Sony VAIO Pro 13 Features And Specifications review with indian price

Rate 4/5 Price In India Is Around Rs. 80,000/- 

Haswell Ultrabooks are here in the guise of the Sony Vaio Pro 13 and the latest generation MacBook Air. Sony also offers an 11″ Vaio Pro with an 11.6″ display that’s shipping soon, but today we take a look at the Vaio Pro 13″ that’s available now. The Ultrabook has a full HD Triluminus display with 10 point multi-touch, fourth generation Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs and Intel HD 4400 graphics. This is an extremely light 13.3″ machine that weighs 2.34 lbs., and it’s currently the lightest 13″ Ultrabook on the market. The 11″ model weighs less just 1.94 pounds. The laptop is clad in carbon fiber and it’s available in carbon black or silver (we’d choose black for better keyboard contrast). In some countries there’s a black model (not carbon black) that lacks a touch screen. Here in the US, we have only the touch screen model that starts at $1,249 for the Core i5 with 4 gigs of RAM and a 128 gig SSD.

As you’d expect from a high end Sony laptop, the Sony Vaio Duo 13 is quality gear with tasteful and understated lines that reveal their Sony Vaio Z heritage. This is no MacBook Air clone, and the notebook has Sony’s signature rectilinear design rather than the smooth aluminum, tapered sides of the Air and Asus Zenbook Prime. The carbon fiber by design bends and it isn’t incredibly rigid like Asus, Dell and Apple Ultrabooks. Like it or not, it’s intentional and it’s designed to deflect blows by “going with the flow” and bend rather than break or dent. Having reviewed and owned a few Sony carbon fiber laptops, I don’t have a problem with this, but it’s somewhat a matter of personal preference. The Vaio Duo Pro starts at $1,249 rather than the more common $999 for a Core i5 Ultrabook, and you’re paying for the incredible light weight, slim design, Intel fourth generation Haswell CPU and touch screen. As we predicted, Sony is indeed first to market with a 1920 x 1080 Ultrabook touch screen that’s as thin and light as a non-touch screen like that found in the Samsung Series 9 (now called Samsung ATIV Book 9).

The laptop has Intel dual band WiFi with WiDi wireless display, Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC. There’s no need to hunt for the NFC transmitter; Sony wisely placed it under the trackpad rather than somewhere on the back. Here in the US, there’s currently no 3G/4G option, nor can you get the machine with the slightly quicker Intel HD 5000 graphics as you can with the high end Sony Vaio Duo 13 configuration.

The Vaio Pro has a very good backlit keyboard that’s much improved over the Vaio Z in terms of key travel and tactile feel. Yes, it’s an Ultrabook so you won’t get deep key travel like that of the Lenovo ThinkPad X230, but I found it very comfortable to type on at length. The oversized glass trackpad is responsive and supports multi-touch gestures. The fairly large palm rest tapers to wafer thin at the front, so the transition from palm rest to table isn’t jarring. That said, the front is so thin that if you put a finger underneath the trackpad on the bottom, you can feel the click action on the laptop’s underside!

Is performance with Intel’s new Haswell CPU and GPU much better than Ivy Bridge? No. But battery life is much improved, and our Core i5 easily ran for 6 hours on it’s not very high capacity 4,470 mAh battery. As Sony often does with their higher end machines, they offer a sheet battery for $149 that double runtimes.

Sony VAIO Pro 13 review Video


Sony Vaio Pro 13 Features And Specifications:

PROCESSOR

• Brand: Intel
• Model: Core i5 (4th Generation) / Core i7 (4th Generation)
• Variant: 4200U / 4500U
• Clock speed: Up to 2.6 GHz / Up to 3.0 GHz
• Cache: 3MB / 4 MB

PLATFORM

• Operating System: Windows 8 or Windows 8 Pro

DISPLAY

• Size: 13.3 inches
• Resolution: 1920×1080 Pixels
• Type: Full HD Anti-reflective glossy finish Touchscreen

GRAPHICS

• Integrated: Intel HD Graphics 4400

MEMORY

• Size: 4 GB
• Expandable up to: Upto 4 GB

STORAGE

• Capacity: 128GB SSD
• Type: Solid State drive

CONNECTIVITY

• Wireless LAN (Wi-Fi): IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n
• Bluetooth: v4.0 HS

