and High Quality with anti-aliasing disabled, but we could only squeeze 2ofps out of Crysis 2 at high quality.
For a tablet, the Duo isn’t as light, stylish or comfortable to hold as Apple’s iPad, as an example, but it’s much more powerful, features a larger screen and works a good desktop operating system. It’s still reasonably comfortable to hold while you read the paper, watch a movie or pass it around in a meeting, however its tablet features feel secondary to its functions like a notebook. Transforming it from tablet to notebook is awkward and the stand that hinges out to support the screen in its upright position feels a little fragile. The Duo advantages of the new touchscreen applications and features in Windows 8, making it feel far less awkward than previous Windows tablets.Dual-band Wi-fl, a built-in GPS receiver and Bluetooth support complete the portable-friendly side of the specification.
Taken purely on its merits for a powerful ultra-portable laptop, the Vaio Duo 11 matches Asus’s award-winning 131n ZenBook Prime UX31A. However, its ilin screen, awkward unfolding mechanism and slightly bulky feel in tablet mode mean that) although it’s a great piece of equipment for power users on the move) it’s not quite advanced enough to win an award.
Either it’s in tablet or laptop configuration, the display rotates its details freely, using a combination of accelerometer and gyro sensors to work out the correct orientation for that screen at any point. This sometimes meant the screen switched to portrait mode when we were using it with the keyboard open. Fortunately, Sony has anticipated the problem and includes a small button on the back of the Duo that enables and disables autorotation. You can also turn off rotation manually in the Screen Resolution configurations.
There’s no track pad, however , you can get other options for controlling your pointer. The capacitive touchscreen responds readily to multitouch gestures using your fingers, but Sony has provided a double ended conductive stylus that included buttons. It's better for good control for the small, high-resolution display, making it simpler to complete delicate tasks like selecting and dragging folders within a directory tree.
If you’re not comfortable using touch controls or you’d rather not lift your hands {from the|of your} keyboard while typing, feel free to use the touchstick controller, that's nestled amid the B, G and H keys, along with three rudimentary mouse buttons beneath the space bar. Feel free to use those to right-, left- and middle-click just like you would with a more common input device. On the back of the Duo, behind the keyboard, is a pair of volume control buttons, that rest close to one of the integrated stereo speakers. These sound far richer than you’d have any right to expect off their size, however they’re still a little tinny.
If you need extra through your audio than such speakers can offer, feel free to use a stereo line output to connect earphones or a set of speakers. The Duo isn’t exactly overburdened with ports, but those it has are useful. There’s a memory card slot capable to handle high-capacity SDXC and Memory Stick HG Duo cards, and also a Gigabit Ethernet port. HDMI and VGA video outputs enable it to be simple to connect a projector, Television or a 2nd screen, and there are 2 USB3 ports for high-speed external storage devices.
The rest of the specification will be pretty impressive, as you’d expect at this price. The processor is a dual-core mobile Core i7-3517U that runs at 1.9GHz. It has integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 graphics processing capabilities, this means it can perform most 3D games if you reduce the level of quality settings enough. It handled around 3ofps in Dirt 3 at 720p and High Quality with anti-aliasing disabled, but we could only squeeze 2ofps out of Crysis 2 at high quality.
For a tablet, the Duo isn’t as light, stylish or comfortable to hold as Apple’s iPad, as an example, but it’s much more powerful, features a larger screen and works a good desktop operating system. It’s still reasonably comfortable to hold while you read the paper, watch a movie or pass it around in a meeting, however its tablet features feel secondary to its functions like a notebook. Transforming it from tablet to notebook is awkward and the stand that hinges out to support the screen in its upright position feels a little fragile. The Duo advantages of the new touchscreen applications and features in Windows 8, making it feel far less awkward than previous Windows tablets.Dual-band Wi-fl, a built-in GPS receiver and Bluetooth support complete the portable-friendly side of the specification.
Taken purely on its merits for a powerful ultra-portable laptop, the Vaio Duo 11 matches Asus’s award-winning 131n ZenBook Prime UX31A. However, its ilin screen, awkward unfolding mechanism and slightly bulky feel in tablet mode mean that) although it’s a great piece of equipment for power users on the move) it’s not quite advanced enough to win an award.
