Bottom Line: The Sony Vaio T13 is a budget ultrabook, but overall a nice, solid, and fast machine. It has its drawbacks, of course, as corners were cut to meet the low price, though I don’t think any of these are real deal breakersI’m sure you’ve all heard of Sony’s VAIO. In the past, VAIOs were among my favorite laptops, but they were pretty expensive.
With that in mind, you might think that Sony’s first ultrabook, the Vaio T13, would also be expensive. But that’s not the case, as Sony’s T series is aimed at regular users, while the S and Z series focus on business customers.
Update: Want to save some money on the Vaio T13? This article will tell you where to find discounted ones, so it’s definitely worth a look.
That’s why the Sony Vaio T13 starts at around $700, making it one of the cheapest ultrabooks you can buy right now. The T13 retains the style of the higher-end Vaio series, retains its build quality to a certain extent, comes with plenty of ports, good performance, and a decent keyboard and
Sony Vaio T13 battery.
But are these enough to make the T13 a suitable choice? You will find out after reading the review below.
Design and AppearanceI remember talking to a Sony official not long ago, and he told me that they put a lot of effort into making their ultrabooks look stunning. That is indeed the case with the Vaio T13, which is one of the simplest, yet most beautiful machines in its class.
Weighing about 3.5 pounds and measuring 0.7 inches thick, the Sony Vaio T13 is not the lightest or thinnest 13.3-inch ultrabook. But it is still quite portable.
All the ports are lined up on the side, and Sony did not cut corners. On the left side are the power supply, a larger cooling grille, and two USB ports. On the right side are the headphone/microphone jack, card reader, HDMI and VGA video outputs, and a Lan adapter. The status LEDs are located on the front edge, just below the trackpad, and they are quite hidden.
Turn the laptop upside down, and you will find that the Vaio T13 is one of the very few ultrabooks with a removable battery, and easy access to the internal components, allowing you to easily upgrade the memory or replace the hard drive. This is something many people might appreciate. You’ll also notice another peculiarity of this test unit: the bottom is easily scratched, which is a sign of the laptop’s lack of reliability.
Lift the lid and you’ll find more aluminum, covering the palm rest and the area around the keyboard. It looks nice, looks durable, and is certainly much sturdier than the metal plate on the lid, as it barely flexes in daily use. The power switch and a couple of extra buttons and LEDs are located on top of the keyboard, while other laptops have a simpler interior design, but these are actually quite handy and you’ll get used to them. ScreenThere’s a 13.3-inch glossy screen on the Vaio T13, though the thicker silver bezels around it make it look a bit small.
Now, the display itself isn’t great, but let’s not forget that this Sony ultrabook is a budget ultrabook. It uses a regular TN panel and a 1366 x 768 pixel resolution, with subpar brightness and contrast, and pretty dull colors.
The screen is actually terrible Keyboard and touchpadWhen it comes to keyboards, Vaios used to be the standard in the industry, but that’s not the case with the T13.
The keys are of decent size and well-spaced, though the gaps between them are a little too big. However, the overall feedback is poor, with a small dip that will make you miss a lot of keystrokes, at least until you get used to it. Also, Sony decided to go with a standard non-backlit keyboard on its ultrabook in an attempt to improve the typing experience, but the end result is certainly not that great. As for the trackpad, this one is much better. It feels nice and is fairly accurate, though it can get a little shaky at times. The clickpad isn’t very stiff, so clicks register smoothly, and it also handles gestures and palm rejection well. One minor downside, though, is that I wish there was a bigger trackpad, as this one does feel a little cramped.
Hardware and PerformanceHardware-wise, the Vaio T13 is powered by either the older Intel Sandy Bridge or the newer Intel Ivy Bridge ULV platforms. My test unit is probably the cheapest configuration, with a Core i3-2367M CPU, 4 GB RAM, and a 320 GB regular hard drive plus a 32 GB mSATA SSD for caching. Better-equipped versions will offer Core i5 and i7 Ivy Bridge processors, though.
My test unit performed just fine for everyday tasks, though heavy multitasking can make it rather sluggish. However, for browsing, editing videos, playing some light games, and watching clips, it performed just fine. Sony Vaio T13 Battery LifeThe 3-cell 45 Wh Sony Vaio T13 battery inside this device is rated for 7+ hours of battery life, but in real-world use, the laptop only lasted a maximum of four and a half hours on average in balanced mode with the screen set to 70%. With light computer use and the screen fully dimmed, it could go over five hours.
On the other hand, I do expect the more powerful configuration to only average around four hours on a single charge.
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