PORTS/SLOTS

• USB: 2xUSB 3.0

HDMI: HDMI-out

• Media Card Reader Slot: Yes
• Headphone/Mic: Yes

MULTIMEDIA

• Webcam: HD web camera powered by
• Speakers: Yes, Built-in Speakers

PHYSICAL STATS

• Dimensions (mm): 322 x 17.2 x 216
• Weight (kg): 1.06
• Body Color options: Black

POWER

• Battery: Lithium polymer battery

INPUT INTERFACE

• Keyboard: Backlit keyboard
• Touchpad: Yes, Gesture supported

OTHERS

• Sales Package: Laptop, Battery, AC Adapter, User Guide and Manuals
• Others: McAfee Internet Security 30 day subscription, McAfee Parental Controls, Intel® Anti-Theft Service 90 day trial

Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 Review and Specifications

Rating 4.3 Price Rs. 67462

For an affordable gaming device the Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 offers a suitable level of performance. With a 2.4 GHz Intel i7-3630QM processor and 16GB of RAM, the notebook tackles basic word processing and web functions with extreme ease. More demanding Office tasks such as complicated excel tables also prove to be no problem for the device. The ample RAM allows the machine to multi-task numerous programs with no noticeable slowdown or performance drop. The Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 was even able to run multiple programs in background while running high-end games.

Equipped with an NVidia GT 650M the Lenovo IdeaPad can perform graphically intensive functions such as play games or 1080p video editing with consistent performance. The NVidia GT 650M should prove more than adequate for most current games on the market, though users may not be able to run some demanding games at high detail settings.

Lenovo Ideapad Y500  image

  

Our review unit included a second SLI-enabled NVidia GT 650M GPU. Having multiple GPUs connected through SLI does help to increase performance, but the performance gains are regulated to how well the software (or program) is coded to take advantage of the second GPU. While there was a noticeable boost in performance with games that were coded to take advantage of SLI, it’s important to understand that a vast majority of games (and programs) are not designed to take advantage of this feature.

The 1TB HDD with 16GB mSATA SSD cache will ensure that users have all the space needed to store a vast array of games and media, but they may have to concede on performance. While it’s nice that the Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 at least offers a hybrid drive so that the OS can be stored on a SSD cache, the slow data retrievals on the 5400 RPM HDD is one of the more notable bottlenecks for the machine’s performance. Users will notice the slower data retrieval, especially in-game with things like longer load times as a result. As an affordable gaming notebook the lack of an SSD is understandable, but its absence is noticed.

Performance and Benchmarks

Our Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 review unit includes the following configuration:

• Windows 8 (64-bit)
• 15.6-inch LED-backlit TFT Color, Vibrant View Full HD Display (1920 x 1080)
• 2.4GHz i7-3630QM processor
• Dual NVidia GT 650M graphics (2GB GDDR5 for each)
• 16GB DDR3 RAM
• 1TB HHD (5400 RPM) + 16GB mSATA SSD
• Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230, 2×2 Wi-Fi + Bluetooth
• Dimensions: 15.2″ x 10.2 “x 1.4″ (dimensions vary depending on configuration)
• Weight: Starting at 5.95-lbs (weight varying depending on configuration)
• 6-cell Lithium-Ion battery (72Wh)
• Price: $1,250 (at time review was written)

Lenovo Ideapad Y500 Video

Sony Xperia Z Ultra hands-on an preview

Introduction

Sony just dropped a real bomb on the phablet market - a 6.4" monster that threatens to flatten the competition. The Sony Xperia Z Ultra the first officially announced device to be powered by Snapdragon 800 and it's also the thinnest device with a 1080p screen.

Sony Xperia Z Ultra official images

The list of tricks the Sony Xperia Z Ultra knows is almost too long to fit on even its sizable screen. Seriously, this thing is both massive and packed to the rafters with cool features. It slots between the Xperia Z and Xperia Tablet Z, using the same sleek OmbiBalance design and philosophy - "glass is good, thin is even better".

