A great way to flip

A slim and sleek laptop computer that transforms effortlessly into a responsive touchscreen tablet, the Sony Vaio Fit 15A boasts a beautiful multi-touch display and great performance.

That’s thanks to its fast Intel Core i7 processor running at 1.8 GHz, which is enhanced by a generous 8-gigabyte DDR3 memory. The 1-terabyte hybrid hard drive adds further the performance.

The hybrid hard drive uses 16 GB of Nand Flash memory for the 5,400 rpm serial ATA hard drive to send and receive data from the processor at a much faster speed.

It runs on Windows 8 64-bit operating system and its graphic horsepower comes from Nvidia GeForce GT735M/Intel HD Graphics 4400.

Its 15.5-inch wide Full HD with 1920 x 1080 pixel TFT colour display is impressively bright and sharp, not least because it uses the same Triluminos Display as the Sony Bravia TVs. 

The LED backlight, OptiContrast Panel is really good for watching Full HD video and viewing photos.

And the beautiful and sharp screen helps enhance two other functions, the Tablet and Viewer modes, which can be accessed by using its multi-flip design.

Sony’s multi-flip design has solved the problem of the keyboard pointing outwards from the tablet when the laptop is turned into a tablet by fitting a hinge in the centre of the upper lid. This hinge forms a horizontal line and allows the lid to fold back along the line.

This way, the screen can be tilted back and become the View mode with the screen pointing out from the back of the system, meaning you can use it for viewing photos and videos by interacting with the touch screen. The screen automatically rotates to fit the current position.

You turn the Fit 15A into a tablet by pushing it down and folding on the keyboard.

When it is used in the tablet mode, you can interact with the responsive multi-touch screen and make most of several pre-installed applications including VAIO Paper and VAIO Clip by using a stylus.

With VAIO Paper, you can jot down your notes and ideas in freehand and the app can transform your writing into text to use in other apps. You can use the stylus with VAIO Clip to select and clip images in the shape you want and then collect them for use in other applications.

Fit 15A comes with aluminium hairline finish and two colour options – black and silver. The silver one tested here was really sleek. And its back-lit keyboard was large and easy to type and the multi-touch screen let the computer make most of Windows 8 both as a laptop and tablet.

And Fit 15A is good for playing music and video thanks to the S-Force Front Surround 3D audio technology as well as Clear Phrase, xLoud and ClearAudio+ mode.

 It can be easily connected with a wireless speaker system by using NFC (Near Field Communications) technology.

Fit 15A comes with creative apps to make most of the fast CPU. They include ACID Music Studio 9 and Sound Forge Audio Studio 10 and DVD Architect Studio 5.0 and Movie Studio Platinum 12 as well as Adobe Photoshop Elements 11. All performed impressively during the test. Fit 15A started up in about 14 seconds. Shutdown took three seconds to turn off the screen but 23 more seconds to save the data and completely turn off the machine.

The computer also managed impressive scores when its performance was measured with Windows 8’s internal benchmarking tool.

On the score of 1.0 to 9.9, it got 7.1 points for the processor’s performance of calculations per second and 7.5 for the performance of memory operations per second.

It got 5.9 points for the performance of disk data transfer rate. And it got 5.8 for the desktop graphics performance and 6.3 for 3D business and gaming graphics performance.

Sony VAIO Fit 15 A (SVF15N27SHS) retails for Bt48,900.

 

 

Key specs

_ OS: Windows 8 Single Language 64 bit (English Version) with Thai language pack

_ CPU: Intel Core i7-4500U Processor 1.80 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3 GHz

_ RAM: 8 GB (4 GB (PC3L-12800 SO-DIMM) x 2) DDR3L SDRAM (Max)

_ Storage: Hybrid HDD 1 TB3 (HDD 1 TB + NAND Flash Memory for cache 16 GB, Serial ATA, 5400 rpm)

_ Graphics adapter: Nvidia GeForce GT 735M with Nvidia Optimus technology / Intel HD Graphics 4400 with 2 GB DDR3 video memory

_ Display: 15.5-inch wide (Full HD: 1920 x 1080) TFT colour display (Triluminos Display for mobile, LED backlight, Touch screen (Capacitive), OptiContrast Panel)

_ Ports: SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) port Type A Connector with charging function x 1, SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) port Type A Connector x 2, 1000BASE-T/100BASE-TX/10BASE-T x 1, Stereo, Mini Jack x 1, HDMI Out x 1, SD memory card

_ Wireless connectivity: NFC, IEEE 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth standard Ver. 4.0 + HS

_ Webcam: HD web camera powered by “Exmor R for PC” (Resolution: 1280 x 720, Effective Pixels: 0.92 Mega pixels)

_ Battery: VGP-BPS40 Lithium-ion battery: up to 5 hours of use

_ Dimension: 377.1 x 18.4 (maximum 20) x 253.8 mm

_ Weight: 2.29 kgs