Sony Xperia Z Ultra official images

The Sony Xperia Z Ultra profile measures just 6.5mm, the slimmest 1080p device and close to slimmest overall. We were quite impressed with the Tablet Z and this undercuts it by a fraction. Unlike the Xperia Tablet Z, however, this uses the latest chipset and Android available - Snapdragon 800 and Android 4.2 respectively.

Sony Xperia Z Ultra at a glance

• General: Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, penta-band UMTS/HSPA, 100 Mbps LTE
• Form factor: Ultra-thin water-resistant touchscreen phablet
• Dimensions: 179.4 x 92.2 x 6.5, 212 g
• Display: 6.4" 16M-color 1080p (1080 x 1920 pixels) capacitive touchscreen TFT Triluminous display with X-Reality and OptiContrast
• CPU: Quad-core 2.2 GHz Krait 400
• GPU: Adreno 330
• Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 800
• RAM: 2GB
• OS: Android 4.2 Jelly Bean
• Memory: 16GB storage, microSD card slot
• Camera: 8 megapixel auto-focus camera with face detection; Full HD (1080p) video recording at 30fps with HDR, 2MP front-facing camera with FullHD video capture
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0, standard microUSB port with MHL and USB host, GPS receiver with A-GPS, 3.5mm audio jack, NFC
• Misc: IP58 certified - dust-sealed and water resistant beyond 1 meter; Shatter proof and scratch-resistant glass for the front and the back panel, metal frame on the sides

This is a no-mercy pre-emptive strike against the Samsung Galaxy Note III and all other high-end phablets that might crop up. So far we've only heard that this or that device will use a Snapdragon 800 chipset, but this one is the first to really go for it. And the attractive design and thin body are bound to win many proponents - they did for the Xperia Z and Tablet Z.

Same goes for the water resistant certification - IP58 means it can go deeper than 1m of water, unlike the sissy Xperia Z and Samsung Galaxy S4 Active.

Nokia Asha 501 features an preview

Introduction

With a refreshed design and software, the candy-colored Nokia Asha 501 turns a new page for the Finnish feature-phone lineup. Low-end Android smartphones continue to be the main target but, for the first time the Ashas, which Nokia has always insisted on calling smart, are walking the walk.

No more of the cheap gloss of the older generations, the hardware call keys are gone too - the styling is simple but finally looks relevant and up-to-date. Touchscreen is in charge and the single Back key under the display is a major feature of the new look and feel - even if it plays a very small part in the actual navigation.

Nokia Asha 501

The Nokia Asha 501 is premiering the Asha platform 1.0 - the redesigned interface is heavily swipe-driven - a trend that goes back to the previous Asha generation, but with the right bit of polish and fluency.

Nokia Asha 501 at a glance:

• General: GSM 900 / 1800 MHz; GPRS up to 85.6 Kbps, EDGE up to 236.8 Kbps
• Dual SIM support: Optional, GSM 900 / 1800 MHz, dual SIM standby, EasySwap
• Form factor: Touchscreen bar phone
• Dimensions: 99.2 x 58 x 12.1 mm, 98.2 g
• Display: 3" 256K-color QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) TFT capacitive touchscreen, 133 ppi, scratch-resistant glass
• OS: Nokia Asha software platform 1.0
• Memory: 128 MB of inbuilt storage, microSD card slot, 4GB card in the bundle
• Still Camera: 3.15 megapixel fixed-focus camera
• Video Camera: QVGA (240 x 320) video recording at 15fps
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi b/g, Bluetooth 3.0 with EDR, microUSB port, 3.5mm audio jack
• Battery: 1,200mAh
• Misc: Built-in accelerometer, proximity sensor, FM radio, exchangeable covers

The version of the Nokia Asha 501 we have for this quick hands-on is the one with dual-SIM support. There's no side-mounted SIM compartment this time around, but there's still a hot-swappable SIM and a dedicated SIM manager that can remember the settings for up to five cards.

Long battery life, Wi-Fi, a reasonably stocked app store and exchangeable covers make this a compelling package, and a very affordable one at that. It's a nice little phone that looks fresh both on the outside and inside.